Rise From Eight Hundred

January 27, 1938!

The Four-Line Regiment arrived at a small town on the outskirts of Zhengzhou.

Gong Shaoxun led a cavalry company to Zhengzhou two days in advance and negotiated with the Zhengzhou City Defense Command.

Although Henan Province seems to be stable at present, the First War Zone, which just readjusted its defense zone half a month ago and is responsible for defending the expansion area along the Pinghan Line, is actually more nervous than the Fifth War Zone, which has already started fighting the Japanese army.

In order to complete the strategy of opening up the Jinpu Road, then going west along the Longhai Line, cutting off the Pinghan Line, and occupying Jiangxia, the Japanese army in North China not only invested heavily in Xuzhou to cooperate with the Central China Expeditionary Force to attack Xuzhou from the north and south, but also began to attack frequently in the defense zone of the First War Zone, with the situation of breaking through the Yellow River defense line in Henan Province in one fell swoop.

The entire First War Zone is also highly tense. Although the Four-Line Regiment is not heavily armed, it is also a long line of horse-drawn carts, which looks like thousands of people from a distance. If they don’t make a good call in advance, it would be strange if the generals of the First War Zone are not angry.

The military order with the seal of the 43rd Army and the pass issued by the Fifth War Zone Command still had some effect. In addition, with the blessing of the two hundred dollars New Year gift brought by Gong Shaoxun, Gong Shaoxun and his party did not sit on the bench for long in the Zhengzhou City Defense Command, and soon approved the location of the station that the Four-Line Regiment wanted in the past few days.

As soon as the entire Four-Line Regiment arrived, the whole town was decorated with lights and people lined the streets to welcome it.

It’s not that this small town, which has not been invaded by the Japanese army, is very supportive of the army. The people of Henan Province are very simple but also very practical.

It’s true that the military supply department of the Four-Line Regiment, which arrived in the town first, was full of local tyrants. After arriving, it posted a notice to purchase a large amount of rice, noodles, chickens, ducks, fish, pigs, eggs, vegetables and other daily necessities, and the purchase price was 10% higher than the current market price.

Only the chief of staff Zhuang, the logistics officer of the Four-Line Regiment, was almost heartbroken!

At several meetings of the regiment, he almost blushed and angrily denounced the great commander Tang for spending money like a prodigal son! But Tang Dao used the veto power of the highest official to firmly implement his decision.

Just buying some things is not a big deal, the Four Lines Group has more needs!

This made the farmers around the town very happy.

Henan Province is basically a plain, and it is also the center of China. As long as the weather is good, it is definitely qualified to become one of China's granaries, otherwise there will be no saying that whoever controls the Central Plains controls the world.

In wars throughout history, Henan Province is a must-take place in the north leading to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Although war broke out in North China and East China in 1937, Henan Province, which had not yet been affected, had a bumper harvest of grain. This was also the last time for the people of Henan Province to recuperate after the terrible Jianghuai flood in 1931 caused a near-complete harvest of grain.

Since he set foot on the land of Henan Province, Tang Dao's heart may not have been completely calm, because he knows too well that if the most brutal killings by the Japanese army during the Anti-Japanese War were in Jiangnan, the people of Jiangnan suffered, but compared with the people of Henan Province who suffered from natural disasters and man-made disasters, they were not the most miserable.

The suffering of the people of Henan Province actually started six years ago and reached its peak in the next three years. It was definitely the most unbearable scene in Chinese history.

Four months later, in June 1938, the Japanese army's steel torrents approached Zhengzhou and were about to approach Jiangxia, hundreds of kilometers away, when the Yellow River burst its dike.

But this time, it was not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster!

The Huayuankou dike was blown up by the person who ordered it, and the rolling floods covered more than 40 counties in Henan Province. The Japanese tanks and artillery were stuck in the mud and marched slowly, but this was achieved by the destruction of large tracts of farmland and the death of 800,000 people.

The people of Henan Province, who had just been freed from the last disaster, fell to the bottom again.

But for the people of Henan Province at this time, just like the future capital market, when you think it is the bottom, no, there is a basement under the bottom, and there is hell under the basement.

Three years later, the Anti-Japanese War had entered a white-hot stage. In order to ensure that the soldiers on the front line had enough military rations, the principal made another stupid move and forcibly requisitioned food.

According to statistics, in that year alone, the authorities collected 340 million catties of wheat alone, not including other crops.

