under fire

The Japanese appear to be powerful, but their security in the occupied areas has long been riddled with holes.

Choosing to use China to govern China is indeed a helpless move.

There has been a severe drought for more than a year, and the canal has stopped flowing.

To cross a river, just find a dry place to cross. It doesn't matter whether a ferry exists or not.

After several heavy rains, the water level in the canal rose again.

The Japanese began to re-examine the importance of the ferries along the canal.

Because railway transportation has been repeatedly destroyed. As for the canal, no matter how powerful the anti-Japanese elements are, can they still fill up the canal?
The economic situation along the canal is slightly better, and there are many folk temples.

There is a saying that "every village has a temple, and there is no village without temples." A village with a large population will have two or even more temples.

Japs appeared across from the ferry in the south. Without a boat, there was nothing anyone could do against the little Japs.

There were too many people coming this time, and Battalion Commander Li’s main camp stayed directly in the villagers’ yards.

With a wry smile, he arranged for Hu Yi to temporarily live in the ruined temple in the south of the village.

The temple... has everything that should be there, including the Mahavira Hall, the Heavenly King's Hall, the Ksitigarbha Hall, the Wei Tuo Hall, the Jialan Hall, the Jade Buddha Hall... even the bells and drums are not lacking.

There are still incense and candles lingering in the dilapidated Mahavira Palace, and the golden statue is also very well preserved. The most important thing is that it is very clean. It seems that someone is cleaning and wiping it all the time.

There is only one middle-aged monk in the temple, who is as thin as a bamboo pole and has several patches on his dirty gray cassock.

No matter how you look at it, he doesn't look like someone who can keep the entire temple in order by himself.

The middle-aged monk looked at the people dressed as Taoist priests who came in, and there was no surprise in his eyes.

He stood aside like a dead tree with his arms folded, seemingly indifferent to the large group of people in front of him.

Perhaps it was because there were too many people coming in. He didn’t even bother to say hello to the big soldiers who were shouting and shouting after they came in. He just carried the bedroll from the Zen room to the woodshed in the backyard.

The temple door is wide open, and a few crows on the poplar trees in front of the temple scream from time to time.

Hu Yi did not believe in Buddhism, so he was not in the mood to talk to the middle-aged monk about Buddhism. He sat on the steps outside the Main Hall and looked at the map.

His eyes were poisoned by poisonous gas and his eyesight was not very good, but he could still see that the thin monk walked steadily, and it was obvious that he must have some skills with his hands.

After crossing the canal, you enter Shandong Province. These days, it is not uncommon for people to know kung fu.

Since the division has arranged for Jiuying to temporarily live in the temple, there should be no problem with this monk.

In this river ambush, there were no new wounded in the Ninth Battalion!

But He Gensheng was still busy in the temple. Who knows what he was busy with.

Li Xiang was in the reeds of a tributary of the Miaonan Canal, tossing the engine of the Japanese iron-hulled boat that the division soldiers had just dragged back.

On the contrary, the little girl who had just come out of the village deliberately stopped walking when she saw Hu Yi sitting on the steps looking at a map.

She also grabbed Luo Fugui, who was following her nervously, and studied the inscription in front of the temple with great interest.

From time to time, he pointed at the words on the inscription and clicked his tongue.
Hu Yi looked up from the map, glanced at the inscription that was as big as the little girl's fist, and asked Xiao Hongying: "I said, do you know the words on it?"

Xiao Hongying shook her head: "The way of writing many words seems to be different from what I know."

"You've been working hard for a long time, can you take a break?"

Xiao Hongying left Luo Fugui and walked closer to Hu Yi: "Hey, do you want to know about the vixen?"

"what do you want to say in the end?"

"I heard from people in the subdistrict that they seemed to have originally wanted to cross the river from the south ferry."

"You mean the crossing where the Japs appeared on the other side of the river?" Hu Yi stood up abruptly, his brows gradually furrowed: "Why are you saying it now?"

"You didn't ask."

