War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1984 A Fellow Villager's Entrustment

At the student corps' position, with the addition of the officer training regiment and the special service brigade, the Japanese soldiers, who had almost leveled the first trench line, were pushed back by these veterans as easily as cutting melons and vegetables.

But when the battle ended, there was absolutely no cheering on this battlefield.

A deathly silence, a silence that concealed the trembling of survivors, the belated realization of their injuries, the screams and cries of agony, and the grief of losing their friends.

"Who is the commander here?" Deputy Commander Tong asked in a deep voice in the darkness.

Immediately, all the student soldiers who had just been fighting alongside Wei Ran turned to look at them.

“He is our commander, his name is Dong Weixin!” Wei Ran said first.

He longed to have even a few words with the acting commander, and he longed to interview this anti-Japanese hero, but he pushed Dong Weixin, who was beside him, out—there was no veteran named Wei Ran in this part of history.

"I"

"Take your soldiers, get your weapons, and then hold this place."

Deputy Commander Tong's serious tone revealed no extra emotion, or perhaps he was actually just as heartbroken as Wei Ran, which was why he had to hide his feelings. "It is our duty to defend this territory, and we will never back down."

"Yes!"

Dong Weixin, who was about to explain something, straightened his chest and accepted the order when Wei Ran patted him on the shoulder.

"What's your name?" the army commander asked Wei Ran.

"Weiran"

"Come with me," Deputy Commander Tong said, waving to the people beside him before walking away alone.

After a moment's hesitation, Wei Ran handed the Type 38 rifle in his hand to Dong Weixin and followed the army commander.

"Were you leading these student soldiers in battle just now?" the army commander, with his back to Wei Ran, said with almost certainty.

"Yes," Wei Ran nodded honestly.

He actually had more questions for the other party, and he also had more urgent information to tell them than just asking questions.

He desperately hoped that the army commander would trust him just this once and execute that traitorous dog Pan Yugui immediately. He also desperately hoped that the metal notebook would spare him this once and let him talk about everything he knew.

But wishful thinking is just wishful thinking. Many words were on the tip of his tongue, but he found that he had no right to speak them at all.

"Why did you give it to that student soldier?" Commander Tong continued to ask.

After yet another unsuccessful attempt to reveal everything he knew, Wei Ran finally gave up on trying to change history and instead said, "He was also a student soldier. Those student soldiers who couldn't even stand in formation needed a role model, a role model who came from among them."

This can

"What? Go on?" Commander Tong turned to Wei Ran and asked.

When these two people, both from Hebei Province and from different eras but from only a hundred kilometers apart, met face to face, Wei Ran smiled.

"What are you laughing at, kid?" Commander Tong asked curiously.

I laughed because I discovered we were from the same hometown.

With a bright smile, Wei Ran replied in her hometown dialect, "I'm from Cangzhou, but my maternal grandmother's family is from Baoding."

"Are you trying to claim kinship with me or find a fellow villager?" Commander Tong asked.

"no"

Wei Ran continued in the dialect he had known since childhood, "I asked Dong Weixin to stand up and set an example so that those student soldiers could survive as much as possible."

Give them the illusion that if Dong Weixin can do it, then they can too.

While this cannot bridge the gap in combat power, it at least allows them to grip their swords tightly and makes them yearn for glory and achievement while fighting, temporarily forgetting their fear.

"These children..."

Commander Tong looked at the student soldiers lining up behind Wei Ran, waiting to be fired, and sighed with immense heartache, "They should be in school. Their lives should not be lost here."

This is a disgrace to us soldiers, a disgrace to this country! We will be condemned and called spendthrifts behind our backs!

"yes."

Wei Ran sighed, "But for those passionate students, if they don't come here to fight, it would be a disgrace to the ancestral hall, a disgrace to being a member of the nation, and a disgrace to being a man."

"Their battlefield is not here; they should be fighting with their pens, not with their swords."

As he seemed to disappear into the night, Commander Tong could no longer hide the sorrow and helplessness in his voice.

I agree with your regret.

Wei Ran gritted his teeth and said, "When I led them in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese, I felt just as heartbroken as you did."

But if they run away today because they can't hold the knife, then even if he holds the pen tomorrow, he won't have the will to fight for the country.

"An unsolvable dilemma?"

There is a solution.

