SHADOWS OF THE VALLEY
Chapter 2: The First Fourteen Days
Date: March 26, 1936
Location: The "Coyote's Den" Base Camp, Northern Yan River Valley, Shaanxi
The morning mist clung to the valley floor like a shroud. It was 0530 hours. Li Fan stood on a flat rock overlooking the crude camp they'd established in a box canyon—two days' hard march from the ridge where they'd met. It was defensible, with a single narrow entrance, a freshwater seep, and overhanging cliffs that offered shelter and a lookout post. They'd christened it the Coyote's Den.
His platoon—the word still felt grandiose for six men—was waking. Or rather, they were being woken by Zhao Quan, who took his role as second-in-command with a solemn, almost priestly dedication. "Up! Up! The sun does not wait for your dreams! Wang, check the perimeter wire. Bao, stoke the fire, small and smokeless!"
Li Fan observed, arms crossed. Zhao Quan was learning. The first week had been a disaster of conflicting orders and hesitancy. Now, there was a rhythm, however clumsy. It was time to tighten the screws.
"Fall in!" Li Fan's voice, calm but carrying, cut through the morning chill.
Five men scrambled into a ragged line. Chen Rui was last, fumbling with his padded jacket. Liu Feng stood perfectly still, his eyes already scanning the high cliffs, mentally mapping. Wang and Bao stood at nervous attention. Zhao Quan took his place at the line's right flank, facing the men.
"Two weeks," Li Fan began, walking slowly down the line. "For two weeks, you have not starved. You have not been hunted. You have learned to dig a latrine downstream, to camouflage a fire, to post a guard. These are the skills of a clever refugee." He stopped in front of Chen Rui, gently straightening the boy's collar. "We are not refugees. Starting today, we are soldiers. And our first lesson is that we know nothing."
He stepped back. "Liu Feng. Report on our assets."
Liu Feng snapped to attention, his voice precise. "Sir. Firearms: One Type 24 Chiang Kai-shek rifle, captured. Six Hanyang 88 rifles, captured. One ZB-26 light machine gun, captured, with one-hundred and seventy-three confirmed rounds. Four Mauser C96 pistols, various. One Japanese Type 14 Nambu pistol. One Colt Police Positive revolver, property of Chen Rui. Total rifle ammunition: four-hundred and eleven rounds. Total pistol ammunition: one-hundred and nine rounds. Edged weapons: seven bayonets, nine assorted knives, three agricultural sickles. Food: millet for nine days, salted pork for five, wild onions. Tools: two entrenching shovels, one pickaxe, fifty feet of hemp rope."
"Thank you, Liu Feng." Li Fan addressed them all. "Four hundred rounds. Against a proper squad with a single Lewis gun, that's a three-minute fight. We do not have three-minute fights. We have one-second fights. We win before the first shot is fired. How? We become ghosts."
He pointed to the southern slope of the canyon. "Your objective: the lone pine tree on the skyline. Distance, approximately eight hundred meters. You will move as a fire team. You will not be seen or heard by me. I will be here, watching. If I see you, you fail. If I hear you, you fail. Zhao Quan, you have tactical command. Go."
The men looked at the slope, strewn with scree, patches of brittle grass, and low thorn bushes. It seemed impossible. Zhao Quan's face hardened with determination. He huddled the men.
"Liu Feng, you lead. Find the path with the most cover. Wang, you follow, watch our left. Bao, right. Chen Rui, you are with me in the center. We move slow. One at a time. From bush to rock. Understand?"
It was a good, basic plan. Li Fan gave them no signal to begin. They had to learn initiative. After a minute of hushed debate, Liu Feng set off, crouching low. He moved well, using the terrain. Wang followed, less gracefully but quietly enough. Then it unraveled.
Bao, watching the right flank, tripped over a root. His rifle clattered against a stone. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent canyon. Chen Rui, waiting for his turn, froze like a rabbit. Zhao Quan hissed for them to get down.
Li Fan didn't say a word. He simply raised his hand, a flat, clear stop signal visible across the distance.
They trudged back, faces flushed with shame and the cold.
"Analysis," Li Fan said, not unkindly.
"Bao made noise," Chen Rui blurted out.