This once again increased the burden on the people, and the people of Henan Province could not take out a penny of food.

And this was just the real beginning of the great disaster.

In the spring of the second year of the forced requisition of military rations, Henan Province suffered an unprecedented drought, which lasted for half a year, and sometimes there was no rain for a month.

Even so, the military representatives stationed in Henan Province at that time still chose to execute orders and forcibly requisition food. Even though many local officials had knelt in front of him, they still could not change his determination.

The commander of the army stationed in Henan Province, Tang, had transformed himself into Commander Tang. Not only did he forcibly requisition food with the support of military representatives, but he also took away many young and strong laborers for forced labor on the grounds that the war was tense.

It can be said that the people of Henan Province were suffering from natural disasters and man-made disasters, which were caused by their own people.

However, the people of Henan Province were used to suffering, and they thought that they would just have to wait for the grain to be harvested. After finally getting to July, seeing that the fields were not as good as 20% of the usual grain, the people of Henan Province had no time to be happy, and the locusts came again.

The overwhelming locusts swept across the entire territory of Henan Province, eating up the little grain that was already there.

The new grain that they had been waiting for for half a year was gone, and the original reserve grain had long been requisitioned, which completely cut off people's hope of survival.

An unprecedented mass exodus officially began in July of the fifth year after the war began.

At the beginning, people might have been more restrained, after all, they were all neighbors, and they would see each other every day.

But when people were hungry to a certain extent, they no longer cared about what was benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and faith, and what was courtesy, righteousness, integrity, and shame, and various riots occurred one after another.

The darkest moment had arrived.

When they saw the package, they wanted to rob it, even if they knew that there was no food, they wanted to see it with their own eyes.

But gradually, people also reacted. The food had been taken away by the army, and no one in the people had any food.

But if they were asked to rob the army with their bare hands, they couldn't do it.

So, people began to think of ways to save themselves.

The first method that came to mind was to eat wild vegetables and dig grass roots.

At first, people only searched near the village, but gradually, they found that these could no longer satisfy the stomachs of the whole village, so they could only start to flee.

However, under the years of drought, even if there were only a few wild vegetables and grass roots, how could they supply the tens of millions of people in Henan Province.

There was no other way, so people turned their attention to the trees along the way.

At first, people only ate leaves, but it was not known when someone discovered that tree bark could also be eaten, and people began to eat it.

Although this did allow some people to survive successfully, it should be noted that not all tree barks can be eaten.

Some tree barks are not easy to digest after being eaten, and they can easily cause blockage when they accumulate in the stomach, and many people starved to death.

But the extremely hungry people could no longer care about so much, and they rushed to the trees when they saw them.

They ate wherever they fled, and the trees along the way were stripped of their bark.

But soon, people found that even trees were not enough to eat.

At this time, the so-called "Guanyin soil" appeared.

This is a kind of white clay, because it is fine, it will not cut the stomach after eating.

After hearing this news, many people searched like crazy, and returned home with wild vegetables to steam, and their stomachs would feel warm and full after eating.

But this kind of soil has a characteristic, that is, it will solidify when it encounters water.

As a result, all the Guanyin soil accumulated in the stomach and could not be pulled out.

There may not be any effect in the short term, but if you eat too much, your abdomen will become hard and you will die of bloating.

However, natural disasters are not fatal, the most fatal is the human heart.

The then chairman of Henan Province was a confidant of the principal. For the sake of his official position, he concealed the disaster in his report to the country, and even said that Henan Province had a good harvest and there was still a lot of surplus grain.

Where is there any surplus grain? Even if there is, it is in the hands of these officials.

At the end of autumn of that year, Guo Zhonghuai, a member of the National Government, saw disaster victims everywhere on his way to Shancheng. Many people sold their children just to get a bite to eat. He shed tears and spoke righteously at the National Political Consultative Conference in October of that year, pleading for the people of Henan Province. Only then did the whole country know that the disaster in Henan Province was serious.

But before the so-called disaster relief funds were allocated, 3 million people in Henan Province had starved to death, which was definitely an astronomical figure that was frightening.

You have to know how many people there are in the whole province of Henan. During the entire Anti-Japanese War, the recorded casualties on the front battlefield were only more than 3 million. However, in Henan, there was a flood that killed 800,000 people and a famine that killed 3 million people.

