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

The map of Liujiapo was pinned to the wall of the main hall of the ancestral hall. The edge of the paper was rolled up by the wind, revealing the ink lines drawn underneath.

Zhao Weiguo stood before the map, the tip of his red and blue pencil pausing briefly at the outer edge of Liujiapo. The Zhengtai Railway line from Yangquan to Shouyang was a thick horizontal line on the map, with Liujiapo nestled to its south, like a loosely driven wedge. He drew a line across Liujiapo with his pencil; the sound of the pencil gliding across the paper was so soft that everyone in the room could hear it.

"First attack Liujiapo." He put down his pen and turned to face the people in the room.

Old Zhou leaned closer to examine the Japanese survey map he had copied. The annotations in the corners were all in Japanese; he couldn't recognize many, but he immediately recognized the terrain of Liujiapo. The old weir to the north was marked with a dotted line on the map, and the upstream river meandered from the mountain valley, winding its way down to the low-lying area north of the town. He pulled his pipe from his mouth and tapped it on his shoe: "Commander, is this weir usable?"

"It works." Zhao Weiguo turned back to the map, pointing to the location of the weir. "The north side of the city is lower than the south. If the old weir breaks, the water will flood into the north gate, and all the Japanese strongholds will be submerged in puddles. They won't even be able to hold their guns securely."

Duan Peng chuckled from behind, revealing a set of white teeth: "Then let's not bother attacking the city, we'll just let the waters soak that son of a bitch."

"Even getting soaked requires someone to force it." Zhao Weiguo didn't laugh. His gaze swept from Duan Peng's face to Lao Zhou, then to Zhao Tieshan. "Lao Zhou, your battalion will press the south gate head-on, making a big show of it, pinning the Japanese eyes to the south. Duan Peng, your third battalion will circle the west of the city, blocking their escape route to the east. Zhao Tieshan, the artillery battalion will bring their cannons up the north ridge and specifically target the enemy's firing positions on the city walls, preventing them from scaling them."

He paused, then turned to look at Zhi Zi, who had remained silent: "Your men keep an eye on things in Taiyuan. The Japanese will have to pass through Shibalipu to pull their troops towards Liujiapo."

Gardenia tucked her braid behind her ear: "Leave it to me."

Zhao Gang took the battle orders one by one and distributed them to each bench. Old Zhou received the order, squatted by the door, and lit another pipe. Duan Peng didn't sit down but leaned against the doorframe, looking at the maps.

Zhao Weiguo didn't leave immediately. He stood back in front of the map, his gaze following the thin red circle downwards. The garrison at Liujiapo numbered just over three hundred, a company plus half a puppet army platoon. But it was a wedge wedged on the branch road between Yangquan and Shouyang, a wedge in the ribs of the Zhengtai Railway, and the Japanese from the Taiyuan direction would never stand idly by and watch it be pried open.

He rubbed the waterline on the map with his fingertip. Seven parts water. Three parts depending on whether Ding Wei can hold off the reinforcements at Shibalipu.

After nightfall, the engineering battalion sneaked up the mountain.

The old weir had collapsed more than halfway, but the foundation stones remained. The engineers, using a few dimly lit kerosene lamps, dug a canal, diverting water from the upstream tributary section by section towards the weir. The soil, frozen solid from the night before, was so hard that the shovels sparked as they struck it, the cracking sound carrying far down the hillside. A young engineer rubbed his frozen hands, breathed on them, and gripped the shovel handle tightly before continuing to dig.

Zhao Tieshan led the artillery battalion to push two mountain guns up the north ridge. The gun positions were chosen behind several crooked trees, their branches and snow covering the barren slope as far as the eye could see from the city wall. Zhao Tieshan squatted at the gun positions, touching the cannon barrel with his fingers; it was icy cold. He lifted the gun cover a crack, glanced at the Liujiapo city wall, and then closed it again.

Old Zhou's battalion arrived at the south gate of Liujiapo before dawn.

He made no attempt to conceal himself. The troops were scattered, bonfires lit along the field ridges, and red flags planted all over the slopes. Every now and then, the bugler would blow a charge, the sound rolling across the wheat fields, crashing against the city walls and echoing back. The Japanese sentries at the south gate peered down from behind the battlements, seeing only silhouettes of men in gray uniforms, the smoke from the bonfires turning half the sky greyish-white.

"Battalion Commander, aren't we being too conspicuous?" the communications soldier asked in a low voice.

Old Zhou spat on the ground: "That's what we want them to see. The more bustling the South Gate, the calmer the waters at the North Gate."

Duan Peng's Third Battalion took a different route. They bypassed the mountain ridge west of Liujiapo and made their way to the dirt road east of the city. The road was narrow, barely wide enough for a mule cart to pass, with frozen wheat fields on both sides, the ridges covered with a thin layer of frost. Duan Peng scattered his men in the wheat fields, then lay down behind a ridge, his chin pressed against the frozen ground, staring at the only way out.

"If the Japanese want to escape, they'll have to take this road to the east." He turned and whispered to the platoon leader, "Set up the machine gun under that locust tree and block the road with the muzzle."

The platoon leader crouched down, dragged the crooked-handled machine over, set it up, and then made a hand gesture to him.

Duan Peng didn't move and lay there for a while longer. The wind blew in from the north, carrying moisture. He sniffed and smelled a muddy, earthy odor.

The water level upstream didn't reach full until dusk the next day.

