Spy game? Stop guessing, I really am an undercover agent!

Chapter 264 The Mountain is Alive

Nantian's expression visibly brightened with excitement. Colonel Fujita meant that as long as he could achieve enough merit, the position of head of the Mei Agency...

At that moment, she seemed to have forgotten the advice that Doi-Yuan had given her...

The location of the North China Area Army in 1939 (also known as 1949).
In 1939, hot winds carrying smoke and dust swept across the parched mountains and rivers scorched by the flames of war in North China.

July has arrived, and the summer heat is intense. In the past, when plants would be growing wildly, a suffocating sense of desolation permeates the layered peaks of the Taihang Mountains.

The sky was overcast, devoid of its usual azure blue. Even the sun seemed to hang listlessly, as if viewed through a thick layer of frosted glass, casting its pale light upon the yellowish-brown figures crawling along the mountain paths.

Commander Tada's "cage policy" is like invisible but cold iron chains, tightening inch by inch over this 60,000 square kilometers of land, aiming to strangle the resistance forces living here.

The Japanese North China Area Army's front-line headquarters was located at a relatively flat valley entrance. Several requisitioned bluestone courtyards were connected together, with antennas densely mounted on the rooftops. Sandbag fortifications were layered outside the courtyard walls, and the dark muzzles of machine guns were pointed directly at every possible direction of attack.

In the largest main room, the original furniture had long been removed, replaced by a huge sand table that almost filled the entire room.

The Taihang Mountains, sculpted from mud and sand, are undulating and crisscrossed with ravines, and covered with small red, blue, and white flags representing the Japanese army and various resistance forces.

More than anything else, there were countless small yellow flags, almost forming a continuous expanse, representing the Japanese army's strongholds, bunkers, and blockade trenches, truly like a giant net covering the mountains and rivers.

Lieutenant General Tada, the commander of the army, wore a crisp yellow woolen officer's uniform, the stars on his collar insignia gleaming coldly in the dim light.

With his hands behind his back, his hawk-like gaze slowly swept across every corner of the sand table, a hint of anxiety appearing on his serious face.

Behind him, several staff officers stood solemnly, not daring to utter a sound.

As early as the beginning of 1939, Japan reinforced its North China Area Army with seven divisions and five mixed brigades to carry out a pacification plan.

Commander Tada even personally devised the "cage policy," intending to cut off all supplies to the Red Party.

In early July, the Army recommended General Nobuyuki Abe to reorganize the cabinet, with Commander-in-Chief Tada originally being the most popular candidate for Minister of Military Affairs.

Unfortunately, his way of doing things was not popular, and like Chief of Staff Itagaki and Commander Ishihara, he was a proponent of peace and advocated resolving the China issue through negotiations. Such an attitude was not in line with the army's proactive operational policy.

Therefore, His Majesty the Emperor, heeding the advice of His Excellency Suzuki of the Ministry of Finance and General Nobuyuki Abe, appointed Shunroku Nagahira as Minister of War!
A series of hurried footsteps interrupted Commander Tada's thoughts.

All the commanders of the units participating in this operation have arrived.

"Gentlemen, please be seated." Tada glanced at the commanders who had come to attend the meeting. His voice was not loud, but it carried a clear and cold tone, reaching everyone's ears. "'Maintaining order and security' is not about 'war,' but about 'governance.' The bandits rely on the Taihang Mountains, like parasitic moss. We must make this mountain their grave, not their barrier."

"Gentlemen, please look..." Commander Tada stretched out his white-gloved hand and picked up a red and blue pencil from the tray of the staff officer next to him.

The pencil twirled nimbly between his fingers, its red end appearing as if saturated with blood.

Suddenly, he swung his arm and threw the pencil like a short sword, landing it precisely on the sand table in the area representing the main peak of the Taihang Mountains with a "thud".

The pen was deeply embedded in the mud and sand, trembling slightly on its own.

"From March to now, we have established 123 new strongholds and built more than 300 kilometers of blockade walls, dividing the entire North China region into more than 2,000 grids, in coordination with the repeated sweeps by the Imperial Army's elite troops!"

"With highways as pillars, bunkers as locks, and ditches as chains, the Taihang Mountains are now an ironclad fortress! They have no way to escape!"

He slightly raised his chin, his gaze seemingly piercing through the rooftop and landing on the endless mountain range.

"Hunger, isolation, internal divisions... At that point, we won't need to waste too many bullets; they'll be like grasshoppers in autumn, unable to hop around in their cages for long."