Woo. A long whistle sounded from the river not far to the west.

Hu Yi stood up.

"Hey, don't worry, our superiors have given us tasks. The first is to exterminate the locusts, and the second is to cooperate with the division to destroy the enemy's transportation of troops and supplies through the canal."

Hu Yizheng was hanging the equipment on his body without looking back: "Perform the second mission first."

"My aunt is good at boating." Xiao Hongying opened her voice and said: "Where did the big dog die?"

Soon, there was a commotion in the temple.

A team of more than a hundred people quickly assembled.
on the canal.

A large iron-hulled armed transport ship blew its whistle and stirred up waves, coming from north to south.

The status of the Japanese army is not as good as that of the navy.

The 59th Division robbed a lot of merchant ships in the inland rivers. After a few modifications, they could be regarded as having their own "warships."

Unfortunately, sailing can only take three or two days to operate freely.

Therefore, the man who sailed the ship was Cao Sanpao from Tianjin. This ancestor also had great success.

During the heyday of canal water transportation, the Cao family once had a large fleet.

Since the large-scale emergence of steamships, bulk materials from the north to the south began to be transported by sea at a lower cost, and water transportation declined.

Warlords have been fighting for years, and various forces along the canal are keen to collect taxes. In addition, transport bandits confiscate the money to buy the road, so long-distance transportation can hardly save a lot of money.

Since the gasoline and diesel used in motor boats are controlled by the imperial army, motor boats are nothing without fuel.I had to put up a plaster flag, but business started to gradually improve from then on.

Last year, there was a severe drought and the canal flow was cut off. His flat-bottomed boats could not go into the sea. Their income increased by relying on the canals between Beijing and Tianjin to increase the number of goods.

In his opinion, the imperial army was quite benevolent and not as bad as the newspapers said. At least, they didn't rob his own iron-hulled ship, right?

Neighbors spit and curse when they pass by their front door. They are completely jealous that their home is once again prosperous.
I looked up from time to time and saw that the two mortars mounted by the imperial army on their ship... er... also had one heavy machine gun and six light machine guns.

He even felt a faint excitement. The current scenery of Lao Cao's family was even far better than before.
The ferry is about a mile north.

An east-west creek leads directly to the canal.

The creek is a tributary of the canal and is not wide. The distance between the water surfaces on the north and south banks is five or six meters.

Because of the heavy rain last night, at this location, the water in the creek is almost completely flush with the canal water.

The water is filled with floating debris washed down from upstream.

Liu Yuanqing, with his cat-like posture and two soldiers, approached the canal along the soft sand beside the river.

The sand under my feet was soaked soft by the rain, and I made deep footprints step by step. I occasionally raised my head to observe the target in the direction of the ferry.

Far behind him, a dirty-faced man murmured with a dark face: "Liu, if you play like this, everyone will die here."

He knew Liu Yuanqing couldn't hear him complain.

This guy surnamed Liu is really damn good at calculating. There really is a ship coming from the north of the canal.

The ship coming from the north cannot be seen in the field of telescope, but the whistle cannot be faked.

A boat equipped with a whistle. It’s not small, and it’s definitely not a wooden-hulled engine boat.
If his guess is correct, then this boat should be coming to the ferry to pick up the Japanese.

No matter what kind of ship it is, it has nothing to do with me. Anyway, I am just a soy sauce person.
Chen Baji, the local snake here, is his target. If he gets a gun from him, he can also pull out a team. When the time comes, he can go back and ask Commander Hu to be the company commander.
I get angry when I think of my immediate boss, that idiot Luo Fugui.
The money in his bag must be dug out.

He turned around and ordered to his guerrillas: "Don't be so nervous. Follow the ditch toward the ferry and wait until the Japanese get on the boat. Let's fight again. Shoot a few shots and run away."

"Your grandma is a bear, you are the most nervous," a guerrilla couldn't help but mutter.

"Fifty cents. What the hell did your mother say?" He stared at the young guerrilla with a dirty look.

