Chapter 29: Crossing the Wu River to the South, Guiyang in Crisis, Threatening Longli

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Chapter 29: Crossing the Wu River Southward—Guiyang in Peril, Longli Under Threat

The turbid waves of the Chishui River had long since fallen behind, and the Independent Regiment’s footsteps shattered the morning mist over the Wu River. The order for the entire army to cross south over the Wu River spread like a prairie fire, burning through Chiang Kai-shek’s painstakingly woven encirclement of four hundred thousand troops. Along the mountain roads of northern Guizhou, a gray tide of men surged forward like a river of iron, its aim fixed on the heart of central Guizhou—and, at that moment, its weakest point: Guiyang!

Within Guiyang, panic spread like an invisible plague through government offices and streets alike. The telegraph machines buzzed day and night, relaying the dreadful news that the Red Army had crossed east over the Chishui River, bypassed Zunyi, and suddenly turned south, breaking through the Wu River with its blade pointed directly at the provincial capital.

Chiang Kai-shek sat motionless beneath the lamplight. Guiyang had only two regiments. On the map, the thick red arrow representing the main Red Army force seemed like a red-hot branding iron searing into Guiyang itself.

“Damn it!” He slammed his fist onto the table, making the teacups jump. “What the hell are Zhou Hunyuan and Wu Qiwei doing? Four hundred thousand men! Four hundred thousand men, and they still can’t contain Zhu and Mao!”

His face was livid, the whites of his eyes webbed with blood vessels. His voice trembled almost imperceptibly.

“Sun Du! At once! Send Sun Du an emergency order! His Yunnan troops must reach Guiyang within three days! No—two! They must arrive within two days and protect headquarters! Anyone who disobeys will be dealt with under military law!”

Guiyang was in peril! The chairman’s headquarters stood on the verge of collapse!

This desperate order acted like the most powerful catalyst. The elite Yunnan troops, who had been cautiously watching events unfold around Bijie, now spun toward Guiyang like tops lashed by whips, racing southward without regard for anything else. Sun Du’s forces abandoned their baggage, traveled day and night, and sent clouds of dust rolling into the sky, striving only to reach the city before the Red Army appeared beneath its walls.

While Chiang Kai-shek and the defenders of Guiyang trembled in terror, placing all their hopes in the Yunnan Army’s overnight relief march, the Red Army High Command had already made the most crucial move in a far grander and more ingenious game of chess.

“Wang Lin!” Dong Zhentang’s voice came through the radio, carrying the calm confidence and anticipation of a chess player about to secure victory. “The show at Guiyang is nearly over! It’s time for your Independent Regiment to take the stage and sing the finale!”

On horseback as he marched, Wang Lin unfolded the telegram. The familiar crooked grin spread across his face, roguish yet brimming with fighting spirit.

“Orders: The Independent Regiment will immediately break away from the main force and proceed eastward at full speed! Objectives: Longli and Fuquan! Make a great show of it. The enemy must be convinced that our main force intends to advance east from here and join forces in western Hunan with He Long and Xiao Ke’s Second and Sixth Army Corps! Your mission: apply maximum pressure to the enemy at Longli and Fuquan! Create the unmistakable appearance that our main force is advancing east! Draw in and pin down the enemy forces in your front, as well as any forces that might come to their aid, thereby creating absolute conditions for the main army to move secretly westward into Yunnan! This is the key to the entire campaign. The reputation of the Tiger Regiment rests on this one operation! Dong Zhentang.”

“Haha! Good! The Tiger Regiment is best at singing finales!”

Wang Lin laughed loudly and suddenly hauled on the reins. The warhorse reared high.

“Entire regiment! Objective: Longli! Quick march—forward! Get every flag out! The more impressive we look, the better!”

The battle flag of the Iron-Blooded Rearguard Tiger Regiment snapped and billowed in the spring wind over the hills of central Guizhou. The column’s pace abruptly quickened. This was no longer a silent, stealthy long-distance advance, but an imposing march laid out in the full array of a major force.

