Chapter 34: Encountering the Central Army's Vanguard
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Although traditional cavalry still far surpassed infantry in mobility, they had no advantage whatsoever when confronted by a web of machine-gun fire.
A dense network of machine-gun fire was enough to wipe out the fiercest cavalry in the world.
That was also why many nomadic peoples became increasingly skilled at singing and dancing after the invention of firearms, especially machine guns.
Realizing that something was wrong, the cavalrymen abandoned several corpses and wounded men before turning and fleeing.
Long Wencheng did not pursue them. Instead, he captured several of the wounded.
The moment he saw their uniforms, his brows furrowed.
These cavalrymen did not belong to the Guizhou Army. They were Central Army troops.
There was only one lightly wounded man. He had fallen from his horse and broken his lower leg. After being bandaged, he was bound hand and foot and made to sit on the ground.
“What is your name? What is your unit designation? How many men are there, and how far away are they?”
Long Wencheng fired off a string of questions.
The Central Army soldier turned his face away, wearing an expression of defiance unto death.
“Kill me or torture me, as you please!”
The moment he finished speaking, Little Rock worked the bolt with a sharp click and pressed the muzzle against the Central Army cavalryman’s head.
Yet the man remained utterly fearless, as though he had no fear of death.
Long Wencheng reached out and pushed the barrel aside. Then he took out three silver dollars and waved them before the man’s eyes, making them chime crisply.
“Talk, and the money is yours.”
“Hmph. You think three silver dollars can buy me?”
The Central Army soldier cast him a disdainful glance and snorted. “At least make it five.”
It was obvious that his military pay was not particularly high, and that his worth was nothing extraordinary. Otherwise, he would not have raised the price by only two silver dollars.
The words made everyone around them burst out laughing.
Little Rock sneered.
“I thought you were a real man. Who would have guessed five silver dollars would be enough to buy you?”
The soldier replied with complete justification, “What’s wrong with that? My monthly pay is only three silver dollars. Five is nearly two months’ wages!”
“All right, all right. You’ll get five,” Long Wencheng said, waving his hand.
He stuffed the five silver dollars into the man’s pocket. Hu Erleng beamed with delight and immediately began answering the questions Long Wencheng had asked.
“Sir, my name is Hu Erleng. I’m with the Central Army’s Forty-Third Division, Two Hundred and Twenty-First Regiment, Cavalry Company. Our regiment has about a thousand men, but our regimental commander draws pay for nonexistent soldiers, so I’d say there are only about eight hundred.
“Our cavalry company is mainly responsible for scouting ahead. The main body of our regiment is about ten kilometers behind us.”
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“Only one regiment?” Long Wencheng asked.
“That’s not all. Several divisions are following behind us. We came with Commander Xue to suppress the bandits.”
Hu Erleng, who had clearly become quite fond of money, spoke as he glanced at the clothing of the men before him.
“Ahem. I mean, I said that out of habit. We came to wipe you out. There are a full eight divisions, and they’re heading for Guiyang.”
“So your regiment is the advance force? How far behind you is the main body?”
Long Wencheng asked.
The Commander Xue in Hu Erleng’s words was naturally Xue Yue, a highly capable commander who would later achieve brilliant victories on the anti-Japanese battlefields.
Although these eight divisions claimed to have come to destroy the Red Army, their real objective was largely to eliminate Wang Jialie and seize all of Guizhou.
“Yes,” Hu Erleng replied with a nod. “As for the distance, it would take an hour and a half on horseback, or a full day on foot.”
“More than fifty kilometers.”
Long Wencheng calculated the situation. This battle was winnable. If they could resolve it within half a day and destroy the advance force, even if a hundred divisions followed behind, they would not be able to arrive in time to help.
Hu Erleng looked at Long Wencheng.
“Sir, how about I join the Red Army? I’ve heard that you people don’t beat your men.”
