A courtyard house; Li Yunlong, a subordinate of the deputy director of Harbin Military Engineering I

At 4:00 AM on the 26th, two divisions of the 12th Army firmly blocked the northern reinforcement route and confronted the puppet troops coming to support them. A division of the 15th Army advanced into the valley from the western mountains. Li Yunlong, the deputy commander of the 1st Division of the Independent Army, and Xing Zhiguo, the deputy army commander, personally supervised the battle at the front line.

After all, it was the first time they had fought the Americans, and Zhang Renfeng had described Li Yunlong as trash during his pre-battle mobilization, saying that Li Yunlong was just there to embarrass the Volunteer Army Headquarters. Damn it, those dozen or so army commanders were all capable and good at fighting, what did Li Yunlong have?

All he has is seniority; he's nothing else. This infuriated Li Yunlong!

I heard that Old Li cried!

Moreover, before the mobilization meeting, Director Zhao of the Political Department also fiercely criticized Li Yunlong for making many mistakes, saying that although he had made many merits, he also made a lot of mistakes, which dragged down the entire army corps and disgraced the Taihang Mountain troops!

They dragged the entire independence army down!!

Old Li was almost in tears!

He said that if he couldn't stop the charge of the US 25th Division and the US 3rd Division, he would shoot himself on the spot!

When has Old Li ever felt so aggrieved?

No!

So Xing Zhiguo, Sun Tai'an, and even Chief of Staff Zhang Dabiao were all united and ready to go all out.

After all, they were bastards from the Second Field Army who were adopted by the Third Field Army. They had been separated from their old commander for several years, but their backbone remained. In order to lead them to the Korean battlefield, the old commander did not hesitate to sacrifice his body!

She has already done enough by submitting herself to Nie Canzuo's daughter.

This battle was practically their chance to prove themselves; it was a battle fought to show the entire army, to the commanders, and to the headquarters that the troops from northwestern Shanxi were all skilled warriors!

So once the fighting started, everyone was fearless and undaunted!

On the main position of the 1st Division of the Independent Army,

Xing Zhiguo's left arm was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, his right hand gripping a walkie-talkie, his voice hoarse from shouting.

"Eighth Company! Eighth Company! Hold the left flank! Zhang Dabiao's reinforcements will arrive in fifteen minutes!"

The words had barely left his mouth when an American mortar shell landed five meters to the side of the command post. The blast wave overturned half of the bunker, burying Xing Zhiguo halfway up. He struggled to his feet, brushed the rubble off his head, and continued shouting into the walkie-talkie, "Zhao Hu! Did you fucking hear me?"

A burst of static came through the walkie-talkie, followed by the trembling yet determined voice characteristic of young people:

"Commander Xing! The Eighth Company only has seventeen men left! The front line is full of tanks! We..."

The rest of the conversation was swallowed up by the sound of the explosion.

The remaining regiment of the US 25th Division and its directly subordinate units, along with a reinforcement battalion from the US 3rd Division, charged madly toward the defenses of the Independent Army's 1st Division.

Tanks rolled in in a line, with infantry following behind to provide alternating cover. The density of firepower was more terrifying than anything Xing Zhiguo had ever witnessed when fighting the Japanese in northwestern Shanxi.

At the forefront of the front line, platoon leader Zhao Hu watched as his squad leader collapsed two steps in front of him—the same squad leader who had joined the army in the same year as him, slept in the same bunk, and always gave him extra slices of meat when sharing dumplings during the New Year. A fist-sized hole had exploded in his chest, and he was already dead before he even fell.

Zhao Hu's eyes instantly turned red.

He bent down and pulled the anti-tank mine from under the squad leader, then suddenly flipped over from behind the cover, rolling twice on the ground before getting up and charging forward.

When the American soldiers saw a Chinese man covered in blood rush out, their machine guns immediately turned and opened fire. The bullets hit his legs, and he staggered but did not fall, continuing to charge forward.

