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

On the night of December 20th, three shots were fired at Mopanpo.

The sentry at the north gate of the Independent Regiment raised his lantern and waved it twice long and once short. The light from Lijiapo quickly followed, but returned with three short and one long signal.

Neither side could understand the other's meaning.

Yesterday, they only agreed to redraw the boundary the next day, and there wasn't time to unify the signal lights, telephone calls, and pre-battle commands. When the gunfire rang out again, those north of the bridge thought the 358th Regiment was giving a warning, while those south of the bridge thought the Independent Regiment was about to force its way across the checkpoint.

The first coal cart was started at this time.

The fire leaped from the straw curtain at the back of the cart onto the coking coal, the driver tumbled into the ditch, and the mule, dragging its broken reins, thrashed about. In the darkness, some ran towards the stone bridge, while others crept along the south slope toward the outskirts of Lijiapo Village.

Reports from the outposts were sent up layer by layer.

The enemy force numbered approximately two to three hundred men, divided into three groups. One group attempted to seize coal trucks, another to press the sentry post north of the bridge, and the third group attempted to bypass the southern slope by passing between Lijiapo and Beishan Road. The troops included both Japanese soldiers and remnants of puppet troops.

When Zhao Weiguo arrived at the north entrance of the stone bridge, the engineers had already crawled into the bridge arch.

A fuse was sticking out from a crack in the bridge.

"Don't touch it." The sapper squad leader raised his hand to stop the monk. "This might just be an exposed wire."

He peered through the crack in the bridge and discovered twelve packets of explosives, weighing over a hundred pounds, pasted inside the arch. The main wire was hidden in a crevice, while another wire likely ran along the waterway towards the grass on the south bank. Cutting one wire didn't guarantee the bridge's safety.

The monk squatted above the bridge arch, his face pressed against the cold stone surface.

"Twelve packs. Damn, that's enough to blow up the bridge three times over."

"Stop cursing." The sapper squad leader didn't even look up. "Help me shine the light."

The monk lowered the lantern, and the light shone into the cracks in the bridge.

"Close the bridge first," Zhao Weiguo said.

A modified armored vehicle drove up to the north end of the bridge. The hull still bore old bullet holes, and the engine coughed twice before coming to a stop. The vehicle-mounted machine gun was only to fire at the area north of the bridge and towards Xigou, not to fire into the houses at Lijiapo.

The Independent Regiment actually deployed about nine hundred men to this front.

Two companies guarded the stone bridge and coal carts, while a battalion held the high ground at the north entrance. Artillery, engineers, communications, and medical personnel were scattered along both sides of the road. The two mountain guns on the east ridge had already turned towards the west gully. Old Zhou hadn't reached the bridgehead yet, so the deputy battalion commander of the artillery was in charge of firing.

About 700 people from the 358th Regiment also came out of the village.

Two companies were positioned on the south slope, while another company moved along the earthen wall outside the village towards the stone bridge. When Sun Ming arrived with his men, the monk was having the machine gunners moved westward into the ditch.

"Where do you draw your artillery lines?" Sun Ming asked.

"Xigoukou."

"I'm currently pressing westward."

"Then call them back."

Why should I listen to you?

The shouts of engineers came from under the bridge again.

"Secondary storyline not found!"

Sun Ming and the monk both shut their mouths.

Zhao Weiguo used his flashlight to illuminate a simple diagram on the ground.

"The 358th Regiment will block the south slope and outside the village. The Independent Regiment will guard the bridge, coal trucks, and the north entrance. You will drive the enemy towards the west gully, stopping 200 meters before the gully mouth. The artillery will seal off the gully; they will not recognize uniforms, only the lines."

Sun Ming glanced at it twice.

"This is temporary."

"Once Commander Chu arrives, you can confirm it yourselves."

"OK."

Both sides continued to receive orders from their respective officers. The temporary division of labor focused only on the immediate battle, with neither side taking command of the other's battalion.

When Chu Yunfei arrived, he first looked at the bridge arch, without asking who owned Lijiapo.

How much explosives?

"Over 100 jin (50 catties), 12 packages. The main lead has been found; the secondary lead is still being searched."

Where is the enemy?

"Three groups. One on the north side of the bridge, one on the south slope, and another to the west."

Zhao Weiguo handed him the simple map on the ground.

After Chu Yunfei finished reading, he pointed to the south slope.

"The 1st Company of the 358th Regiment advances westward, the 2nd Company guards outside the village, and the 3rd Company blocks the ditch. Stop when you reach the artillery line."

"The north entrance and the bridge belong to me."

"Don't fire the cannons into the village."

"Your men shouldn't chase them into the ditch."

"make a deal."

After those two words were spoken, the messengers on both sides ran off separately.

The enemy north of the bridge ran into the Independent Regiment's reserve force first.