Long Wencheng studied him. The man was straightforward, saying whatever came to mind. He also had principles: he yielded to kindness but not force. He was quite an amusing fellow.
“Our Red Army has strict discipline. No prostitutes, no gambling, and not so much as a needle or thread may be taken from the common people. We don’t even receive military pay.”
Hu Erleng gave a foolish grin.
“That’s all right. I don’t mind. Life in the Nationalist Army is miserable. Every day I’m treated like a grandson—either beaten or cursed at. Just don’t beat or curse me.”
Little Rock asked, “They treat you like that, and you still refused to give us information just now?”
Hu Erleng flashed a sly smile.
“If I’d told you right away, wouldn’t I have lost those five silver dollars?”
“All right, then. Whether you can join the Red Army will depend on how you behave from now on.”
Long Wencheng waved his hand and ordered the men to take the foolish prisoner away. He then summoned the officers for a meeting.
“I think we can fight them. It would be a good chance to see what the Central Army is really made of.”
Wen Song looked eager.
“When the warlords were fighting, I never got the chance to cross swords with the Central Army. I’ve always regretted that.”
Everyone else also felt that the battle was feasible. All they needed to do was lure the enemy deeper in, then wait for nightfall to launch a raid—or ambush them in suitable terrain.
The enemy’s main force was fifty kilometers away and would need at least a day to reach them.
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On Guizhou’s mountain roads, even a full day might not be enough.
That gave them ample time to concentrate their forces and destroy this Central Army contingent of roughly a thousand men.
However, it would require some careful planning. If this enemy force realized that they had three thousand men, it would not recklessly pursue them.
Fortunately, only Qi Delong’s battalion had taken part in the battle, and only the company deployed at the very front had actually opened fire.
Thus, the fleeing cavalrymen had no idea how many men they truly had.
They could send another force of two or three hundred men ahead as bait, luring the enemy into pursuit. That way, they would have opportunities to ambush them all along the route.
The army was therefore divided into two groups. One consisted mainly of new recruits, more than three hundred men in all, carrying a larger amount of baggage and proceeding slowly ahead.
The remaining troops searched for suitable ambush positions, waiting to wipe out the Central Army advance force when it passed through.
Meanwhile, in the Two Hundred and Twenty-First Regiment, the commander, Luo Rucheng, had graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy. He was also a native of Zhejiang, making him both a favored protégé of the ruling circle and a fellow townsman. That was why he had become a regimental commander at such a young age.
He had heard the gunfire as well, but it had come from so far away that people even wondered whether it had truly been gunfire.
At last, the cavalry scouts sent ahead returned. But their numbers were wrong, and some of them were wounded.
“Regimental commander, we found Red bandits ahead and were ambushed,” reported the cavalry company commander.
After listening, Luo Rucheng raised his brows. He showed no trace of panic; instead, a faint excitement stirred in his heart.
He had long heard that these Red bandits were difficult to deal with, slippery as loaches.
But in Luo Rucheng’s view, that was merely an excuse front-line commanders used to cover up their own incompetence. They were nothing but a rabble of peasants. Many did not even possess rifles, and most wore straw sandals. How were they any different from the assorted local militias?
For that very reason, Luo Rucheng eagerly anticipated a clash with the Red Army. It would give him the chance to apply the military theories he had learned at the Whampoa Military Academy.
As for those Red Army soldiers, most of them probably could not recognize more than a handful of written characters. Graduates of military academies among them could be counted on one hand.
How could such a band of self-taught roughnecks possibly stand against a trained officer like him?
“How many men?”
“Judging by the volume of fire, no more than three hundred.”
“Only three hundred?”
Luo Rucheng was somewhat disappointed. He had thought they would have the strength of an entire regiment for him to destroy.
“Never mind. Order the troops to force-march and stay on their heels. Not a single one of those Red bandits is to escape.”
As he spoke, a cold, confident smile appeared in his eyes.
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