Facing Guan Linzheng's order, Yan Wei replied without hesitation: "Commander Guan, do you really think it still makes sense for our 32nd battalion to go and rescue them now?"

  "Alas, the lady's orders must be obeyed, and we must at least make a show of sending troops. Besides, among this large group of children, there are not a few orphans of our comrades-in-arms. If we don't go, I'll feel uneasy!"

  "Alright, take enough equipment and make long-term preparations. If heaven shows mercy, when you rush there, if there are still a few children left, it is essential to safely escort them to Chongqing, which can also be considered as giving an account to the lady's place. We will soon retreat in the direction of Jiangxi, but for now, it is unclear where we will finally station our troops. Bring the radio and keep in touch with the troops at all times. However, if something really happens to you, I, as the commander of this army, am also powerless. Go to the military supply department to receive 200 silver dollars as military expenses, then gather your men and go to the commander's automobile camp to get a truck. I will call them immediately to instruct them. Remember, regardless of success or failure, contact the troops with the radio immediately after completing the task, and bring all the soldiers you led out back to me safely!"

  Yan Wei bowed respectfully to Guan Lin and turned to leave.

  "Notify the guards battalion to select and dispatch a squad of skilled personnel for the task. Qu Fei and He Lan must be included, bringing radio equipment. Also, select two medical soldiers who can get things done to join the team. Each member of the team should prepare two days' worth of dry rations, 200 rounds of rifle ammunition per person, four hand grenades per person, and all will be equipped with short guns. Additionally, notify Battalion Commander Lan Gang to join the team."

  As Deputy Commander Han Wei went out to make arrangements, Yan Wei took out his beloved Camel cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt, lit one and puffed a smoke ring onto the map of Hubei Province on the table. As the rolling smoke ring slowly fell onto the map and quickly spread out, Yan Wei picked up a pencil on the table and drew a circle at the center of the smoke ring. This was the destination of his operation this time - Hanshui.

  Yan Wei looked at the 34 elite soldiers selected from each company in front of him and pointed to the German-made Opel military truck that had been parked aside, allocated by the headquarters motorcade: "The mission is urgent and time is pressing, listen to my orders, get on the truck."

  Yan Wei turned to the deputy commander of the guard battalion, Han Wei, beside him: "Old Han, after I leave, the guard work at the headquarters will be handed over to you. Don't make any mistakes!"

  Having said that, they stood up straight and saluted each other with Han Wei, then turned around and walked towards the truck.

  Han Wei then grabbed the battalion commander of the Guard Regiment, Lan Gang, who was closely following him: "The safety of the regiment is now in your hands. To use the regiment's words from earlier - no mistakes are allowed!"

  "Comrades, I'd like to brief you all on our mission this time."

  Yan Wei squatted in the middle of the truck's rear compartment, which was covered with a canvas awning, and began to brief the entire team of soldiers on their combat mission.

  "Received instructions from Commander-in-Chief Chiang's wife, we were ordered by General Xue Yue, commander of the First Army Group, to rush to the Hankou area, just over a hundred miles away. There is a group of orphans being escorted by a platoon from our Wuhan Garrison Brigade, all of whom are war orphans from the wartime orphanage founded by Commander-in-Chief Chiang's wife. They're all pitiful, having lost their parents! Originally, they were supposed to be escorted to Chongqing, but according to the distress signal sent out by the escort troops, they have now encountered a vanguard force of about one company strength from the Japanese army in the Hankou area! Fighting has already broken out, and it's likely to be a desperate situation! Everyone understands, right? We're just following orders by rushing over there. It seems that those poor children, along with our brothers from that platoon, are probably doomed! Whatever happens, once we arrive, if there are still survivors, we'll have more trouble on our hands. Commander Guan has instructed us to ensure the surviving children are escorted to Chongqing at all costs. If things go badly and we're unable to turn the tide, it's simple - just contact HQ via radio and retreat with our troops."

  Yan Wei said, seeing that everyone looked rather sad. He then said: "Everyone doesn't have to be so downhearted. Nowadays it's wartime, the whole country is in the midst of war, and now we can't even take care of all the ordinary people's safety! We've all done our best, that's all."

