Chapter Ninety-Eight: Preparing to Cross the River
"There's a ship, there's a ship! A ship is coming! In the distance, another ferry boat full of wooden rafts appeared, and the people on the shore who were squatting or standing began to shout for joy, and then rushed to the nearest place to the riverbank, all of them calculating whether they would be able to get on the boat this time, whether they could squeeze forward to the next group of boats. Tang Cheng, who was followed by Liu Goat, was also looking at the ferry on the river, but he was more interested in the routs mixed with the refugees on the riverbank.
Like the refugees, these routs stretched their necks and waited for the ferry to dock, without exception, they were all covered with stains and bloodstains like Liu Goat and Tang Cheng, some of them wore steel helmets, some were bareheaded, some had guns on their shoulders and some had two hands empty. With their concerted efforts, the civilians who tried to get close to the river bank were all blocked by the routs, most closely to the river banks in military uniforms.
In the eyes of everyone, the ferry finally docked, but what happened next disappointed everyone on the riverbank. As soon as the ferry docked, no one came out, so the routs waiting to be uploaded on the shore saw four light machine guns first, and the muzzles of the black holes made the routs who tried to take advantage of the chaos to get on the ship confused. This time it was not only the civilians who were disappointed, but also the routs, because the soldiers who came out of the cabin were shouting the number of the troops, apparently it was a troop carrier, and they only picked up their own troops.
"Company commander, company commander, it's our people, they're here to pick us up." A group of defeated soldiers on the riverbank who were called to the number suddenly cheered. "It's all silent, what's noisy, I know that it's our people, it's on the boat, what kind of screaming is there." An officer who had been blackened by the flames of war pulled his face and scolded, "Look at these ordinary people by the river, you can still fucking laugh." The joy of the defeated soldiers to get a chance to survive was immediately dispelled by the envious and jealous eyes of the civilians, and the last thing the common people wanted to see was the departure of the soldiers, and every one less soldier on the shore meant that there was one less ship from Jiangbei.
"Do you know that when all our troops are withdrawn, Nanjing will be officially abandoned. There are at least tens of thousands of people on the shore, and how many people we have to leave behind, and more than 10,000 brothers who are fighting in the city. The black-faced officer muttered to himself as he looked at the crowd in the distance as he stretched to the end of the darkness. The heavy tone of the officer suddenly immersed these soldiers in grief, and they once regarded death as home: from Shanghai to Nanjing, more than half of the casualties of the whole division were killed, but they could still fight, even the soldiers who were added in the back were also fighting to the death under the leadership of the veterans, but now they have become deserters fighting with the people.
The ferries from the other side to meet their troops, those who were useless to be called to the number of the routs were anxious, just when the soldiers who were called to the number boarded, a group of rebels who had just rushed to the bank of the river did not ask so much, rushed forward to board the boat; A group of soldiers who had already assembled and were waiting to cross the river immediately met them, and the two sides fought on the shore. Liu Goat, who was crowded in the crowd, with Tang Cheng and Jiujin, was also approaching the ferry little by little, but in this situation, he didn't know what to do.
The "pop" gunfire suddenly rang out in the melee, and the gun was actually moved, not at the sky, but at the people, and a soldier waiting to board the ship stumbled to the ground, and bloody arrows splattered out of the bullet hole in his abdomen. "These bitches actually shot, brothers, fight with them." I don't know who shouted, the two sides actually raised their guns on the river beach and fired at each other, and the stray bullets shot at the gunshots, and the stray bullets hit the other troops next to them, and the other troops that were involved for no reason also began to join the battle group.
"Get down, get down, stand stupidly and wait to be shot." The moment the gunshots rang out, Liu Goat, who was walking in front, turned around and shouted for Tang Cheng and Jiujin to lie on the river beach, although the position of the three of them was still some distance away from the melee guys, but the guns don't have long eyes, who knows if there will be stray bullets flying here. The most innocent are of course the refugees, who can only suffer in silence in the chaos of bullets around them. The husband shields his wife with his body, and the mother shields his children with his body, but these thin bodies cannot stop the bullets.
The light machine guns on the "Da Da" ferry joined the battle group and opened heavy fire on the routs who were shooting with their guns raised. The camp was bombed, and the most terrible thing on the march finally happened, and the addition of machine-gun fire made these routs waiting to cross the river really angry, and more and more routs began to join in the firefight. The refugees on the riverbank finally couldn't bear it anymore, and the messy crowd let out bursts of shouts and ran aimlessly and trampled on each other; The cries of being knocked apart and the cries of loved ones came and went.
