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

The voices on the city wall quickly fell silent.

The canteen was passed around, and no one dared to make a sound. Wounded soldiers were dragged into the shadows of the gate tower. When there weren't enough bandages, they tore their uniforms; when the uniforms were all torn, they tore their white handkerchiefs. The smells of blood, lime, and gunpowder filled the nostrils, like a damp cotton pad stuffed into the entire city of Wanping.

The soldier surnamed Meng lay prone behind the battlements, his eyes never leaving the dilapidated house east of the bridge.

"Mr. Zhao, they've moved another box."

Zhao Weiguo used charcoal to add a stroke to the city brick.

"Record the location where the box landed."

The deputy battalion commander squatted down beside him, clutching the telephone cord in his hand, his knuckles covered in dust.

"Beiping said that the Japanese side sent a representative to demand a ceasefire from both sides and to investigate the circumstances of the soldiers' disappearance. Commander Song told us not to make the first move."

Old Xu lay behind the sandbag, his face as white as paper, but his mouth still hard.

"Investigate his mother. Last night they lost face, not their soldiers."

The telephone operator covered the receiver and whispered:

"Battalion Commander, the representatives outside the city say they want to come closer."

The white cloth outside the city was moved forward.

Two Japanese officers carried white flags, followed by an interpreter. The interpreter, wearing a long gown, wiped sweat from his face, his legs trembling as he walked along the edge of the gun emplacement. He shouted as he walked:

"Cease fire! Cease fire! The Japanese representatives request a meeting with the commander of the city's defenses!"

No one fired a shot from the city wall.

But all the gun barrels were pressed against the brick seams.

Zhao Weiguo stared behind the white flag. In the system's blue line, the small car next to the dilapidated house was pushed behind the wall, two red dots crouched down, and one red dot raised its long, thin shadow.

[Enemy artillery positions are being adjusted]

[Estimated firing window: 40 seconds]

Zhao Weiguo raised his hand and patted the Meng-surname garrison soldier on the shoulder.

"Look at the white flag below."

The soldier surnamed Meng squinted, his curses escaping through clenched teeth.

"The translator's leg was blocking the view behind him the whole time."

"It wasn't him blocking it, it was him blocking it from behind."

The deputy battalion commander's face twitched.

"Would they dare to fire a shot during negotiations?"

Zhao Weiguo did not answer, but pushed the charcoal map in front of the deputy battalion commander.

Do you have any more shells?

The gunner shook his head beside him, his lips parted in a split.

"All gone. The mortars are empty."

The garrison commander surnamed Meng was so anxious that his eyes turned red.

"Then how do we attack his artillery position?"

Zhao Weiguo looked at the spoils piled up on the city wall. There were fragments of a Japanese Type 96 machine gun, a Type 38 rifle, two boxes of ammunition, detonators that had been removed, and a piece of the breechblock that had been brought up last night.

He pointed to two empty ammunition boxes.

"Move the crates to the left edge of the stack and pile them high. Extend the gun barrels out."

The battalion deputy was taken aback.

"Is this another fake firepower display?"

"This time, we'll be real bait."

Zhao Weiguo picked up two captured Type 38 rifles and handed them to the garrison soldier surnamed Meng and the skinny soldier.

"You two go to the right-hand concealed position. Don't show yourselves. Watch my hand signals: fire the artillery, don't raise the white flag."

The Meng-surnamed garrison took up the gun.

"What if they hadn't opened fire?"

"Then we won't fight."

Old Xu propped himself up on his arms, trying to get up.

"I'll go too."

Zhao Weiguo pushed him back down.

"You can scare ghosts now, but you can't scare cannons."

Old Xu was so angry that his lips trembled, but he didn't have the strength to curse.

The white flag has already reached the moat.

The translator tilted his head back and his voice cracked.

"The Japanese side says there was a misunderstanding on both sides during last night's conflict! We request that your army send personnel down to the city to negotiate!"

The deputy battalion commander lay down at the edge of the barricade, the sound like the back of a knife scraping against a stone.

"Tell them that the garrison at Wanping is under orders to hold their position. If they want to talk, they should retreat to the east side of the bridge!"

The translator wiped his sweat and looked back at the Japanese officer.

The officer didn't look at him, but slowly pulled his glove up a little.

The red line in Zhao Weiguo's eyes suddenly straightened.

Behind the dilapidated house, the cannon barrel moved.

He raised his hand and waved it downwards.

"lie!"

boom!

The shells don't create a notch.

It crashed into the pile of empty crates that had just been stacked on the left crenellation. Planks and broken gun barrels were blasted into the air, fragments flew past the city wall, and the two bait crates shattered into black dust in the firelight.

The Japanese officer's hand holding the white flag froze for a moment.

The deputy battalion commander's eyes were so red they looked like they were about to bleed.

"That son of a bitch opened fire!"

Zhao Weiguo didn't shout. His hand was already pointing to the right hidden stack.

"beat."

The garrison commander surnamed Meng and the skinny soldier simultaneously pulled the trigger.

Snapped!Snapped!

Behind the dilapidated house, a gunner's shoulder exploded, and he crashed into the gun wheel. Just as another reached for a shell, the second shot from the Meng-surname garrison arrived, the bullet piercing his neck, blood splattering onto the car wheel.

The translator was so frightened that he collapsed by the ditch.

"Don't hit me! Don't hit me!"

Japanese officers drew their guns.

The deputy battalion commander was faster than him.

Snapped!

The gunshot was short and sharp; the white flagpole was broken, and the white cloth fell into the mud.

"Negotiations involving artillery, is this your misunderstanding?"

The gunfire from the city wall was instantly silenced.

It wasn't random hitting.

Every dot Zhao Weiguo had previously drawn on the city bricks became a target for gun muzzles. At the doorways of dilapidated houses, on ammunition boxes, on the wheels of small carts, and along the edges of retreat ditches, rows of Type 38 rifles and Hanyang rifles fired in bursts, sending mud flying behind the Japanese artillery positions.

Chaos has broken out in the east of the bridge.

Some people dragged cannons, some grabbed boxes, and some crawled into dilapidated houses.

Zhao Weiguo grabbed a detonator and a piece of fuse that had been dismantled, stuffed them into the empty can, and then filled it with half a handful of broken nails. He handed the can to the short soldier.

"Will you throw it away?"

The short soldier's face turned green when he saw that thing.

"This is even more dangerous than a hand grenade."

"Throw it under the car. Pull it and run."

The deputy battalion commander grabbed Zhao Weiguo's wrist.

"Too far, I can't throw it."

Zhao Weiguo pointed to the slope below the city that had been blasted out last night.

"Go out through the hidden door, walk ten paces along the wall, and you can throw it to the mouth of the ditch. It's not for bombing cannons, it's for bombing horses."

The garrison soldier surnamed Meng suddenly turned around.

"I'll go."

Zhao Weiguo looked at his tiger's mouth, which was covered in blood blisters.

"You're a good shot, keep the head."

The short soldier hugged the canned food to his chest, his lips trembled slightly, and then he suddenly grinned.

"Mr. Zhao, if I run too slowly, please give me credit later."

Zhao Weiguo shortened the lead wire by half an inch.

"If you run too slowly, I'll just collect your shoes."

The short soldier cursed in a Beijing accent, then bent down and crawled down the steps.