Chapter Eight: Striding Forward in Great Leaps – Part One

July 23, 1938, Laojunguan

Unconsciously, a month had passed. During this time, Wang Yue resolved many issues, foremost among them his identity. Although Gu Yufei and Xu Zhongyi seemed unreliable, they were actually quite shrewd. They had secretly hidden a radio set outside Heyuan County’s town. After retrieving it, Wang Yue reestablished contact with the Military Intelligence Bureau.

Concerned that Wang Yue might side with the Eighth Route Army and aiming to win over the uneasy Northeastern Army, the Jiangning authorities canceled the warrant for his arrest. Not only that, but they assigned him the designation of the Loyalty and Righteousness Salvation Army’s Jinbei Independent Detachment. Gu Yufei was promoted correspondingly to Major and Director of the Political Training Division, while Xu Zhongyi became Captain and Deputy Director. Of course, these ranks were just titles; their official military ranks remained unchanged.

Wang Yue also completed another expansion of his forces. Now the Jinbei Independent Detachment numbered 293 personnel, organized as follows:

Detachment Headquarters; three infantry platoons; one machine gun and artillery platoon; one cooking squad; one armory repair unit; one garrison squad; one medical unit; and one training unit.

The Detachment Headquarters comprised 24 men, equipped with 12 C93 pistols, 4 Gewehr 91S artillery carbines, 8 Mauser M1879 pistols, and one Weberli M1870 signal pistol.

Each infantry platoon counted 38 men, divided into three infantry squads, with one platoon leader, three messengers, and one medic. Beyond the standard squad weapons, they carried one C93 pistol, three Gewehr 91S artillery carbines, one Mauser M1879 pistol, and one Weberli M1870 signal pistol.

An infantry squad consisted of 11 men, including a four-man rifle team and two two-man machine gun teams, led by a squad leader armed with one FND light machine gun, 10 1888 Committee rifles, and one Mauser M1879 pistol.

The machine gun and artillery platoon comprised 55 men: two heavy machine gun squads, two artillery squads, and one transport squad, plus a platoon leader, three messengers, and one medic. In addition to each squad’s standard weapons, they carried one C93 pistol, three Gewehr 91S artillery carbines, one Mauser M1879 pistol, and one Weberli M1870 signal pistol.

A heavy machine gun squad had 10 men, equipped with one Maxim M1892 heavy machine gun, six Gewehr 91S artillery carbines, and four Mauser M1879 pistols.

An artillery squad included 10 men, armed with one Hotchkiss 37mm five-barrel machine cannon, six Gewehr 91S artillery carbines, and four Mauser M1879 pistols.

The transport squad was 10 men strong, each armed with a Gewehr 91S artillery carbine.

The cooking squad had 12 men, equipped with six Gewehr 91S artillery carbines and six Mauser M1879 pistols.

The armory repair unit consisted of 30 men, carrying 10 Gewehr 91S artillery carbines and 20 Mauser M1879 pistols.

The garrison squad numbered 28 men, equipped with eight Maxim M1892 heavy machine guns, one Hotchkiss 37mm five-barrel machine cannon, 28 Mauser M1879 pistols, and one Weberli M1870 signal pistol.

The medical unit included 10 men, each armed with a Mauser M1879 pistol.

The training unit comprised 20 men, likewise armed with 10 Mauser M1879 pistols.

Honestly, Wang Yue longed to command a formidable force to sweep the Japanese invaders away, but it was beyond his reach. His core team had only 65 men, mostly elite Northeastern soldiers except for a few remnants from Shaanxi under Veterinarian Hao. Expanding the unit more than fourfold drastically reduced combat effectiveness. Several attempts to capture traitorous collaborators nearly failed and caused many casualties, forcing Wang Yue to always deploy with the machine gun and artillery platoon during recent missions.

Wang Yue inherited more than just an inner elixir and a penchant for beheading from Nalan Xinde; he also gained a necromantic skill—Soul Searching. Although this ability required close proximity and intense brainwave activity from the other person to work, it was sufficient. No matter which side someone belonged to, Wang Yue could detect them if he paid attention.

Thanks to this skill, he recently captured many recruits—yes, captured. In these times, those with ideals and patriotism had already enlisted, leaving only hesitant individuals. It wasn’t enough to shout slogans and expect volunteers. After several failed recruitment drives, Wang Yue gave up on formalities. He was not the Eighth Route Army; the Loyalty and Righteousness Salvation Army was essentially a Military Intelligence Bureau front. There were no rules to follow.

Strong young men from good families, scattered middle and primary school students, carpenters, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, stonemasons, gunsmiths, tailors—any healthy person Wang Yue deemed useful was “recruited” into service. For example, medics trained under Doctor Bai were certainly not illiterate peasants but sons of landlords.

Relying on wounded bandits, bullies, puppet soldiers, and spies “rescued” daily from outside the mountains, Doctor Bai managed to train over a dozen doctors capable of performing basic surgery within a month. Simple wound treatment was no problem. Don’t dismiss it as impossible; practical experience is the best teacher. Even medics of foreign powers were not necessarily more skilled.

Though the troops lacked battlefield experience, they trained rigorously. Over the past month, ordinary soldiers fired between 100 and 150 rounds each for training, and even machine gunners and artillerymen had live-fire exercises. Li Yunlong, who occasionally visited to maintain relations, felt heartbroken seeing this. His Independent Regiment still maintained four-digit ammunition reserves, whereas Wang Yue’s were nowhere near that scale.

Ammunition and weaponry were adequate, but food shortages had become glaring. Wang Yue held only about sixty kilograms of staple grain. For roughly a hundred men, this was manageable with canned food and compressed biscuits, but for nearly three hundred men, it was insufficient. The newly appointed second platoon leader, Mi Long, was sent to purchase supplies from surrounding areas. Occasionally, raiding bandit camps helped ensure they did not starve.

Many time travelers boasted of commanding vast armies, but even feeding the troops alone could drive anyone mad. In Shanxi Province, grain yields per mu were barely over a hundred jin, sometimes approaching two hundred jin at best. But those figures referred to raw grains like millet and wheat, not edible food. With a grain milling rate of about 60%, a mu would yield only around 120 jin of consumable food. A soldier required roughly 1.5 jin of grain daily—about 550 jin annually. Conservatively, 480 jin was still necessary, equivalent to the yield of four mu of farmland.

Thus, Wang Yue’s force would require 1,200 mu under cultivation to sustain itself. But the common folk barely had enough to eat, let alone spare grain to sell to the army. Fortunately, the Laojunguan area was a contested zone among the Jin-Sui Army, the Eighth Route Army, and the Japanese, a gray zone that allowed Wang Yue to survive with these numbers.

Laojunguan itself was only suitable as a bandit stronghold. The mountain spring there supplied water sufficient for only twenty to thirty people during summer; winter conditions were even harsher. After expanding his forces, both officers and soldiers had to emulate the ancient Taoist priests by trekking down the mountain daily to fetch water—not only for personal use but also to store reserves for emergencies.