Mules and horses hauled heavy Maxim machine guns and several dreaded “iron-tube cannons.” Their canvas covers were deliberately left half open, exposing thick, vicious-looking muzzles. Behind them came the enormous baggage train—more than six hundred liberation soldiers in neat gray cotton uniforms, carrying mountains of supplies. Its scale far exceeded that of an ordinary infantry regiment’s logistics force.

Radio antennas stood tall, and coded in plain language, messages were sent out in rapid succession:

“Advance units nearing Longli. Request that follow-up forces accelerate their advance!”

“Enemy spotted in the direction of Fuquan. Preparing for a frontal assault!”

“Urgently requesting ammunition resupply. Preparing to advance east into western Hunan!”

This overwhelming display was like a boulder thrown into an already muddy pond, instantly raising a monstrous wave in the enemy intelligence network.

Inside Guiyang, Chiang Kai-shek had only just managed to breathe a little easier after the arrival of the Yunnan Army’s vanguard. Then he received aerial reconnaissance reports and intercepted Red Army plain-language transmissions. His expression darkened once more.

“What? Advancing east? Western Hunan? Zhu and Mao have quite an appetite! They want to join forces with He Long? In their dreams!”

He jabbed twice at Longli and Fuquan on the map.

“Order Wu Qiwei! Move his column east of Longli immediately! Use the favorable terrain of Guanyin Mountain to establish a defensive line! Block the bandits’ eastward escape route at all costs! Order Sun Du to speed up! The encirclement of Guiyang has been temporarily lifted. Send the main body of the Yunnan Army eastward and crush them from that direction! Coordinate with Wu Qiwei and surround this main Red Army force attempting to flee east. Trap them beneath Guanyin Mountain!”

East of Longli stood Guanyin Mountain.

The mountain was not especially dramatic, but it controlled the throat of the route east from Longli and, beyond that, the road threatening western Hunan. The elite vanguard of Wu Qiwei’s column had already seized the ridgeline as ordered. Using the trees and hastily dug trenches for cover, they emplaced heavy machine guns and waited in battle formation.

Through their binoculars, they watched the Red Army force roll toward them in a bewildering assortment of flags, dragging heavy weapons and a baggage train astonishing in size. It quickly deployed across the open ground on the western slopes of Guanyin Mountain.

“Brigade commander! Look! That is unquestionably the Red Army main force!” A regimental commander pointed down the mountain. “That cannon! Look at that thick barrel! It’s the same thing that blasted apart Zhou Hunyuan’s blockhouse at Lubanchang! And that baggage train—it must be at least the size of an entire division!”

Wu Qiwei raised his binoculars, his expression grave. The strength and bearing displayed by the Red Army below cast a shadow over his heart.

The enemy did not attack immediately. Instead, outside effective firing range, it methodically built simple fieldworks. Artillery positions were being laid out as well. Mortars and several unnerving thick iron tubes were pushed to the front, their black muzzles aimed at Guanyin Mountain’s main defensive position.

Red flags fluttered across the Red Army lines. Figures moved everywhere. The whole scene had the air of a major force preparing for a decisive battle.

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“Pass the order! Strengthen the fortifications! Artillery, calculate your firing data! No one is to open fire or launch an unauthorized sortie without my order! Wait until Sun Du’s Yunnan troops have enveloped us from the east!”

Wu Qiwei issued the order in a low voice, his palms damp with sweat.

Erlangtan, Lubanchang, Gulin… Every appearance of Wang Lin’s Independent Regiment—or rather, this force mistaken for the Red Army main body—had been accompanied by earth-shaking battles. He had no intention of becoming the next Guo Xunqi or Zhou Hunyuan.

Below the mountain, at the Independent Regiment’s position, Wang Lin lay at a forward observation post, carefully sweeping his binoculars across every detail of the enemy positions on Guanyin Mountain.

