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

When the white flag was lowered from the top of Yangquan city, the city gates were not open.

First to emerge was a Japanese officer, holding a white cloth, followed by two unarmed translators. He announced the number of defenders and the location of the radio station at the foot of the city wall, and requested to discuss surrender terms with Zhao Gang.

Zhao Weiguo did not allow anyone to enter the command post.

"Hand over the radio first."

The officer hesitated for a moment. "The city is willing to cease fire."

"The radio, codebooks, breechblocks, machine gun bolts—everything was placed outside the city gates."

The officer's face changed. "This is surrender."

Zhao Weiguo put the binoculars on the table.

"Surrender, then hand over anything that can be used to fire again. Hand over your guns, and I'll let people in. If you don't—the white flag will fly until next year, and the door won't be opened."

The officer opened his mouth, but ultimately didn't argue further.

Zhao Gang handed out four lists: items, personnel, wounded, and officers; each was to be filled out separately. If one item was missing, the white flag would be hoisted again, and the door would be closed again.

The remaining defenders of Yangquan numbered about nine hundred, a mix of Japanese troops, puppet troops, and mine police. They still had two operational artillery pieces, three radios, and five heavy machine guns.

Two reserve battalions were stationed outside the city. One battalion sealed off the east gate, and the other sealed off the west gate. Duan Peng's cavalry blocked the southern road, refusing to enter the city to claim credit. The miners' team guarded the coal yard and warehouses to the north, while Zhang Shisuo checked the list of mine police officers one by one.

The city gate was only opened a crack after the first radio was brought out.

The gap was just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Squads of Japanese soldiers placed their rifles outside the line and then passed through the opening empty-handed. Shadows were still moving on the city wall, and the machine guns of the two reserve battalions never left their firing ports.

Zhao Gang didn't relax his guard at all because of Bai Qi. The number of people who surrendered in the first batch was twenty-seven fewer than the number reported by the city itself, so he ordered the translator to go back and count them again. Half an hour later, twenty-four more people were found from the hospital, stables, and power plant outposts, with the remaining three written as "pending verification." The city gates were not fully opened as a result.

Duan Peng waited outside the south gate, a straw in his mouth, watching the Japanese soldiers walk out empty-handed one by one.

"Nine hundred men and this is what they look like? Skinny as bamboo poles."

A cavalryman nearby chimed in, "Commander, they haven't had enough to eat for three days."

Duan Peng spat out the straw. "They haven't had enough to eat for three days... So when we distribute their rations, let's not skimp on anything."

Two white lines were laid out inside and outside the doorway. The lines marked the location of weapons, and roll call took place inside. Officers first handed over their sabers and pistols, while the radio operator had to clearly state the location of the batteries, antenna, and codebook. A Japanese lieutenant had hidden the codebook in the sole of his boot; Zhao Gang had to remove the sole to find it.

The lieutenant asked, "Is this considered a condition?"

"Yes. Since you submitted it late, the review process will begin from the time you submitted it late."

The medical team was receiving the wounded nearby. Yang Xiuqin categorized the injuries by red, yellow, and blue strips of cloth. Two miners carrying a stretcher passed by, recognized the person lying on it as a mine policeman, and stopped in their tracks.

Zhao Gang saw it. "Take them to the ward first. It's a blood debt; register them and we'll try them later."

The miners gritted their teeth and finally carried the stretcher away.

Someone tried to wrap the gun in a quilt, but Zhang Shisuo immediately pulled it out and recounted the entire arsenal according to the inventory list. The miner, his face covered in coal dust, stood by the city gate, and the former puppet army platoon leader didn't dare utter a single word of protest.

Zhang Shisuo slammed the gun on the ground. "You fucking wrapped that gun in a blanket, thinking you could take it home for the New Year?"

The puppet army platoon leader lowered his head and dared not utter a sound.

The first order upon entering the city was to seal off the warehouses. The second was to protect the wells, hospitals, grain depots, and power plants. The third was to register the Japanese troops, puppet troops, mine police, chamber of commerce security personnel, and ordinary residents separately.

The seal that had been affixed to the granary entrance, originally belonging to the garrison command, was torn off and replaced with a new seal from the Independent Regiment. The two former warehouse managers were retained, but the gate had to be opened by a three-way combination of the miners' representatives and Zhao Gang's men. The power plant workers restored civilian power lines first, while the military camp and government offices were temporarily shut off to prevent anyone from hiding a radio and continuing to transmit messages.