Wei Ran sighed, "If we had strong ships and powerful cannons, we could drive the Japanese back before they were killed, then march on their islands and cut off any hand that dared to reach across the sea to try and touch the mainland."

“We can’t do it,” Commander Tong sighed. “We can’t do it yet.”

"But I believe we can do it eventually. Those who first gripped the knife and survived the battle will be even more motivated to pick up the pen again."

Upon hearing this, Commander Tong looked at Wei Ran with curiosity, "You must be someone who can say such things."

"I'm just an unknown nobody," Wei Ran smiled. "Commander, may I ask you a few questions?"

"How many questions would you like to ask? What do you want to ask?"

Do you think we can drive the Japanese away?

Upon hearing this, Commander Tong's relaxed expression and tone returned to their previous seriousness. "We have no guns, no cannons. Forget guns and cannons, we don't even have enough clothes and food. What are we going to fight with?"

"Since you have nothing, why are you still..."

"Are you trying to persuade me to defect to the enemy and betray my country?"

“I just want to know what you think,” Wei Ran said earnestly.

"It is our duty to defend our territory"

Commander Tong said, "As soldiers, whether we win or lose, we must fight to the death. If we kill a few more today, there will be fewer executioners killing our compatriots."

If a unit manages to drive away the Japanese tomorrow, they can kill fewer enemies and have an easier time.

"So you think we can't drive the Japanese away?"

"We have to fight, even if they can't run away."

Commander Tong sighed with worry, "We can't just stand by and watch the Japanese devils kill us and wipe out our nation! Even if I have to bite, I'll bite a piece of flesh off these beasts!"

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran opened his mouth. He had just tried to launch a surprise attack by revealing the traitor's name, but the metal notebook not only denied him the opportunity to launch a sneak attack, but also gave him a momentary dull pain in his chest as a warning.

Is that all you wanted to ask?

Seeing that Wei Ran remained silent, Tong Lingge, intrigued, threw back the same question, "What do you think? Do you believe we can drive the Japanese away?"

"Yes!" Wei Ran replied immediately, "Definitely."

"It's good that young people have ambition," Commander Tong paused, "Take good care of those calf-like student soldiers, and let... let as many of them survive as possible."

If this country wants to avoid being attacked again, it needs to take up its pen again.

"Yes!" Wei Ran straightened his chest and raised his arm in a gun salute.

"This is not a military order."

Commander Tong patted Wei Ran on the shoulder and pressed down his arm, saying, "It's...it's a fellow villager's request."

"it is good"

Wei Ran nodded blankly, not daring to speak too loudly; he simply couldn't do it.

"Commander, if we can really drive the Japanese away, what is your wish?" Wei Ran asked, looking at the other man.

"What kind of question is this?"

Commander Tong was taken aback. "I hadn't thought about these things, much less expected anyone to ask me these questions."

"Just consider it a casual chat between fellow villagers."

Wei Ran made up an excuse, "I... I want to find something to strive for."

Upon hearing this, Commander Tong fell silent, and after a moment of silence, he spoke with great seriousness, "If we can drive out the Japanese in the future, there are only two possibilities."

"Please speak," Wei Ran said, looking at the other person.

"Either our country is rich and powerful, and we already have the strength to sweep across the world and destroy everything in our path."

After saying that, Commander Tong shook his head, "That's unlikely. The Japanese won't give us that chance."

"What about the second one?" Wei Ran pressed.

"Exhaust all the fundamentals"

Commander Tong sighed, "This requires the right timing, the Japanese making a wrong move and revealing their weakness, and us making enormous sacrifices and paying unimaginable prices."

Even if the Japanese invaders were driven away, such a situation would inevitably result in widespread starvation and misery.

At this point, Commander Tong seemed to have found his goal: "If I can really live to see the day when the Japanese devils are driven out, the first priority should be to develop agriculture and ensure that the people have enough to eat."

Only when we're well-fed will we have the energy to develop education, and we should learn from Marshal Zhang and establish schools. At the same time, we should also focus on heavy industry and construction…

Halfway through his sentence, the acting commander of the 29th Army stopped, took a step and walked away, saying, "No matter what we have to do, the most important thing is to kill the Japanese devils."

Young man, those student soldiers, you better cherish them and fight hard; they will all become pillars of society in the future.

It would be better if it were during the day.
Wei Ran sighed regretfully. If it were daytime, he would at least have had a chance to take a picture of the other person.

