Spring in Fengtian (2)
"What? You're telling me an army has already entered the city? Does that even make sense?"
Brigade Commander Lan Tianwei gazed down from horseback at the revolutionary who had come to find him.
He had planned, originally, to play dumb all the way through — to squint, look the other way, and let it pass. Then out of nowhere the Tongmenghui had come running to him, shrieking that if he didn't march now, they were all dead men.
"...You're not trying to drag this headquarters into the city by any means necessary, are you? To make me take the blame?"
"N-no, Commander! I swear it's true!"
If Lan Tianwei entered the city walls without orders, he would instantly be branded a rebel in league with the revolutionaries — no excuse he could dredge up would change that. He'd be caught either way.
"Word only reached me half a day ago, and even leaving the heavy guns behind and marching with men alone took nearly that long. So how could soldiers possibly have arrived before me?"
Lan Tianwei could not make sense of it. Which was only natural — his adversary was a man of the future who had been ready to burst out at any provocation, twenty-four hours a day.
People living on the leisurely clocks of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries simply cannot endure the modern habit of cramming appointments into ten-minute slivers of a schedule.
"Commander, please believe me! I'll stake my life on it!"
"······."
Another word from me here and they really will have me killed. Saying anything at all is getting complicated.
"Hoo. Second Brigade — advance into Fengtian."
With a sigh, Lan Tianwei gave the order.
11:28 a.m. The East Gate of Fengtian.
"It's the Second Brigade! The revolutionary army has come!!"
"Long live General Lan Tianwei—!!"
"Long live the revolution! Long live the Tongmenghui!!"
"Wh-what's a revolution?"
"We're revolutionaries?"
"Brigade Commander, sir. What in the world is all this?"
"...I'll explain later. Hold position for now."
Leaving behind his soldiers, dumbstruck and gaping, Lan Tianwei climbed the watchtower atop the wall and scanned the surroundings through his telescope beside Zhang Rong, who had been waiting for him there.
"That's the First Brigade?"
"Yes, Commander."
In the distance, beyond the effective range of their rifles, men shifted about furtively, piling debris into barricades between buildings. The force holding that blockade line looked to be roughly two platoons strong.
"Have you tried calling on them to surrender?"
"They refused. They say it's all men like Zhao Erxun — traitor bureaucrats."
"I see. Well, I'd rather not have men in the same uniform killing each other either."
He sent a handful of his officers to the blockade line for one last appeal.
"Come on now! Let's not fight our own brothers! Join the tide of the times! The tide!"
Bang—!!
A bullet kicked up the dirt at the feet of the Second Brigade officer as he advanced under a white flag.
"Wha— you insane bastards! They're actually shooting!!?"
"Get lost, you rebel dogs!"
"Aaargh, trash! You eat from the same pot and still stab your own kin in the back!?"
Lan Tianwei, watching through his telescope, clicked his tongue.
"...Damn it. No help for it, then. We begin the assault at noon. We drive the First Brigade back to the General's Headquarters and the Guest House."
"Y-yes, sir!"
The enemy was bustling about.
Hiding behind a log, Guo Songling checked the watch on his wrist. 11:54.
The enemy would not attack before noon, the hour when retreat was permitted to them. Lucky.
That much accomplished his purpose — but his mission was not yet over. Now he had to bring the seventy soldiers behind him back home, every last one alive.
Guo Songling moved along the barricade, approaching the soldiers who, like him, leaned against it with their rifles braced at their shoulders.
"Men. Are you afraid?"
"N-no, sir."
"Is that so? I'm terrified."
"...To tell the truth, so am I."
"Good. Any man would be. Don't be ashamed of it."
He took out his cigarette case, passed one to each of the soldiers around him and took one himself, and lit them all together.
"Think of one thing and one thing only. We fight not for anything else, but for Fengtian. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Not one of you here hasn't lived through the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. If peace breaks again, the same calamity will come for us again."
"That's right!"
"I don't even want to think about it!"
A resolute gleam passed through the eyes of the platoon.
"Good. Everyone hold your positions. When I give the signal, we fall back one squad at a time toward the General's Headquarters. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!!!"
Hanyang Type 88 rifles — the license-built copies of the German Gewehr 1888 — poked their heads shyly through the barricade.
The ones who had smoked their cigarettes down to nothing flicked their butts to the ground, mouths moving without a word.
Beyond the effective range, the enemy wriggled into formation.
Paruuuu!!
A bugle call that pierced the ear even from far away.
"S-Sir! They're coming!"
"Good aim, then fire!"
Guo Songling pulled the trigger.
Bang—!!
The crack of gunfire, distant but unmistakable.
"Major!"
"So it's begun, it seems. ...Is the trench finished?"
"Ah — yes, sir! Absolutely! We've dug trenches along every road within a radius of about a mile and a half and requisitioned houses to station the troops."
"Good. Any water left in the canteen?"
