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

As soon as the order to replenish supplies was given, the battalions began to retreat.

Zhao Weiguo stood on the steps of the ancestral hall, watching the troops pass by the village entrance. The gray uniforms stretched out in a long line along the mountain path, the bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, becoming indistinct as they moved further away. A communications soldier ran back from the ranks, stopped in front of him, saluted, and said that the First Battalion had reached the riverbank.

He nodded.

When Old Zhou led the first battalion to the riverbank, the sun had just climbed over the mountain. The stones on the riverbank, frozen by the night's frost, crunched underfoot. The newly recruited soldiers were drawn from Ping'an County and followed from Xiangyuan; their gray cloth uniforms hadn't been washed yet, the collars stiff and upright, and some still had factory creases on their cuffs. Old Zhou had them line up in three rows and march back and forth on the riverbank. Their footsteps clattered on the cobblestones, and some of the new recruits, unaware that they were walking with the wrong gait, swung their arms and legs in the same direction.

Old Zhou squatted on the riverbank, glanced around, and without standing up, with a pipe handle dangling from his mouth, mumbled, "Hey you on the right, are you walking or rowing?"

Someone in the group chuckled softly. The recruit's face flushed red, and he stumbled a couple of steps before catching up.

Duan Peng's Third Battalion was practicing formations on the other side of the riverbank. Duan Peng himself squatted on the riverbank, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth. After watching for a while, he stood up and shouted to the ranks, "Last row, don't tuck your rifle butts under your armpits, bring them out." There was a rustling sound of adjustments in the ranks, and the rifle straps rubbed against their shoulders.

Zhao Weiguo stood at the entrance of the ancestral hall for a while, but didn't go over. A morning breeze blew in from the ravine, making the old couplets on the hall's door rustle loudly. His fingers, tucked into his pocket, touched a folded piece of paper. He hadn't yet carefully examined the reconnaissance route taken by the cavalry battalion.

He turned and went into the ancestral hall.

Zhao Gang sat in the ancestral hall, reviewing the spoils of the nuclear war. Several account books lay open on the table, pencil stubs repeatedly sharpened and broken, leaving a ring of lead-gray dust on the surface. Bullets, food, and medicine were meticulously recorded, detailing how much was captured, how much was consumed, and how much remained, categorized into several compartments. Zhao Gang wrote slowly, tapping each number on the paper with his finger after writing it down, as if mentally reviewing it.

He finished writing the last stroke, put down the pen, and rubbed the web of his right hand. The numbers on the table added up to enough for the next battle; if used sparingly, there would still be some to spare. He glanced sideways at Zhao Weiguo.

"Enough."

Zhao Weiguo walked to the table, took out the cavalry route map, unfolded it, glanced at it, and then folded it back.

"That's enough. I'm going to the stone kiln."

Zhao Gang nodded, without asking what he was going to do, picked up his pencil again, and turned to the next page of the ledger.

They walked for over ten miles along the mountain path. They rode horses for a while, but when they reached the mouth of a gully, the horses couldn't cross, so they dismounted and walked. The path was narrow, flanked by dry bushes, their branches stiffened by the wind, hissing against their military trousers. The ground beneath their feet was frozen hard, and they could feel the jagged edges of the ground with their soles. Zhao Weiguo walked quickly, his military boots making a soft crunching sound on the gravel. A communications soldier followed behind him. The two barely spoke, only occasionally stopping to catch their breath.

It was past noon when we arrived at the stone kiln.

The fire inside the cave was burning brightly. The smell of anvil and coal wafted from the cave entrance, carrying a wave of heat that hit his face, clashing with the cold wind outside and creating a sensation of both fire and ice. Zhao Weiguo stood at the cave entrance for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness inside before stepping inside.

Several sappers, shirtless, were polishing gun barrels and shell casings by the light of kerosene lamps. The glass shade of the lamps was yellowed with soot, and the light shining through cast long, crooked shadows. The gun barrels were placed on hand-operated reamers, and the sappers had to bend over, pushing the reamer through the barrel wall bit by bit. The metal shavings pushed out fell onto their aprons, thin as paper, and stuck to their thighs with sweat, impossible to remove. Each push of the reamer produced a low, muffled thud in the barrel.

