Beiyuan City, in the southern outskirts, within the Tang Army’s defensive position, a child was guzzling water into his mouth from a canteen.
He drank his fill with relish, then grabbed the bun in front of him and stuffed it into his mouth. For him, this might have been the best-tasting thing in the world.
After swallowing two buns, he reached for the third, but a large hand held him back. A squad leader carrying a Thompson submachine gun stopped the boy’s action and said, "Come back and eat after you finish the task."
"I’m afraid I won’t come back," the boy said honestly, expressing what was on his mind with a hint of pleading in his eyes.
"You’ve been starving for so long, you can’t eat up! You can only eat this much! Otherwise, you’ll be bloated to death in a while," another old soldier, with a cigarette in his mouth, warned the boy.
The boy shook his head, a very mature look on his face: "I would rather be bloated to death now than continue to starve. You haven’t starved before, that feeling..."
He hadn’t finished his sentence when the old soldier with the cigarette hit him on the head: "Damn, I’ve only been full for a few days, and you say I’ve never starved? Listen to me, don’t eat anymore! You can hold it, but you can’t keep eating."
"Can I take as much as I want?" Hearing the old soldier’s words, the boy didn’t care about the hit he had just taken and immediately asked excitedly.
"Right, you can hold it, but you definitely can’t go on eating." The squad leader nodded in agreement after looking at the medic in the platoon, who was about thirty-five years old and had a cigarette in his mouth.
The boy immediately began stuffing buns into his pockets, not caring if they were dirty; he just kept pushing them in, one after another, as if his pocket was Doraemon’s magic pouch.
The children in Beiyuan City nearly all had such a pocket sewn from old cloth on their chests, convenient for scrounging for some food in the ruins.
Soon, the boy had stuffed his only front pocket full; he had taken about seven or eight buns, his stomach bulging comically.
In reality, his limbs were thin and weak; long-term malnutrition had given him a somewhat strange appearance. Compared to a human being, he now looked more like a goblin who couldn’t get enough food.
"Let’s go!" Seeing that the guide he had found was finally full and had taken enough, the leading squad leader issued the command to depart: "Lead the way and avoid those people from the mirage country."
"Okay!" The boy nodded and then moved forward, walking quickly as if his feet weren’t afraid of stones in the mud or sharp shrapnel.
"Damn, he looks just as poor as I did!" Following behind the boy, a soldier murmured unhappily, seeing his former self in this child’s silhouette.
In those days, that’s how everyone survived; before becoming Tang people, they might never have owned a pair of shoes in their lives.
When the Tang Army came over, they really had a full meal for the first time, and then they all found out that they didn’t have to worry about food anymore.
So when the Tang Army called up soldiers to defend this country that had been established for just over three years, they picked up weapons without hesitation and became Tang Army soldiers!
No joke, he now had shoes, pants, a tactical vest, and a raincoat, making him feel more and more like a person.
"Stop talking, we’re all the same," the squad leader with the Thompson submachine gun, walking behind him, remembered his own childhood as well.
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Back then, everyone was poor, poor people all looked a mess, so everyone thought that’s just how life was. But now they all knew, there was another way to live in this world, something called dignity.
Stepping over pieces of broken bricks, and without anyone knowing, these Tang Army soldiers made their way to the vicinity of Beiyuan City’s city walls.
This area had been bombed into a large collapse, and the sides appeared to be cleared and repaired, but for some reason, the work was paused later.
The sight was unbearable, the outside of the city walls piled high with a heap of corpses, all civilians from inside the city, the ones at the bottom already half-rotted, while the bodies on top were still quite fresh.
The little boy stopped where he was about to expose himself, then turned around and made a shushing gesture.
Quickly, he peered out and made a strange gesture toward that side. Then, from the corner over there, a hand extended, gesturing for them to come quickly.
"Follow me! Three at a time! They will be back soon!" the boy turned back, lowered his voice, and said a word, then ran forward, clutching the pocket on his chest.
The squad leader, with two soldiers alongside, hurried up, and the four of them ran to the other side and hid behind that wall, panting heavily.
"Look up there!" the little boy pointed at the top of the wall, signaling the squad leader to check the situation on the city wall. The squad leader poked his head out and quickly saw several Shen Country soldiers patrolling the edge of the destroyed wall before they looked down and then left.
