Ron took the letter from his father and read it.

"Father, I have been in Shandong for almost a year. During this year, the situation has changed very quickly. I can already clearly feel the dawn of victory in the war...

…I still remember that when I first arrived in Shandong last year, the situation was still tense. The Japanese built a large number of artillery towers all over Shandong - tall brick, wood or cement structure bunkers. In fact, because of the lack of cement

, most of the so-called turrets are made of brick and wood structures. This kind of thing is usually as high as two or three stories, and the strength of the brick and wood structure is also very limited. If this thing was in Europe, it would be asking for death. As long as there is one

Even a small 37mm cannon or even a .50-caliber M2 machine gun can beat it to pieces. But we don’t have these things.

The weapons that the guerrillas have are very crude. My team is the so-called "main force", but the largest artillery we have is just a 75mm mountain cannon captured from the Japanese army, and these cannons are not only

The number is extremely small, and the number of artillery shells is also pitiful. The average number of artillery shells per gun is less than 10, and there is almost no possibility of replenishment. This makes it impossible for our soldiers to conduct artillery training at ordinary times. And when it comes to combat,

, in order to ensure that precious artillery shells are not wasted when shooting, our soldiers must withstand the enemy's firepower and push those cannons to an exaggeratedly close distance, less than a hundred meters, maybe only fifty meters - I dare say,

If we get closer, the Japanese can throw grenades at our position. Sometimes when we fire a cannon, the rocks thrown up can hit our gunners. In this way, we ensure that our cannons are always on target, of course.

, this also makes artillery the most dangerous profession. If I opened an insurance company, I would never sell insurance to the artillerymen of the Eighth Route Army. Of course, we rarely have the luxury to use artillery shells to hit bunkers. We more often

, relying entirely on manpower to break through the blockade of enemy machine gun fire, and use an explosive bag filled with explosives to blast the enemy's gun tower.

Even such explosive bags are hard-won. I know a college student from Beijing, and he and some people are responsible for making TNT by hand. Just a month before I wrote this letter

, he lost a hand in an accidental explosion. It was really an unfortunate thing, but just three days later, I saw him wearing a bandage again and happily starting to work again. He said to me

:'Only one hand? This is not a problem, because one hand is enough to defeat Japan!' They call this attitude the 'spirit of revolutionary optimism'. To be honest, life in Shandong is hard and dangerous.

, one of the reasons that attracts me to continue to stick here is probably that there is such a group of noble and pure good people here.

The Japanese dug a lot of isolation trenches on both sides of the road, and built turrets at regular intervals. During the day, we could hardly move. Even at night, crossing the isolation trenches was a dangerous thing, at least.

This was still the case last year. But in the second half of last year, the situation began to change.

In small-scale battles one after another, our troops continued to attack small groups of enemy troops. With the people on our side, we could almost always get accurate information about any move by the Japanese devils, which enabled us to always be able to

Concentrate superior forces to ambush those small groups of Japs, and when those Japs go out in large numbers and want to find a place, they will find that they can't find anything, neither us nor the common people. Most of them

Sometimes, they can only set fire to people's houses to vent their anger. This also makes the people hate them even more...

The Japanese army's shortage of troops is becoming more and more serious. Every time they concentrate their troops on a large scale for some kind of sweep, it will create a power vacuum in more areas, and we will have to squeeze through the gaps between the enemy's armies.

Go out, get into the enemy-controlled areas where the enemy's power has been drained, destroy the enemy's institutions, and eliminate the small enemy troops left behind. As a result, the Japanese devils discovered that every time they launched a "big sweep", the areas under our control would

Expand it a little bit. As a result, the later the Japanese devils came, the less they dared to carry out "mopping up". In the words of my Chinese friends, the Japanese devils were about to drown in the vast sea of ​​people's war.

In addition, thanks to the hard work of our great American troops - maybe I should pay tribute to our little Ron here - the Japanese devils have to continue to use experienced soldiers even though they are already short of troops.

Veterans were drawn out and sent to die in the Pacific. So by the end of the year, the level of the Japanese fighting with us was getting worse and worse, and we were able to continue to capture more and more prisoners. Many of these prisoners were

He is only a teenager and should be in middle school.

By this year, not only were the Japanese unable to carry out a 'mopping up' from time to time as before, they were also unable to even maintain the existing area. They had to voluntarily retreat from many strongholds and shrink to counties and limited areas.

The county seat and the outside of those supporting points completely became our world. By the second half of this year, the Japanese were actually in a situation where they were surrounded by us.

This also means that we have cut off the supply of materials to the Japanese. The Japanese who are nervous about their troops do not have the strength to maintain their transport team. The more troops they invest, they are worried that the stronghold will be overthrown by us, and they invest less troops.

The transport team itself will be eaten by us. What's even worse is that Japan's resources have long been exhausted and cannot provide enough supplies for the troops. They even expect those troops who have actually been surrounded by us to "fight to support the war"

', provide them with supplies. For example, the most important food.

However, it is not 1941 or 1942 anymore. Any short-sighted Japanese who dares to come out to steal the people's food will definitely have his head blown off in our ambush. The Japanese are also afraid of death and do not dare to come out to steal the food.

.And they already felt that they were about to be defeated, their will was obviously depressed, and their fighting enthusiasm was greatly reduced. Starting two months ago, there were even Japanese soldiers in the stronghold using their weapons to attack us.