"Sir? Oh — yes, here."
I snatched the canteen the soldier held out and gulped it down. I was pretty sure I'd already drained two of them, yet my mouth kept going bone dry.
"Major! Are you all right!?"
"Oh, Du Lisan. There you are."
"I ran straight over the moment I heard the gunfire."
"Aw, our Lisan, what a guy. Just the absolute best."
I gave him a mental thumbs-up and spread the map out in front of him.
"Guo Songling is going to fight a delaying action, dragging them as slowly as he can until they're right in front of the General's Headquarters."
"What would you have me do?"
"You remember the guys who used to be under you, back in the day?"
"Ah — yes, of course."
"Take them and hold the streets between the houses. Think you can fight a guerrilla action?"
"Guerrilla warfare?"
"It's nothing fancy. When they push in, you empty a magazine, run to the next house, empty another, run again — that's the whole trick."
"Ah, I see exactly what you mean. Just like the train job."
"...You've robbed a train too?"
"...Th-that was just, uh, youthful indiscretion. I don't do that anymore. That sort of thing."
"Good. Let's do this right."
12:39 p.m. Eastern Fengtian.
Rat-tat-tang!!
"Aaaaagh!!"
The enemy foolhardy enough to set foot on open ground without cover went down like a beehive under a hail of lead.
"Second squad, withdraw to the next alley! Third squad, keep up suppressing fire!"
"Yes, sir!"
They'd been at it for nearly an hour now.
Working the bolt of his rifle again and again, Guo Songling gradually drew his force backward, step by step.
"Gyaaah! I'm hit! I'm hit!"
"Bandages! Get the bandages! Tie the tourniquet! Twist it!"
"Aaaaagh!! It hurts! Gently, you bastard, twist it gently!!!"
"Better it hurt than you die!"
Soldiers closed on their comrade, shot through the thigh and down, and cinched a tourniquet around it by hand.
"Sir! I don't think we can hold out much longer!"
"How many wounded?"
"Six! If we lose any more, the men will be too busy carrying them back to fight!"
Bang!
He took the heavy recoil against his shoulder. One more enemy went down.
Guo Songling worked the bolt, thumbed in fresh rounds, and spoke.
"Good. From here we keep withdrawing by squads, covering each other at the crossroads. We've bought all the time we need."
"Understood!"
"Commander, we've broken through!"
"...Casualties?"
"Twenty dead, eighty wounded."
"A hundred men lost already."
Gripping his aching temples, Lan Tianwei's face creased.
"C-Commander, please, don't lose heart. The General's Headquarters will come into view soon."
"At this rate, if the First Brigade's reinforcements or the Fourth Brigade's show up, we'll be squeezed in the middle with nowhere to run, won't we? Dead either way."
Lee Tae-oh's 1st Battalion was haunting every last alley like some vengeful demon, spraying lead wherever they went. What grudge could they possibly have against us... oh, right. We're the rebels.
"To minimize losses we'd have to take the streets one by one, slowly — but then their reinforcements arrive. Push fast, and the men die. ...Checkmate, either way."
"Commander. As they say, troops prize speed. Push quickly, and in the end that's what saves the most lives."
"Zhang Rong. Unless you're the one planning to carry a rifle out there, kindly keep quiet."
"If you need me to, I shall."
"What?"
When Lan Tianwei turned to look at him, fire was rising in Zhang Rong's eyes — the fire of men willing to throw away their lives for conviction and ideals.
"The Tongmenghui has forces of its own, prepared precisely to strike the Viceroy's guard."
"How many, exactly?"
"A hundred and fifty."
"Ho."
So they're not just dolts with noodle soup for brains after all. Granted, if they'd been idiots chasing nothing but ideals, they'd never have seized more than half this continent by now.
"If you have such a force, I'd gladly use it this very moment."
His own troops had been asking him, over and over, why they had to fight. Preach lofty ideals to former bandits and you'd get neither understanding nor interest — Lan Tianwei was in a wretched bind.
But men who knew why they fought — that was another matter entirely. They might just punch through this deadlocked situation!
"Then from this moment, the Tongmenghui takes the vanguard."
"Good. I'll rotate your vanguard into the positions we hold now."
Lan Tianwei pushed the flag on the map into the residential district lined with houses.
1:15 p.m.
"Guo Songling."
"Second Lieutenant Du Lisan?"
"Good work out there. It's mine now. Get to the Headquarters fast — the Major's waiting for you."
"Understood. Come back in one piece, you hear?"
"Yeah."
Guo Songling hurried the wounded, borne on comrades' shoulders, out of the city center.
"Whew. God, it's lonely out here."
"Boss, we're right behind you. What's all this lonely nonsense?"
"Boss, my ass. You call me Sir Lieutenant, remember?"
Du Lisan put a cigarette between his lips and struck a light.
"Get back together with the old mountain-camp crowd and somehow my speech keeps slipping back to the old days."