They used two coal carts as cover, retreating while throwing grenades at the armored vehicle. The first grenade landed far away, the second hit the front of the vehicle, and shrapnel punctured the water tank. The driver plugged the leak with a wad of cloth, steam still seeped out from the seams under the hood, but the vehicle did not stall.

The machine gun was used to suppress the road ditch.

A coal cart was overturned by artillery fire, its wheels stuck in the ditch, and coking coal spilled across half the slope. Another cart was abandoned by the enemy, and the escort company re-harnessed the frightened mules and dragged the cart back to Beikou.

The first car to catch fire was beyond saving.

South of the bridge, the 1st Battalion of the 358th Regiment advanced along the earthen wall. The enemy was firing from behind stacks of firewood and low walls outside the village. Sun Ming did not order his men to charge straight down the road. He ordered the 1st Company to follow the south slope, the 2nd Company to guard the village entrance, and the 3rd Company to circle around to the exit of the west ditch.

The monk stood guard above the bridge arch.

Just as the sapper platoon leader reached the auxiliary power line in the ditch, a grenade rolled down from the grass on the south bank. The monk rushed over and dragged him onto the bridge pier, after which the grenade exploded on the edge of the ditch. The sapper platoon leader was hit in the shoulder by rubble, tearing a hole in his cotton-padded coat.

"Can it still be dismantled?" the monk asked.

"Your arm can move."

"Wrap it up first."

"The line is still there."

He used his uninjured hand to push aside the mud and water. The secondary line ran along the bottom of the ditch, around the bridge pier, and ended in the grass on the south bank. There lay a Japanese soldier, reaching for the fuse.

Sun Ming saw the man through the gap in the earthen wall, fired a shot, and pinned him down.

"Under the bridge!" he shouted to the monk.

The monk didn't reply, but instead climbed down into the ditch to protect the engineers.

Cut the main line first. Separate the secondary lines.

The engineers checked the bridge seams again to confirm there was no third wire before removing the explosives package by package. The twelve packages were numbered separately, and their locations, fuse status, and the people who handled them were recorded on temporary log sheets. The bridge wasn't blown up, and the explosives weren't immediately reused.

The monk climbed out of the ditch, his cotton-padded coat covered in mud and water.

Sun Ming glanced at him.

"You pounced pretty quickly just now."

The monk scraped the mud off his sleeve.

"I was attacking my own men. Your shot wasn't bad either."

Sun Ming didn't reply, and turned to give orders to the first company.

The monk watched his retreating figure and muttered something.

"Last time in Jiaojie Town, we helped them push their cart. This time they helped us remove our stitches. We're even."

The enemy on the south slope was driven westward by the 358th Regiment.

The remaining troops north of the bridge were also pushed out from behind the coal carts by the Independent Regiment. The two groups retreated into the western gully and collided with the support team. The gully was less than two miles long, with steep slopes on both sides, and only two exits, one to the north and one to the south.

Sun Ming blew the whistle three times.

The vanguard of the 358th Regiment stopped outside the artillery line.

The monk saw them stop, raised his lantern, and waved it once long and twice short. No one on the other side recognized the signal, but they could tell that the people had already knelt down.

The deputy battalion commander of the Dongling artillery waited until the gully mouth was cleared before ordering the artillery to fire.

The two mountain guns fired a total of eighteen rounds.

The first six shells blocked the western entrance, the middle six shells targeted the assembly point inside the ditch, and the last six shells suppressed the retreat route on the north side. The shelling lasted for about ten minutes and did not extend to the troops on the south slope.

Once the artillery fire stopped, the infantry from both sides converged from two directions.

A group of puppet soldiers threw down their guns first. They claimed they had been captured, while others said they had never fired a shot. No one was released on the spot. Their names, places of origin, affiliations, and gun serial numbers were recorded, and they were then interrogated separately.

The Japanese troops, still resisting, retreated to the bottom of the ravine behind a rocky embankment. The battle dragged on until 3 a.m., when the last twenty or so soldiers laid down their weapons.

After daybreak, the three tables were laid out.

The enemy force numbered approximately 260.

One hundred and seventy were confirmed dead, sixty-three were captured, and twenty-seven escaped during the night. The total is two hundred and sixty, and the escapees were not added to the death count.

The prisoners were also recorded by location. Thirty-eight were captured north of the bridge, and twenty-five were captured south of the bridge. Each side sent a staff officer to participate in the joint interrogation, and two copies of the confessions were made, with the originals filed along with the location of the capture.

The Independent Regiment suffered six dead and seventeen wounded.

The 358th Regiment suffered four dead and thirteen wounded.

The ten fallen soldiers were first placed into belongings bags by their respective units. Six bags were placed north of the bridge, and four bags south of the bridge; no one's name was mixed up for the sake of a common battle report. The thirty wounded soldiers were transported by vehicle according to the severity of their injuries, and the rosters remained with their respective units.