There were still residents and wounded Japanese soldiers in the hospital who hadn't been transferred yet. Yang Xiuqin only arranged patients according to the severity of their injuries, treating whoever bled first. When someone outside objected, she simply placed the blood-stained cloth on the table, and the room fell silent.

Someone on the street handed me an old red cloth, the edges of which were blackened by smoke and the stitches were crooked.

Zhao Weiguo said, "First, we'll put it on the city wall. Then we'll make another one and put it on the coal mine shaft."

Zhao Gang asked, "The city and the mine together?"

"The city wall tells people that the owners have changed. The well derrick tells people that it's not just a change of signboard."

In the afternoon, two red flags were raised, one to the city wall and the other to the well frame.

The mine is still under maintenance. Seventeen miners died in the uprising, and sixty-four are lying in a makeshift shed used as a makeshift canteen. When someone asked when work would resume, Zhang Shisuo, with the list tucked under his arm, simply replied with one sentence.

"First, we need to bring the living people back to health."

The final reckoning began at the temporary command post outside the city gate.

Four maps were nailed to the wall, with red ropes connecting Xigou, Sandaoliang, the outskirts of Yangquan, Sanglin'ao, and Houerling. Zhao Gang led his men to check the maps battle by battle: the dead, wounded, prisoners, deserters, and spoils, going through each one one by one.

Initial battles on four fronts: 67 dead, 181 wounded. Xigou: 118 dead, 267 wounded. Sandaoliang: 96 dead, 314 wounded or poisoned, 57 of whom were seriously injured. Southeast raid on Yangquan: 31 dead, 72 wounded. Sanglin'ao: 54 dead, 139 wounded. Houerling: 63 dead, 154 wounded. Beishan Road: 89 dead, 226 wounded. Southeast Highlands: 47 dead, 121 wounded. Mining area battle: 22 dead, 58 wounded.

A total of 587 were killed in action and 1,532 were wounded or poisoned. The 57 seriously injured at Sandaoliang are already included in the total number of wounded and sick, and will not be added separately. The 17 miners who died and 64 who were wounded are listed separately.

After these numbers were read aloud, no one in the room flipped through the papers for a long time.

Beneath each total lies a name. Some died in snow gullies, some in poisonous fog, some were just steps away from returning to the stretcher line. No matter how accurately the numbers are added, they won't bring those people back.

Duan Peng took the straw out of his mouth, looked at it for a long time, and then stuffed it back in.

"Five hundred and eighty-seven. I've led my cavalry in so many charges, and each time I felt like only a few people had died. But when you put it all together..."

He didn't finish speaking.

Zhao Gang had each battalion commander sign their respective contribution sheets. Someone noticed a signalman's name was misspelled, so the entire summary sheet was rewritten. No one complained about the trouble; if the name was wrong, the compensation wouldn't be delivered, and even if the numbers were correct, it wouldn't matter.

When that page was rewritten, the original paper wasn't thrown away. The recorder circled the misspelled words and stapled them to the back along with the two correction sheets, lest later only a clean master sheet remain, and no one could explain how each word was corrected. Someone brought in the belongings of a fallen soldier outside the window: a few pocket watches, two combs, and an unfinished letter home, which were temporarily placed by the threshold, but no one had time to open them.

The enemy's headquarters are even more difficult to manage.

The lists of bodies from Sanglin'ao, Houerling, and Beishandao overlapped. Zhi Zi used radio records, prisoner confessions, and battlefield numbers to remove duplicates, confirming 6,415 deaths. Previously, there were 1,525 officially captured prisoners, and approximately 900 more were disarmed in Yangquan, bringing the total number of prisoners and disarmed prisoners to 2,425. This number cannot be mixed with the death toll.

The seized items can be divided into those that are usable and those that are not.

Three mountain guns, two of which can be repaired. Nine Type 92 heavy machine guns. Over two thousand rifles. Eight radios, two of which are damaged. Five vehicles, only two of which can be started. Hundreds of boxes of ammunition are still awaiting acceptance.

A box of artillery shells appeared intact, but upon opening it, the primers were found to be damp. In front of the inventory clerk, Zhao Tieshan placed it in the quarantine zone.

"Seizing spoils isn't something you can just write down on paper and then execute."

The same goes for the cars. Five cars were lined up in the yard. Two could be started, the third had a leaking radiator, the fourth was missing brake pads, and the fifth had its engine locked up. Someone suggested recording all five cars in the results, but the repair team simply divided them into three columns on the form: "Available," "To be Repaired," and "Parts to be Dismantled."

