Guarding the village entrance, Sun Yi also caught sight of the soaring flames. The breath he had been holding in his chest finally broke free. Unable to restrain a furious roar, he grabbed a broadsword and led his men straight into hand-to-hand combat against the puppet troops.
Taking potshots from a distance was one thing, but swinging blades in a life-and-death, one-on-one melee was not something the puppet soldiers were willing to do.
Once the defense line along the main thoroughfare collapsed, Lijiatun dissolved completely into a free-for-all. Zhu Shiqing led his men out of the granary, made his way to the village entrance, and assembled the troops to prepare for the return march.
With that, the Battle of Lijiatun came to a close.
The smoothest engagement had undoubtedly belonged to Xia Qidong's battalion in their assault on Zhangwan. At the cost of fewer than a hundred casualties, they had soundly defeated a full-strength puppet battalion and seized a vast cache of grain, fodder, and military equipment stockpiled there. On the march back to Zhaojiazhuang, their column moved the slowest of all.
When other units offered to help carry some of the load, Xia Qidong would have none of it.
The company sent to intercept enemy reinforcements had not gotten off lightly, losing nearly a third of its hundred-odd men. Had the fire in Lijiatun not erupted, convincing the cornered puppet forces that they had nowhere left to advance or retreat, they would not have broken and scattered in all directions.
The grimmest toll had fallen upon Xiang Chengyu's battalion in the frontal assault on Lijiatun. Nearly half the battalion were casualties, two platoon commanders were severely wounded, the young company commander who had advanced alongside Zhu Shiqing was lightly wounded, and their ammunition was almost entirely spent.
"Damn it all, this time the division commander has to make it up to me!"
On the trek back, Sun Yi's initial euphoria had faded by half. All he felt now was heartache for his soldiers, weapons, equipment, and junior officers. "Damn it, a massive granary belonging to those traitors, and they just ordered me to wipe it out like that! Does he think raising troops is easy for me?!"
"Regimental Commander, I share the blame. My deployment this time wasn't thorough enough," Zhu Shiqing stammered, looking troubled.
Sun Yi cut his eyes at Zhu Shiqing and snapped, "Get out of here with that. What does this have to do with you? If you hadn't drawn up the plan, I might not even have burned down that grain."
Yet deep down, Zhu Shiqing knew there had indeed been miscalculations in the disposition of forces. Committing an entire battalion to Zhangwan had likely been excessive, while the resistance at Lijiatun had been somewhat underestimated... Still, that was the nature of the battlefield: conditions changed in an instant.
Pre-battle planning and on-the-spot command were two entirely different matters.
On-the-spot command demanded efficient leadership, swift communications, tight mobilization, and coordination across many fronts. Regardless, real combat forged rapid growth.
"Regimental Commander, there's one more thing," Zhu Shiqing added.
"What is it?"
"We killed a few Devils inside the granary," Zhu Shiqing said, lowering his voice.
"Wait, what's the big deal about killing a few Devils?" Sun Yi blurted out, drawing the stares of the surrounding soldiers. But then realization struck him, and he hurriedly pressed, "Wait... you really killed actual Devils?"
"I checked. No mistake about it."
Sun Yi sucked in a sharp breath and muttered, "Damn. By the time we get back to Zhaojiazhuang, the division and brigade commanders might already be waiting for us."
Then again, if Japanese troops were truly stationed at the granary, eliminating them was inevitable if they wanted to take it down. What else were they supposed to do—set the fire right in front of their faces?
"Forget it. Division headquarters gave the order anyway, and we were only carrying it out," Sun Yi sighed. "All told, my regiment took nearly a battalion's worth of casualties, and nobody's shedding a tear for me. A few dead Devils are just dead Devils. We'll pretend we don't know a thing."
News of the great victory at Lijiatun soon reached the three major factions in North China.
On the Chinese side, Feng Zhian was the first to receive word. Before sunset that afternoon, scouts rushed into division headquarters in a flurry to report that flames were soaring over Lijiatun, indicating Sun's regiment had succeeded.
"Good, good, good! Sun Yi hasn't lost any of his old fire!" Beaming from ear to ear, Feng Zhian chuckled to his chief of staff. "I only gave him the order yesterday, and he's already taken it down today. Just watch—he'll definitely come demanding supplies from me before long."