The color of the fresh soil around the fortifications. The placement of the machine-gun nests. The faintly visible silhouettes of officers…

The three-dimensional map in his mind updated itself in real time.

“Commander, those bastards have learned their lesson. They’re hiding inside their tortoise shell and refusing to move,” Chen Ahai muttered as he came over.

“Not moving? Then we’ll force them to move—and make them afraid to move!”

Wang Lin gave a cold laugh.

“Liu Gensheng!”

“Here!”

“See that patch of woods halfway up the mountain? It looks like an enemy regimental command post! And those heavy machine-gun nests! Mark their coordinates! Ten mortars—three rapid-fire salvos! Blast them to hell!”

“Chen the Cannon! Push those two big beauties of yours”—the two 13.2-millimeter antiaircraft machine guns—“up behind that mound at the front! Fire horizontally! Target: the exposed infantry groups along the ridgeline! Sweep them down!”

“Rat-tat-tat-tat…!”

“Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom…!”

In an instant, the Independent Regiment’s positions erupted in deafening thunder.

Mortar shells shrieked through the air and slammed with precision into the woods halfway up the mountain and the forward fire points of Wu Qiwei’s troops. Pillars of smoke and flame shot skyward.

More terrifying still was the dense, muffled ripping sound made by the two antiaircraft machine guns firing horizontally. Trees as thick as bowls were cut in half. Stone shattered into flying fragments. Several exposed Sichuan Army squads along the ridgeline were swallowed in an instant by a savage storm of metal. Their screams vanished beneath the overwhelming roar of gunfire and explosions.

Chaos swept through Guanyin Mountain’s main position.

“Artillery attack! The bandits are shelling us!”

“Heavy machine guns! Those are the big things used against aircraft! They’re firing horizontally! Get under cover!”

“My company! My company!”

An entire battalion commander stared in horror at his troops, suddenly covered by the streams of antiaircraft machine-gun fire, dead and wounded scattered everywhere. His eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

Even Wu Qiwei, crouched inside a temporary shelter, was shaken gray with dust. His face had gone pale.

Such intensity of fire. Such precision. Such utter disregard for ammunition expenditure…

Who else could it be but the Red Army main force?

“Order every unit to take cover! No one show his head! Artillery—return fire! Suppress them! Suppress their gun positions!”

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The Sichuan Army’s mountain guns and mortars began firing back sporadically, but their accuracy and density were far inferior to those of the Independent Regiment’s artillery.

After firing for a while, the Independent Regiment’s guns rapidly shifted positions, making it difficult for Wu Qiwei’s artillery to locate them. The antiaircraft machine guns likewise changed positions after firing several long bursts, continuing to scour the battlefield with firepower terrifying enough to make the soul tremble. Any target foolish enough to expose itself was immediately swept away.

For an entire day, cannon fire rumbled beneath Guanyin Mountain, mingling with the fierce crackle of machine guns.

At times, the Independent Regiment sent small assault groups against the foot of the mountain to draw fire. At other times, it used mortars and antiaircraft machine guns to carry out precise, devastating strikes against selected targets. In the rear, the enormous baggage train deliberately raised clouds of dust, creating the impression that an endless stream of reinforcements was on the move.

Wu Qiwei’s forces were pinned firmly to their positions on Guanyin Mountain. They endured immense psychological pressure and mounting casualties. Several times they tried to organize counterattacks, only to be thrown back by the annihilating firepower. All their attention, and every available reserve, was drawn toward this relatively narrow front.

Sun Du’s Yunnan Army was racing eastward under orders, intending to encircle this supposed “Red Army main force.”

Dusk descended, but the smoke of battle had not yet cleared.

Wang Lin raised his binoculars once more. The enemy positions remained firmly fixed, with no sign of any large-scale movement. A cold smile touched his lips.

“Orders: All battalions and companies, withdraw from the positions according to the established plan, covering one another in turns! Move southwest! Objective: Huishui! Keep your movements quiet—and fast! Wrap cloth around the mules’ hooves! Carry the heavy weapons by hand! Maintain radio silence!”