The inventory, containment, and burial lasted for seven days.

New graves were dug up in rows outside the city. Wooden signs were erected for those whose identities were confirmed, and numbers were assigned to those whose identities were not confirmed. Miners, soldiers of the Independent Regiment, and unidentified personnel who died during rescue efforts were registered in separate registers, and their burial locations were drawn on maps. We couldn't let it be that a few years later, all that would remain was the statement, "Buried near Yangquan."

Old Zhou's old left shoulder injury flared up again, and his left leg still restricted his weight-bearing. The daily command of the artillery battalion was handed over to the deputy battalion commander. He wanted to see the captured artillery, but Yang Xiuqin only allowed people to bring the medical records to his bedside.

When Zhao Weiguo went to see him, Old Zhou was holding the handover form of the artillery battalion, which detailed which cannon was missing which parts, even more so than his own medicine prescription.

"Get your leg healed first."

"Your leg isn't injured."

"Then learn it first, and don't try to be a hero."

Old Zhou stared at the handover form for a long time before finally handing the paper to the deputy battalion commander and not asking to get out of the car again.

"Alright. You're in charge. But the breech springs on those two mountain guns need replacing. Tell Zhao Tieshan not to disassemble them yet, wait until I get back to check."

Zhao Weiguo neither agreed nor refused. "Let's talk about it when your leg is better."

Old Zhou closed his eyes. "You're getting harder and harder to fool, kid."

The small furnace in the mining area also started its first operation in these seven days.

Zhao Tieshan conducted a trial run using the existing furnace and raw materials. The first batch of samples was full of pores and lacked sufficient strength, so it was rejected on the spot.

The first furnace was only half-filled. The coal came from the newly repaired mine, the scrap steel from damaged captured artillery pieces, and the lime and additives were gathered from three supply depots. When the furnace temperature reached halfway up, the bellows bearings began to overheat, forcing Zhao Tieshan to reduce the airflow.

The surface of the molten steel looked flat, but after cutting it open, it was full of fine pores. The first sample broke off at the pores as soon as it was placed on the tensile clamp.

Zhao Tieshan examined the broken surface under the light for a long time before writing "Scrapped" on the test form. He didn't change it to "Near Pass".

Duan Peng passed by and peeked inside. "It's ruined?"

"It's ruined."

"How about another batch?"

Zhao Tieshan put the broken pieces back into the wooden box. "I can make another batch. But you have to tell me first what went wrong with this one."

Duan Peng clicked his tongue. "How would I know where I went wrong? I'm a horseman, not a blacksmith."

"Then stop causing trouble here. Go walk your horse."

Duan Peng laughed, picked up the straw, and turned to leave.

None of the people in front of the furnace left. The coal-delivering miners propped their iron hooks against the wall, and the fitter repairing the bellows dipped his red-hot gloves into a bucket of water. The broken sample was placed in a wooden box, the lid of which was labeled with the furnace number, raw materials, and the time of reduced airflow. To find where the next furnace should start, they would have to rely on this piece of scrap steel to trace back, not just gloss over it with a "let's try again."

The cannon barrel was still far off, and mass production was out of the question. All that remained of this batch was a record of failure.

When Zhao Tieshan handed the wooden box to the recorder, he specifically asked him to write the words "scrap" at the top. The coal ash in front of the furnace hadn't been swept away yet, and the next batch of raw materials hadn't arrived. No one was using this smelting as a slogan for celebration; repairing the bearings, patching the bellows, and remixing the raw materials all had to start from this piece of paper.

Hundreds of boxes of ammunition are still waiting to be inspected in the yard; no one has taken a single box ahead of time. The seals remain intact.

Zhao Weiguo placed the records of defeats alongside the battle reports. Winning Yangquan did not guarantee success in everything that followed.

At night, he reopened the map.

The seven-day inventory and burial were not yet fully completed, and the winches in the distant mine only turned at low speed during the day. Zhao Weiguo did not immediately assemble the attack team, but first marked the figures for the garrison in Yangquan, the mine's production, and the evacuation of the wounded on the edge of the map.

There is a supply hub and a temporary airport in the Jingxing direction, about 200 kilometers one way. Including round trip and detours, it is more than 400 kilometers.

Yangquan had just been taken over, and the mines had just resumed production; the wounded and prisoners were all stuck in the rear. In the next battle, we couldn't drag all 15,500 men out with us.

Zhao Weiguo marked the location of Jingxing with a red pencil.

Select eight hundred people first.

The remaining people must hold onto Yangquan, which they have just acquired.