Lin Youliang returned to the mountain with the old and the young and the news. After the whole village sat together and discussed for half a day, they decided to go down the mountain.
Before they could make up their minds, the sound of cannonballs was heard again in the distance. Perhaps because they were far away, the sound was not very loud, but it still frightened the children to tears and the people on the mountain were too frightened to speak.
Lin Youliang took two people out again and did not return until dawn the next morning. The expressions of the three people were solemn.
"The sound of artillery yesterday was the Nationalist Army leading troops to fight the Japs in Xiaxi Mountain."
"The National Army has attacked? Those Japs..." Everyone had been worried all night, and finally their hearts were at ease. But before they could be happy for two seconds, Lin Youliang's next words sent them back to hell.
"The stronghold above said that there were only 10 people left. 8 of them went out to mop up the area yesterday, leaving only two to watch. The Nationalist army also sent 10 people to fight, but they were all gone in half an hour, and not a single Japanese soldier was killed."
On the first day on the mountain, they were able to kill six Japanese soldiers because they occupied the commanding heights and forty or fifty people hid in the dark and launched a surprise attack together.
In this way, six men were lost.
As for the Nationalist Army, they were the ones attacking up the mountain. The Japanese occupied the commanding heights, and their weapons and equipment were far inferior to theirs. The consequences of their blind charge were even worse than theirs.
"Those eight Japanese soldiers raided Sanwang Village yesterday... Stop saying you've been there before and won't go there again. The Japanese soldiers are not fucking human..."
Lin Youliang started to curse as he was talking, but he couldn't continue. Someone who went with him squatted there, wiped his face and sighed,
"We reached Sanwang Village in the middle of the night. That... that... that was fucking horrible!"
"The pond was completely red! The person was simply cut open and thrown onto the ground! Even in the middle of the night, you could still hear the woman screaming..."
The faces of the people around were all pale, especially the young women. Xiaomao's wife was the first to turn around and rush out of the crowd. She held onto a tree and began to dry heave. Later, several pregnant women came out and vomited.
Liang Shengdi, on the other hand, leaned against Lin Wenxuan, just holding his arm tightly without saying a word.
For some reason, she was not surprised. The Japanese were not human beings. Who was overestimating their conscience?
The top of the mountain was completely silent, and no one mentioned going down the mountain.
Life in the mountains is hard, but at least you can save your life.
Moreover, according to the information obtained by Lin Youliang and his men, the number of Japanese soldiers left in their town was neither too many nor too few.
Stay safely on the mountain. Unless the Japanese set fire to the mountain, they can still be killed if they rush up in large numbers.
If they went down, the newly built houses and newly planted rice seedlings would probably fall into the hands of the Japanese.
If they were to stay in the mountains for a long time, they couldn't all squeeze into one cave like they did now, mainly because there wasn't enough space. So they found a few more people, big and small, two or three families to a cave, five or six families to a cave, and lived separately, so at least they could stretch their legs.
The older ones, restless, have already been clearing wasteland in the mountains, planting vegetables if they can't grow rice. It's Chinese nature that when they flee, they always bring seeds, even if they don't have rice. As long as they have seeds, they can start anywhere.
Liang Shengdi no longer stared at the grain bags behind Zhang Xiaonu, because she knew that asking her mother-in-law for an extra bite of food at this time would be like asking for her life.
And the last time she came back from the mountain, she was given an egg.
The chickens at home were gone, leaving only an egg. Zhang Xiaonu gave it to her to eat, without even touching the eggshell herself. Although she gave it to Liang Shengdi with a dejected look on her face, at least the egg went into her stomach.
Liang Shengdi knew that her mother-in-law had no choice. If the Japanese had not invaded, she would at least have been provided with three meals of rice porridge a day.
Life in the mountains is not easy, so it’s better not to offend your mother-in-law.
Fortunately, there are still some small animals to hunt in the mountains. The young men who can't sit still will make traps, which can be used to hunt wild animals and also to prevent the Japanese.
The food they eat is all from their own garden and is not shared. But anything they hunt in the mountains is cooked in one pot and then shared.
But as Lin Wenxuan had said, there were no wild boars in the mountains here, and the most abundant were snakes. Nine times out of ten, it was snake soup, after which the skin and tendons were removed and the snakes were cut into pieces and put into the pot.
No matter men, women, young or old, no one is afraid. Being able to eat a piece of snake meat is good for your health!
There was just too little snake meat, so each household was only given a bowl of hot soup. Only families with pregnant women could get an extra piece of meat.
The women were not idle either. Some were digging wild vegetables, some were picking bamboo shoots. Some families even carried spinning wheels when they went up the mountain. Now they were turning non-stop for 24 hours, and several families took turns using them.
Zhang Xiaonv finally dug out some things from the ruins of her home, such as a stool with a broken leg, a kettle that was slightly flattened by the wall, and some clothes and quilts that were stuffed in the cupboard and were not burned but also had obvious signs of fire.
And some falling apart wooden boards.
Those were their family's old washbasins, foot basins, and water basins. If they were left down there exposed to the sun and rain, they would eventually get moldy. It would be better to bring them up and let Old Sun from the village re-make them.
The Sun family has been coopers for generations and are good at carpentry. When they were escaping, they regarded their tool kit as more important than their grain bag. They carried all of their tools up the mountain, including planes, saws, whittle knives, and bevel chisels.
He was also very busy at this moment, and joked that this might be the best time for business in his life. It was a pity that he didn't charge money.
Of course, the villagers would not really let him work for nothing, and the Sun family received some food every day.
Even Zhang's daughter poured a bowl of rice over to Sun's wife as payment for her work as a cooper. Although it wasn't much, if every family gave a little, it would add up to a lot.
Liang Shengdi sat on a big rock by the stream, with a rough basket she had woven in the water, waiting for the fish to hit her.
The fish in the mountains were rather slow, and she had caught them several times. Although each time she brought them back, they had to be stewed in a large pot and divided, but as a pregnant woman and a hunter, at least she could get a fish head and a little meat from the back, which was enough for her.
Everyone said that life in the mountains was not as comfortable as life at the foot of the mountain, but Liang Shengdi always inexplicably felt that she lived more freely and comfortably in the mountains.
Of course, it would be better if my mother-in-law could put more food in.
Lin Youliang has been organizing people to go down and find out the news in the surrounding area every once in a while. It is not a fixed time, but each family takes turns. Lin Wenxuan has also gone down.
But every time the news was brought back, it only made everyone more panicked.
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