Chapter 66: The Forty-Meter-Long Broadsword

Chapter 66: The Forty-Meter-Long Broadsword (I)

"Shanzi! Shanzi!"

Guanshan turned his head to see Dong Dahai running toward him.

"Platoon Leader, what's wrong? Any orders from the Regimental Commander?" Guanshan asked.

"Not yet, and even if there were, it wouldn't come this fast!" Dong Dahai asked, "We're about to send our second dispatch to the Commander. What's our next move? I saw you and the Company Commander putting your heads together again. Do you have another idea in mind?"

"We should be adjusting the southern reinforcement-blocking deployment while simultaneously attacking the Yejitai blockhouse, right, Company Commander?" Guanshan asked Chu Lianzhang.

Chu Lianzhang nodded and said, "That's the idea!"

"Then I have a suggestion, Company Commander." Guanshan pointed at the map and said, "Look here, Company Commander. Number 10 is Bai Village, Number 9 is Yejitai, and then heading south, Numbers 8, 7, and 6 are all small strongholds. Right at the crossroads is the Huting major stronghold—about forty *li* away. If trucks come through without waiting for the infantry, it'll take at most an hour, and then our current blocking position won't hold up anymore, right..."

Chu Lianzhang nodded and said, "That's right. The current position is only meant to deal with the nearby small strongholds. If the Japs drive trucks carrying artillery, we won't be able to stop them!"

Guanshan pointed at the map and reminded him, "Company Commander, look at this terrain. Diagonally across from Stronghold Number 8, there's a sharp turn. And look at this one here, between Number 8 and Number 7..."

"Shanzi! Shanzi!" Qin Dayou called out as he ran over with four or five soldiers, panting heavily. He saluted Chu Lianzhang and said, "Company Commander! Shanzi gave orders to gather up the grenades from those puppet troops we just hit, and we untied all their leg wrappings too. What's this, going for another round? Company Commander, let our 3rd Platoon go again! That last stunt was too damn fast; we didn't get enough action!"

"Hahaha! Didn't get enough action, you want to fight?" Chu Lianzhang laughed. "Aren't you just asking for the 1st and 2nd Platoons to glare daggers at me then?"

"Don't be like that! Our 3rd Platoon is great at handling bunched-up grenades, especially the squad Shanzi used to be in, right..." Qin Dayou argued with wide eyes.

Chu Lianzhang smiled and said, "Fair enough. What are you standing around for then? Hurry up and assemble the troops!"

"Right, Company Commander, look at our 3rd Platoon's cross-country mountain... Ah? Hey, hey, hey! Hurry up, notify the 3rd Platoon to assemble, assemble!" Beaming from ear to ear, Qin Dayou turned and ran off.

***

Dong Dahai turned to the communications soldier Li Wenwu and said, "Record this... 2nd Company is adjusting its southern reinforcement-blocking tactics, intending to have the 3rd Platoon advance south along the road to... Will Guanshan's map be taken by the communications soldier in a moment?"

Guanshan nodded and said, "Yes, yes. The map, the documents, and the Jap's notebook. Remind the Commander to look at the pages I folded."

"Alright, got it!" Dong Dahai continued dictating, "Two blocking points... Chu Lian, your tactic should be to use bunched grenades to set up roadside minefields and cliffside minefields, primarily to destroy and delay Jap vehicles, right..."

"Heh! Not bad, Dahai, exactly right—that's the train of thought!" Chu Lianzhang smiled and gave Dong Dahai a thumbs-up.

"Record it just like that. The blocking points are to be set up close to the Japanese..." Dong Dahai continued dictating.

"Um, Company Commander, the guy in the 3rd Platoon who knows how to handle the heavy machine gun should stay here, along with those few with good marksmanship. Let them all stay. They shouldn't fire their guns over there unless absolutely necessary—just blow things up and pull back. What do you think?" Guanshan asked as he took the binoculars from around Chu Lianzhang's neck and observed the direction of the Yejitai stronghold.