A jumble of images flashed through his mind—the day he joined the army in 1943, when the village sent him off with gongs and drums, and his mother stood under the big locust tree at the village entrance wiping away tears; fighting the Japanese in the Taihang Mountains in 1944, when Commander Zhang was still their leader, personally teaching them how to use explosives to blow up bunkers; taking the oath to join the Party in 1948, standing under the Party flag with his fist raised, his voice trembling as he recited the oath, but his heart was burning with passion.

The sound of tank tracks grew closer, and the vibrations from the ground made his jaw tingle.

He detonated the mine less than five meters from the lead vehicle, pushed it under the tracks, then turned to face the blurry figures of his comrades still charging on the rear lines, and with his last breath shouted:

"Will the prosperous era unfold as you wish? Mom, Dad, your unfilial son! I... am Zhao Hu, a platoon leader who joined the army in 1943!"

boom--!!

The anti-tank mine exploded under the tracks, a fireball billowing up with black smoke. The tank's tracks snapped into several pieces, and the vehicle became stuck at an angle, blocking the path of the three tanks behind it.

The last trace Zhao Hu left behind was a piece of charred cloth scattered among the rubble on the ground, indistinguishable as either a military uniform or something else.

There was a brief moment of silence on the position.

Immediately afterwards, another young soldier emerged from the flank carrying a satchel charge and climbed over the cover.

He ran faster than Zhao Hu, his slender figure like a nimble cat, constantly changing direction between shell craters and scorched earth. American machine guns chased after him, bullets landing on his heels and kicking up a string of dust.

He was hit by a bullet on the side front of the second tank, and he was thrown to the ground, blood gushing from his mouth. But he managed to drag himself forward two meters by bracing himself on his arms, stuffing the explosive charge between the tank's drive wheel and road wheel. Then he lay flat on his back, staring at the faintly lit sky, and murmured:

"Little brother, you're a hero, brother! I didn't disgrace Ping'an County! I joined the army in 1946... Liu Zhan!"

boom--!!

The second explosion followed immediately. A hole was blown in the side armor of the tank, and the ammunition inside exploded. The entire vehicle was as if it had been lifted up from the ground by an invisible hand and then thrown down. The turret flew more than ten meters away.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth... like a relay race of extreme tragedy, each explosion carrying a name, a place of origin, and the year of enlistment.

"I, Yan Zhennan, a veteran from Taiyuan, am willing to die!"

"I, Si Lu from Heyuan County, am going to my death!!"

"I, Sun Chengzong, am going to my death..."

One soldier after another used their flesh and blood to fill the gaps in the torn defenses.

The 107mm rocket launchers of the Independent Army's 1st Division continued to wreak havoc on the flank highlands. Each salvo created a blank space in the American infantry formations, and the shrapnel swept across the ground like a sickle cutting down wheat, with large swathes falling. But the Americans were well-trained, and those who fell were replaced by others, their alternating cover rhythm almost never disrupted.

The report from the front lines came through Xing Zhiguo's walkie-talkie, growing increasingly urgent and fragmented until it finally broke into a few disjointed words: "...The enemy...has reached the high ground...Instructor..."

Xing Zhiguo looked up sharply and saw that the red flag was still on the top of Hill 3 on the right flank, but the position was already entangled with the American troops.

Black soldiers and Chinese soldiers engaged in close-quarters combat. The sounds of bayonets plunging into bodies and being pulled out, the dull thuds of rifle butts hitting helmets, and the screams of dying soldiers drifted on the mountain wind to the command post.

Then he saw a scene—the instructor of Hill No. 3 was a northern man in his early thirties named Guo Shouyi. He had joined the army in the Jin-Cha-Ji region in 1940. He came from a private school and spoke in a refined manner. Even when he cursed during battle, he never used foul language.

At this moment, the large knife in his hand was missing seven or eight chips, and the blade was covered with black and red bloodstains. He stood on the highest point of the position, covered in wounds, surrounded by American soldiers. Some were less than three meters away from him, while others were aiming their guns at him. But Guo Shouyi did not retreat an inch.

"Veteran of the Independent Regiment! For the rise of China, I am willing... to die!"

After shouting this, he swung the broadsword that had chopped off countless Japanese heads with both hands and charged towards the nearest black soldier who was more than twenty centimeters taller than him.