Why did Tang Dao go around the middle of Henan when he came to the north? In fact, he also had a purpose. He wanted to meet a very important person and hoped that he could do something within his ability for the future suffering province of Henan. Even if he was still crushed by the wheels of history, Tang Dao had to give it a try.

When they came to this small town, the Four Lines Group could not do more. They could only purchase a wave of supplies and exchange the food that the local villagers could not take away in four months for easy-to-carry silver.

The farmers around the town were of course happy. They had more food, and they were not panicked when they exchanged it for silver in their hands. What's more, it was 10% higher than the market price in Zhengzhou City.

I don't know how much white flour and the materials needed by the Four Lines Group gathered in the town. The Quartermaster Department purchased 50,000 kilograms of white flour alone. In addition to chickens, ducks, fish and meat, the Four Lines Group paid nearly 10,000 silver.

Not only did the farmers around the town benefit, but the residents of the town also received a notice that the Four-Line Corps needed 300 houses for living and 16,000 pairs of cotton shoes, with each pair of shoes costing 0.25 yuan.

Although the rental period was short, just four days, the rent for one room was one yuan, and the price of a pair of cotton shoes was more than double the price of daily cotton shoes. Moreover, the order was huge, and it was difficult for the women in the town to do it alone.

The mayor wisely spread the news, hoping to help the local tyrant army to collect such a huge cotton shoe order within 4 days.

As for the houses, the residents of the town were able to digest them on their own.

The town was not big, with less than 2,000 people. More than 300 households could basically provide one room each. It was considered that the Four-Line Corps stayed in the town for four days and gave each household one yuan for the New Year. This was a great thing.

Moreover, the Quartermaster's Office of the Four-Line Corps came with cash, and the supplies sent by the villagers were all settled in cash on the spot. Facing such a local tyrant-level army, how could the mayor and the residents of the town not welcome them with open arms?

In order to facilitate the stationing of the Four-Line Corps, the mayor of the town also specifically suggested that the whole family move out temporarily and stay in other houses for a few days, and all the houses would be left for the Four-Line Corps to use, and the rent would be shared equally between the tenants and the families who stayed there.

This was naturally what the Four-Line Corps wanted.

Houses and cotton shoes were really what the Four-Line Corps needed most at the moment.

The most expensive thing for the Four-Line Regiment during the march was shoes, especially since there were a large number of Sichuan troops in the Four-Line Regiment. When they were incorporated into the Four-Line Regiment, they were still wearing straw sandals in the cold winter.

If it weren't for the fact that more than 2,000 Japanese troops were wiped out in the Laojinkeng Battle and the cowhide shoes worn by the Japanese soldiers were stripped clean, the Four-Line Regiment's dress would actually be no different from that of beggars.

But there were only about 2,000 pairs, most of which were issued to soldiers with outstanding performance, and a small number were stored as military supplies.

To be honest, the Japanese cowhide shoes look warm, durable and stab-proof, but they are okay on the battlefield. They are extremely heavy when marching. If they get muddy on rainy days, they are not as good as straw sandals and cloth shoes.

Many soldiers put these things in their backpacks and wait to wear them on the battlefield. They still wear their own rotten cloth shoes and straw sandals when marching, even if they are very cold.

It was only when Tang Dao arrived in Xuzhou that he reluctantly equipped each member of the regiment with two pairs of cotton shoes. Even so, many people were reluctant to wear them. They wore their own straw shoes during the march, and their feet were cracked in the cold winter.

It was really heartbreaking to see, and Tang Dao had no choice but to issue a military order that everyone must wear cotton shoes during the march.

However, the long march and the heavy load made the shoes really unbearable. A pair of new shoes broke in a week. As a last resort, many people tied their soles and uppers with straw ropes layer by layer.

It looked both funny and sad from a distance!

Therefore, these shoes must be bought, and bought in large quantities. The feet of soldiers are the most important objects in the charge and must be protected.

As for the house, it is also what the Four Lines Regiment needs most at present. The purpose is not to sleep in the house during the New Year, but about personal hygiene.

There are nearly 3,000 people in the Four Lines Regiment. They have been sleeping in the open air for three consecutive months. Some clean people even take time to take a bath, but most of the rough men don’t have that mind? Although it was winter, some people had that smell on them. Tang Dao once went to the company for inspection, and on a whim, he ate with the soldiers in the infantry company.