"So what do you want us to do?"
"Empty one magazine, give up one house, fall back. That's the drill."
"Well, it's no 'shoot every last one of them,' so that's easy enough."
Du Lisan and his old comrades slung their cumbersome rifles behind their backs, drew their pistols from their holsters, and ran through a few checks.
"All good?"
"Yes."
"Right. When they come in, take down one or two and immediately slip to the next building. No showing off trying to rack up a body count — keep your lives intact."
"Yes, sir!"
They slipped into buildings scattered through the residential quarter and held their breath.
"...Here they come."
Men wearing some kind of red armband.
Du Lisan cracked his fingers, quietly checked that the chamber was loaded, and extended his hand toward the window.
Rat-tat-tat-tang!!!
"Gah!!"
"Ambush! Ambush!"
"Light 'em up!!"
A few of the enemy, unbroken by the fusillade, gripped their bayoneted rifles and kicked open the door of the house where Du Lisan waited.
"Die, you traitor bastard!"
A bayonet thrust for his shoulder. He gave ground with measured steps and, with the revolver in his left hand, raked the man across the lower belly.
"Ghhhaa..."
Barely had the man collapsed before another pushed in behind him. A firing stance — the enemy braced his rifle at his shoulder.
Du Lisan kicked the table beside him over into cover, and even before it settled, a rifle round punched through it.
The ugly sound of a bullet tearing wood into a spray of sawdust.
"You stupid bastard — you brought a long rifle into a cramped little room like this?"
"Y-you son of a—"
"Say hi to Buddha for me."
Bang!
Putting a .38 caliber slug into the head of the man still fumbling for his bolt, Du Lisan kicked open the back door and shouted as he went.
"Fall back to the next house!"
"Falling back!"
Behind Du Lisan, the houses of the civilians still stretched on, block after block after block.
"Aaaaargh! You traitor bastards! Fight fair! Fight me properly, face to face, you motherf—ers!!"
"Aww~ good luck finding one of me."
"Man, first time I've ever seen a guy pull this 'fight fair' crap in Manchuria. You're from south of Shanhaiguan, aren't you?"
"...This is a complete catastrophe."
Lan Tianwei let out one long sigh and summoned his officers.
"There isn't a single hiding spot the First Brigade isn't using. We take one alley, move to the next, and bullets come flying immediately! Let's just torch the whole thing, hot and fast!"
"Are you insane? Burn the civilians alive too?"
"Otherwise our men all die!!"
"...Let's smoke on it a while."
The Second Brigade commander and his officers laid out the map and lit cigarettes side by side. After the brief reprieve, they spoke again.
"Reaching the Headquarters through the residential quarter is impossible."
"I've reached the same conclusion."
"Then we have no choice but to move along the main avenue that leads to the General's Headquarters."
"Won't that leave us terribly exposed to attack? I hear they've even dug trenches in front of the Headquarters."
"They'll have spread thin defending the whole quarter by now. Accepting a few losses and overwhelming them with numbers is far better than this suffocating stalemate!"
"Besides, the other units will soon be arriving on the outskirts of Fengtian. Drag this out any longer and we're all dead men."
"Hoo. Very well. We pull every engaged unit back and throw them onto the avenue. The residential quarter switches to the defensive."
"Yes, Commander!"
2:28 p.m. Central Fengtian, the Shengjing General's Headquarters.
"Major! They're moving."
"Telescope."
"Here you are."
Ma Jeom-san, who had rejoined me after the first shots were fired, handed over the binoculars.
"So it is. They're on the move."
"It looks like they mean to ride straight down the avenue and fall upon the Headquarters at a stroke."
"Then let them come."
I lowered the telescope and, in its place, took up a red signal flag.
"Let's find out just how much blood they're willing to spill."
In the distance, a wall of men advancing in column. The figures looked like dots. Still too far. Now they were the size of grains of rice. Closer. Come closer. Now they were the size of fingernails.
Instead of shouting, I raised the signal flag high.
"There's the signal!"
"Water jacket temperature nominal!"
"Give it to them! Give it to them all!"
The machine gunners on the fifth floor of the Xinmin Prefecture Guest House — the tallest building in Fengtian — brought their eyes to the tangent sights. Hands on the twin grips, fingers on the trigger. They squeezed the heavy trigger. The bolt slammed, driving round after round of 8mm Mauser. The bullets, spitting heat, began slipping one by one along the chamber. Leaving the chamber behind, they took to the sky itself as their racetrack. From a height of fifteen meters — the highest point in Fengtian — the bullets dove down.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-ta—!!!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-ta—!!!
"...Heaven and earth, most high."
The NCO observing the fall of shot through his telescope covered his mouth without meaning to.
Because I'm not over there. Because I'm in the First Brigade, not the Second. Because I'm in the 1st Battalion. Because I serve under that man, Lee Tae-oh.
"...Thank God."