  "Also, our current operation has no logistical support. Now I estimate that in the entire Wuhan area, there are hardly any of our national army's brother units left. Our 32nd Army Corps is also withdrawing from the Wuhan area, and by the time we return, we'll have to find a way to go to Jiangxi to look for troops. Because without logistical support, heavy weapons are useless. Therefore, I only ordered you to bring rifles, hand grenades, and pistols this time. So, in this operation, we don't have light or heavy machine guns or artillery participating in the battle. Once we arrive at the destination, if we really need to engage with the Japanese army, our firepower won't necessarily be better than theirs. Although our American-made M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles and German-made M24 hand grenades are 100 times stronger than the Japanese Type 38 rifles and Type 97 hand grenades! But if we really fight, without the support of light and heavy machine guns, it will appear that we don't have an advantage on the battlefield. Therefore, I require you to play to our strengths and avoid our weaknesses when fighting against the Japanese army, and make use of the performance advantages of our weapons and our individual combat quality! There's no need to hard fight with the Japanese army."

  "Also, our mission this time is to go and rescue people. So, I require each and every one of you to try your best to stay alive! Because a dead person cannot save others!"

  Yan Wei looked at the soldiers who had been following him for a long time and said, "I wish every brother good luck. Life and death are destined, everyone be careful."

  He said, then lifted the canvas curtain that separated the driver's compartment and knocked on the glass rear window with his finger joints. After the driver received the signal and stopped the car by the side of the road, Yan Wei walked to the back of the carriage, lifted the canvas awning and jumped down. He needed to carefully calculate every step in the driver's compartment.

  There were over thirty people in the group, except for one person from Xiangyang, Hubei, the rest were mostly northerners, and there was not a single local who was familiar with the terrain. After the truck had been bumping on the dirt road for more than two hours, Yan Wei estimated that they should be approaching their destination, so he instructed the driver to stop the car. He jumped out of the truck and immediately stopped a group of fleeing civilians, asking: "Who can tell me what place this is? How far is it from Hankou?"

  Who would have thought that these old folks all smiled and shook their heads to indicate they didn't know! And then they all nodded and bowed, hurrying forward on their way.

  Yan Wei was displeased, and then wanted to stop the family of four who were closely following behind him again. However, he didn't expect that the man in this family would take the initiative to nod at Yan Wei and say: "Officer, this place has long been part of the Han River area. If you go further forward, you will be out of the Han River."

  Yan Wei immediately asked: "Fellow countryman, from Wuhan to here in Hanchuan, how many roads are there?"

  The man looked at Yan Wei and said: "If you take the highway, there is only this one main road. The small paths are numerous."

  Yan Wei listened and secretly worried. On the one hand, he waved his hand to indicate that this family could continue on their journey, while on the other hand, he thought to himself: "This security detachment has been ordered to escort the children on a long journey to Chongqing, so it's reasonable to assume they should have several cars. If they do have cars, then they should be taking the main road! If they're on foot with a whole group of kids and still taking the small path, unless the officer in charge is ill! In that case, let's just calm down and move forward again. Let's search for another few dozen miles, if there's still no sign of them, we can contact the troops and return to report our mission accomplished." He opened the car door, got into the driver's seat, closed the door behind him, and said to the driver: "Continue driving forward."

  Yan Wei looked out of the driver's cab window at the towering mountains on both sides of the highway and thought: "If the rescue target is really in these continuous mountains, it would be impossible to find! But with a large group of children, they wouldn't venture into the mountains no matter what. Besides, if they were to go into the mountains, they wouldn't encounter any Japanese vanguard troops either. What would the Japanese army do by entering the mountains for nothing?"

  Just as I was thinking, I suddenly realized that the refugees on both sides of the highway had increased in number, and the more we walked forward, the more people there were. To the point where even though the driver honked the horn frequently, it didn't have much effect. Apparently something had happened ahead on the road, causing the road to be blocked.

  Yan Wei was trying to figure out what had happened on the road ahead when a crisp gunshot sound entered his ears.

