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

The fire in Jingxing burned for half the night and was not extinguished even after dawn.

Seven hundred and ninety-eight people huddled on the other side of the mountain pass, silent. The horizon behind them was a sea of ​​red, the firelight reflecting on everyone's faces like a sunset that had gone astray. When the oil tanks caught fire, the pillars of flame reached several meters high, visible even across a mountain.

Zhao Weiguo squatted behind the rock and listened for a while. He heard dogs barking in the distance.

"How many?" Duan Peng leaned closer.

"Six." Gardenia's voice came from the darkness, as she lay prone on a protruding rock, her ear pressed to the ground. "And cars. At least four, gathering at the south gate of the station area. A search party of about two hundred."

Zhao Weiguo didn't stand up. He drew a line on the ground with the tip of his knife—from Jingxing southward, turning to the riverbank, then turning westward.

"We won't take the same route."

Duan Peng glanced at the line. "Pacify the blockade trench—"

"They want to drive us there." Zhao Weiguo plunged the tip of his knife into the ground. "Six dogs, four vehicles, two hundred men—not enough to block us out, but enough to force us back to the three blockade ditches. Going back is suicide."

He looked up at Duan Peng. "Take sixty men and head north."

Duan Peng was taken aback. "North?"

"Make fake tracks. Wheel ruts, bloodstains, traces of rest stops—make as many as you can. Find a few broken kettles in the abandoned kiln, stuff them with strips of cloth soaked in chili water—dogs sneeze when they smell chili, and after sneezing, they'll need to find the smell again. Finally, one person wears old shoe soles and walks backwards."

Duan Peng grinned. "Walk backwards, the footprints will face forward, and the dog will follow them further and further away."

"You split into three paths on the north slope, retracing the old mule trails, making them think we've split into three groups," Zhao Weiguo patted Duan Peng on the shoulder. "Remember, get out of there as soon as you're done. Don't play games with them. You're bait, not fish."

Duan Peng stood up and began selecting men from the ranks. Sixty men, all veterans of the cavalry battalion—stable, daring, and fast runners. He didn't speak as he selected, but simply pointed with his chin; those he pointed to stepped forward.

The two captured empty coal wagons followed Duan Peng. One was pushed down a ravine, and the other got stuck in a pile of rocks, its axle half removed and its license plates completely taken off. This was to let the pursuers see the wagons and think that the raiding party had stopped there for a rest.

The main group descended along the south bank of the river. Zhao Weiguo walked at the front, carrying a sharpened wooden stick on his left shoulder, which served as both a walking stick and a probe for navigating the path. Pebbles rolled and tumbled on the riverbank, making a clattering sound underfoot. He divided the group into three sections, each fifty paces apart. When one section stopped, the next section would crouch down silently.

After walking for about two hours, the sky began to lighten.

The river blocked our way.

It wasn't a large river, but it wasn't narrow either. In April, the snow and ice in the Taihang Mountains had melted, and the mountain waters flowed downstream. The river was waist-deep, the current was strong, and the bottom was made of pebbles; if you didn't step firmly, you would fall.

Zhao Weiguo stood by the river for a while watching the water flow, then turned around and called to Yang Xiuqin.

"Which column is for wounded soldiers?"

Yang Xiuqin squeezed through the crowd, clutching a piece of oiled paper in her hand—covered with dense writing, a record of the injuries she had categorized along the way.

"Three columns." She unfolded the oil paper and traced the words with her finger. "Seven can walk and cross the river by themselves. Nine need help. Five can't walk—two with broken legs, one with shrapnel in his stomach, one with a penetrating shoulder wound that makes him weak, and one with a concussion who vomits after a few steps. These five will need to be transported by captured trucks."

"Where is the body?"

"Nine bodies. Eight men took turns carrying them."

Zhao Weiguo nodded. "Let's examine the body first."

Yang Xiuqin glanced at him but didn't say anything. She understood the order—the body goes first, because the living can wait, but the dead can't be exposed to the sun. In April, after the sun comes out, the body starts to smell after two hours.

Nine bodies were wrapped in blankets and placed on stretchers. Eight people carried each stretcher, working in four shifts. When crossing the river, the water didn't reach the stretchers, so the carriers lifted them above their heads, water filling their boots, and the pebbles slipping under their feet. After the first stretcher crossed the river, the people on the other side took it and put it down before the second stretcher went into the water.

One of the stretcher bearers lost his footing and lurched to the right, but someone nearby grabbed his arm. The stretcher tilted, and the body nearly slipped into the water. Several people scrambled to steady it, and half the blanket got soaked.

"Slow down," Zhao Weiguo called out in a low voice from his side of the river. "No rush. One at a time."

Only after all the bodies had crossed the river did Yang Xiuqin begin to release the wounded.