"I said, we are not nervous about fighting the Japanese."

"Then why are your hands shaking?"

"I've been practicing martial arts since I was young, and my hands are shaking?" Wumao felt guilty. Although Platoon Leader Zhang's kung fu was not as good as his own, his formation, marksmanship, and battlefield experience were far beyond his. At least, he would look twice at a Japanese enemy. Will emit light.

The key is that he still has the standard binoculars of the division chief hanging on his chest!

Liu Yuanqing lay down at the mouth of the trumpet-shaped river and scooped up some floating objects accumulated here to use as a disguise.

The engineer shovel in his hand kept digging until water began to emerge from the bottom of the ditch and was level with the river surface, and a bunker was quickly formed.

The river mouth is more than ten meters wide from north to south, so it is not too difficult to cross even with equipment.

Fumbling around, he put the dry food bag he had torn off Dirty Face next to him, grabbed a handful of fried sorghum rice and stuffed it into his mouth.

I raised the telescope to observe, but it was too far away to see clearly.

However, it can be determined that it is not a Japanese gunboat, but a modified water cargo ship.

The engine is in the stern wheelhouse.

In the past, we saw many boats like this, just iron-shelled flat-bottomed boats traveling on inland rivers.

Although this kind of ship is slow, its load capacity is amazing, and it is estimated that it can carry hundreds of tons.
As the iron-hulled ship continued to approach, his fingers subconsciously tightened the telescope.

The faintly visible plaster flag fluttering on the bow of the ship is a plaster flag.
Observe carefully, you can see that the flat-bottomed boat that was originally traveling in the middle of the river is slowly approaching the west bank.

If nothing else, they should be picking up the gang of Japanese from the ferry.

In the field of view of the telescope, the figures of the Japanese sitting in two rows could slowly be seen clearly.

There seems to be a mortar between the two Japs.
I was slowly calculating the trajectory of the iron-hulled ship in my mind.

If he picks up the group of Japanese at the ferry and heads south, he can only stare blankly.
However, he believed that the Japs would eventually move north down the river.

Only if the Japanese go north will he have a chance.
Because when the boat leaves the ferry and goes north, it will never sail into the middle of the river first.

You must have slowly left the shore and drove from the ferry to your current location, which should be between 200 and [-] meters from the river bank.
After all, this is not about crossing the river and running directly to the other side.

And the owner of this boat will never be stupid enough to drive the boat to the middle of the river before heading north.
Because this will make a right-angle change, and it is difficult to deal with gasoline and diesel these days.
He could hit the target, but no matter how good the enemy's marksmanship was on the ship, it was almost impossible to hit him when the ship was shaking.

Of course, the Japanese machine guns, grenades, and mortars on the ship are another matter.
You can't do things that will cost you your life.
What happened last night, if it were his former teammates, the result would definitely be completely different.
He threw the binoculars to the two attendants beside him and said: "Keep an eye on it, and pay attention to judge the speed of the ship and the distance to the west coast. I will keep my eyes open for a while and wait for the ship to remind me when it reaches our position."

The two soldiers fought over the telescope to use as an observation post.

The two of them hugged each other in the ditch, one holding half of the telescope.

Afraid of disturbing Liu Yuanqing, who started snoring, he made gestures and finally made a decision by guessing rock-paper-scissors.
...

For the broken copper oil pipe, Li Xiang asked Luo Fugui for a small yellow croaker, gold with very good malleability, which was perfect for connecting to the copper pipe.
Tighten the fuel tank screw on the engine.
The gun holes on the fuel tank were so yellow that they dazzled the eyes.

Shake the large handle
After the engine beeped a few times, it stopped again.

Li Xiang inspected it carefully for a while, then turned around and said, "Go get the gasoline from the other boat and try it."

As long as it is not hit by a tracer bullet, the fuel tank will not explode at all.

This is just a small iron-hulled boat. It has a different engine model from the other boat, and the accessories cannot be used universally. (End of chapter)