In exchange for food. You know, even if we surrounded the Japanese in an ambush in the past, they would not surrender obediently when they were completely desperate. They would even take the initiative to destroy their weapons before dying. But now, they are extremely hungry.

The imprisoned Japanese soldiers no longer had the courage to come out to grab food, but chose to trade their weapons with us for food. It is said that they would report to the superiors: 'We destroyed ** guns during the Suzheng campaign.'

At first, the Japanese were only willing to exchange rifles with us, but recently, they were even willing to take out machine guns and grenade launchers. Recently, their superiors asked them to "collect" a batch of grain to provide it to the Kuomintang in the south.

, Well, that is, the army launched by the corrupt criminal group that I thought you mentioned before, or sent to the Pacific to the little Japan at war with us.

Little Japan in the stronghold contacted us through a traitor - a traitor who defected to the Japanese. They were all unscrupulous guys. When they saw that the Japanese were in trouble, they immediately came to fawn over us - and contacted us.

I hope that a batch of weapons can be exchanged for some food from us so that we can complete the mission of our superiors.

Of course we cannot agree to such a request. How can we allow the Japanese to eat well and then go to southern China to kill Chinese people or go to the Pacific to kill us Americans? So our guerrilla leader answered simply: '

Dreaming!' Then we kicked that traitor in the butt and kicked him out of our house. Once upon a time, this fat translator named Song was so arrogant, bullying the people everywhere, and often eating other people's watermelons.

I was not given money, and I was not given money to go to restaurants in the city. Now I am in fear like a lost dog all day long. This is really a relief.

In the afternoon, the traitor came again and brought a little Japanese. That guy was the leader of the little Japanese in the stronghold. He made a new suggestion: we give them food first, and they give us

A batch of weapons and the departure time, route, personnel ratio and other information of the food transport team sent from above, and then we can grab the food back halfway. The little devil thinks this is a good way to get the best of both worlds. Anyway, the food

It was delivered to the grain transport team, and their mission was successfully completed. As for the grain transport team not transporting the grain, it is none of their business. In fact, we did not pay anything.

In the absence of food, I got a batch of weapons for free, which was considered very satisfactory.

I was present when the Japanese made this suggestion through that traitor. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears at that time. Are these still those little Japanese people who talk about "die for the emperor" all day long? We hesitated

After thinking about it for a long time, I finally considered that the Japanese had no ability to deceive us. As long as we were willing, not even a fly could fly out of their stronghold. Beating the transport team was a big deal for us who were now armed with a full set of Japanese weapons.

, it’s already a piece of cake. By the way, we are no longer what we used to be. We rely on fighting the Japanese and traitors. Our weapons have all been replaced, and the original old equipment has been given to the militia. In addition to the lack of artillery,

Our equipment is already on par with the Japanese regular army.

Later, the Japanese were really trustworthy. With their full cooperation, our men, wearing authentic Japanese military uniforms provided by the Japanese, attacked the Japanese transport team, snatched back all the food, and easily killed more than ten people.

A Japanese soldier sent from above seized a dozen guns.

After that, we had more dealings with the Japanese. Sometimes, when they really had no weapons and wanted to exchange food from us, they even asked us if we could allow them to leave the blockhouse and go find some work nearby.

Well, later on, except for a few officers, the small group of Japs in the stronghold all worked as long-term workers in the houses of nearby landowners. One of them even accepted a small local landowner as his godfather.

.According to the people nearby, those little Japans are really good at growing crops. And the Japanese sometimes talk to the Chinese farmers about their hometown and their past as a people in half-baked Chinese.

Farmer, a hard but stable life...

Old Zhao, well, he is the political commissar of the guerrillas, similar to our military chaplain. The Southern Type 14 pistol—the Chinese call it the Bastard Box—was given to me by Old Zhao. He told me that this shows

Under the education of facts, the Japanese people have begun to slowly wake up from the deception of the Japanese warlords. Victory is not far away! This victory will not only be a victory for China, but also a victory for the United States, and even for the Japanese people.

Victory!..."

There is no doubt that this is a letter full of optimism. The dawn of victory can indeed be clearly seen in this letter.

"Ron, this letter is very interesting, isn't it?" Old Sean said, "Lucy and I are discussing whether we can send this letter to newspapers. I think many newspapers will be interested in this legendary story.

. This way we can have two legends in our family."

Ron knew that under the current conditions, there would definitely be newspapers willing to publish this letter. He also fully understood his father's pride in his son. However, it would not be long before the Soviet Union and Japan would change from allies to enemies of the Americans.

In the United States, hysterical McCarthyism will also arise, and by that time, yesterday's heroes may become objects of suspicion.

After hesitating for a moment, Ron said to Nadya, who had been craning her neck to read the letter with him: "Dear, go to your mother's place and have a look. She must be washing those dates. See if you can help her."

.”

Nadya stood up and said to old Sean: "Uncle, let me go over and see if I can help." Then she walked out with the gait of the goddesses that Virgil had seen back then.

After Nadya walked out, Ron stepped forward, got close to his father, and whispered: "Dad, well... you know... the war is about to be won... many times, when an enemy is defeated, the original

Comrades will become enemies... The guerrilla team that my second brother belongs to belongs to the TG team. In the future, this team may become an opponent of the United States like the Soviet Union. So..."
Chapter completed!