On the outskirts of the riot, there were still some troops gathered in an orderly manner, but their leading officers were all beads of sweat on their foreheads, and everyone was afraid that their troops would be drawn into chaos. They ordered their soldiers to point their guns that had been pointed at the devils in the direction of the chaotic brawl, and anyone who dared to approach them would not hesitate to shoot. The cunning Liu Goat with Tang Cheng and Jiujin appeared on the outer edge of these troops at this time, and the entire river bank was in chaos, and only this was the safest place.
The gunfire gradually came, perhaps because it was not much of a point to shoot at his own people, and the rout side stopped firing first, and the side waiting to board the boat did not pursue much, but took the wounded soldiers of his own side to the boat and roared to the boat to prepare to cross the river. Although the rebels who couldn't get on the boat stopped shooting, they still kept cursing towards the ferry, cursing those who had already boarded the boat, cursing that they had better go to the center of the river and the boat would capsize. More rebels pounced on the already frightened civilians, not to help them, of course, but to rob them of their baggage and clothing.
Possessions were of no use at such times, and the rebels simply tore the clothes to form ropes, which could then be used to tie up the most rudimentary rafts or rafts across the river. The rifle-wielding rebels rushed into the crowd like a pack of wild beasts rushing into a flock of sheep, instantly turning the riverbank like a bandit crossing the border, and even pressing down the civilians and picking them off their clothes and belts.
"Don't be fucking stupid, follow me." Tang Cheng, who was still in a trance, was kicked by Liu Goat, and when he turned his head, Liu Goat had already rushed out of the crowd with Jiujin and ran to the smoking houses on the bank of the river. When Guanghuamen desperately blocked the Japanese attack, Rujiangmen and Xiaguan Wharf were also attacked by Japanese shelling and bombs, and many houses on the river bank were on fire and smoking. Tang Cheng didn't understand what Liu Goat's intention was to run over there, but Liu Goat and Jiujin left, so he had to follow.
"Grenades, give me grenades, hurry." After rushing to the room closest to them and confirming that there was no one inside, Liu Goat stretched out his hand and asked Jiujin for a grenade. Jiujin is a tireless guy, almost all of the oval grenades and wooden-handled grenades found from the corpses of Japanese soldiers are in Jiujin's satchel, even if they want to climb over the city wall of Rujiangmen, Jiujin is not willing to throw them away.
"Stand back." Liu Goat let out a low cry and threw the two grenades in his hand onto the roof, and with the two explosions, the crumbling house, which had been bombed by the Japanese plane, finally collapsed completely. Before the dust and explosion completely disappeared, Liu Goat had already goat up and shouted and rushed into the smoke, "Don't be stunned, hurry up and help pick out all the wood, there will be more people coming over in a while, and you won't be able to grab anything." It was only at this time that Tang Cheng knew what the intention of Liu Dao Liu Goat was.
The explosion of the grenade panicked the routs, but more of them saw Liu Goats picking wood from the ruins of collapsed houses. That's right, Liu Goat and the three of them were rummaging through the ruins to check the wood that could be used, so more and more routs also rushed over to find materials to tie the raft. Amid the sound of successive explosions, more and more defenses collapsed on the banks of the river, and then a swarm of routs rummaged through the rubble like ants.
Liu Goat and Jiujin found two beams and a few slightly smaller pieces of wood from the ruins, Tang Cheng carried two shell guns and stood next to those woods, staring at all the routs passing by, if someone came up to snatch these woods, Tang Cheng didn't mind shooting them here. "There you have found the rope." Jiujin, whose face was stained, rushed out of the rubble with an axe, and a bundle of hemp rope on his shoulder, and Liu Goat, who followed him, carried a large bag containing shabby bed sheets and some coarse cloth old clothes.
"I need three people with guns to cross the river with us." Looking at the things piled up on the ground, Liu Goat suddenly raised his head and shouted at the routs who were rushing over. There are only three of them, not only is it difficult to move the wood safely to the riverbank, but the wooden raft of only three people cannot resist the Lang flowers on the river, and Liu Goat needs a helper to solve these hidden dangers.
Liu Goat selected three people who claimed to belong to the 87th Division from the rout soldiers who came up, regardless of whether one of them was a major or not, Liu Goat just asked them to carry the wood to the river with Jiujin, while he and Tang Cheng followed behind with a wooden cabinet, and by the way, beware of those routs who wanted to come up and grab the wood. There are more people, and the speed of doing things is naturally much faster, according to Liu Goat's thinking, everyone quickly tied up a simple wooden row with a rope.
"Can this thing cross the river?" Looking at the wooden row in front of him, which can not only be called simple, Tang Cheng's heart is really bottomless, if he goes to Jiangxin and falls apart, then everyone sitting on it will all play. Tang Cheng pulled the strips of cloth tied to the wooden raft with his hands, and his mind was full of scenes of himself falling into the water.