Tang Dao had seen everything, and smelled everything? The stench of the sewer, the smell of decaying organisms, the bloody smell on the battlefield, the pungent smell of gunpowder

But Tang Dao was still irritated by the body odor of his own soldiers, which could be called the timeless sauce-flavored type. Really, ordinary odors would pass if you covered your nose or held your breath at that time.

But the odor factor that had been "stored" and "fermented" for several months not only rushed to the nose on the spot, but even if Tang Dao left, it could still be attached to his body. Not to mention that after Tang Dao returned to the regiment, Hammer ran away with a look of disgust, and even Tan Tai Mingyue couldn't help sniffing with a strange look on his face.

The soldiers around him were used to it. Perhaps it was not just that they were not smelling the stink after being in the abalone shop for a long time, but that they were all the same. Those who had not taken a bath for a month had no right to laugh at those who had not taken a bath for two or three months.

And the lice were jumping around on the soldiers' beards and hair, which were visible to the naked eye. The soldiers were used to it. They would just crush them to death if they caught them. Some even liked to hear the crisp sound of "crackling" and called it "kabangcui".

Such guys went to the north to mess with our Four-Line Regiment!

Tang Dao learned from his mistakes and issued a military order requiring the whole regiment to pay attention to personal hygiene. The conditions were not good now. Let alone taking a bath once a week! They had to take a bath once every two weeks. As long as it was not wartime, they had to wash their faces and brush their teeth once a day.

Tang Datuanzhang's military orders were usually smooth, but this military order was difficult to execute. It was really that the conditions did not allow it at all.

The weather was the coldest time of the year, and Henan Province was very close to the northern provinces. At night, the temperature dropped to below zero. The officers and soldiers of the Four-Line Regiment who were marching in the field had to sleep by the campfire in the leeward place. Taking a bath at this time would cause the whole regiment to get typhoid fever. Even a woman who loved cleanliness like Tan Tai Mingyue objected.

A little dirt on the body would not kill people, but typhoid fever could really kill people. The medical team she was in did not have so many drugs for treating typhoid fever!

It would be great if there was penicillin! Whether it was a wound infection or a cold, one shot would work, especially for people who had never used antibiotics in this era. At that moment, Tang Dao had never been so eager for this lowest-level penicillin, for the long-lasting and strong sauce-flavored body odor of the soldiers who had not taken a bath for three months.

But Tang Dao knew that although penicillin had been discovered as early as 10 years ago, it was not until two years later that there was a breakthrough, and clinical application would have to wait another year.

However, Tang Dao had been busy fighting for some time and had no time to work on this treasure. When he arrived at the destination, Tang Dao had plenty of time to work on it.

It's not that those who can't make penicillin are not good time travelers, but this treasure is definitely an epoch-making drug. Since the emergence of penicillin, the mortality rate caused by wound infection has dropped by 90%.

And how valuable would this thing be if it was developed? Tang Dao remembered that a document recorded that even after World War II, in China, a shot of penicillin was worth one or two gold.

That means that if penicillin is developed, it is like opening a gold mine. If it is given to those Westerners who are still in the research and development stage, let alone machine guns and cannons, as long as you want, you can get an aircraft carrier in exchange.

This is the first business that Tang Dao thought of while thinking hard on the road. The only difficulty is that although the principle of penicillin is simple, it is extremely difficult to purify, especially under the limitations of the technological level of this era.

However, there are always more solutions than problems. Tang Dao doesn't believe that he, a future man, can't lead a group of technology experts to come up with this. He knows that those proud children of heaven have studied chemistry and pharmacy.

In the wilderness, you can't take a bath or do personal hygiene to avoid injury, so renting a house is always okay!

Tang Dao ordered the infantry squad to be a unit, one infantry squad in a room, boil a lot of water, take turns to go into the house to take a bath, and boil the worn military uniforms with boiling water and wash them, and all change into new military uniforms.

Moreover, everyone must shave their hair short before the New Year, either a buzz cut or a bald head!

When the Sihang Regiment arrived, the town was not only decorated with lights and colors, but the town residents lined the streets to welcome the officers and soldiers, and the most excited were the barbers who heard the news from Zhengzhou City.

After all, more than 2,000 heads need to be cut and shaved!

Cut ten heads for one yuan, and go to the Sihang Regiment's quartermaster office to collect the money according to the officers and soldiers' signatures!

Every head is shining with gold!