In China at this time, the combat proficiency of the 29th Army ranked among the toughest of any faction's forces. At the very least, they boasted a track record of clashing blade to blade and gun to gun with the Devils, coupled with a determined drive to press forward and a spirit unafraid of sacrifice.
...
A handful of soldiers crept up to the side of a peasant dwelling, clinging to the wall as they edged toward the village entrance step by step. The machine gunners at the entrance had naturally spotted someone slipping closer and pointed frantically to both flanks. Yet pinned under Zhu Shiqing's covering fire, poking their heads out to eliminate the danger on either side proved daunting.
The terrain advantage of cold-weapon warfare—where one man could hold the pass against ten thousand—did not always hold true on a modern battlefield.
*Rumble!*
A detonation tore through the air, sending the puppet troops at the village entrance sprawling in disarray. All three machine guns were knocked out in an instant, and the surviving puppets, terrified by the sea of blue uniforms pressing down on them, scrambled into a hasty retreat.
"Sound the charge!"
Before Zhu Shiqing could finish the order to his bugler, Sun Yi's charge bugle blared behind them. Zhu Shiqing paused for a beat, then shouted, "Never mind! Charge!"
With that, Sun's regiment successfully breached Lijiatun. Sun Yi immediately ordered three companies to fan out in three directions from the village entrance, forming a semicircular perimeter, while directing the 2nd Company to escort the demolition squad straight to the granary.
Having just stepped past the village entrance, Zhu Shiqing cast his eyes around. Lijiatun was truly shaped like a gourd—or more precisely, half a gourd—with a narrow neck widening into a broad bowl, opening immediately into clear ground.
Sun Yi busied himself finding cover for his men, putting every house, every broken brick, and every shattered tile near the entrance to use, scattering hundreds of soldiers like thrown beans across the area.
The granary was not hard to spot. Right in the heart of Lijiatun stood a structure that clearly did not belong here: amid clusters of low brick-and-tile dwellings rose an iron-clad mill.
"That's it!"
Fang Wenjian locked onto the granary at first glance and glanced back at the soldiers behind him. Their faces were taut, yet radiating murderous resolve.
Under his sweeping gaze, the expressions of these young soldiers tasked with a suicide mission were an indistinguishable blend of fierce determination and quiet sorrow. Yet from their whispered words before the battle, everyone had already known that their chances of surviving this run were slim at best.
In that brief span, the puppet troops at both the western and eastern ends of the village regrouped, trading fire with Sun's forward troops. The gunfire that had momentarily thinned now intensified once more.
"Staff Officer Zhu, the regimental commander ordered me to report to you!"
The company commander of the 1st Battalion's 2nd Company hurried up from the village entrance at the head of his men. Zhu Shiqing assumed command at once, grabbed the young captain, and pointed toward the iron structure ahead.
"You're right on time. Your Second Company will fight its way down this main road. Remember: make plenty of noise, hurl lots of grenades, and do not make a head-on assault."
The company commander took his orders and departed, leading his unit south on the attack. Once the orders were given, Zhu Shiqing turned back to find Fang Wenjian and his men fully prepared.
"Shiqing, I'm cutting through the alley on the right."
Amid the chaotic environment, Fang Wenjian had spotted a side lane. In the current pandemonium, the puppet troops had no way to form an organized defense line, making an advance down the side path an excellent way to bypass the main front.
"Go," Zhu Shiqing said with a solemn nod. Still uneasy, he added, "Once the mission is done, pull back along the same route. Under no circumstances get bogged down fighting!"
Fang Wenjian offered a helpless look and weighed his ammunition pouch, the cartridges clattering softly inside. His gesture said it all: *With just these few rounds, how could I get bogged down?*
Zhu Shiqing was in no mood to trade quips. Seeing him off, he immediately threw himself into the frontal assault to support the 2nd Company's advance.
The village road leading to the granary was one of only two main thoroughfares in the settlement. Although the puppet troops had not established a dedicated defense line along it, the buildings flanking both sides gave them ample room to contest every foot of ground, bogging down the 2nd Company's progress.
"Staff Officer Zhu, we can't push through like this!" The company commander was even more anxious than Zhu Shiqing. By now, Sun's regiment was engaged across the board against the puppet troops in Lijiatun, the chain of command was completely tangled, and mustering reinforcements was out of the question.
Compared to the company commander, Zhu Shiqing remained somewhat calmer. "We only need to pin the enemy from the front. Just keep your sights on their firing positions. Once Wenjian and his squad reach the granary, the puppets on the main line will have to pull men back to reinforce it."
"Understood! The moment their fire slackens, we charge!" Grasping the intent, the company commander directed the entire company to keep firing.
If the clash at Guozhuang had been Zhu Shiqing's first real combat, Lijiatun could be considered his first battle commanding as a staff officer.
Yet there was one truth Zhu Shiqing could not deny: commanding was damned hard.
Even after being nurtured by instructors who were foreign-educated elites or academy-trained professionals, Zhu Shiqing, faced with his first formal command, finally saw the gulf between real combat and textbook theory. An actual battlefield was far from fighting wars on paper.
Right now, Sun's regiment was locked in bitter struggle along the entire line. There was no real command to speak of, much less tactical concepts. Thrust into actual combat, all Zhu Shiqing saw were heads ducked behind cover, rifles firing blindly into the sky, grenades yanked and thrown wide of their targets, and... an army with dreadfully meager ammunition reserves.
At this moment, Zhu Shiqing felt a pang of self-reproach. Even if they won this battle according to the pre-combat plan, it would likely be a pyrrhic victory. Taking a squad to knock out a bunker was easy; eliminating a machine gun was easy; pulling off an ambush was easy. But commanding a regiment required genuine mastery.
The battle had already raged for half an hour.
