Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 326 Tell the truth
After Yang Aiyuan uttered those almost desperate words, the entire operations room fell into a deathly silence.

All eyes, whether those of the Jin-Sui Army generals who were expectant and pleading, or those of Yan Xishan who were complex and probing, were now focused on the only two "outsiders" in the room.

They became the last hope for this city on the verge of collapse.

Su Yaoyang felt those heavy gazes.

He didn't speak immediately, but instead looked around, taking in everyone's expressions. Finally, he turned his gaze to the deputy chief of staff beside him and gestured for him to enter.

"Deputy Chief of Staff Zuo, you are the senior, please speak first."

Deputy Chief of Staff Zuo did not refuse.

He stepped forward and stood on the other side of the sand table, facing Yang Aiyuan. He first nodded slightly to Yan Xishan and the other generals, and his slightly hoarse voice then echoed in the operations room.

"Commander Yan, gentlemen, I understand your feelings. The Japanese army is pressing in, and Taiyuan, which has just been liberated, is in imminent danger."

His opening remarks were simple and unpretentious; he didn't make any grand pronouncements or deliberately belittle the Jin-Sui Army.

"Faced with this situation, we Eighth Route Army soldiers feel the same way as everyone else. We all understand the principle of 'if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold'."

He continued, "Before we came here, our headquarters had conducted several sand table simulations of the situation in Taiyuan, but... the results were not very good."

Upon hearing this, Yan Xishan and the others' expressions turned even more grim.

"There is a great deal of controversy within our military because of this."

The deputy chief of staff continued, his tone frank and devoid of any emotion, “Some people have suggested that, given the disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves, we should temporarily abandon Taiyuan, preserve our strength, and engage the enemy in the mountains.”

Some argue that Taiyuan's strategic location is extremely important and must be defended at all costs; the rising anti-Japanese sentiment among the people of Shanxi and even the whole country must not be allowed to falter.

He didn't say which side he supported, but this frankness made Yan Xishan and others even more convinced.

They knew that what the deputy chief of staff said was true, and that they would have had the same argument if they were in his shoes.

"Just as we were at an impasse, we received a telegram from your army requesting assistance."

The deputy chief of staff's gaze swept over everyone, finally landing on Su Yaoyang. "Given the urgency of the situation, I rushed to Wutai County overnight to discuss this matter with Commander Su of the Shanxi militia."

All eyes turned to Su Yaoyang once again as he spoke.

The deputy chief of staff paused, seemingly considering what to say next.

"To my surprise, Commander Su's views were somewhat different from what I had expected."

He believed that Taiyuan could not only be defended, but even…” he emphasized, “it could even be used as an opportunity to launch a brilliant counterattack against the Japanese army!”

The word "counterattack" exploded like a thunderclap in the deathly quiet operations room!

All the generals of the Jin-Sui Army were stunned. They looked at each other, their faces filled with disbelief.

Fight back?

How to deal with two Class A divisions and one Class B division of the Japanese?
Are you kidding me! We can't even defend ourselves, let alone fight back.
Even Yan Xishan, with his cloudy eyes, showed a hint of surprise and doubt. He looked at Su Yaoyang's young but overly calm face, his heart filled with questions.

Is this kid really confident, or is he just bragging?
As soon as the deputy chief of staff finished speaking, the air in the operations room seemed to freeze for a moment, then burst into a buzz of discussion. The generals of the Jin-Sui Army whispered among themselves, their faces filled with disbelief.

"What...you're going to retaliate?"

Yan Xishan was the first to cry out. It was as if he had heard the most absurd joke in the world. His cloudy eyes widened suddenly, and he even subconsciously took a step closer to Su Yaoyang, as if to confirm that he had not misheard.

"Right now, the Japanese have deployed three whole divisions to launch an attack on Shanxi!"

Back then, the Japanese only needed one and a half divisions to take over the entire Shanxi province! Now they've deployed three divisions; we're lucky to have preserved our strength, and you...you actually think about retaliating? Are you insane?

Faced with Yan Xishan's almost roaring questioning, Su Yaoyang met his fiery gaze with a shrug and spread his hands:
"of course."