The casualties from both sides were not combined into a single sentence, "Our army suffered ten dead and thirty wounded." Only after Zhao Gang obtained the names, units, and wounded details of the 358th Regiment did he release the joint battle report.

However, the rescue team did not follow the order of military uniforms.

A wounded soldier from the 358th Regiment was shot in the abdomen. The Independent Regiment's armored vehicle first took him to the aid station north of the bridge, and then handed him over to the 358th Regiment's medical team that arrived on the scene. A communications soldier from the Independent Regiment was seriously wounded in the leg. Lying on a stretcher, he still pointed to the telephone on the south bank and said that the lines on both sides could be connected at the bridgehead.

The signalman stripped the two sections of telephone wire and temporarily connected them to a machine.

After the call from Qiaobei reached the entrance of Lijiapo Village, both sides realized that at least two orders had been repeated on the road the previous night. If the call had been connected earlier, the first coal truck might not have burned for so long, and the engineers wouldn't have had to search for the backup line amidst the gunfire.

Losses to coal trucks are listed separately.

One was burned, another was overturned by artillery fire and towed back for inspection and repair; and one was recovered from the enemy. The more than sixty mule carts in Shuangbaigou are still there, but the 180 tons of coking coal and more than 300 tons of iron ore need to be re-verified by vehicle number; they cannot be written as completely undamaged.

The stone bridge didn't break. Twelve packages of explosives were sealed under the bridge.

In the morning, the demarcation meeting, originally scheduled to take place at Mopanpo, was moved to Qiaotou.

The old coordination map was laid out again. The paper now contained more charred coal ash and the names of ten fallen soldiers.

Chu Yunfei first drew Lijiapo Village and the supply road on the south side.

"The 358th Regiment is on alert in this area."

Zhao Weiguo painted the North Mountain Road, the mining railway station, and the coal and iron transportation line.

"These three locations belong to the Independent Regiment."

The 358th Regiment needs to cross the North Mountain Road, with two fixed time slots daily: 9:00-11:00 and 15:00-17:00. The convoy must submit a report half a day in advance detailing the quantity and purpose of the convoy, and the checkpoints will allow passage according to the list. In case of emergency during wartime, a temporary pass with dual signatures will be issued, with each liaison officer from the Independent Regiment and the 358th Regiment signing once.

A joint sentry post was set up at the stone bridge.

Each side will send one team, each with a telephone. Neither side may detain the other's personnel, requisition the other's vehicles, or use the pass to inspect supplies unrelated to the mission. In case of a dispute, vehicles must be restrained first, not people, and no one may fire first.

"How long will the traffic be delayed?" Chu Yunfei asked.

"A reply will be given within two hours."

"Outdated?"

"The liaison officer will contact both regimental headquarters directly."

Chu Yunfei signed the map. Zhao Weiguo also signed it.

The lines drawn by the two pencils finally landed on the village, the road, the bridge, the station, and the time.

Coal trucks that had been out of service overnight were back on the road.

The damaged armored vehicle towed the chassis of an overturned coal truck, steam still leaking from the radiator in the cab. An empty stretcher hung behind it; the wounded had been taken away the previous night. Chu Yunfei stood by the bridge for a long time, watching.

"This vehicle has been roughly modified; it'll do the work."

It's slow and prone to breaking down.

"I heard you're still organizing a heavy armored battalion?"

Zhao Weiguo rolled up the new border map.

"Three days later, at the East Field of White Horse Ridge. If you have time, come and see how many genuine artifacts it holds."

Chu Yunfei brushed the coal dust off his gloves.

"I'll go."

The phone at the bridgehead sentry post rang for the first time behind us.

This time, both sides could understand.

Each sentry post also has a name on its duty roster.

Zhao Weiguo folded the signed border map and tucked it into his pocket. The lines on the map were obtained by ten people the night before; the ink was smeared over coal dust and names, and not a single line was drawn crooked.

The monk squatted at the bridgehead and picked up a straw stick.

"Chu Yunfei," he said, "is more reasonable than I expected."

Sun Ming was passing by when he heard this and paused for a moment.

"Our commander," he said, "reasons with reasonable people. And with unreasonable people—"

"What about those who are unreasonable?" the monk asked.

Sun Ming glanced at him, didn't answer, and turned to leave.

The monk watched his retreating figure and spat out the straw.

"I'm not reasonable either," he said in a low voice, "but I follow the rules."

The water under the bridge is still flowing, the twelve packs of explosives have been removed, and the bridge arch is empty. But the bridge still stands.

As long as the bridge exists, the road will remain. As long as the road exists, coal carts can travel. As long as the coal carts can travel, the furnaces at the military depot can be lit.

A line was stretched from the bridgehead to the military supply depot, and from the military supply depot to the front line.

Ten people died on this line last night.

Today, coal trucks rolled over the spot where they had lain, heading towards the military depot.