my bright sword career

Chapter 713 Hope
The arrival of Sonoda Kensaku also gave the prisoners a glimmer of hope of survival, and the facts were indeed as they expected. The next day, they came to a small town.

This is a small town with a permanent population of more than 2000 people. Most of the people living here are the lowest-level people in Myanmar. After the Japanese army arrived, they drove all the people out and lived in it grandly.

But strictly speaking, it is not so much a house as it is a simple shed. After all the Japanese soldiers lived in, some of the sheds were vacant, so the prisoners of war were also fortunate to be allocated some houses.

The prisoners who did not find a place in the shed were gathered in a large open space outside, and Qi Xueqi, the highest-ranked prisoner, and Colonel Royce, the highest-ranked prisoner in Britain and the United States, were also fortunate to live in the shed. Qi Xueqi spent the night in the house for the first time since he set off a few days ago.

The air of the shabby hut is filled with the smell of sour sweat and strong urine smell. This kind of simple hut made of wooden boards and wicker, which looks like a stuffy tank, may only be suitable for living here. The hut is full of The pungent smell of urine and feces is obviously left by the Burmese who lived here before.

The stench that filled the air, the desperate groans of the dying wounded, and the groans of the captives, weakened and immobilized by the long journey, were unbearable.

In order to prevent his mental breakdown, Colonel Royce had no choice but to stuff the corner of his clothes into his ears and lie quietly in the corner of the shed to rest. Who knows how far he will go tomorrow?
But the conditions here are really bad. The smell of sweat, urine and feces in the shed was so disgusting that he almost suffocated.

"I hope that the new Japanese major will keep his word. If this continues, there are not many people here who can reach the destination alive." Thinking silently in his heart, Royce is in this stinky shed fell asleep...

Obviously, God seems to have heard Royce's prayer.

The next morning, the captives actually heard a news that surprised them. They were going to rest here for three days so that they could go on their way better.

At noon, a convoy of more than 100 people came, accompanied by dozens of doctors and nurses, who also treated the wounded.

Not only that, each captive also received an enamel lunch box very unexpectedly, and got half a box of batter soup that was probably made from biscuits and vegetable leaves.

When the prisoners of war drank the hot salty noodle soup, everyone was immersed in the excitement of having a hot meal for the first time in more than ten days, especially when the hot noodle soup entered the stomach, the long-lost warmth The feeling of rekindling the hope of survival for most prisoners of war.

late at night

In an invisible corner, an officer wearing the rank of lieutenant was quietly reporting to an officer.

"Your Excellency Ihara, after eating two hot meals, and after doctors and nurses inspected and treated the wounded, the prisoners of war have begun to calm down. I believe that in two or three days, their physical conditions will improve. improved to some extent.”

"The time is still too short. It would be great if we could give them another half a month to recuperate."

The lieutenant shook his head: "It's impossible. Major Kuribayashi Tatsuyuki couldn't agree. Giving three days is already the biggest concession he's ever made."

"Yeah, but three days is three days. I believe that with these three days, all our preparations have been completed."

After that, he patted the lieutenant on the shoulder, "Tell our people, do a good job. As long as you complete this task, everyone can get a reward of one hundred dollars, and you as a lieutenant can get three hundred dollars.

If you add the bounty issued by Your Excellency General in the past two years, it will be enough for you to go back to the countryside and buy more than ten acres of paddy fields after the war, and become a farmer. "

When he said this, the dark clouds in the sky were blown aside by the strong wind, revealing the figure of the moon, and a ray of moonlight just shone on him. This person was Kensaku Sonoda who joined the escort team halfway.

But instead of calling him Kensaku Sonoda, it is more appropriate to call him Heihachi Ihara.

As a team composed entirely of Japanese created by Gao Hongming himself, the size of the Japanese National Defense Army has reached thousands of people at this time, which is the size of a brigade.

As the commander of the National Defense Army, the status of Ihara Heihachi has also risen accordingly.

Power is like the sweetest poison, once you taste it, it's hard to put it down.

In just two years, Ihara Heihachi went from being a senior soldier who was pushed out by his superiors to a major who was in charge of thousands of lives. This was already a rocket-like promotion.

And he is also very clear about who gave him his rights. The fate of both him and the National Defense Army is firmly tied to Gao Hongming. If you want to say that the person who most hopes to be promoted step by step, Ihara Heihachi will definitely be in the top three.

But this time, the task Gao Hongming assigned to Ihara Heihachi was to rescue the prisoners of war in the Mandalay prisoner-of-war camp.

A group of staff members who rescued the staff of the expeditionary army also conducted special research and deduction.

Now, all the large units of the expeditionary force are fighting fiercely with the 55th and 56th divisions of the Japanese army, and it is impossible to mobilize too many troops to participate in the rescue of prisoners of war.

And once the Japanese army is alarmed, it is very likely that the Japanese army will jump over the wall in a hurry and attack the prisoners of war first.

After intense consultations, the staff members agreed that according to the photos, the prisoners in the prisoner-of-war camp were basically severely malnourished, and it was basically impossible to escape to the area controlled by the Chinese army with such physical conditions.

To complete the task, the prisoners of war must be fed and refreshed, so that the prisoners of war can have enough physical strength to escape from the Japanese-controlled area.

The first person to propose this plan was a small staff officer. When he told the plan, everyone was amused. The Japanese were not crazy, so how could it be possible to supplement nutrition for the captives.

But there was one person who noticed it, and that person was Gao Hongming.

Others thought it was impossible, but Gao Hongming didn't think so, because he happened to have a special force capable of carrying out this kind of mission.

So... the Japanese National Defense Army, which has been idle for a long time, came out.

Ihara Heihachi, under the pseudonym Sonoda Kensaku, pretended to be the Kurume Regiment of the [-]th Division and infiltrated the garrison brigade guarding the prisoners of war. On the pretext that Shan State needed a lot of labor to build railways and roads, he forced Kuribayashi Kishiryu to agree to rest for three days. conditions of.

During these three days, although Ihara Heihachi could not obviously feed the prisoners of war too good food, it was still possible to provide some hot soup made from compressed biscuits and dehydrated vegetables.

(End of this chapter)