His piercing eyes stared directly at Yan Xishan: "Commander Yan, forgive my ignorance, but I just don't understand why we can't launch a counterattack?"

He held up three fingers: "The Japanese, at most, have three divisions, seventy or eighty thousand men. And what about us?"

His gaze swept over the Jin-Sui Army generals present, then glanced at the Deputy Chief of Staff Zuo. "Commander Yan alone has over 100,000 Jin-Sui Army troops. Add the Eighth Route Army and my Shanxi militia, and you should have at least 300,000 to 400,000 men, right? Why can't we, four or five of us, launch a counterattack against him?"

"Why should I?" Yan Xishan was thoroughly amused and annoyed by Su Yaoyang's matter-of-fact attitude.

"Just because the Japanese have well-trained soldiers and ample supplies, and because they have aircraft and heavy artillery to aid them in the battle!"

Yan Xishan practically roared, pointing at the sand table, his fingers trembling slightly with excitement, "So what if we have hundreds of thousands of men? In the Battle of Shanghai and the Battle of Wuhan, which time didn't we gather millions of elite troops? And what was the result? We were still defeated!"

He became agitated, and the way he looked at Su Yaoyang was like looking at an innocent child.

"My child!"

He sighed deeply, his tone softening slightly, but the condescending, lecturing tone only intensified. "Take this old man's advice: war isn't about numbers, but about who has the better weapons and whose army is better trained! It doesn't matter if we're outmatched right now; we can retreat temporarily. As long as we're alive, we can always rebuild!"

Yan Xishan's words resonated with all the generals of the Jin-Sui Army present, and many nodded in agreement.

This was a painful lesson they had learned at the cost of countless lives, a lesson etched into their very bones. In their eyes, Su Yaoyang's "counterattack theory" was nothing but the arrogant pronouncements of a newborn calf unafraid of tigers.

Listening to Yan Xishan's tired old rhetoric of "weapons as determinism" and "preserving the green hills as long as the mountains remain," Su Yaoyang's smile finally vanished completely, replaced by an undisguised, cold sarcasm.

"so what?"

He sneered.

The murmurs around him abruptly ceased, and everyone stared at him in astonishment.

Su Yaoyang's gaze was like a knife, sweeping across the faces of Yan Xishan and every general of the Jin-Sui Army.

"The Japanese have heavy artillery, and so do we!"

His voice suddenly rose, “The Japanese have airplanes, and so do we! And our airplanes are even better than the Japanese’s!” He took a step forward, looking directly at Yan Xishan.

"Don't forget it!"

Su Yaoyang slammed his hand heavily on the sand table, causing the small flags on it to shake. "The land you are standing on now, this city of Taiyuan, was taken from the Japanese by me and the Eighth Route Army! The former commander of the Japanese North China Area Army, Yoshio Shinotsuka, was also killed by us!"

His voice echoed in the operations room, each word like a resounding slap across the faces of the Jin-Sui Army generals.

Many people's faces changed from red to white, and then from white to green, a truly fascinating sight.

"And now you stand here and tell me the Japanese are invincible?"

Su Yaoyang's lips curled into a disdainful smile. "If that's really the case, then why did you go to all that trouble to invite me here? To watch the show? Or to see how you lose Taiyuan again?"

The final question struck Yan Xishan and all the generals of the Jin-Sui Army like a heavy hammer blow.

They all became mute.

The entire operations room was completely silent, with only the heavy breathing of the crew remaining.

Yes, why did they invite Su Yaoyang and the Eighth Route Army over? Certainly not just to watch the show.

In their previous calculations, and arguably their only hope, it was to join forces with the Eighth Route Army, along with the heavy artillery and considerable air power of the Shanxi militia, to defend Taiyuan to the death.

After multiple internal simulations and estimations, they concluded that as long as the three parties worked together, Taiyuan's city defenses should be able to hold out.

But they... they never even considered fighting back!
"Holding out" and "counterattacking" are two completely different concepts in their understanding.

The former is passive defense, which is what they have been doing for the past few years; while the latter is active offense, which is something they never even dared to think about.

Su Yaoyang's words were like a sharp blade, cruelly dissecting the deepest cowardice and contradictions in their hearts.

