War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1587 The God of Wealth Appears

In Gaoliangtun, which was still covered in heavy snow, Hu Bazhi, who had had a good sleep, took his gun and went into the surrounding woods and disappeared. Zhao Jinyu replaced Wei Ran in charge of the sentry duty.

Lying on the warm earthen kang, Wei Ran wrapped himself tightly in a thick wolfskin blanket, took a sip of the sorghum wine he brought from Hu Bazhi's "home", and fell asleep.

At the same time, Zhao Jinyu, like Wei Ran in the morning, wandered around this not-so-big village with a gun in his hand, and eventually discovered the house full of corpses and the blood writing on the door panel.

In the woods around Gaoliangtun, Hu Bazhi pulled out pheasants that had been frozen into sticks from their snow nests one by one, just like pulling carrots, and tied them around his waist.

That night, when Wei Ran woke up from a nightmare, the snow had stopped outside the paper-covered window, and there was even a cold full moon in the night sky.

When he walked out of the main room, the cleaned big iron pot was already filled with a large pot of Feilong soup sprinkled with dried mushrooms.

At this time, Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu were huddled by the stove, smoking by the pine oil lamp and chatting in jargon that Wei Ran could not understand.

"woke up?"

Hu Bazhi was the first to greet Wei Ran, "Sit down and have some soup."

"The snow has stopped?"

Wei Ran took the stool handed to him by Zhao Jinyu and sat down next to the warm stove. The latter also used a lunch box lid to serve him a large bowl of bright Feilong soup.

"Stopped"

Hu Bazhi puffed on his pipe and replied, "I guess if it stops snowing tomorrow morning, the devils and puppet troops will come down to arrest people."

"How thick is the snow outside?" Wei Ran asked after sip of Feilong Soup.

"Over the knee"

Zhao Jinyu took out two baked potatoes from the stove and put them on the stove while answering, "When I went out to pee just now, it was already above my knees. It was probably about two feet deep."

"I don't think the Japs' cars are coming," Hu Bazhi said, looking at the stove. "They should be mule sleds."

“If cars don’t come, there’s no point in destroying that bridge.”

Wei Ran keenly noticed the key problem. If the Japanese did not come with cars and only used mule sleds, they could have simply not taken the bridge. In this case, the plan to keep them on this side of the ditch as previously planned would no longer be possible.

"really"

Hu Bazhi nodded, "But I guess they will definitely stop by the Temple of the God of Wealth to take a break."

"Then let's do it again at the Temple of the God of Wealth!" Zhao Jinyu said without thinking.

“Before you start, you have to think about how to start.”

Wei Ran hesitated for a moment and asked another question, "Should we take action when the Japanese come, or when they leave?"

“When you come, you have to take action”

Hu Bazhi replied, "By the time they come back, who knows how many lives they've taken. By then, we might have to ask the men we brought in to block their bullets. So we can only strike when they come and kill as many as we can. It would be best if we can lure them into the woods."

"Set a trap?" Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu asked in unison, having obviously guessed Hu Bazhi's plan.

"We didn't carry those clips here," Zhao Jinyu added.

"There are some in Gaoliang Village, some of them are clamps."

Hu Bazhi explained, "The old man who took you there early this morning is an old hunter who has known my grandfather for many years. He has a lot of traps at home."

Hu Bazhi opened the wooden door behind him and pointed at the snow outside, saying, "I have already burned and soaked the manure at dusk. I buried it in the snow overnight. It will rust tomorrow."

After Hu Bazhi closed the wooden door, Zhao Jinyu said, "Shall we go and set the traps tomorrow morning?"

“You can only go at that time”

Hu Bazhi tapped his pipe beside the stove, poured himself a bowl of Feilong soup and explained, "It's too early to get it in the water. If you're not careful, it might get stepped on by the prey in the forest."

"and then?"

Seeing the two men acting as if everything was fine, Wei Ran couldn't help but ask, "We'll shoot them tomorrow and lead them into the woods, and then what?"

"Run!" Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu answered in unison as a matter of course.

"Where are you going?" Wei Ran couldn't help but ask.

"Go find my brother"

Zhao Jinyu said, "Brother Hu and I have already discussed it. We will kill as many people as possible when the time comes. If we can..."