Wang Lin lowered his voice, but his decision was absolute.

“Zhang Hongtu! Take the reconnaissance company and cover the rear! Leave those worn-out unit insignia, broken straw sandals, and empty ration tins we prepared scattered conspicuously across the positions! Leave several piles of firewood burning—make them blaze! Then find a few prisoners with loud voices and have them shout a few work chants toward the mountain every half hour!”

Night became the Independent Regiment’s finest cover.

More than three thousand soldiers slipped away from the battlefield beneath Guanyin Mountain, merging silently into the earth’s darkness after a full day of noisy combat.

Under the strict organization of veteran cadres, the enormous baggage train moved in perfect order. Heavy loads pressed down on the men’s shoulders, yet they made scarcely a sound.

Only several piles of blazing firewood remained, snapping in the night wind and illuminating the empty forward positions. From time to time, a few work chants, delivered in thick Sichuan-Yunnan accents, rang out abruptly across the silent valley:

“Put your backs into it—repair the fortifications!”

“Don’t panic—we’re waiting for reinforcements!”

The voices deepened the illusion that the main force still remained.

When the first faint light of dawn struggled through the thin mist of central Guizhou and fell across Guanyin Mountain, Wu Qiwei raised his binoculars and suspiciously studied the campfires below, which had burned unchanged through the night, and the dead-silent positions.

A powerful sense of unease seized him.

“Send a company down there! Have them investigate!”

Half an hour later, the reconnaissance company commander came tumbling back, crawling and stumbling. In his hands he clutched a battered Red Army octagonal cap and several strips of cloth bearing the designation “Independent Regiment, Fifth Red Army Corps.”

His face looked as though he had seen a ghost.

“Brigade commander! Down below… there’s nothing down there! The bandits… they’ve all gone! All that remains are broken straw sandals, scraps of cloth, and half-burned fire pits!”

“What?!”

Wu Qiwei looked as though he had been struck by lightning. He snatched the strips of cloth away. The words “Independent Regiment” seemed to burn into his eyes like red-hot brands.

“Wang Lin! It’s Wang Lin again!”

He suddenly understood. A chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.

What eastward advance of the main force? What decisive battle at Guanyin Mountain? From beginning to end, it had all been one enormous lie!

He had been played for a fool by this “Iron-Blooded Rearguard” for an entire day!

And that one day had been enough for the real Red Army main force to…

He lunged toward the map. His trembling finger moved past Longli and south of Guiyang, pointed toward Huishui and Changshun, and finally stabbed hard at the location marked Yunnan.

It was over. It was all over.

The iron barrel of four hundred thousand troops, painstakingly forged by the chairman into an encirclement, had been pierced clean through by Zhu and Mao. They had used a secondary force as bait, struck east while advancing west, and left the entire trap far behind.

“Quick! Quick, send a telegram to the chairman! The bandit main force…the bandit main force has turned southwest and is heading straight for Yunnan! Wang Lin’s Independent Regiment…was bait! It was bait!”

Wu Qiwei’s voice was hoarse with despair. He collapsed into the cold trench.

The wind swept across Guanyin Mountain, carrying with it the silence of the Red Army’s abandoned positions below—a merciless mockery of him, and of Chiang Kai-shek’s plan to encircle four hundred thousand troops.

Historical Note: The decision to feint an attack on Guiyang and threaten Longli arose from the Central Revolutionary Military Commission’s implementation of the Chairman’s strategic intent: “If we can draw the Yunnan Army out, that alone is victory.” Its essence lay in achieving two tactical objectives through strategic deception. First, it created the appearance of an assault on the city, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to dispatch the Yunnan Army to its relief. Second, it shielded the main force as it broke through the enemy blockade between Guiyang and Longli and shifted southward. The decision was conceived and carried out on the foundation of the Red Army’s troop deployments and dynamic camouflage after crossing south over the Wu River.

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