At Zhangwan, the puppet troops had been taking a beating under siege for quite some time without receiving any reinforcements from Lijiatun. Seeing the situation turn grim, the defending puppet battalion commander broke out to the south with a platoon, abandoning Zhangwan without looking back.
The blocking detachment and the relieving forces had also clashed as scheduled, locked in a brutal seesaw battle where both sides took casualties, still fighting desperately.
Through unrelenting effort, the 2nd Company finally advanced five hundred meters, halfway to the granary. Fang Wenjian, however, was making exceptionally smooth progress. Like a sharp blade weaving through the alleys of Lijiatun, his squad shot down every puppet soldier who stumbled blindly into their path.
"There's the granary ahead!"
Through the light at the far end of the alley, Fang Wenjian could already make out the black corrugated iron. On the main thoroughfare to his left, both sides were still trading heavy fire. At this moment, Fang Wenjian had only one thought: *The chance is here!*
"Charge!"
Fang Wenjian led his squad bursting out from the mouth of the alley, ignoring the puppet troops on the defensive line to the left and plunging straight toward the iron structure. At the same time, he barked, "Zhuzi, Shuanzi, watch our rear! Don't let them fall back!"
"Yes, sir!"
Whether Fang Wenjian simply trusted these two men most or had only remembered their names in the heat of the moment, Zhuzi and Shuanzi turned about after the demolition squad plunged through the iron gate, setting up to block any puppet troops who realized the granary was being infiltrated.
Fang Wenjian dashed past the iron gate and was just about to turn right to locate the entrance to the granary when he suddenly spotted several yellow uniforms. A burst of oncoming fire gave him a jolt of panic, the bullets clanging sharply against the iron bars.
"Take cover! Take cover! Grenades!"
Fang Wenjian pressed flat against the side of the gate, knowing full well Zhuzi and Shuanzi could not hold out for long. It had to be the old tactic: lead with grenades to establish deterrence first, whether they hit anyone or not.
Two soldiers behind him pulled the pins on their grenades, timed their throws, and hurled them toward the muzzle flashes.
With a resounding crash, Fang Wenjian charged out at the head of his team, rushing forward amid the blast. After a few rifle shots, the enemies collapsed amid the swirling smoke.
Moving in for a closer look, Fang Wenjian's vision went dark with shock. The five bastards lying on the ground were wearing steel helmets and clutching Type 38 rifles!
*Why the hell are there Devils here?!* Fang Wenjian cursed inwardly, just as a soldier behind him chimed in, "The corps commander ordered that we can't kill Japanese..."
"They might not be Japanese; could be impostors," Fang Wenjian muttered to himself. He leaned down and yanked down the trousers of one of the corpses, exposing a snow-white loincloth resembling a diaper.
Now they were in for it. They truly were Japanese. But the men were already lying in pools of blood—was he supposed to bring them back to life?
"Never mind that! Blow up the granary first!" Fang Wenjian could not afford to care about that now. He ordered the men to untie the incendiary bottles strapped to the cloth bags at their waists. "Light 'em up!"
As the others struck lights, Fang Wenjian rushed to the granary entrance. A sliding bolt lock hung across the doors; Fang Wenjian drew his pistol, shot it off, and gave the bolt a violent pull. The iron door screeched as it slowly slid open.
"Throw! Throw them against the walls!"
Seven or eight incendiary bottles traced graceful arcs through the air, crashing heavily against the interior walls of the iron structure. Explosions and fire erupted simultaneously, and flaming kerosene spread rapidly, sweeping across the entire granary.
"It's done!"
Fang Wenjian's furrowed brow smoothed out, and he turned to head back out through the gate.
Yet the puppet troops confronting the 2nd Company knew only too well how vital the granary was. They broke off from the frontal engagement and rushed back.
Outside the gate, Shuanzi took a bullet to the head, collapsing dead on the spot.
Zhuzi had also been riddled with rounds, falling to the ground unable to move his mangled body. Only his eyes stared wide and unblinking, his right hand gripping the grenade fuse at his waist as retreating puppet soldiers leaped over his head.
A hail of bullets swept across the flank of the gate, sparking violently off the metal. The two soldiers leading the way collapsed where they stood.
Seeing this, Fang Wenjian hastily pulled his men back inside, cursing, "Sons of bitches! Get back in here, all of you! Shut the gate! We're not leaving—we're holding out right here until the whole damn thing burns to the ground!"
The gate slowly clanged shut. Accompanied by a rumble, the puppets' frontal defense line collapsed entirely. Spotting the distant blaze, Zhu Shiqing immediately ordered a full assault, determined to rescue the demolition squad at any cost.
The men of the 2nd Company slung their rifles, drew the red-tasseled broadswords from their backs, and charged forward in the full fighting spirit of the Broadsword Troop. They slashed through anyone in their path and pummeled every puppet soldier they caught; even those who knelt on the spot to surrender were decapitated by Zhu Shiqing's blade.
The main road was cleared at last. Zhu Shiqing successfully took control of the gate, which was now scalding hot from the inferno inside the iron mill. He had to kick it open, and the first thing he saw was Fang Wenjian and his men, flushed with heat and streaked with charcoal ash.
"Shiqing."
Zhu Shiqing was about to lead the group away when Fang Wenjian pointed to the corpses on the ground. "We accidentally killed a few Devils."
Zhu Shiqing froze for a second, glanced sidelong, and caught sight of the white loincloths. Damn it all, they really were Devils!
"Burn the bodies! Burn them!"
Zhu Shiqing's mind raced. In this predicament, destroying the evidence was his only option. "Burn them and pull out!"
Before departing, the five Devils were tossed into the granary, where, along with the full store of grain, they turned into a wisp of smoke.
Chapter 38