"Alright, I'll take that suggestion. I'll go to the 1st Platoon and pick a few strong, fast-footed guys to reinforce them. You keep an eye on things here!" Chu Lianzhang turned and left.

"Hey, Chu Lianzhang, where are you going? How are we going to take the blockhouse?" Dong Dahai called out.

Chu Lianzhang shouted without looking back, "Ask Little Guan! I have no idea if we can take it either! Just write down whatever he says first!"

(II)

As a medium-sized stronghold, the main blockhouse of the Yejitai stronghold was three stories high, just like the one in Bai Village.

Slightly different from the blockhouse at Bai Village, the terrain of the Yejitai stronghold was much more perilous. Behind the main blockhouse was a courtyard serving as a living area. A trench had been dug three to five meters wide around the blockhouse and the outer courtyard wall, and a drawbridge was installed at the main entrance of the blockhouse.

Outside the trench, obstacles such as barbed wire up to five meters thick were set up.

The blockhouse and the living area courtyard were built on the peak of a small hill called "Yejitai." Except for a sector-shaped gentle slope about thirty meters long facing the road at the front of the blockhouse, the other three sides were steep cliffs dropping straight to the bottom of the valley. Although the elevation wasn't particularly high—just a hill of a hundred meters or so—it already counted as "defending a strategic stronghold" against the Eighth Route Army, who only possessed crude native firearms and cannons.

"It's going to be tough to fight!" Dong Dahai introduced, "Two years ago during our Eighth Route Army's Hundred Regiments Offensive, nearly ninety percent of the pillboxes and blockhouses in North China were uprooted, with only a few surviving. This Yejitai stronghold is one of the very few that survived from back then."

"Oh-ho!" Guanshan observed carefully through the binoculars.

***

It was indeed just as he thought. At the top of that thirty-meter-long sector-shaped gentle slope were obstacles like barbed wire five meters thick, leaving only a narrow, three-to-five-meter-wide passage leading to the drawbridge.

Earlier, the 2nd Company had pursued the trailing puppet troops, wanting to charge in in one go. As a result, right at this very spot, they had been blocked by that heavy machine gun on the third floor sealing off the narrow passage.

Squad Leader Huang had sacrificed his life right here.

The cliffs at the back and sides? Guanshan's left-hand fingers throbbed with a sharp ache.

A good night's sleep would probably fix it, but there was certainly no way to manage that right now.

"Oh, back then, the Yejitai stronghold only had a single blockhouse and a few houses. The courtyard walls, the trenches, and the five-meter-thick barbed wire—none of those existed at the time!" Dong Dahai added.

"And back then, there weren't any iron turtles either, were there?" Guanshan chuckled, lowering the binoculars.

"Got an idea? Tell me about it, tell me about it!" Dong Dahai asked with a smile.

Guanshan pointed at the slope and said, "I'll find a way to drag the armored car over, adjust its direction on the slope, and use two heavy machine guns to pin down their third-floor heavy machine gun... Then, let's see—five meters of barbed wire, plus a three-meter-wide trench and drawbridge... Don't we have a pile of timber over there? I'll have the engineer brothers help rig something up. Haha, we'll build a forty-meter-long broadsword!"

"What the hell? Hey, hey, Li Wenwu, why are you writing this down too? Fine, fine, record it just like that. It's pretty good too, haha!" Dong Dahai could roughly understand what Guanshan meant by the timber and the forty-meter broadsword; it was just a metaphor!

A forty-meter broadsword—haha, even longer than the blade wielded by Guanshan's ancestor, Lord Guan!

"Gensheng! Gensheng! Wait up, wait up!" Seeing the 3rd Platoon crouching and heading south under the leadership of Platoon Leader Qin, Guanshan hurriedly called out, "Platoon Leader Qin, leave Gensheng and the grenade launchers with me to use. We're going to pull off a stunt over here!"

"Alright, alright! No problem! We just captured another one earlier! I only need to take one!" Platoon Leader Qin agreed without hesitation.

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(End of this chapter)