"It would be even better if we could lead the devils to find your brother and the others, right?"

Wei Ran picked up a baked potato, peeled it and took a bite, then said helplessly, "Are you planning to lead the Japanese to encircle and wipe out your brother and his men, or are you hoping that your brother can lead the others to eliminate the Japanese together with us?"

After asking this question, Zhao Jinyu fell silent and Hu Bazhi was at a loss for a moment.

No matter how smart these two brothers are, they are only around 20 years old. No matter how experienced they are, their knowledge is not much better than that of ordinary people.

To put it bluntly, their approach to dealing with the Japs was still mainly harassment, with at most some experience and habits learned from hunting added in.

But no one has the right to say that they are not brave, especially in this dark despair.

"Brother Wei, if you have any ideas, just say it directly," Hu Bazhi said directly, "As long as we can kill more Japanese devils, we will listen to you!"

"Yes!" Zhao Jinyu also nodded, "At worst, I can sacrifice these hundred pounds of flesh and die together with them!"

"Correct!"

"Bullshit! Let's go to the Temple of the God of Wealth later."

As Wei Ran spoke, he picked up the Feilong soup and ate it in big mouthfuls with the baked potato in his other hand.

Seeing this, Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu looked at each other and wisely did not ask any more questions. They just each poured a bowl of boiling hot Feilong soup and poured it into their stomachs.

After Wei Ran finished his meal, Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu had no time to ask before Wei Ran said, "Tear down two pieces of wood and bring them with you. They don't have to be too wide or too thick, but as long as possible. Also take the grenades with you."

After thinking for a moment, he added, "Take those clips with you, too."

Although they didn't know what Wei Ran was going to do, both Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu went to the next door and removed the wooden board from the wooden door, and then took out the clips buried in the snow.

Finally, they picked up their weapons, stepped on their skis, carried the wooden boards and left the dead Gaoliangtun.

Taking advantage of the moonlight, they passed through the woods and returned to the Temple of the God of Wealth. Wei Ran asked them to climb over the back wall.

After relighting the pine oil lamp, Wei Ran walked outside and brushed off the snow that had fallen on him when he had just walked through the pine forest. Then he stepped over the threshold, took a few steps forward, looked up at the damaged roof, pointed to a pile of bonfire embers at his feet and said, "Light a fire here. Also, dig up the floor next to the bonfire, this piece of stone slab facing the door with your back to the God of Wealth."

"Now?" Hu Bazhi asked.

"Yes, now."

Wei Ran nodded, looked around, bent down and picked up a wooden board that was only three fingers wider than a ski board, at most one and a half fingers thick, and about one and a half meters long. He said, "Leave one person to light the fire and dig the slabs, and the other one will come with me."

"Let me go with Brother Wei," Zhao Jinyu said first.

"Get another board"

Wei Ran greeted everyone, put on his skis again, walked outside from the front door of the Temple of the God of Wealth on the snow, then walked about a hundred meters along the only road outside, and finally stopped right under a pine tree growing at an angle.

"Do you know how to use the Japanese grenades?" Wei Ran asked while pushing away the snow with a wooden board.

"I know how to use it!" Zhao Jinyu nodded, "I've used it twice before."

Hearing this, Wei Ran buried one of the wooden boards in the snow, then took out two Japanese Type 97 grenades from his pocket, placed them on both ends of the board and tried them out. Seeing that they could both stand on their own, he stood up.

Under Zhao Jinyu's puzzled gaze, Wei Ran untied his belt and urinated towards the two grenades and the wooden board.

What puzzled Zhao Jinyu even more was that the urine was only directed at the "tip" and Wei Ran aimed at the middle of the wooden board.

"How about I take a pee too?" Zhao Jinyu asked as if he had forgotten to think.

"Sprinkle aside"

Wei Ran unhappily re-tied his belt, squatted down, and under Zhao Jinyu's increasingly puzzled gaze, he scooped up the snow and carefully piled it around the two grenades.

After waiting for a while to make sure that the two grenades had been firmly frozen to the wooden board by urine and snow, Wei Ran pulled out the safety pin of the grenade, put on the bearskin gloves again, called Zhao Jinyu for help, and carefully placed another wooden board of almost the same size on top of it.

"How many people can this kill?" Zhao Jinyu couldn't help but mutter.