Zhao Tieshan squatted at the end of the kiln, a pile of semi-finished products in front of him. He heard footsteps, glanced back, stood up, and patted the dust off his knees. The dust was impossible to brush off. Oil and iron filings had seeped into the fabric, forming a shiny black crust on his knees.

"Commander, look." He turned to the side, letting Zhao Weiguo see the gun barrels stacked in the corner. "Rifle production is stuck at five hundred per month. The brothers work in two shifts, their hands blistered and bleeding, but they don't stop. But without precision machine tools, the barrels and cartridge cases are all made by hand, so production capacity has reached its limit."

He crouched down and tapped a half-finished gun barrel with his knuckles. The sound was muffled, with a short, sharp echo, lacking the crispness of metal. "To expand production further, we need good lathes. The stone kiln is cramped; the machine tool won't have enough room to maneuver."

Zhao Weiguo squatted down next to Zhao Tieshan, picked up the unfinished gun barrel, and held it up to the lamplight. The grooves on the inner wall of the barrel were clearly visible in the kerosene lamp light. Several irregular scratches of varying depths were visible, and where the reamer had deviated, a step was left, the edge of which could be felt with the fingertip. It was hand-reamed, and the tolerances were unstable; after firing a few dozen bullets, the rifling would wear off, and the trajectory of the bullet would also deviate.

He lowered the gun barrel, his fingers lingering on it for a moment. The coolness of the iron traveled from his fingertips to his wrist, along with the lingering warmth of the scissors, faint and lingering like the warmth of a person after they've left.

The system panel flashed through his mind. In the drawing section was a diagram of a high-precision machine tool, labeled with spindle precision, guideway tolerances, and feed mechanism parameters. He'd seen those numbers countless times; the position of every line was etched in his memory. Now wasn't the time to open it. The kiln wasn't expanded yet, and there was nowhere to put the machine tool once it arrived. Looking at it would be pointless.

He put the gun barrel back in the corner, stood up, and brushed the iron filings and dirt off his knees.

"First, expand the kiln," he said, his voice barely audible, half-drowsy from the bellows in the furnace. "Build up those two abandoned kilns next to it. Make sure there's enough space for them, so the machine tool will have room to move in."

Zhao Tieshan stood up, glanced at Zhao Weiguo, and nodded without asking any further questions. "Alright. I'll have someone get started right away."

As he turned around, Zhao Weiguo saw that his shirt was soaked with sweat, the fabric clinging to his spine and outlining the contours of his shoulder blades. The collar of the shirt was almost completely worn through, with loose threads, and it hadn't been sewn up yet.

The engineering battalion entered the stone kiln early the next morning. People were carrying bricks, mixing mortar, and re-covering the collapsed roof of the old kiln; the area outside the kiln was bustling like a market. The sounds of hammers and crowbars echoed throughout the folds of the Taihang Mountains for a whole day, barely stopping. Some people squatted by the kiln entrance, munching on dry rations, taking a couple of bites before putting down their hammers and continuing to work, their munched buns covered in a layer of dust.

The communications battalion had strung cables along the mountain ridge. A communications soldier sat atop a pole, tightening screws, his tool bag hanging from his waist, holding pliers and several coils of wire, swaying in the wind. He looked down and shouted something, and the soldiers below looked up and replied, their voices carried away by the wind.

The medical team members carried their medicine kits and moved between the work sheds, changing the dressings for the sappers whose hands were chafed from rubbing their rifle barrels. Some had their hands wrapped in white gauze, with small patches of red seeping through the seams. The medics squatted down, peeled off the old gauze, and applied iodine to the wounds. The sappers gritted their teeth, their cheeks taut, and remained silent.

Zhao Weiguo stood at the kiln entrance for a while. He saw Zhao Tieshan squatting beside the kiln foundation being built, comparing it to the cement surface with a spirit level, then squatting down to smooth it with a trowel. The spirit level rested on the still-wet cement; air bubbles rose from the smoothed surface and burst, leaving tiny pinholes. Zhao Tieshan looked down at it for a long time before standing up, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and drawing a line where the spirit level had read.

