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

The old map started lying from the third day onwards.

As dawn broke, the group crested the eastern side of the ridge. Fog shrouded the valley floor; those in front had already rounded the bend, while those behind remained hidden in the gully. After crossing the Pingding blockade, the piece of paper in Zhao Weiguo's hand became increasingly unreliable—it marked a main road passable by mule carts, but beneath their feet lay only a narrow ridge of earth, barely half a person's width wide. Flash floods had already eroded two sections of the roadbed, forcing them to slide down into the gully and then scramble back up the north slope using both hands and feet.

Zhao Weiguo fixed the walking method: walk for fifty minutes, then stop for ten minutes.

The three teams took turns keeping watch. When the time came, they switched shoulders, checked feet, and drank water—nothing was missed. Anyone who sat down early would cause a traffic jam behind them. Anyone who tried to walk a little further would be the first to collapse—those carrying gun racks and ammunition boxes.

Duan Peng thought it was too slow.

"It took fifty minutes for my legs to even warm up."

Yang Xiuqin didn't respond to him. Instead, she beckoned to a soldier, squatted down, and took off his shoes. His socks were stuck to the soles of his feet; when she peeled them off, a layer of bloody skin peeled off along with the socks.

"His legs had just warmed up too."

Duan Peng squatted down and took a look.

"Ten minutes? You can finish wrapping them all?"

"If we don't finish wrapping them all, we'll walk five minutes less in the next section."

"The whole team should help him lose weight?"

Yang Xiuqin stuffed the medicated gauze into the wound.

"If he doesn't lose weight today, he won't be the only one lying in bed tomorrow."

Duan Peng stood up and shouted at the back of the group.

"Make sure the watchkeeping is properly handed over! Anyone who takes an extra step is considered to have disobeyed orders!"

Of the four disassembled heavy machine guns, the gun mounts and ammunition boxes were the most painful to the shoulders. The steel angles pressed against the back of the shoulders through the cotton-padded coat, leaving red welts after each step. At each rest stop, a shift had to be taken; the registrar would draw a short line after the name. Some stubbornly insisted they could still carry on, but the line was drawn anyway, and they were replaced at the next stop.

Old Zhou was in charge of the second team's explosives supplies. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was looking, he casually grabbed an ammunition box. By the time he reached the rest stop, his left shoulder was red all the way to the base of his neck.

Yang Xiuqin snatched the box away.

"Who gave you permission to memorize it?"

"It won't sink."

"Why isn't your right shoulder red?"

Old Zhou looked down, unable to utter a word.

"Today you're only allowed to look after the supplies. Tonight I'll check your left shoulder and left leg."

He turned to move Zhao Weiguo. Zhao Weiguo was returning from the front line, and after listening, he only asked one question.

"Can we listen to the medical staff?"

"able."

"Then don't block the way."

He didn't scold him, nor did he try to smooth things over for him. Old Zhou handed the ammunition box to the person next to him and picked up the inventory list himself.

Before noon, Shanfeng died.

The north slope still offered some shade, but the rocks on the south slope were scalding hot. Water was not allowed to be poured freely; each person was given only two sips at a time. Salt and sugar water was only given to those who were dizzy, had cramps, or felt constantly nauseous. The first soldier to suffer heatstroke collapsed beside the white rock; he wasn't unconscious, but his legs simply wouldn't hold on.

The medic loosened his collar, wiped his neck with a damp cloth, and fed him two mouthfuls of salt and sugar water. Ten minutes passed, and he was still limp, so they had to move him to the rear guard team.

Five more were planted in the afternoon. The seventh one wasn't fully planted; he leaned against the trunk, vomiting acid, until he was just dry heaving. The sanitation worker took away his water bottle and fed him only a few times a day, afraid he would vomit it all up again if he drank too much at once.

Foot injuries are more common.

Yang Xiuqin spread the list on the medicine bag and wrote it down one by one: 24 blisters and sprains, 7 heatstroke, and 6 old injuries and back strains, for a total of 37. Six of them couldn't carry heavy loads anymore, so all six stretchers were put to use.

