The Courtyard House: The Little Red Devil Returning from the Peninsula

When the map of Xiangyuan was pinned to the wall, the red line marking the tributary of the Zhanghe River had already been drawn.

Zhao Weiguo drew an arc along the south side of Xiangyuan City with a red and blue pencil. A tributary of the Zhang River curved along the city wall; the river wasn't deep, but the city was in low-lying area. A breach in the river would cause it to overflow. He placed the pencil tip on the section of the city wall south of the city, the pencil stub lingering on the paper for two seconds, then looked up and glanced around at the people inside the houses.

"Xiangyuan is southeast of the Zhengtai Railway and northeast of Shangdang," he said, his voice low but audible in every corner of the room. "It blocks a branch road from Changzhi to Taiyuan. The city is low-lying, with water to the south, following the same route as Liujiapo. If the tributary is breached, the water will flood its southern pass."

Old Zhou still carried the same water spirit he had from Liujiapo. He leaned against the doorframe listening to Zhao Weiguo speak, and when he heard the word "pour," he grinned, revealing a set of teeth stained yellow by smoke.

"Commander," he pulled the pipe from his mouth, "are you going to make me the center of attention this time?"

"Your battalion will hold the south gate in the front, the more chaotic the better." Zhao Weiguo shifted his gaze from Lao Zhou to Duan Peng. "Duan Peng, your third battalion will circle around the west side of the city and cut off the Japanese retreat. Don't let a single one escape through the west gate. Zhao Tieshan, the artillery battalion will press up the city walls and pin the Japanese down at the base of the walls, preventing them from climbing over."

He paused, then pointed to the north on the map: "Ding Wei's new regiment is stuck in the north. If Taiyuan comes to reinforce, have them hold them off first."

"Now that we're in the city, we're not in a hurry to leave." Zhao Weiguo put down his pencil, his voice a little deeper than before. "Open the granaries to the people, and take away everything the arsenal needs—steal the steel and machine tool blanks that can be dismantled."

Zhao Gang closed his notebook, stood up, and began distributing the combat orders.

After the deployment was made, each battalion set off overnight.

Xiangyuan was larger than Liujiapo. The city walls were also more orderly, but the southern section was indeed lower. A tributary of the Zhang River bends just outside that section of the city wall, and the withered grass and silt on the riverbank are exposed under the moonlight, gleaming with a grayish-white light.

Zhao Tieshan led the artillery battalion to push the mountain guns up the north hill. He chose a location three li from the city, just outside the firing range of the city walls. The gunners, crouching low, pushed the gun wheels across the bumpy mountain path. Some slipped, their knees hitting the rocks, letting out a muffled groan, but they got up and continued pushing. Zhao Tieshan squatted on the pre-arranged position, tapping the frozen earth with his knuckles, and turned to instruct the ammunition handler: "Place the shells three paces behind the gun positions, don't pile them up."

The ammunition handler pried open the wooden crate, revealing neatly stacked bullets, their copper casings gleaming a dark yellow in the moonlight.

The engineering battalion descended the Zhanghe River embankment in the dark. The soil of the embankment, soaked in water all winter, was soft and loose. The battalion commander used a probe to poke several holes along the base of the embankment to test the water depth, then turned back and marked the spots, ordering his men to dig down to those points. The sound of shovels hitting the ground was drowned out by the sound of the river water, and by the time it reached the other side of the riverbank, it was completely inaudible.

As usual, Old Zhou's battalion didn't hide anything. Outside the south gate, he ordered a row of bonfires to be lit and flags to be planted all over the hillside. The flames flickered in the night wind, illuminating even the cracks in the city wall's bricks. The bugler blew the charge several times, the sound rolling across the Zhang River, startling the wild ducks on the riverbank into flight.

The Japanese sentries at the south gate crouched behind the battlements, not daring to close their eyes all night. The gray uniforms of the soldiers near the fire would gather and disperse intermittently, remaining indistinct and unclear. The defending troops dared not take any risks, and instead concentrated all their forces on the south wall.

Duan Peng's Third Battalion circled around to the west of the city. He had already had this route scouted during the day. The terrain outside the west gate was a depression, with withered grass half a person's height, perfect for hiding people. He scattered his men in the withered grass and lay prone behind the earthen embankment outside the west gate. Inside the city, the south side was filled with the sounds of water and cannons, but the area around the west gate was so quiet that only the whistling of the wind seeping through the cracks in the walls could be heard.

He tilted his head and listened for a while, then chuckled. The Japanese soldiers had all been lured away by the South Gate. The West Gate was completely relaxed.

Ding Wei wasn't idle in the north either. The New First Regiment had set up a sack along the road from Xiangyuan to Taiyuan. The road was narrow, with earthen slopes on both sides, perfect for ambush. He deployed two companies on the slopes, setting up machine guns behind the earthen embankments. The communications soldier went online every hour to ring the phone in the direction of Xiangyuan to confirm that no fighting had broken out there yet.

As dawn approached, Zhao Weiguo gave the order.