They hoped to use the strength of the Shanxi militia and the Eighth Route Army to protect their territory, but deep down they did not believe they could defeat the Japanese.

This deep-seated defeatist mentality appears so ridiculous and pale in the face of Su Yaoyang's aggressive confidence.

Yan Xishan opened his mouth, wanting to refute, but found that he couldn't utter a single word.

His weathered old face was now a deep purplish-red, a mixture of shame, anger, and resentment making him look particularly unsightly.

Perhaps even Su Yaoyang himself did not fully realize that there was an invisible chasm between him and the people of this era.

He comes from the 21st century, an era in which China's national strength is second only to Japan, and China regards Japan as a second-tier rival.

His deep-rooted national self-confidence and insight into the course of history enabled him to view the Japanese with a superior attitude from beginning to end, and he never regarded them as an invincible myth.

But Yan Xishan and his generals were different.

Their history of growth is a history of humiliation, marked by repeated bullying by foreign powers and being thoroughly humiliated by Japan.

From the First Sino-Japanese War to the September 18 Incident, and now to the full-scale war, more than half a century of suffering has worn down their backbone and left an indelible mark on their souls: "invincibility."

Therefore, when they heard that Su Yaoyang had the audacity to "counterattack" in the face of an attack by three Japanese divisions, the shock and absurdity they felt was something Su Yaoyang could never fully comprehend.

This is not simply a difference in military views, but a fierce clash of mindsets born from two different times and two completely different national conditions.

"Sirs..."

Su Yaoyang raised his voice.

"Before I arrived, I had already ordered all the combat aircraft of the Shanxi militia to be fully loaded with ammunition and fuel, ready to take off and fight at any time."

These words were like a depth charge dropped into a calm lake, causing all the generals of the Jin-Sui Army to raise their heads sharply, their eyes filled with horror.

Su Yaoyang ignored their reactions and continued in a calm tone:

"As soon as I give the order, they will take off immediately. The target is not to engage in pointless dogfights with Japanese planes, but to carry out saturation bombing of all Japanese logistics warehouses, railway hubs, transport convoys, and their front-line airfields in Hebei and Shanxi."

He stretched out his finger and drew arcs on the sand table representing the vast area behind the Japanese army.

"I will do everything in my power to completely weaken, and even destroy, the Japanese air force and their logistical support capabilities."

"Once we shoot down their planes and deplete their ammunition and food supplies, we've won most of the battle."

A collective gasp filled the operations room.

These old warlords understood airplanes and bombing, but they couldn't grasp the concept of "strategic strike"—a systematic approach aimed at paralyzing the enemy's war-making capabilities—that Su Yaoyang was talking about. This was beyond their understanding of warfare.

Su Yaoyang surveyed the entire room, finally fixing his gaze on Yan Xishan.

"I wonder if Commander Yan would be interested... in playing a big game with me?"

Seeing Su Yaoyang's serious expression, Yan Xishan knew that the kid wasn't joking with him.

If someone had dared to say that to him in the past, he would have kicked them out without hesitation, but now he hesitated.

After pondering for a while, Yan Xishan turned to Yang Aiyuan and asked, "Xingru, what do you think?"

Yang Aiyuan thought for a moment, then stepped forward and faced Su Yaoyang directly, asking in as calm a tone as possible, "Brother Mingxi, I wonder... do you have a detailed battle plan?"

He deliberately changed his address from "Commander Su" to "Brother Mingxi," a small change that signifies a fundamental shift in his mindset.

They began to formally regard Su Yaoyang as an equal commander who could decide the course of the battle, rather than a "nouveau riche" who merely possessed heavy artillery and aircraft.

"Of course, there are plans."

Su Yaoyang walked to the sand table, picked up a baton, and began to elaborate on the plan he and Pi Ruoyu and other staff officers had devised. The plan was to use Niangziguan and Xinkou as strongholds, then use air superiority to bomb the Japanese army's logistics supply lines, causing tens of thousands of Japanese troops to fall into a predicament of food and ammunition shortages and logistics paralysis, before launching a large-scale counterattack...

(End of this chapter)