Within a mere matter of tens of minutes, the two ends of the telephone wire connected two men in entirely different emotional states: Sun Yi, freshly riding high on victory, and Gu Chuanning, commander of the 2nd Company, who was facing a crisis with fire singeing his eyebrows.
This was hardly the first time the Japanese had attempted to force the checkpoint. For some time now, they had been manufacturing every possible pretext to cross the boundary—ranging from "wishing to proceed to Tianjin without taking a detour and requesting passage," to "a visiting dignitary needs to cross through the station to be received, requesting our cooperation," all the way to the unprovoked gunfire ringing out at this very moment.
Their incessant provocations finally ignited everyone at the headquarters of the 219th Regiment today. Regimental Commander Sun Yi paced back and forth before seemingly reaching a resolve. Snatching the receiver from Zhu Shiqing’s hand, he roared into the phone, "Not a single step back!"
The 3rd Battalion commander, having been sent on two wild-goose chases during the puppet troop incident, had just returned bristling with resentment. About to vent his frustrations, he caught snatches of talk about the Japanese attempting to force the checkpoint. Drenched in sweat from all the running and thoroughly incensed, he promptly called back the troops he had only just dismissed.
"Fucking Japanese bastards! Third Battalion, fall in! Form up! Objective: Fengtai Station! Today, we're definitely going to kill a few of those little devils!"
After hanging up, Sun Yi grabbed the Mauser pistol he had just set on the desk. The moment he stepped out of regimental headquarters, the entire 3rd Battalion was already prepared to move out.
"Battalion Commander!" Sun Yi bellowed, pouring all his pent-up fury into the command, his voice booming across the courtyard.
"Present!"
"Reinforce Fengtai Station immediately!"
"Yes, sir!"
Zhu Shiqing kept pace beside Sun Yi on the forced march toward Fengtai. Since the 2nd Company was already garrisoned at the station, the 3rd Battalion troops heading to reinforce them consisted of only two companies. Aside from the guard platoon directly attached to regimental headquarters that remained behind on defensive duty, the 219th Regiment had virtually turned out in full force.
Fengtai Station was shrouded in an eerie tension. The opposing sides, already on a hair-trigger, had now massed every officer and soldier they could muster. Dark gun muzzles were leveled at one another, though their safeties remained engaged.
A Japanese platoon leader stood at the northern end of the platform, brandishing a curved saber and bellowing curses as he demanded that the Chinese troops at the southern end grant passage.
Company Commander Gu Chuanning stood personally at the very front of the Chinese formation. With a grim expression, he stared fixedly at the Japanese platoon leader, the Broomhandle Mauser in his hand aimed squarely at the man’s head.
The unique administrative status of Fengtai Station meant neither China nor Japan could utilize this section of track for military or logistical transport. The four parallel sets of tracks resembled a chasm, clearly demarcating the boundary between China and Japan in North China.
The standoff was physically exhausting. After staring for so long, the soldiers on both sides felt their eyes growing sore. The midday sun beat straight down onto their caps, and they glared at one another with stern, sun-darkened faces.
In the deadlock, the Japanese had no intention of giving Gu Chuanning more time to deliberate over whether to yield passage. With a wave of his hand, the platoon leader led a squad of Japanese soldiers leaping down from the half-meter-high platform. Crossing onto the railway tracks, they lunged forward several paces, poised to clamber up onto the southern platform the very next second.
Gu Chuanning's forehead and back were soaked in sweat. His taut nerves made it almost difficult to breathe. Faced with this unprovoked Japanese aggression, there was no way he could give the order to open fire. Watching the Japanese trespass toward the platform, they seemed like a swarming horde of yellow-clad zombies.
Sun Yi’s order had been unequivocal: do not yield a single step.
Gu Chuanning drew a deep breath, strode to the platform edge, and slammed his black leather combat boot down onto the shoulder of a Japanese soldier who was scrambling up. The man cried out in pain, lost his balance, and tumbled backward onto the rails. Had his backpack not cushioned the impact, his spine might well have snapped right then and there.
"Brothers, drive them off!"
