Chapter 123 The Moon of Yesteryear

As autumn deepened, the sound of gunfire drifted from afar. Xie Ning, unfazed, continued drawing by lamplight. With guards outside, she had nothing to worry about. Only Er Niu was concerned and came in to keep Xie Ning company.

Seeing that Xie Ning was dressed lightly, he took a cotton coat from the rack and draped it over her shoulders, saying, "Sister Changning, it's getting cold, you need to take care of yourself."

Xie Ning didn't feel cold; she was still wearing a sweater, which, although old, was very warm. She was about to laugh a few words when she suddenly started coughing. It started unexpectedly and lasted for a while before stopping. Er Niu was so startled that she quickly patted Xie Ning's back to help her catch her breath. "I told you you should wear more clothes. Now look what happened, you've caught a chill."

Hearing the commotion inside, the simple-minded boy brought over a pot of hot water from the kitchen. "Teacher, please have some hot water to warm yourself up."

Because of the KMT's change in labor policy, everything is in short supply here, so they usually have to be careful with their food. Fortunately, Xie Ning bought a lot of things in advance and saved them up so that they could have some meat from time to time.

He also said that he wasn't tall enough or strong enough, and would often ask Brother Yang to cook eggs for him.

Xie Ning took the hot water and patted the boy's head. "Aren't you going to stand guard today?" The boy had long since joined the Boy Scouts and spent his days either attending academic classes or training and standing guard.

Here, even the children are busy; everyone is an eye.

"It's my day off today, so I came back after my academic class." Actually, he's no longer a Boy Scout, but his teachers are too busy to take care of him.

Erniu glanced in the direction from which the gunshots rang out, feeling uneasy. "Why is there so much fighting these past few days?"

Xie Ning felt her own pulse; her face was a little pale. She only came to her senses after hearing Er Niu's words. She had come into contact with Yan Fang's people when she worked at the Kuomintang's arsenal. Most of the recent frictions came from both sides. "Justice, principles, and national and ethnic concepts are not in his dictionary."

He was one of those who supported Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance back then.

By this summer, the new army had developed into four death squadrons, one engineer brigade and one provisional division in Shanxi, comprising 50 regiments and about 50,000 men. Of the seven administrative regions in Shanxi, the government of five administrative regions and their subordinate counties was controlled by the Sacrifice League, and 70 of the 105 counties had special commissioners from the Sacrifice League as county magistrates.

Seeing the Labour Party's influence rapidly expanding and the New Army and the Sacrifice League gradually developing into independent political forces, Yan felt that if this continued, it would shake his rule. Therefore, he wanted to eliminate the Labour Party's influence on the New Army and the Sacrifice League.

At the beginning of the year, the Kuomintang (KMT) proposed a series of measures to "prevent, restrict, and dissolve industrial activities," which were met with a positive attitude and were implemented. By the end of the year, this was the peak of the measures.

When news of Yan's attack on the Eighth Route Army's rear hospital arrived, Xie Ning's expression turned cold. She immediately ordered the newly developed weapons to be provided to the support troops. She had warned them to be careful earlier, but she didn't know the specifics at the moment. She hoped that the higher-ups had heeded her advice and taken precautions.

When Xie Ning returned from the arsenal, he didn't see Hanwazi and asked about it. Shuanzi's eyes were a little red as he handed Xie Ning the letter Hanwazi had left and a jar of brown sugar.

The troops set off this morning. Xie Ning has been busy outside these past few days and hasn't had time to come back, so he didn't get to see Hanwazi off.

Xie Ning held the letter, somewhat dazed, "How old is Hanwazi this year?"

"I'm fourteen."

Yun and Xing are fourteen years old this year.