"Scare them"

Wei Ran explained with a smile that he was just trying to scare the Japanese, his real killer move was not here.

"Don't we need to bury it?" Zhao Jinyu asked, pointing at the wooden board that was particularly conspicuous in the snow.

"Need not"

As Wei Ran spoke, he broke off a few branches from a pine tree on the side of the road, carefully wiped away the marks left by the two men's skis, and backed up to the entrance of the Temple of the God of Wealth.

"I fired a shot"

Wei Ran greeted them, and then without waiting for Hu Bazhi and the other two's agreement, he loaded his rifle with a Type 38 rifle, aimed at the trunk of the pine tree about a hundred meters away, whose crown grew right above the road, and pulled the trigger.

"boom!"

After the crisp sound of gunfire, the bullet hit the tree trunk accurately. The accompanying vibration also caused the snow that almost bent the treetops to fall down and evenly spread on the wooden board and its surroundings.

Compared to Hu Bazhi who looked confused, a look of surprise flashed across Zhao Jinyu's face.

Wei Ran did not explain, but handed the rifle to Zhao Jinyu. He walked into the Temple of the God of Wealth, sat down beside the lit bonfire, and dug a deep enough hole under the lifted slate brick.

This time, although he still put down two grenades first, he put a hot water bottle filled with gasoline on top of the two grenades.

After some adjustments back and forth, when he was sure that the stone slab could indeed be pressed down, he pulled out the safety pins of the two grenades at the bottom, carefully covered the hot water bottle and the stone slab, then picked up some dry pine needles and spread them carefully on top, and even laid a small piece of wolf skin cut from the edge of the blanket right on top of the movable floor.

After he finished his work, Hu Bazhi couldn't help but swallow his saliva. He was a hunter, an experienced hunter, so he could naturally see the horror of this trap.

It was almost foreseeable that anyone who came in and saw the bonfire would subconsciously sit on the dry pine needles, and certainly only the people of the highest status would sit on the wolfskin that was the size of a washbasin.

  When the grenade explodes, it will not only kill the people sitting there, but also spread gasoline everywhere.

Hu Bazhi couldn't help but look at the bonfire in the middle. If there was even a little spark of fire in the bonfire at that time.

"Go chop some more firewood," Wei Ran clapped his hands and said, "Just pile it around the campfire. Remember not to step on that stone slab." "Only if you don't want to live will you step on it!"

Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu muttered to themselves for a while, then turned around and went out with full motivation. At the edge of the woods next to the Temple of the God of Wealth, they cut bunches of pine branches and piled them around the bonfire.

"How do we arrange it next?"

Hu Bazhi waited for Wei Ran to signal them not to continue chopping firewood and immediately asked.

"Warm yourself up first"

Wei Ran asked the two of them to sit down by the campfire and made arrangements, "When it's almost daybreak, set up the traps all the way to Gaoliang Village. We'll hide in the nearby woods and watch the fun. Remember to leave four traps behind for future use."

"Not running?" Zhao Jinyu asked.

“No need to run”

Wei Ran shook his head. "They want to capture able-bodied men, so let's just make things difficult for them along the way."

Although they still didn't understand what Wei Ran was going to do, Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu were already impatiently waiting for the Japanese to fall into their trap.

They placed the lunch box of Feilong soup on the campfire and lit it up. The three of them each drank a large lunch box of Feilong soup to warm themselves up.

Asking Hu Bazhi and the other man to rest first, Wei Ran, who had already had a nap, walked out of the Temple of the God of Wealth, sat at the door wearing a wolfskin blanket, and quietly looked at the ditch not far in front of him.

The three of them took turns keeping watch, and the night passed peacefully. When the day dawned, the three of them immediately climbed over the back wall of the God of Wealth Temple, set animal traps along the way, and retreated to the direction of Gaoliangtun.

No matter how confident Hu Bazhi was, whether the Japanese would come was still a fact unknown.

Even so, after setting the traps they had, the three of them still made a big circle and went back to the ditch from the other side of the woods. They hid in a tree hole wearing wolfskin blankets and waited patiently.

As time passed, the sky gradually became brighter. Hu Bazhi took out three glasses made of rabbit skin from his arms and gave them to Wei Ran and Zhao Jinyu.

