Chapter 43: Capturing the City of Guiyang

"I heard that the Red Army treats captives well. We can just let them capture us first. Since they are in a hurry to move out, they certainly won't be bothered to drag us dead weights along, and will simply release us directly when the time comes."

As Lin Que spoke like this, he felt he had already figured out a way to survive.

Exchanging whispers among themselves, a group of soldiers thought that their company commander truly lived up to his title, being able to perceive the situation clearly even at a time like this.

Led by Yang Gang, the assault team, along with the sniper company commanded by Baobao and Qi Delong's 1st Battalion, coordinated to form the vanguard force, charging at the very front.

Along the way, they occasionally encountered resistance from the Nationalist forces, but it posed virtually no threat to them at all.

Meanwhile, Long Wencheng led his troops along the city wall to launch charges toward the North and South gates.

His objective was to take complete control of the entire city of Guiyang and seal off all city gates.

Yang Gang's contingent advanced at the fastest speed, but just at that moment, someone came running from ahead, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Grandpas of the Red Army, please don't shoot! We surrender!"

Running closer for a better look, they saw it was a Nationalist officer, holding high a white flag—though calling it a white flag was a stretch, as it looked much more like a pair of white underwear, shivering violently in the wind and rain.

"How many?"

Yang Gang asked coldly.

"More than a hundred men."

True to his word, a crowd of Nationalist soldiers soon emerged one after another from behind him, all having stripped off their underwear and holding them up on their heads.

The man was none other than Lin Que.

As for the few members of the督战队 (discipline inspection and supervision squad), they had already been quietly eliminated by their own men.

When the time came, they would just claim the Red Army had killed them, and no matter who investigated, the truth would never be found.

Yang Gang led his men forward and discovered that it was indeed not a trap; they had simply surrendered outright.

Once all these men had thrown their firearms and ammunition onto the ground, Yang Gang, Qi Delong, and the others finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Leaving a platoon to keep a close eye on them, Yang Gang grabbed Lin Que and demanded:

"Where is your commander-in-chief?"

Lin Que shook his head and replied:

"I'm just with the transport battalion; I really have no idea where the commander is. But I do know where the armory and supply depot are located."

Upon hearing this, Qi Delong's eyes lit up, and he said:

"Old Yang, you take your men to catch that bird of a commander, and I'll head to the armory and supply depot."

With that, he had Lin Que lead the way ahead.

Without hesitation, Yang Gang took Baobao and the assault team members to continue pushing forward.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist headquarters had already retreated in advance toward the East Gate, where there was still a battalion of two to three hundred troops stationed.

The commander realized that Guiyang was no place to linger and that he had to hide outside the city for a while; once reinforcements arrived, these Red Army troops would naturally withdraw, and he would be able to turn danger into safety.

In addition, he ordered the military radio station to be temporarily shut down, because he was now firmly convinced that the opposing Red Army possessed specialized wireless reconnaissance units—otherwise, there was no way they could have known he was inside Guiyang city.

The moment he recalled how his telegraphic military orders sent to the front lines had all been intercepted by the enemy, he finally understood why the enemy could always act one step ahead of him and remained as slippery to catch as an eel.

In the rainy night of Guiyang city, the sounds of gunfire and explosions were incessant.

Yet once the commander had fled, the will to resist among the rest naturally plummeted, collapsing as swiftly and violently as a landslide.

By the first half of the night, the thousand-odd garrison troops in Guiyang had essentially lost all organized resistance; the majority had scattered and routed, a small portion was wiped out, and over two hundred men were captured.

Looking at the deserted Central Army headquarters and the portrait still hanging on the wall, Long Wencheng felt a tinge of regret.

What a pity, what a pity—he had been just a hair's breadth away from capturing him.

Still, on a stormy night like this, managing to capture a single specific person was somewhat difficult; it would require simultaneously controlling all four city gates and trapping the prey inside.

The difficulty of that was self-evident.

Of course, whether they caught him or not wasn't all that crucial anyway. After all, who knew if a replacement would prove just as fond of micro-managing their battles, thereby handing victory over to them at an even faster pace.

After securing Guiyang city, Long Wencheng immediately dispatched Lin Tong northward to locate the Central Column and inform them that Guiyang had been taken.

At the same time, Long Wencheng led his troops to crack down on local tyrants and landlords in Guiyang, gathering provisions and grain as extensively as possible.

However, compared to the spoils seized from the landlords and tyrants, Long Wencheng's greatest harvest from this raid on Guiyang was undoubtedly those storehouses.

These warehouses had originally been stocked to supply the Central Army—this was the logistical replenishment for a full eight divisions.

Although a considerable portion had been taken away by frontline troops, a massive amount still remained behind.

This included a vast quantity of weapons and ammunition, grain, military boots and uniforms, and even numerous steel helmets, artillery shells, and medical supplies.

Preliminary statistics showed that firearms alone numbered over ten thousand, including light and heavy machine guns, submachine guns (Chicago typewriters/flower machine guns), and rifles.

Unfortunately, there was no artillery, but there were various calibers of artillery shells.

Among them, those compatible for use by the artillery company totaled a full fifty crates, including three crates of 37mm flat-trajectory shells, with 30 rounds per crate, making 90 rounds in total.

This made Little Shitou ecstatic, because within the artillery company, that Schneider 37mm flat-trajectory gun had practically become his exclusive piece of ordnance.

The problem was that the ammunition had been running dwindlingly low; after several battles, fewer than 20 rounds remained, and he was on the verge of falling into the embarrassing predicament of having a cannon with no shells.

Now, with these 90 rounds of ammunition, that Schneider 37mm flat-trajectory gun could shine brilliantly in subsequent battles once again.

As for the ammunition for various machine guns, rifles, and submachine guns, a rough calculation based on the count per ammunition crate yielded at least five million rounds.

One must remember that when the entire Red Army's Long March first began, they had possessed only a little over 1.6 million rounds of bullets.

The amount of ammunition captured in Guiyang alone this time was equivalent to three times the total ammunition reserve at the start of the Long March.

Reserving half a million rounds for his own forces, Long Wencheng sealed up the rest to await replenishment when the main forces of the Central Red Army arrived.

He knew that after consecutive battles, the Central Red Army suffered massive consumption of ammunition and weapons; these arms and munitions could provide them with a stellar replenishment, ensuring that at least for a long time to come, they would no longer need to worry about weapons and ammunition.

As for the arms themselves, Long Wencheng removed another 30 Czech light machine guns, 50 submachine guns, and 7 Maxim heavy machine guns, leaving the rest for the Central Red Army.

As for Hanyang rifles and the like, Long Wencheng didn't take a single one, primarily because he already had too many in hand. Between all the previous captures, even after issuing them to several thousand new recruits, he still had over three thousand rifles remaining.

Aside from military supplies, guided by the transport battalion traitor Lin Que, Long Wencheng also discovered the private luxury supplies of the Nationalist officers.

Items such as white liquor, wine, coffee, pastries, candies, and even various aphrodisiacs.

Lin Ping'an wasn't particularly interested in the aphrodisiacs, but things like the white liquor were fine goods that would definitely come in handy when crossing snowy mountains in the future.

At noon, Lin Tong rendezvoused with the Central Red Army and brought them the intelligence of Long Wencheng's capture of Guiyang.

This sent shockwaves through the command tier of the Central Red Army; their original intention had merely been a feint against Guiyang, aimed at drawing the Central Army, Yunnan warlord troops, and others back to reinforce the city.

Never had they expected Long Wencheng's strike to be so swift, capturing the entire city of Guiyang overnight.