The stretchers weren't carried by fixed personnel. They were rotated every so often, with a mark carved into the wooden handle to prevent the same person from carrying the stretcher for too long. One stretcher bearer's arm trembled so badly he lost his aim, and the wounded soldier nearly slipped down the slope. Two others rushed to catch him, first removing his backpack, then replacing him. The six stretchers reduced the team's journey by about 20%, allowing rest stops to be moved forward, and the original mileage card could no longer be used.

A soldier with his ankle swollen like a bun was still arguing.

"I can hold out until the mountain pass."

Yang Xiuqin asked.

What happens after Yamaguchi?

He fell silent.

"Lie down first. Don't let a sprain turn into a broken bone."

Duan Peng's 120th rear guard also took on the role of the containment team. Stretchers, stragglers, and rear guards all fell on their shoulders. The vanguard encountered forty Japanese patrol squads at an unnamed pass, each carrying a radio, followed by about one hundred local blockade squads ten kilometers behind them.

There is a scree slope on the east side that can be bypassed, but it adds 12 kilometers to the journey and requires crossing a dry mountain ridge.

Duan Peng asked.

"Can they eat those forty?"

Zhi Zi handed over the reconnaissance records.

"As soon as the gun goes off, the hundred soldiers behind will immediately pounce. The western part of Jingxing will also be closed off ahead of schedule."

"Taking a detour will only bring more wounded."

"If you fight and then run, you'll only have more wounded."

Zhao Weiguo didn't make a decision based on the map. He climbed to the edge of the scree slope and saw three narrow paths worn out by hunters. Mules couldn't make it up, but people could barely manage. Gun racks and crates were suspended by steel cables.

"Go around."

Duan Peng looked back at the back of the line.

What should we do with those two mules?

One horse could barely put its feet down, while the other's hind legs were still wobbling. The vet said that if they forced it any further, the injury would be completely ruined.

"Lead the mule that can walk. Leave the other one at the resting point, with two messengers watching it for three days. Unload the medicine and batteries and distribute them among the people carrying them. After three days, regardless of whether the mule is better or not, return to Yangquan along the original route, without rejoining the main force."

Duan Peng checked off two people on the list and wrote down their tasks and return routes.

The attack roster still lists 800. Now, the number actually moving towards Jingxing is 798.

The two couriers weren't marked as "awaiting return to the team," so they weren't considered to have fallen behind. Just write down whatever was in the empty slot. Water, medicine, and ammunition were recounted; the last row of the rear guard was definitely missing two men.

Duan Peng closed the notebook.

"From now on, call out 798. Don't try to fool yourself with a round number like 800."

The gravel slope was ground for four hours.

Steel cables wedged into the cracks in the rocks, and gun racks were hoisted up one by one. The gasoline and ammunition were still locked in the space according to the original accounts; no livestock or carts had appeared out of thin air. A box of personal rations slid off the backpack, with fried noodles scattered into the cracks in the rocks, mixed with animal dung.

The soldiers carrying rations squatted down to pick them up.

Zhao Weiguo stopped him.

"Don't put it in the communal bags."

"You can still eat it after drying it in the sun."

"Eat it yourself if you like, keep it for yourself. Don't share it with the rest of the team."

The man picked up half a handful, wrapped it in cloth, and stuffed it into his pocket. The rest was recorded as losses, and no one bothered to balance the accounts with the dirty grain from the cracks in the rocks.

That night, the troops rested in a ravine on the north slope. They had ten days' worth of dry rations left, and would replenish their water supply from a mountain spring. The engineers first went upstream to check and confirm that no livestock had died before filtering the water with a cloth and then boiling it. The fire was hidden in a crevice in the rock, and the smoke outlet was covered with a damp branch.