"Recently, His Excellency Abe took office and reorganized the cabinet. Without a doubt, the powerful Imperial Army will dominate in the future. This is the best time for us to make our mark and achieve great things! I order..."

"With a clatter," all the generals present quickly stood up and looked respectfully at Commander Tada.

"A campaign was launched to suppress the Red Party's Eighth Route Army headquarters and the Red Party's 129th Division, which were active in the Taihang Mountains area."

"We must annihilate the main force of the Red Party in the Taihang Mountains!"

"Hayi..."

The orders were relayed down the chain of command with ruthless efficiency.

More Japanese troops swarmed into the mountains like locusts, and patrols appeared at every intersection, large and small. Gunshots and barking dogs broke the silence of the forest from time to time.

Occasionally, reconnaissance planes emblazoned with the Japanese flag would buzz overhead, their wings sweeping across the mountain ridges and casting ominous shadows.

On the Taihang Mountains...

Compared to the noisy and oppressive "cage" down below the mountain, the heart of the Taihang Mountains at night is a different kind of deathly stillness.

There was no wind, and the dense canopy of trees shattered the already weak moonlight, leaving only a few blurry spots of light on the ground covered with decaying leaves.

The air was damp and heavy, carrying the smell of soil and rotting plant roots.

A team is making a difficult infiltration in this inky darkness.

There were about twenty of them, and their uniforms were so worn that their original color was no longer visible.

Everyone's face was etched with exhaustion, their lips were chapped, but their eyes shone with an astonishing light in the darkness—a testament to the alertness and resilience honed from long periods on the brink of life and death.

They were the most elite reconnaissance squad of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army.

The Japanese encirclement was tightening, and they had to seep through the cracks in the iron barrel like mercury to find out the enemy's troop strength and firepower this time.

At the head of the procession was not a soldier, but an elderly man with a hunched back.

His name is Sun Shigen. He is the most experienced hunter in this area, and he knows the Taihang Mountains as well as the lines on his own palm.

Sun Shigen wore a tattered black cloth jacket, his trouser legs were tied tightly with straw rope, and he wore a pair of worn-out cloth shoes with thick soles. He walked on the thick layer of fallen leaves, making almost no sound.

He had no gun in his hand, only a jujube stick that had been worn smooth and shiny. Every now and then he would stop, squat down, pick up a bit of soil with his fingers and sniff it, or listen to the sounds that seemed to not exist at all.

That face, covered in deep wrinkles, looked like a piece of dried old tree bark in the darkness; only his eyes occasionally flashed with a sharp glint like a mountain eagle's in the dim light.

"Stop." Sun Shigen raised his arm, his voice hoarse and low, like the wind blowing through a crack in a rock.

The entire formation froze instantly. The soldiers crouched down, their guns pointing naturally outwards, making no extra sound. Only their heavy breathing was clearly audible in the silent forest.

"Uncle, what's wrong?" Li Tieniu, the guard company commander, stepped forward and asked in a low voice.

He was a burly man, but at this moment he moved as nimbly as a raccoon.

Sun Shigen didn't turn around, but pointed with his stick to a seemingly normal bush to the left: "Over there, three steps away, there's a pit. The old bear hunters would fall in and get strung together."

“There’s a string on the tree branch, connected to a bell. When it rings, the rabbits on the opposite ridge can hear it.”

Li Tieniu looked in that direction and, with the extremely dim light, could barely make out the thin line that was almost the same color as the tree bark. A chill ran down his spine.

Behind him, a young soldier with a still-childish face couldn't help but click his tongue slightly, only to be glared at by the veteran next to him, and quickly covered his mouth.

“Follow my footsteps, don’t make a mistake.” After saying that, Sun Shigen took another step, his footsteps landing on the seemingly ordinary fallen leaves and protruding tree roots, yet he was incredibly steady.

The column continued forward, slowly but resolutely moving in the direction the enemy believed to be impassable.

The path beneath our feet can no longer be called a path; sometimes it is a dry riverbed covered with slippery pebbles; sometimes it requires climbing a near-vertical rock face, with fingers gripping the cracks in the rocks and toes searching for the most insignificant foothold!
Sometimes you have to squeeze sideways through narrow crevices that only allow one person to pass at a time, with the cold rock wall brushing against your shoulders and back.

Sweat soaked through the worn-out military uniform, then icy cold from the night wind, clinging to his body.

No one spoke, only heavy breathing and the occasional echo of gravel rolling down the valley.

Sun Shigen, like an experienced old horse, guided the way through this maze-like predicament.