  Yan Wei immediately pushed the door open and got out of the car, then with a flick of his left hand, he grabbed the rearview mirror on the driver's side, and with his left foot on the step, he kicked off the front wheel mudguard with his right foot and sprang onto the hood. With another leap, he landed on top of the cab. He immediately took down the 7×50 high-powered binoculars made by Zeiss of Germany from his waist and began to observe the surroundings ahead on the highway.

  Yan Wei put down the binoculars and saw that Lán Gāng had already gotten out of the car and was standing beside him. He jumped onto the front hood and then directly jumped off the truck. To Lán Gāng, he said: "Three li ahead, a large number of military trucks are parked on the highway. Most of them are Japanese Nissan 180-type military trucks, and they have all been equipped with light machine guns for armed sentry duty. The refugees are all crowded together one li ahead and don't dare to move forward. It seems that this is where we'll be taking fire." After speaking, he looked at Lán Gāng and said: "It looks like our luck isn't too good or too bad! We've found our target!"

  Lan Gang smiled and said: "No big deal. Since we can't avoid them, let's just get rid of them."

  "Tell everyone to get off the train."

  Yan Wei said and then walked towards the back of the truck.

  Lan Gang stood under the car and conveyed Yan Wei's order to the soldiers, then pulled out his Mauser C96 pistol and swept it around at the crowd of onlookers, causing them to retreat in fear, instantly clearing a large area around the truck.

  "Brothers, the mission is accomplished! Just ahead, about three li away. On the highway, there are four or five Japanese trucks parked vertically, with machine guns mounted on top and manned by two soldiers each. Below, there are about twenty Japanese soldiers standing guard on the highway. I didn't see our people or the children, only our two trucks facing off against the Japanese ones ahead, probably..."

  Just as he was saying this, he was interrupted by several consecutive gunshots.

  "Listen, it seems that our people have encountered the Japanese vanguard on the highway ahead and had a fierce battle. In order to protect the children, they retreated into the northern mountain forest. The strategy was correct, if we were to confront the Japanese on the highway, we would have been annihilated by now! But why are they still able to resist the Japanese who are surrounding them in the mountains? This is puzzling! Anyway, judging from the situation, it seems that they are still holding on. I suppose they're quite lucky."

  "After that, he looked at the crowd and said: 'Now I'm assigning tasks. Lan Gang will lead ten people to enter the mountain from the south side of the highway, sneak forward to the front line, and find a good position to ambush. After arriving at the destination, use the mountains and forests as cover, each find a target for shooting and secretly hide, do not move rashly. When you hear the sound of gunfire coming from our location on the south side of the highway, immediately shoot the Japanese soldiers standing guard on the highway! After resolving them, come over and join us.'"

  He pointed with his right hand to the opposite side of the road and said: "Carry out the order."

  After Dai Lan led ten soldiers to run towards the mountain forest on the other side of the highway, Yan Wei looked at everyone and said: "Chiang Chen, Yu Tian is out."

  After the two men left, Yan Wei told them: "You two now immediately go north from here to Beishan Mountain, and secretly approach the scene of the incident from the mountain. Investigate all specific situations on the north side of the mountain forest where the incident occurred. Do not engage in fire with the Japanese army, and return to me after completing the investigation."

  The two men stood at attention and saluted after receiving their orders, then darted off like escaping rabbits towards the northern mountain.

  Yan Wei said to the remaining people, "What we need to do is the same as what the Blue Army did, only our position is on this side. The difference is that because it's unclear what situation is in the northern mountain forest where the incident occurred. Therefore, we can't get too close to the target. In case of being exposed and discovered by the Japanese army on the mountain. So, everyone will follow my orders later."

  He then looked at the driver standing beside him and said, "I'll leave two men here with you to wait for our news. When you hear us exchanging fire with the Japanese army up ahead, immediately drive the car forward."

  Yan Wei looked at the increasing number of refugees blocking the highway and frowned: "Li Qiming, Han Chao, fall in."

  "You two stay with the driver and keep watch here. If it really gets too crowded, stand on both sides of the car door and fire into the air to disperse the crowd!"

  Having said that, he didn't wait for the two to respond and led the way into the northern mountain forest.