He turned and left.

The cavalry battalion didn't rest. They were ordered to advance and scout locations for the next city. When the company commander returned on horseback, it was already evening, with a sketch hanging on his saddle. The paper was wrinkled in several places from sweat and dew, and the sweat from the saddle had left a dark water stain on the back of the paper. He wrapped the reins around his arm and spread the sketch out in front of Zhao Weiguo.

"Commander, that stronghold at the eastern end of Shouyang is blocked on a side road." He pointed to a red circle on the map. "It's well-defended. The walls aren't high, and the moat isn't deep. It'll be perfect for attacking next time."

He was still panting as he spoke, his chest heaving, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, running along the curve of his brow bone into the corner of his eye. He wiped them with his sleeve.

Zhao Weiguo took the sketch. The paper was damp with horse sweat, and the ink lines had blurred somewhat, but the terrain outline was still clearly visible. The direction of a section of wall, the location of a trench, and several dirt roads leading to the stronghold were drawn, though not in great detail, but the key information was there. He folded the sketch and put it in his pocket.

"Go and rest."

The company commander responded and led the horse toward the stable. The horse's hooves clattered on the rocks, the sound fading into the distance.

At the youth military academy, Chen An was leading a group of key members in learning machine operation.

An old lathe sat in a small hut next to the kiln. Its tin roof allowed sunlight to stream in through the window, casting a bright reflection on the lathe's guide rails. Fine metallic dust floated within this reflection, swirling slowly in the air. An old craftsman stood beside the lathe, demonstrating how to set the cutting tool, how to lock the workpiece, how much feed to make with each cut, and the steadiness of his hand. As the cutting tool moved, metal shavings curled into a thin thread and fell, carrying the smell of cutting oil, dispersing into the air.

Chen An stood at the front, clutching a piece of cotton yarn stained with machine oil, his eyes fixed on the marks left by the cutting tool on the workpiece. He was so engrossed that he only snapped out of his reverie when someone called him twice, and when he turned around, the afterimage of the tool marks was still lingering in his eyes.

"How's your learning going?" Zhao Weiguo walked to the door, but didn't go in. He leaned against the door frame and asked.

Chen An turned around and wiped the oiled cotton yarn he was holding on his trousers. The yarn left an oil stain, but he didn't pay it any mind. "I'm getting the hang of it. I'm still a bit unsteady with the knife; a couple more days of practice will be enough."

Zhao Weiguo looked at him for a while, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Chen An's hands were also oily, with a black ring under his fingernails. He had spent a lot of time with those teenagers, and the calluses on his hands had become thick.

He turned and left.

As the sun set, he stood alone before the kiln entrance of the new kiln, watching the newly laid foundation rise brick by brick. The cement wasn't completely dry yet, a thin layer of water droplets floating on the surface, shimmering dimly in the setting sun. The fire inside the stone kiln reflected on his face, casting a warm glow on the contours of his eyebrows and eyes. The warmth was only on the surface; the side of his face in the shade was chilly in the wind.

Zhao Tieshan's words were still ringing in his mind: "Production capacity has reached its limit." He put his hands in his pockets and touched the edge of the sketch paper that the cavalry battalion commander had given him; the corner of the paper was a little soft from being warmed by his body heat.

Once the mothership lands, gun barrels and shell casings will overflow from the stone kiln, multiplying in volume. He didn't say this aloud; he just thought about it in his mind and then put it down.

When he turned back to the ancestral hall, the moon had already risen. The kerosene lamp on the table was still lit, and the map of the next city was spread out on it, with a thick red line already drawn around the eastern stronghold of Shouyang. He didn't rush to unfold it to look at it; instead, he first made a note of the progress of the stone kiln expansion in his notebook.

The notebook cover was stained with machine oil, and when he opened it, a dried iron filings from a gun barrel were tucked into one of the pages. The filings were as thin as paper, with sharp edges, and he could feel the brittle hardness of the iron between his fingers. He picked up the filings, examined them, put them back, and closed the notebook.

Under the moonlight, the foundation of the new kiln was still damp. The fire inside the kiln flickered, illuminating the newly laid brick seams before dimming again.