I don’t know if there is any historical or blood connection between these glasses, but the design of these glasses is basically the same as those of the indigenous people in the Arctic Circle.

Two orbital bones that were polished off the skull of some unknown animal were fixed on a long strip of rabbit skin. There was also a narrow slit on the rabbit skin between the orbital bones.

When using this thing, just tie it directly on your head. The working principle is simple. It reduces the entry of light and prevents snow blindness.

After tying this thing on their heads, the snow, which had originally reflected the bright sunlight and was particularly dazzling, became much softer. The three of them lay down again, holding their weapons in their arms, and waited patiently.

Around ten o'clock in the morning, Zhao Jinyu, who happened to be on guard duty, suddenly reminded, "Here they come! They really come!"

Before he finished speaking, Wei Ran and Hu Bazhi woke up immediately, and then they both took off their handmuffs and covered their mouths and noses.

Seeing this, Zhao Jinyu reacted immediately, took off one of her handmuffs and covered her mouth and nose to avoid attracting attention with the water vapor from her breathing.

It was only at this time that Wei Ran looked across the ditch outside the woods. As expected, there were mule sleds one after another, but no cars.

After a thorough count, there were 12 mule sleds, and on each sled sat five or six little Japanese soldiers who were as cold as their grandsons.

On both sides of each mule cart, there were almost the same number of puppet soldiers. Although they did not sit on the sleds, their weapons were placed on the sleds.

In the middle of the team, there was a Japanese soldier riding a white horse. Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be an officer.

"It's half Japanese and half puppet soldiers, probably about a hundred of them in total."

Hu Bazhi frowned and said in a worried voice, "How many of us three brothers can stay?"

"Take your time, there is plenty of time."

Wei Ran responded in the same muffled tone, and at the same time took out the Robert camera which had been equipped with a telephoto lens.

Under the watchful eyes of the three of them, the sled team slowly crossed the ditch. When passing by the Temple of the God of Wealth, they stopped vigilantly and sent two puppet soldiers with guns to look inside - after all, there was a bonfire burning inside.

Although it was impossible to hear what the two animals were talking about, the mule sled team did not stop but continued to move forward.

Under the nervous gaze of Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu, the leading mule sled passed safely under the pine tree.

“Why not?”

"Boom! Boom!"

Before Zhao Jinyu could finish his words, two grenades under the wooden board exploded one after another. The second mule sled that happened to be passing by was immediately affected by the impact of the explosion. The Japanese on the sled and the puppet soldiers following on both sides fell to the ground with screams. The horses and mules in particular were thrown into chaos by the sudden shock of the explosion.

However, the combat proficiency of those devils was higher than Wei Ran had expected.

Without waiting for the puppet soldiers to pacify the mules, they jumped down with their weapons in hand, and either lay on the snow or hid in the woods by the roadside, ready for battle.

  Alone

Only the "officer" riding the white horse had a look of confusion and fear on his face.

  It turned out to be a target

Wei Ran muttered incoherently as he pressed the shutter button again towards the enemies in the distance.

He had already seen clearly that the person who had just commanded the Japanese was a soldier wrapped in a blanket on one of the sleds - he was holding a gun in his hand.

As the three of them watched coldly, after a brief stalemate, the hidden Japanese commander issued a new order.

Soon, under the Chinese shouting of the "Japanese officer" riding a white horse, the mule sleds turned around one after another, loaded all the wounded and corpses onto the vehicles, and then, under the cover of the surrounding soldiers, hurried to the Temple of the God of Wealth that they had just passed.

Not only that, there were nearly twenty other Japanese soldiers left behind. Some of them and the puppet soldiers who also stayed behind were on guard with guns, while the others lay down, drew their bayonets and carefully began the mine detection work which was destined to be a waste of time.

“Will they fall for it?”

In the woods not far from the wooden bridge across the ditch, Zhao Jinyu asked worriedly, covering her mouth with her hands.

'Can't escape'

Wei Ran mumbled something incoherently, and watched the two teams of soldiers surround the Temple of the God of Wealth on the left and right. He also watched the Japs walking into the gate of the Temple of the God of Wealth with guns drawn. Then he slowly raised the Robert camera with a telephoto lens and a wound spring.

"boom!"