Zhao Weiguo stood at the edge of the weir and dipped his right hand into the water to test it. The water was bone-chillingly cold; his fingertips went numb in three seconds. The water level was less than half a foot from the top of the weir; any more and it would overflow the dam. He shook the water off his hands, glanced up at Zhao Tieshan's direction on the north ridge, where the barrels of the two cannons gleamed dimly in the twilight. He then looked towards the south gate; Old Zhou's bonfire was burning brightly, and the faint sounds of drill chants could be heard drifting over.

"Break the dam," he said.

The engineering battalion commander lit the fuse of the explosives that had been buried beforehand. The fuse hissed as it burned into the ground, and after seven or eight seconds, a muffled thud came from the bottom of the dam. Immediately afterward, there was a thunderous roar of water; the soil and rocks under the old dam collapsed, and the water that had been stored for a day and a night was squeezed out of the breach and rushed downstream along the newly dug canal.

The water came quickly and heavily.

Liujiapo North Pass was a low-lying area, and the Japanese strongholds were built on the edge of the depression. When the first wave of water hit, the sandbags on the position were washed away and knocked over. The Japanese soldiers on duty ran barefoot out of the stronghold, stepping into knee-deep mud and water, holding their rifle butts higher than their heads, splashing water all over themselves.

Zhao Tieshan saw it from the observation post. He turned and shouted to the artillerymen, and two mountain gun shells landed on the city wall, grazing the twilight. One shell on the left tore off a piece of the crenellation, and the other on the right landed next to the city gate tower, sending up bricks and wood chips. The Japanese soldiers who were about to set up machine guns on the city wall were knocked to the ground by the blast wave.

Hearing the commotion at the North Gate, the Japanese soldiers at the South Gate began to move their troops north. Old Zhou had been waiting for this moment. He stomped out the half-burned fire in front of him, shouted behind him, and ordered the First Battalion to advance from the front, not to fight recklessly, but to keep the defenders pinned down. Rifle and machine gun fire erupted wave after wave from outside the South Gate. The Japanese soldiers, having only made it halfway north, had to turn back to defend the South Gate.

It was even quieter on Duan Peng's side. The escape route to the east was empty, but not a single Japanese soldier had escaped from that road. The floodwaters of Beiguan had trapped them all inside the city. He lay on the edge of the field and saw the city's firelight reflected on the water, the water shimmering.

After nightfall, Zhi Zi's men delivered the first intelligence report. The note, crumpled in the hands of the communications soldier, was still warm when handed to Zhao Weiguo: the Japanese army in Taiyuan had dispatched a large battalion to reinforce southwards, taking the very road to Shibalipu. Ding Wei's New First Regiment had already breached that pass, blocking the vanguard of the reinforcements in the mountain path. The Japanese had been attacking all afternoon without success, stuck on the road and unable to move, unable even to receive the distress signal sent from Liujiapo.

Zhao Weiguo glanced at the note, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Ding Wei was stuck. Reinforcements couldn't get through.

Water is still being poured into Beiguan.

By late at night, Beiguan had become a murky pool. The walls, soaked with water, began to crumble, and the muddy ground in the stronghold made a squelching sound underfoot. The will of the defenders, like the dam, crumbled under the constant soaking. The remaining Japanese soldiers abandoned their high ground stronghold, dragging their rifles as they fled towards the low-lying area north of the city. Their shoes were stuck in the mud, and some simply threw them off and ran barefoot through the water.

Duan Peng had been waiting all night for this moment.

The routed soldiers, having just emerged from the mud and water of Beiguan, crashed headlong into the Third Battalion's position. Duan Peng didn't fire, but ordered his soldiers to surround them from three sides and wipe them out. The Japanese soldiers, in their haste, didn't even have time to prepare to raise their guns before they were disarmed, their soaked uniforms stiffening in the night wind.

Zhao Weiguo entered the city just before dawn.

The streets and alleys of Liujiapo were narrow, and the Japanese flags, which they hadn't had time to take down, still hung on the walls. The wheels of the mule cart rolled over the waterlogged dirt road, leaving two deep ruts. He didn't linger in the city, riding straight to the medicine storehouse at the west end. The storehouse door had been blown open by artillery fire, and the iron lock hung swaying on the door knocker. Inside, wooden shelves were stacked with boxes of sulfonamides, bandages, and painkillers.

"Move." He only said one word.

The engineers jumped off the mule carts and began carrying crates out. Zhao Weiguo stood at the warehouse entrance, his hand on the frame, gazing at the small town he had just acquired. The floodwaters in the streets hadn't completely receded, and several soldiers were using shovels to push the water into the drainage ditches. No one called to him, no one asked him if he would be occupying any more territory. They knew the rules; once they finished moving, they left.

Before turning around and mounting his horse, he mentally went through the numbers: in this battle, the Independent Regiment had gained 500 men, bringing its total to 5,500.

The mule cart left the city, heading towards Xiangyuan. Zhao Weiguo, on horseback, glanced back at the outline of Liujiapo shrouded in mist. The base of the city wall was still wet; moisture rose from the north gate, swirling into a thin mist in the morning light.

He straightened the horse's head and didn't look at it again.

The wheels of the mule cart rolled over the frozen dirt road, and cartloads of sulfanilamide and bandages bounced on the carts, strips of cloth peeking out from the gaps in the binding ropes, swaying in the wind.