His gaze hardening with resolve, Gu Chuanning finally gave the command to expel them. Enraged, the Japanese platoon leader’s face contorted. Brandishing his sword, he personally leaped down from the northern platform, shouting unintelligibly for his men not to retreat.
The Japanese rifles had gleaming bayonets fixed to their muzzles, which they thrust straight at the legs of the soldiers on the platform, quickly slashing the calves of several men.
Faced with the flashing bayonets, the soldiers of the 2nd Company began to give ground. The first Japanese soldier vaulted onto the platform, followed by a second... and then a third...
Seeing the situation spiraling out of control, Gu Chuanning ordered hand-to-hand combat. Darting forward with a ferocious lunge, he body-slammed two Japanese soldiers off the platform. The other soldiers followed his lead, relying on sheer physical force to shove the encroaching Japanese back down.
In the back-and-forth struggle, the game of brinkmanship between Gu Chuanning and the Japanese commander grew ever more intense.
The Japanese had drawn bladed weapons, but Gu Chuanning still forbade his men from actually wounding them with edged blades to avoid giving the enemy an excuse to escalate. Yet the Japanese provocations grew more blatant by the second. If they intensified their push along the entire line, the southern platform would not hold.
"Old Gu!"
Just as Gu was at his wit's end, Sun Yi's voice rang out from the side entrance as the rest of the 3rd Battalion arrived in formation.
Fang Wenjian, the swiftest of them all, charged in and sent a Japanese soldier flying off the platform with a flying kick, then planted himself firmly at the platform edge, startling the nearby Japanese soldiers into an immediate halt.
"Surround them! Surround them!" Sun Yi waved his arms. Over a hundred soldiers fanned out instantly, snapping their rifles up to aim at every Japanese soldier. Silence fell over the scene, and the grappling sides slowly broke apart.
The Japanese commander did not temper his arrogance despite the overwhelming numbers against him. He gabbled on for a long time, his speech unintelligible, though it was certainly a stream of curses.
"What the hell is this bastard babbling about?" Holding his Broomhandle Mauser in his right hand, Sun Yi scratched his head in exasperation. "Get the hell out of here! Crawl back to your side, or don't blame me if I feed you a belly full of lead!"
Zhu Shiqing stood just behind Sun Yi, beside Gu Chuanning. Taking in the entire spectacle, he could not help but reflect on Ming Quan's briefing about the situation in the Beiping-Tianjin area before his departure.
His assignment to the 29th Army had come about precisely because the frequency of Japanese provocations across numerous locations had spiked sharply, taking on the clear contours of a methodical, organized operational plan. With the Mukden Incident of September 18 as a precedent, the Chinese side was hyper-sensitive to every move.
The ultimate objective hidden behind these frequent provocations was war. The puppet troops moving north and the Japanese deliberately stirring up trouble were separate actions that each surely corresponded to specific military preparations. Yet based on the intelligence currently available, Zhu Shiqing still found it difficult to deduce the exact nature of their operation.
At Fengtai Station, the situation lapsed into another stalemate. A roly-poly Japanese interpreter wearing round-rimmed glasses casually hopped down from the northern platform. Zhu Shiqing looked closely and marvelled to himself: how did this fellow manage to look like the spitting image of that bastard county magistrate back in Jiangning County?
The Japanese commander muttered a few brief words to the fat interpreter, who nodded repeatedly before shouting a loud "Hai!" to curry favor, his face beaming with a grin as though he had just wed a maiden under eighteen.
The fat interpreter turned around, stepped forward, and looked up at the combat-ready troops of the 29th Army. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by what Zhu Shiqing recognized as contempt and defiance—and above all, the smug complacency of a dog boasting of its master's might.
"Listen up, men of the 29th Army!" he shouted. "The commander says the Imperial Army is not deliberately forcing the checkpoint! Gunfire was heard to the south, and a group of Japanese expatriates has recently been touring north of Tianjin. Fearing for our citizens' safety, we merely wish to dispatch personnel across to investigate!"
The fat interpreter delivered his speech with vivid theatricality, his voice brimming with righteous indignation. Every Chinese soldier present who possessed a shred of conscience wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through him.
Chapter 33