The engineering battalion commander shoveled the last few shovelfuls of soil off the embankment. The water in the Zhanghe tributary had been accumulating overnight, and the water level had risen by nearly a foot. The newly dug breach in the middle of the embankment began to collapse as the water rushed out. First, a few pieces of soil fell into the water, then the entire embankment collapsed, and the water that had accumulated overnight was squeezed out from the breach, crashing onto the beach at Nanguan with a loud bang.

The first wave of water flooded the withered grass on the riverbank. Then it reached the base of the city wall. The Japanese stronghold, built in the low-lying area, was soaked all morning. Sandbags sank to the ground, machine guns spun in the water, and the earthen fortifications began to collapse piece by piece.

The defending troops were thrown into chaos.

The Japanese soldiers at the South Gate ran out of their stronghold, wading through knee-deep water to climb the city wall, guns raised overhead, water seeping into their sleeves. The Japanese soldiers on the wall tried to come down to provide support, but Zhao Tieshan's mountain guns fired. A shell landed on the ramparts of the wall, knocking several Japanese soldiers who were about to jump to the ground. Then came a second, a third, the artillery fire pinning the city wall firmly in place.

Taking advantage of the situation, Lao Zhou pressed forward from the front. The soldiers of the First Battalion rushed out from behind the bonfires, pushing up the earthen slope outside the south gate. They didn't attack the city head-on, but instead kept the defenders at the south gate occupied. They fired a few shots, moved to a different position, and fired a few more. The Japanese wanted to retreat north but dared not, fearing that the south gate would truly be breached.

Duan Peng's side was even more relaxed. The west gate was wide open, without any decent resistance. The Third Battalion sneaked in along the city wall, pushing all the way from the west gate to the crossroads in the city center. Several puppet soldiers riding mules who wanted to escape through the west gate were caught red-handed, mules and all. The mules were carrying bundles, the bundles of which were torn, revealing half of a woman's clothes.

"Why are you running?" Duan Peng used the barrel of his gun to toss the bundle aside, then gestured with his chin to the soldiers behind him, "Clear the streets, don't get into any conflicts with the civilians."

The floodwaters had been pouring for half an hour, turning the South Gate into a vast expanse of water. The remaining defenders couldn't hold out any longer and abandoned the city, retreating along the land route to the north. They hadn't gone half a mile before they ran into the trap set by Duan Peng's Third Battalion. Duan Peng didn't exert much effort. The fleeing soldiers ran and crawled, not even knowing where to fire their bullets, and the Third Battalion surrounded them from both sides, capturing them and their weapons.

Zhao Weiguo entered the city in the morning.

The people of Xiangyuan crowded at the street corner to watch the procession wading through water. Soldiers in gray cloth uniforms, carrying rifles, walked up from the muddy South Gate, their shoes caked with yellow mud. Behind them followed mule carts piled high with salvaged wooden crates and iron parts. An old woman with a basket stood on the street for a while, finally unable to resist asking one of the nearest soldiers:

"You...aren't you going to steal anything?"

The soldier paused for a moment, then turned and shouted, "The political commissar said the granary is open, and grain will be distributed to each household!"

Zhao Weiguo happened to be riding by when he heard this, but he didn't stop. He glanced at Zhao Gang, who was already leading his men to unload the doors of the granary in the north of the city. White rice and flour were carried out of the granary and stacked on the stone slabs along the street, where people lined up to receive them based on their household registration. More than a thousand catties were distributed on the first day.

An old man who had received his grain rations stood by the roadside, holding his bag, watching Zhao Weiguo's retreating figure. The boy on horseback didn't turn around; the shoulder of his military uniform was damp with moisture.

"This unit," the old man muttered, "is different from the Japanese soldiers we encountered the first time."

The arsenal workers also entered the city. Zhao Tieshan led his men to a Japanese repair shop in the west of the city, where they found a batch of steel and machine tool blanks—the steel ingots were stacked in a corner, wrapped in several layers of oil paper, still gleaming when unfolded. Zhao Tieshan squatted down, touched the surface of the steel ingots with his palm, then tapped them with his knuckles, and turned to Zhao Weiguo, saying:

"Commander, this batch of materials should last the stone kiln for a while. Once the machine tool arrives, we'll have a solid foundation for expanding production."

Zhao Weiguo squatted down and lifted a corner of the oiled paper to take a look. The cross-section of the steel ingot was grayish-white and of uniform texture. He covered it with the oiled paper again, stood up, and patted the dirt off his knees: "Load it onto the truck."

He didn't linger in Xiangyuan. He couldn't hold the city; the point of taking it was to block the branch road from Changzhi to Taiyuan and then dismantle the essentials. With grain supplied to the people and steel factories destroyed, the battle would be won.

When the mule cart left the city, the water at the South Gate had not yet receded. Zhao Weiguo, riding on horseback, glanced back at the city wall of Xiangyuan—a dark waterline had appeared at the base of the wall, and a piece of the crenellation had been chipped off by Zhao Tieshan's cannonball, revealing broken brick fragments at the gap.

He turned his gaze back and did the math: after this battle, the Independent Regiment had gained another five hundred men, bringing its total to six thousand.

The mule cart bumped along the dirt road. The horses snorted, and a misty vapor drifted in from the other side of the city, feeling cool on our faces.

Zhao Gang rode up and walked alongside him. Neither of them spoke. Ahead lay the next city.