He would sometimes stop to touch the blurred, almost unrecognizable carvings on the rock face, or look up through the gaps in the tree canopy to observe the position of the stars.

He was walking on an ancient plank road that had long been forgotten by the world.

It is said that it was trampled by monks and herbalists during the Northern Wei Dynasty, and later disappeared into history and weeds, existing only in the oral memories of a very few old hunters like him.

"Company Commander, is this...is this really a road?" The young soldier, panting heavily, couldn't help but ask Li Tieniu in a low voice once again.

He was young and had more physical exertion, so his voice was trembling.

Li Tieniu glanced back at him, his expression obscured in the darkness, and whispered, "Stop talking nonsense, follow the old man. This is the road, the path our ancestors left us for survival!"

Upon hearing this, Sun Shigen didn't stop walking. He simply tossed out a sentence, as if speaking to the young soldier, or perhaps to himself: "The Japanese drew up plans, built pillboxes, and occupied the main road. They thought the mountain was just a muddy clod on a sand table... They don't understand that this mountain is alive."

His words were swallowed by the night wind, but they gave the soldiers who heard them a strange sense of certainty.

It's unclear how much time passed—perhaps two hours, perhaps half a night—but just as everyone's physical strength was about to reach its limit, Sun Shigen, who was in front, suddenly stopped and raised his fist.

The group stopped silently once again.

"We've arrived." Sun Shigen's voice was devoid of any emotion.

He signaled the team to spread out and take cover, then led Li Tieniu and several key members, crawling forward. After passing through an extremely dense thicket of thorny bushes, the view suddenly opened up before them.

They found themselves on an extremely secluded cliff.

This cliff resembles a prominent brow ridge on the forehead of a giant in the Taihang Mountains, with bottomless darkness below, and in the distance...

In the distance, about several miles away, a valley basin was brightly lit!

It was a huge complex of buildings, with several courtyards clearly defined!

The beams of the snow-white searchlights, like giant white brooms, swept back and forth across the night sky, occasionally passing over the sentry posts, barbed wire, and military trucks and motorcycles parked on the open ground outside the compound.

Even from this distance, one could vaguely see ant-sized figures moving about, and even hear indistinct Japanese commands and the roar of motors carried on the wind.

In front of a large courtyard with a tall antenna, one can even see a conspicuous Japanese military flag, which looks like a pale and ominous mark under the lights.

That was the front-line headquarters of the Japanese North China Area Army!
The heart that issued the command, weaving a "cage" that covers the entire Taihang Mountains!
All the Eighth Route Army soldiers who witnessed this scene held their breath.

They braved a perilous situation, barely escaping death, and somehow managed to sneak up right under the enemy's nose, circling around to the very center of this impenetrable fortress, the place where they were least likely to appear!

Li Tieniu suppressed his shock and quickly took out his binoculars to observe carefully.

His fingers were slightly white from the pressure. The enemy camp's defenses, the visible and hidden sentry posts, the distribution of the main buildings…

All this valuable intelligence is now clearly displayed before our eyes.

Sun Shigen took out his pipe, huddled in a corner, and looked at Li Tieniu, who was drawing a map, and said, “Look! Duotian’s ‘cage’… He calculated the great road to the end, he calculated the mountain peaks to the end, but he overlooked… he overlooked the land beneath our feet!”

"This is the livelihood we've passed down from our ancestors; it can't be locked up by a few lumps of iron!"

"The mountain. It's alive..."

Li Tieniu slowly lowered his binoculars and looked at the old hunter Sun Shigen beside him, whose beard and hair trembled slightly in the night wind.

On Sun Shigen's usually impassive face, a muscle seemed to twitch slightly.
Their profound gaze slowly shifted from the arrogant enemy camp below the mountain to the cliff at their feet, a cliff that had slumbered for thousands of years but now held them, these uninvited guests, aloft.

Finally, his gaze fell upon the young soldiers around him, who were ragged, emaciated, but whose eyes burned with an indomitable flame.

He didn't say anything, but took a deep drag on his pipe and slammed it onto the rock.

"Boom, boom, boom."

A muffled thud, like the prelude to a war drum, shattered the deepest darkness before dawn.

"Commander Li, you have one hour left to move out. You must evacuate after one hour, otherwise you will be at risk of being exposed!"

“Alright, sir, I understand,” Li Tieniu turned to the group and said, “According to the previously arranged action plan, we will split into three groups. We will all meet here in one hour.”

"Yes."

(End of this chapter)