The five seriously wounded soldiers were transported in a captured truck. The truck had a high chassis, allowing it to cross the river, but it could only make one trip—once it crossed, it had to be abandoned, as Zhao Weiguo had mentioned the night before. Yang Xiuqin carefully packed the five seriously wounded soldiers into the truck bed, securing them with ropes, and placing a roll of gauze next to each soldier. The truck bounced violently as it crossed the river; the soldier with shrapnel in his abdomen gritted his teeth and remained silent, while the soldier with a concussion vomited twice.

Nine people needed assistance, so two people supported each one as they waded across the river. The water reached their chests, soaking the bandages of the wounded. Yang Xiuqin unwrapped and re-bandaged each one on the opposite bank.

The seven who could walk crossed on their own. When the last one crossed, he cut his foot on a rock, and his blood stained a small patch of the river red. Yang Xiuqin saw this from the other side and had the guards stir up the water in the shallows—the bloodstain was washed away, and nothing could be seen downstream.

The ammunition boxes were the last to pass. Yang Xiuqin stopped the people who wanted to move the ammunition first.

"People come first, then things. Things only come after people have passed away."

This is Zhao Weiguo's rule. Lost items can be returned, but lost people are gone forever.

They crossed the river from dawn until sunrise, climbing the eastern hill. When the last person reached the shore, their clothes were completely soaked, and they wrung out the water on the rocks. The sun warmed their backs, but no one dared to rest for long.

Gardenia waited on this side of the river until everyone had crossed, then squatted down and cut the marching map in half, then in half again, making four pieces. She distributed the four pieces to four people, each keeping their own. Even if one person was captured, the enemy would only be able to see a quarter of the way.

"A map is a head." Gardenia stuffed the last map into her inner pocket. "A head can't be on a neck."

Sure enough, the six military dogs chased them to the riverbank.

Zhao Weiguo's men had been gone for over an hour, but a dog's nose doesn't lie. Six dogs circled on the riverbank, whimpering, sniffing the shallows and then the stones. The scent stopped at the riverbank—the water washed it away.

The search team spent over an hour searching three shallow areas. The military dogs barked upstream and downstream, and two of them even fought in the shallows. The search team leader hit one of the dogs with the butt of his rifle, and the dog howled and ran a few steps before returning, still unable to smell anything.

Ultimately, they chose the shallows upstream. That was where the defenders churned the bloody water, where the lingering smell was strongest—but also the most artificial.

Duan Peng and his sixty men did an even worse job in the north.

They first found several broken water bottles in the abandoned kiln, stuffed them with strips of cloth soaked in chili water, and placed them in a conspicuous spot near the kiln entrance. The military dog ​​entered the kiln, sneezing up the chili powder and spraying it with pepper spray, causing it to sneeze and tear up. The dog handler had to pull the dog out by its leash, and it took the dog a long time to regain its sense of smell before it sneezed again.

Then there were three footprints heading west. Duan Peng divided the sixty men into three groups, each group taking a side path and retracing the old mule track. The loose soil on the mule track was compacted, making it look like a large group had passed through. Each group walked two miles before turning back, returning via the same route through the stream—the flowing water in the stream washed away the footprints, leaving no trace on either way.

The most ingenious part was a mountain pass. Duan Peng had seven spent shell casings scattered there. The search team found the casings and assumed the raiding party had engaged in a skirmish there. In reality, Duan Peng's men retrieved five, keeping only two—and these two were empty casings without primers, the kind that wouldn't detonate. But the enemy didn't know this. They treasured the two casings, and when they compared them with the "intelligence" they had found on the other two routes, they contradicted each other.

On April 14th, during the day, the main team hid behind the rocky slope.

Zhao Weiguo chose a good spot. The rocky slope was sheltered from the wind; one large rock could shelter seven or eight people, while a smaller one could cover two. But it wasn't comfortable—the rocks were scorching hot from the sun all morning, burning your bottom; and in the afternoon, when they were in the shade, they were chilly. A car had passed by twice, driving over the road outside the slope, the engine noise making the rocks vibrate. The whole team lay motionless, not daring to even cough.

Several of the wounded were coughing badly. Yang Xiuqin tore strips of damp cloth and made them bite them. No matter how badly they coughed, the damp cloth swallowed most of their sounds. One wounded soldier coughed for half an hour with the damp cloth in his mouth; the cloth was covered in blood. Yang Xiuqin replaced it with a new one without saying a word.

They couldn't light a fire. Their rations consisted of cold bread and cold water, and they ate this for two days straight. Old Zhou's old wound on his left shoulder was chafed open, and dark red blood seeped through the bandage. Yang Xiuqin changed his dressing, but Old Zhou absolutely refused to lie on the stretcher.

"I can walk by myself. The stretcher is for those who truly can't walk."

"Your shoulder will get inflamed if you keep rubbing it for another two days."

"We'll deal with the inflammation later. If you lie down now, those six stretcher bearers will have to carry one more person. They're human too."