"Why don’t they set up a defense line below?" The squad leader didn’t quite understand the arrangement of the Shen Country people and asked worriedly.
"Because it’s not safe! You guys often bombard the walls, so they dare not stay on the walls, nor near the walls," the boy answered with experience.
As the few Shen Country patrol soldiers walked away from the wall, the squad leader extended his hand, gesturing a ’5’ with his palm.
The next second, the assistant gunner carrying the machine gun ammunition led the way, followed by the gunner with a 42 machine gun and three other soldiers, all of whom charged over together.
In this manner, a platoon of more than 40 people quickly infiltrated the interior of the city wall. They had their own missions, so they quickly dispersed after a brief coordination.
The remaining men were responsible for setting up a defensive line before the general assault to cover the flanking machine gun positions. The squad leader, following the little boy and his friends, moved forward along the ruins, as if traversing mountains and valleys.
This was near the city wall, where buildings had been collapsed by the explosions from bombarding the wall. It was possible that some shells, influenced by the wind or other factors, could deviate from their target and land near these civilian structures.
Moreover, seemingly to prevent Tang Army tanks and assault guns from entering the city, the Shen Country military had also deliberately destroyed these buildings, allowing the debris to serve as anti-tank obstacles.
Actually, in urban warfare, attacking forces are not very willing to destroy buildings because the resulting rubble can block streets and prevent heavy weapons from providing cover for advancing infantry.
So, scenes of tanks or heavy artillery fiercely bombarding buildings are actually not common, and the effectiveness in real combat is average at best; it’s just satisfying to watch.
Only if the attacking forces encounter exceptionally robust buildings transformed into fortresses that they can’t breach after a long time, will they resort to heavy weapons to destroy the buildings and dislodge the defending troops.
On the other hand, defending forces are more inclined to blow up buildings during their retreat to halt the enemy’s advance.
Stepping on the wooden frames and collapsed walls, the Tang Army squad leader, not far behind the little boy, saw him pull a bun with black handprints on it from his pocket and hand it to a companion who had been waiting at the gap in the wall all the time.
They were two frail little girls, both short and thin, their legs so skinny that their knees seemed swollen.
Following the three boys, they soon arrived at a ruined courtyard. The group had entered through a gap in the rubble, discovering only afterward that it was a well-concealed spot.
Rubble and debris surrounded the courtyard on all sides, making it easy to overlook such a relatively intact space without a thorough search.
In the yard, there were a few adults and many more children, most of whom, it seemed, had lost their families.
Since it was impossible to hide many people here, it was likely that many had left their children and parted in pain.
The boy shared his bun with his mother, and then the disheveled woman held the dirty-looking bun in her hands and silently wept.
"Can you lead these people out of here? Go back the way we came, to our position," the squad leader asked the guiding boy with reluctance, concerned for their safety: "This place is going to be a battlefield soon, and it will be very unsafe for you."
"Sir, they are always looking for us, always trying to kill us... We’ve never been safe," the boy replied as he tore a bun in half and handed it to two children at least three years his junior, fighting back tears.
To them, this place was hell. Had they not observed for days and found this route out of the city, they would not have met these soldiers from Tang Country.
"Take them out of here! Trust me, once you get to our position, you’ll be truly safe," the squad leader repeated, looking over the courtyard of the weak and infirm.
"This is our home, and I’m not going anywhere!" the boy stubbornly responded: "I promised my father I’d stay here and wait for him to return..." The child shook his head with unwavering resolve.
The squad leader reached out and, ruffling through the boy’s hair laced with fleas and twigs, said nothing more.
"Set up the position over there! Protect this courtyard," he instructed, pointing to a half-collapsed two-story building in the distance, addressing the machine gunner: "This spot is great, an excellent place to engage the enemy!"
The soldiers went to their respective positions in turn as planned: machine guns were placed high, snipers found concealed spots for themselves, and in the end, only the squad leader was left, crouched on the ground, smoking and gazing absently at the people in the courtyard.
He knew that this place would soon become a battlefield. If the Shen Country military did not want to lose the nearby districts too quickly, a counterattack was inevitable. Then they would discover the Tang Army troops already infiltrated, and a fierce battle would ensue...