In the expected explosion, Wei Ran pressed the shutter less than half a second later and captured the fireball rising from the Temple of the God of Wealth - it looked like a super-small version of a cute little boy.

"Boom!"

When Wei Ran pressed the shutter again, the roof of the Temple of the God of Wealth built by the rich man Xu collapsed completely due to the gasoline explosion, and a thick layer of snow on the roof fell down together with it.

"Tsk tsk tsk, this is really the God of Wealth appearing."

Hu Bazhi muttered to himself in a daze. Not only him, but even Wei Ran didn't expect that the roof would actually collapse.

"Crack! Crack!"

Zhao Jinyu slapped himself twice, and muttered with regret, "I will go kowtow to the God of Wealth later. I will never dare to joke with the God of Wealth again. He is really anti-Japanese!"

  This is all what the hell.

Wei Ran twitched his lips, took out a roll of film that he had prepared in advance, and prepared to replace it in the camera.

"Shall we open fire now?" Hu Bazhi asked impatiently.

"Not urgent"

Wei Ran said as he changed the film, "Let them rescue people first, they will be tired if they wait."

"boom!"

  Before he could finish his words, a gunshot was suddenly heard from the other side of the ditch!

I looked up subconsciously and saw that the man who had been riding the white horse and was about to dismount when the explosion occurred had already tilted his body and fallen into the snow!

"Da da da!"

Before the three of them could react, the sound of machine gun fire was heard from the woods across the ditch. Looking over here, they saw that several of the Japanese soldiers were already lying down, and the rest were desperately trying to get into the woods.

Objectively speaking, the Japanese soldiers of this period were indeed worthy of praise at least in terms of individual soldier quality. In less than five seconds, the surviving Japanese soldiers relied on the remaining walls of the Temple of the God of Wealth to launch a counterattack, while also moving the wounded into the yard.

“Don’t shoot”

Wei Ran pressed down the Type 38 rifle that Zhao Jinyu was holding up, turned his head and asked Hu Bazhi, "Your friends in the underworld?"

"The call came from that direction. I think it was from Manager Cao."

Hu Bazhi murmured doubtfully, "That's impossible. Who did he borrow the courage to attack the devils? Could it be that the devils stole his twenty or so wives?"

"Don't worry about the wife of the bandit leader for now. Aren't we going to fight?"

Zhao Jinyu asked anxiously, "The Japs have set up their machine guns."

"Boom! Boom!"

Before Zhao Jinyu finished speaking, the unique sound of a grenade launcher was heard from the Temple of the God of Wealth.

"Boom! Boom!"

When Wei Ran looked over, two bomb craters had already appeared on the snow on the other side of the ditch.

It is almost certain that with one more calibration firing, the grenade launcher in the Temple of the God of Wealth will be able to hit the machine gun position on the opposite side that is still firing!

"hold on"

As soon as Wei Ran finished speaking, the machine gun on the other side of the ditch stopped firing in time and switched to sporadic but accurate rifle shooting.

Amid faint roars and commands, grenade launchers and machine guns continued to fire to suppress the enemy on the other side of the ditch. The puppet soldiers also reluctantly charged to the other side of the ditch with their guns in hand, following the orders of the Japanese devils behind them.

However, the remaining Japanese soldiers hid behind the wall of the Temple of the God of Wealth.

"It's our turn"

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already opened the leather backpack on his chest, took out two grenades and gave them to Hu Bazhi and Zhao Jinyu.

"I taught you how to use it last night."

Wei Ran reminded in a low voice, "Wait, I'll throw it first, and then you guys can throw it after I'm done. Don't make any mistakes."

"Don't worry, it won't happen!" Zhao Jinyu and Hu Bazhi patted their chests and made the assurance.

Hearing this, Wei Ran said no more, but took out the hot water bottle which was also filled with gasoline from his bag.

  This hot water bottle is tightly wrapped with a layer of sackcloth, and in the depression in the middle for injecting water, there is a Japanese grenade tied to it!

"I'll burn you damned beasts to death as a tribute to the God of Wealth."

Wei Ran muttered like a madman while taking off the extra things on his body and holding the hot water bottle, which was about to become extremely warm, in his arms.

  　Considering the sudden update time, which seems like a crackdown on pornography or a wife checking up on me, please vote or give me 10 million. Please.

　　(End of this chapter)