Yang Xiuqin couldn't argue with him. That's just how Old Zhou is; he might grumble and curse, but deep down he's tougher than anyone else. He didn't utter a sound when the bullet pierced through him on Beishan Road, and now that he's only got a minor scrape, he's even less likely to lie down.

On April 15th, the team ventured into an even narrower ravine. The ravine was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and the treetops overhead provided complete cover, so even when planes flew overhead, no one could see anyone below.

The engineers used captured license plates to cut iron strips and nailed them into the cracked stretcher planks. The license plates were thin steel plates, but they were tough and could withstand more strain than wooden strips. A stretcher was repaired, and the person carrying it tried it out and nodded in approval.

Zhi Zi only broadcast the radio once that day. For two minutes. She only reported the direction and casualty figures—nine dead and twenty-one wounded. She didn't mention a word about the results of the battle at Jingxing.

Zhao Weiguo squatted down next to her, waiting for her to finish disassembling the antenna.

"Why aren't you reporting the results of the battle?"

"Direction finding." Zhi Zi stuffed the antenna into the cloth bag. "The longer the report, the easier it will be for them to pinpoint our location. Once we have enough information on direction and casualties, the rear will know we're still alive and which direction to take. We'll report the results when we get back to Heshun."

After disassembling the radio, Zhi Zi took out the batteries, wrapped them in cotton cloth, and stuffed them into different pockets. The batteries were more precious than the radio—a broken radio could be repaired, but without the batteries, it was completely useless.

On the third night, we entered the Taihang Wilderness Trail.

The road was gone. Not that the road was difficult to travel, but that there simply wasn't one. The scouts led the way, hacking through the bushes with machetes, taking two steps for every cut. The 798 people stretched out in a thin line, slithering forward like snakes along the ridge of the Taihang Mountains.

The number of wounded increased from twenty-one to twenty-six.

One stretcher bearer's feet were blistered and he couldn't walk, so he became wounded himself. Two lightly wounded soldiers developed fevers—their bandages got wet while crossing the river during the day, and they hadn't had time to change them clean, causing their wounds to become infected. Two men carrying bodies twisted their wrists—their wrists couldn't hold up after carrying stretchers for three days.

No new deaths were reported. Yang Xiuqin added the names of the five newly injured to the injury report, noting the cause in the remarks column: "abrasions," "fever," "sprains"—not a single word more. Her principle was: record the facts first, then determine the severity.

There are only three days' worth of dry rations left.

Zhao Weiguo gave the order: those who can fight should eat half a portion, while the wounded should eat the full amount.

"What about the last bag of salt?" Duan Peng asked.

Yang Xiuqin took a cloth bag out of her backpack and weighed it in her hand. "There's still a little more than half a bag left."

"Take only half," Zhao Weiguo said. "Keep the rest. In case we have to travel for another two days."

Salt is more precious than bullets in this team. If bullets run out, you can still fight with bayonets; if salt runs out, you become weak. Hiking on mountain trails causes a lot of sweating and rapid salt loss; those without salt start experiencing leg cramps and blurred vision on the third day.

Zhao Weiguo ate half a portion himself. He broke the pancake in half, put one half back in his pocket, and ate the other half with cold water. Duan Peng glanced at it but said nothing. If the regimental commander ate half a portion, who would dare to eat the whole thing?

At dawn on April 16th, the last group of pursuers reached the valley.

Gardenia listened for half an hour while lying on the ridge, then climbed back to report.

Six dogs reached the valley. They barked at three different fake roads. Four convoys split up to give chase—

She paused for a moment, and the corner of her mouth curled up slightly.

"The first car crashed into a fallen tree trunk, its front end dented. The second car veered into a dead end and reversed for two hundred meters. The third and fourth cars met at a mountain pass, and they hesitated for a long time, neither willing to back up first."

Duan Peng chuckled. "A road a dog can't catch, a car certainly can't."

"What about the home team?" Zhao Weiguo asked.

"Clean. They didn't even catch a glimpse of us."

Zhao Weiguo stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers. The wild trail of the Taihang Mountains wound westward beneath his feet; after crossing two mountain ridges lay the territory of Heshun.

"Points."

Duan Peng squatted by the roadside, counting them one by one. Seven hundred and sixty-three able-bodied. Twenty-six wounded. Nine dead. The nine bodies were still wrapped in blankets, placed on stretchers, just as they had been three days ago. Not a single one was missing.

Not a single one of the twenty-six wounded was removed from the list. Not a single one of the seven hundred and sixty-three guns was lost. Radios, batteries, and the return positions for the three echelons were all intact.

Including the two couriers who took care of the injured mule in Pingding, all eight hundred people who set out were present.

"Let's go." Zhao Weiguo turned around, facing west. The sun rose behind him, casting a long shadow that stretched all the way to the other side of the ridge.

On the other side of the mountain, at the entrance of Heshun Valley, people were already waiting. Waiting for these 798 people to go home.

But nine names were missing from the list of those returning home.