Southern guerrilla warfare: I led the Red Seventh Army Corps to amassed a million troops.

Under the cover of night, a group of soldiers dressed in Nationalist Army uniforms were marching swiftly along a winding dirt road.

The grayish-yellow uniforms had a dim outline under the moonlight, and at first glance, they looked no different from those of the Nationalist Army.

However, upon closer inspection, one can discover subtle differences between the way those people fastened their belts and the way they carried their guns, and the standard operating procedures of the National Revolutionary Army.

Leading the group was a lean and capable reconnaissance platoon leader with sharp eyes.

He stopped at a bend in the mountain road, listened for a moment, then turned around and gestured behind him—there was a checkpoint ahead.

The group stopped silently, and everyone crouched down close to the shadows of the trees along the roadside, their movements clean and efficient.

The platoon leader crouched down and crept to the front of the column, peering through a gap in a clump of bushes.

About forty or fifty meters away, in the middle of the mountain road, there was a simple outpost made of sandbags and logs, with a machine gun mounted next to it, the muzzle pointing directly at the direction from which they were coming.

Three Nationalist soldiers stood next to the sentry post, and another was dozing off against a sandbag.

There was a small tent set up nearby, with lights shining from inside, so there must be people inside.

The platoon leader looked away and made a gesture to the two soldiers behind him—you two come from the left side, I'll approach from the front, listen to my commands.

The two soldiers nodded and silently disappeared into the bushes by the roadside.

The platoon leader straightened his Nationalist army uniform, slung his rifle over his shoulder, stood up confidently, and walked along the mountain path toward the sentry post at a leisurely pace.

"Halt! Who goes there?" A Nationalist soldier at the outpost spotted him first, raised his gun, and pointed it at his chest.

The platoon leader, looking exhausted, waved to the soldier: "Brother, don't be nervous, we're on the same side. We're withdrawing from Lianhua Mountain, and we're being ordered by the regimental commander to move south. The replacement troops will be here soon."

He took a few more steps forward, speaking casually and naturally, "The road ahead is still long. I wanted to ask you for a drink of water. I've been walking for most of the night, and my throat is practically parched."

The soldier holding the gun relaxed a little, but still didn't lower the muzzle: "Which regiment are you from? Do you have a pass?"

"The 523rd Regiment, the 2nd Battalion," the platoon leader announced a unit number he had memorized long ago. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and waved it at the soldier. "Here's your pass. Want to check it?"

The soldier hesitated for a moment, just about to step forward to take it.

An old soldier who had been squatting behind a sandbag beside him without saying a word suddenly sniffed.

The veteran looked to be in his early thirties, with much deeper wrinkles on his face than the others, clearly a seasoned veteran who had been through many years of military service.

His gaze fell on the platoon leader, scanning him from head to toe, and then his nose twitched again.

A fresh smell of blood, mixed with the scent of dirt and gunpowder, wafted over from the "Nationalist soldier" opposite them.

The smell was very faint; if he hadn't spent years wallowing in piles of corpses, he wouldn't have been able to detect it at all.

The veteran grabbed his rifle leaning against the sandbag, pointed it at the platoon leader, and shouted, "There's killing intent! You all stay there and don't move!"

The shout rang out in the silent night. The three Nationalist soldiers by the sentry post were startled by the sudden shout and instinctively raised their guns. The one who had been dozing was also awakened and frantically reached for his gun.

The platoon leader knew he couldn't keep up the act any longer. He suddenly squatted down, simultaneously drawing a pistol from his waist with his right hand and a dagger from his back with his left. The whole movement was as fast as lightning.

"Let's do it!"

Almost simultaneously, two dark figures suddenly sprang up from the bushes by the roadside.

The two flanking soldiers pounced from the side and rear. One of them swiftly swung his dagger, accurately plunging it into a soldier's back.

Another soldier grabbed a soldier from behind and twisted his neck sharply with a cracking sound.

The alert veteran reacted the fastest. Although he didn't see the platoon leader's movements clearly, he pulled the trigger based on his years of instinct.

"Bang!"

Gunfire erupted suddenly in the night. A bullet grazed the platoon leader's ear and struck a tree trunk behind him.

The platoon leader didn't give him a chance to fire a second shot; his pistol had already gone off!

Bang! The veteran was shot in the chest, his body jerked backward, and his consciousness sank into darkness.

In just over ten breaths, all the Nationalist soldiers in the outpost fell to the ground.

But the gunshots had already been heard.

In the stillness of the night, a gunshot can travel very far, far enough to alert the Nationalist army command on the other side of the mountain.

The platoon leader shouted to the communications soldier behind him, "Send the signal! The operation has been exposed; strike ahead of schedule!"

Whoosh... Bang!

A red signal flare, trailing a long plume of flame, rose into the night sky and exploded in a blinding red light against the dark backdrop.

About two miles behind, in the ranks of the main force of the Red Army, Division Commander Zhang Qiming was riding forward when the signal flare exploded in his pupils.

He yanked the reins sharply and shouted, "First Battalion, flanking maneuver on the left! Second Battalion, flanking maneuver on the right! Third Battalion, frontal assault! Target: Nationalist Army headquarters!"

"Capture Jiang Boqing alive! If we can't catch him, he can be dead! We absolutely cannot let him escape!"

The orders were passed down from commander to commander at all levels like a relay baton, and the silent marching column instantly erupted into a frenzy.

The surging crowd accelerated again, carrying a chilling murderous aura, as ferocious as locusts sweeping across the land.

Earlier, when the main force was halfway along the route marked by the scouts, several squads had already quietly separated from the main column.

They were few in number, each unit about the size of a battalion, but they were all elite troops who were lightly armed and ready to advance.

There were no heavy weapons, no extra supplies; each person carried only a rifle, ammunition, and three days' worth of dry rations.

They left the main road and ventured into the more treacherous mountains and forests, following the secret paths marked by the scouts during the day, bypassing the large and small strongholds set up by the Nationalist army on the front.

The objective was singular: to penetrate the rear of the seemingly impregnable mountain defense line of the newly formed 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army.

In the darkness, countless figures lay in ambush behind the bushes and rocks, waiting for the call of gunfire from behind.

Their eyes gleamed in the darkness, like a pack of wolves that had locked onto their prey, waiting only for the final command.

Meanwhile, directly in front of the Nationalist army's defensive positions, a large number of Red Army soldiers were also hiding and waiting for orders.

They didn't light any lamps, didn't speak, didn't make any fires, and even when they coughed, they covered their mouths with their hands to suppress it.

They were also waiting, waiting for the gunshots behind them.

They waited for the signal that came from the heart of the Nationalist army's defenses, signaling that the trap was now in place.

At this moment, the deadly trap set for the newly formed 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army had been completely formed.