Carrying this regret and the guilt of not being able to fulfill his promise, Wei Ran found Dong Weixin again, and Guo Guanggun happened to be there as well.

At that moment, the two men were discussing things in slang he couldn't understand while organizing the distribution of guns to the student soldiers.

"What did the commander just say?" Guo Guanggun asked in a low voice as soon as he saw him coming over.

“Let’s take good care of these student soldiers,” Wei Ran sighed, “and try to keep as many of them alive as possible.”

"The Japanese have just tasted success, and I reckon they'll probably try to break through here again."

Guo Guanggun said, "I'll teach everyone how to use a gun tonight, and I'll teach as many as I can."

"How much can you learn by cramming at the last minute?" Dong Weixin said with considerable despair.

You can always learn something from it.

Wei Ran thought for a moment and said, "Make sure everyone sets the sights to 100 meters, no matter what kind of gun they get. It's useless and inaccurate if it's too far away. Also, tonight we won't practice anything else, just loading bullets and cocking the gun."

"That's all?" Guo Guanggun and Dong Weixin asked in unison.

That's enough.

Wei Ran, a seasoned veteran, said, "It's not realistic for so many of us to gather together and teach."

The three of us will first pick out those who have used guns and know how to use them, and examine them. We'll pick out as many as we can, explain the situation to them, and then release them.

Let each of them take two students to teach, and then each of them will take two more students. The first batch will be responsible for spot checks. Whoever teaches a student and the student goes astray will be responsible, and whoever teaches a student without problems will be responsible for spot checks.

"Once we've learned everything, let's practice in the dark before the Japanese invade."

"I think this method will work!" Guo Guanggun immediately agreed.

"How do we fight back when the Japanese come up again?" Dong Weixin asked a more far-reaching question.

"What other way is there to fight?"

Guo Guanggun said, "When the Japanese come up, they will definitely fire artillery first. When the artillery stops, the Japanese won't be far from us. At that time, we will fire guns first and let everyone listen for the whistle. When the whistle blows, we will throw two or three rounds of grenades."

"If we get any closer, it'll be a knife fight."

Wei Ran sighed, "Our student soldiers are at a disadvantage in close combat, so we should group them into groups of at least six and have them carry dirt in their pockets beforehand. As soon as close combat starts, we should throw sand to blind them."

"That's a completely shameless way of playing," Guo Guanggun couldn't help but say.

"if not?"

Wei Ran countered, "Should we have them learn the Eight Blades of Wind Breaking or practice bayonet fighting now?"

Upon hearing this, Guo Guanggun fell silent.

"As long as it kills the Japanese devils, we can be shameless."

Dong Weixin, being a young master with a beard, didn't care about such things. "Also, Commander Wei."

Someone just delivered a lot of bullets, and also a Kowloon Ribbon. I also got two Mauser C96 pistols; you can return these two now.

"Let's each find someone to help us control the bullets."

Wei Ran took the Mauser pistol, the Kowloon belt, and the spare magazine that Dong Weixin had returned while speaking, "When the time comes, let's not be stingy with bullets. Let's try to fire as fast as possible. The more we kill, the fewer of these student soldiers will die."

They shouldn't have come here.

Guo Guanggun muttered to himself as he turned and walked toward the student soldiers under his command who had just received their guns.

“There’s no question of whether or not we should have come,” Dong Weixin said. “Someone has to hold off the Japanese.”

"That's not something you students should be doing."

Even though Guo Guanggun had already walked away, he still subconsciously gave a response, as if he had forgotten that four years ago in Xifengkou, he was also a student who had abandoned his studies to join the army.

"You shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have done it, he shouldn't have done it, so we should just let the Japanese devils destroy our country and exterminate our race?"

Dong Weixin's tone was filled with emotion, "Does that mean we deserved to let the Japanese build human settlements in Northeast China?"

"Don't waste your time."

Wei Ran, who had been silent until now, put on the Nine Dragons Belt and carefully loaded the three guns and all the magazines with bullets. "Reasoning with the Japanese won't get us to leave. Let's use this time to quickly teach everyone how to use guns. When the Japanese attack again, we'll use bullets to have a good talk with these bastards."

"That's the truth."

As Dong Weixin spoke, he strode toward the student soldiers he and Wei Ran were in charge of who had just received their guns—some of whom were even minors.