The chief of staff smiled in agreement. "Old Sun has earned the right to ask. He's the one doing all the dirty, grueling work. When you send men into the fight, you've got to keep them supplied."
Even as they spoke, the telephone rang.
The chief of staff answered it. No sooner had he pressed the receiver to his ear than a torrent of abuse erupted from the other end:
"Goddamn it, Feng Zhian! What the hell have you done?!"
It was the voice of Army Commander Song Zheyuan. Shuddering in shock, the chief of staff didn't dare reply. He waved frantically to Feng Zhian, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, and whispered, "The army commander. He's asking for you."
Feng Zhian had no idea what was amiss. Mumbling to himself, he thought, *Did the news spread that fast? In that case, after winning such a fine victory, I ought to squeeze some supplies out of the army commander myself.*
"Army Commander, what kind of reward are you bestowing on us this time?"
Feng Zhian leaned back against a wooden chair in the command room, his crossed legs hooked casually over the rungs. His tone was breezy and familiar—after all, he was one of Song Zheyuan's veteran subordinates.
"You son of a bitch! Do you have any goddamn clue that the Japanese are blockading my front door right now?!"
Song Zheyuan's roar blasted through the modest receiver once more, startling Feng Zhian so badly that his balance shifted. The chair wobbled beneath him, nearly sending him sprawling to the floor. Fortunately, the chief of staff reached out with a helping hand and steadied him.
"Army Commander, what's gotten you so furious?"
"Let me ask you—did you send men to attack Lijiatun?"
Feng Zhian froze, beginning to sense which way the wind was blowing. "Yes... about Lijiatun, I did report that to you," he replied cautiously.
"Attacking Lijiatun is one thing, but why the hell did you have to go provoke the Japanese?!"
Feng Zhian's face scrunched up, crow's feet bunching beneath his eyes. He pulled the receiver a few inches away from his ear; Song Zheyuan was pounding his desk so violently on the other end that the noise was deafening.
During that brief pause, Feng Zhian raced through every possible implication of those words. Reaching a rapid conclusion, he brought the receiver back to his ear and asked gingerly, "Were there Japanese in Lijiatun?"
"Yes! Not only were they there, but five of them are dead!"
"Five?!" Feng Zhian stared blankly. That bastard Sun Yi really knew how to stir up trouble. After all, during the Mukden Incident, the Japanese military had opened fire over a single missing soldier! "Army Commander, I truly knew nothing about this. Allow me to investigate first. We can't just take the Japanese at their word, right?"
"You're the army commander here, not me! Go investigate already—I can't even get back into my own house!"
"Right away, right away."
Feng Zhian hung up meekly, propping his fists against the long conference table, lost in silence for a long time.
At that very moment, Kawabe Masakazu, commander of the Japanese China Garrison Infantry Brigade, had indeed dispatched diplomatic officials to Beiping. They had blockaded the headquarters of the 29th Army demanding an explanation. Their attitude was so overbearing that Song Zheyuan had no way to receive them, leaving him no choice but to have his chief of staff, Zhang Boting, brush them off on the pretext that he was not present.
Refusing to relent, the Japanese representatives drove straight to Song Zheyuan's residence in Beiping. A cluster of Japanese men clad in black suits and black hats, sporting small mustaches, staked out the entrance to the Song estate, terrifying his family and household to the point where none dared step foot past the gates.
Song Zheyuan's refusal to meet them was not out of cowardice. The crux of the matter was not simply whether Japanese lives had been lost, but the railway draft proposal. Now that a pretext had fallen into their hands while the railway issue remained unsettled, the Japanese were certain to press their advantage, leaving him virtually no room to maneuver.
Nanjing's stance, meanwhile, was exceptionally uncompromising. Given the climate of public opinion in China, no matter how great one's past contributions were, the moment the slightest flaw was seized upon, one's reputation could be utterly destroyed. After all, Ma Zhanshan, who had led the resistance in the Northeast, was a cautionary tale fresh in everyone's mind.
*Sigh, what am I to do...?*
Song Zheyuan did not wait for the results of Feng Zhian's investigation, because the outcome no longer mattered. Faced with an insurmountable dilemma, Song Zheyuan took a deep breath and made a momentous decision:
He would return to his hometown!
Chapter 39