The spring was narrow, and filling a kettle was a chore. The three teams carried their kettles in order: the vanguard took the first run for reconnaissance, followed by the stretcher bearers and the wounded, and finally the ordinary soldiers. Some soldiers waited until late at night, falling asleep on a rock. The people in front of them would fill their kettles, kick their shoes to make sure their spot wasn't empty.

The portable radio received a short code from the rear: Yangquan Coal Mine is producing coal as usual, the second batch of alloy samples from the arsenal has not yet passed acceptance, and the garrison area has not sent a mobile battalion to pursue the long-range raiding team.

Zhao Gang only replied with one sentence: "The rear will proceed as planned."

Nobody asked them how many miles they had moved.

After resting enough, Zhao Weiguo took an ammunition box from the second echelon and carried it to the rear guard. The soldiers at the front wanted to relieve him, but he didn't let go.

"My turn."

"The regimental commander is not on the shoulder-changing schedule."

"Then add it."

He only carried it for this part of the journey, and handed it over at the next rest stop without moving an inch. Old Zhou sat on the rock for a while and then handed him the water bottle.

"If you carry it for a while, the whole team won't be able to go faster."

"Let the person who's supposed to carry you catch their breath for ten minutes."

"Two sips. Don't drink mine too."

On the second night, 798 men returned to the ridge. Six stretchers were placed in the middle of the column, and the parts of the four heavy machine guns were changed every fifty minutes. The rear guard still supported the stretchers of 120 men, and did not dismantle the recovery team in order to add a few more guns to the front.

Over two days and nights, they covered approximately ninety kilometers. Including the first night's detour, the total distance traveled through the mountains approached one hundred and fifty kilometers. The straight lines on the map appeared short, but beneath their feet lay sheer cliffs, ravines, and mountains that had to be crossed at all costs. Every night, when reporting the mileage, the recorder wrote the "map distance" and "actual distance traveled" in two separate columns to avoid having to use a straight line to estimate how much food they had left.

On the night of April 11, Zhi Zi laid out the route that the scouts had redrawn in the mountain valley.

The north-south mountain road on the old map had long since collapsed. The entrance to the gully leading to Jingxing was actually seven kilometers off to the east. Following the old map, we ended up right in the camp of the local blockade team. The water source marked on the map had also dried up, and the village that was supposed to be a place for camping consisted of only three blackened shacks.

The scouts followed the ditch for two hours before finally hearing the sound of water coming from a crevice in the rocks. There wasn't enough water for all 798 people to collect at once; they had to go in batches, which would take at least another hour. The three dark rooms were uninhabited; the stoves were filled with ashes, and half a broken shoe lay in the corner. Zhao Weiguo didn't let the team go in—if the roof collapsed, there wouldn't even be a place to rescue them.

Zhao Weiguo turned the old drawing over and redrawn it with charcoal.

"From now on, the maps will be marked in three ways: those seen by eye, those confirmed by the people, and those only found on the old maps."

Gardenia asked.

"You even draw the roads you've traveled?"

"You should paint even more. Once someone has gone through a certain experience, they're most likely to believe they can't have made a mistake."

Two short bird calls echoed from the mountain pass. The scout returned with news: the local blockade team was searching for mule tracks on the south slope; the number forty patrol team hadn't yet caught up with the main force. Heading north, they'd likely run into the lookout point. Heading east, they'd have to endure another night.

Zhao Weiguo glanced at the six stretchers and then weighed the remaining bag of dry rations in his hand.

"Eastward."

This time, Duan Peng didn't mention who he was going to eat.

"The original road is unusable. Send someone to scout out a new one."

"How far is it from Jingxing?" Zhi Zi asked.

The compass was fixed on the map.

"According to the new route, it's 120 kilometers."

No one responded from the ravine. The water bottle was filled, the stretcher was put back on the shoulders, and the old map was stuffed into a sealed bag. The next leg of the journey wasn't on paper; the scouts would have to forge it out step by step ahead.

The sealed bag was marked with "Old drawing is invalid" and the time of night.

Seven hundred and ninety-eight people followed behind.