"Wrong," Li Fan cut him off. "Zhao Quan failed. He assigned a flank to a man without ensuring he understood the ground. Liu Feng failed. He chose a route that passed a tricky root system without signaling the hazard. Chen Rui failed. You observed a compromise but did not adapt; you froze. A frozen soldier is a dead soldier. You move or you shoot. You do not freeze."
He let the lesson sink in. "Again. From the beginning."
They failed three more times that morning. Once because Wang's pale scarf caught the light on the ridge line. Once because they bunched up in a dry creek bed, all five becoming a single target. Finally, on the fourth attempt, they reached the pine tree. It took forty-seven minutes. They returned, exhausted but with a flicker of pride.
Li Fan killed it. "Forty-seven minutes. A child could have crawled there faster. And you left signs a blind man could follow. Chen Rui's foot scuff on the lichen. Bao's snapped twig at the creek. Liu Feng, you placed your hand in a patch of soft mud—a perfect print. You were not ghosts. You were five clumsy oxen." He saw their shoulders slump. "But. You communicated with hand signals by the end. Zhao Quan adjusted the route after the second failure. You learned. That is the point. Now, eat. Then we learn to shoot."
---
The afternoon was for the rifles. Li Fan started not on the range, but with disassembly. They sat in a circle as he stripped the ZB-26 down to its core components. "This is not a mystery. It is a tool. A spring, a lever, a barrel. You must know it like you know your own hand. Its moods, its quirks." He passed the parts around. "Liu Feng, you have an engineer's mind. The machine gun is your primary responsibility. Zhao Quan, the Chiang Kai-shek rifle. The rest, start with the Hanyang."
For Chen Rui, he had a different task. He took the boy's Colt revolver and a single .38 caliber cartridge. He led him to a rock face twenty meters away and used a piece of charcoal to draw a small circle.
"Your rifle training starts tomorrow. Today, we address your first instinct." He handed the loaded revolver back. "Hit the circle."
Chen Rui's hands shook. He extended his arm, squinted, and fired. The report was deafening in the canyon. The shot went wide, chipping stone a foot left.
"Why did you miss?"
"I… I jerked the trigger. The noise startled me."
"Again," Li Fan said, handing him another single cartridge.
Five shots later, Chen Rui had hit the rock face, but not the circle. He was near tears of frustration. Li Fan took the gun, unloaded it, and produced a small, smooth stone from his pocket. He balanced it on the barrel, just in front of the sight. "Assume your firing stance."
Chen Rui did. The stone immediately clattered to the ground.
"You are fighting the weapon. You are tense. Your focus is on the bang, not the squeeze." Li Fan made him dry-fire for an hour, the empty gun clicking again and again, with the stone balanced on the barrel. "Smooth press. Surprise yourself. The gun is part of your arm. The trigger is your own finger."
By dusk, Chen Rui could dry-fire five times without dropping the stone. The boy's eyes held a new kind of focus, the frantic energy channeled into a single, precise task.
---
Date: April 2, 1936
The failures grew more sophisticated. A week into focused training, Li Fan staged their first night patrol. The objective was to infiltrate the "enemy" camp—a designated spot fifty meters from the Den—and retrieve a marked stone.
They blackened their faces with charcoal. Li Fan taught them the basic hand signals: halt, enemy spotted, rally on me. They moved out at 2200, a dark, moonless night.
Liu Feng, leading, was superb. He used the starlight to navigate, avoided the gravel patches, guided the team with gentle touches. They were within ten meters of the objective, a deeper shadow in the gloom.
Then, Chen Rui, bringing up the rear, sneezed.
It was a small, stifled sound, but in the utter silence, it was a cannon shot. Zhao Quan, from his position, instinctively turned and whispered sharply, "Quiet!"
Two mistakes.
Li Fan's whistle pierced the night—the signal for exercise terminated. Back at the fire, he was waiting.
"Report, Zhao Quan."
"We… we were compromised, sir. Chen Rui made noise."
"And you?"
"I… I identified the source of the noise."
"You confirmed the enemy's suspicion," Li Fan corrected. "A noise in the dark. It could have been a fox. A badger. By speaking, you told the enemy, 'Yes, we are here, and we are five meters to the left of the noise.' You gave them a direction. Chen Rui's sneeze was an accident. Your whisper was a tactical failure."
He turned to Liu Feng. "Your plan was sound. But you failed to account for human factors. Chen Rui has spring allergies. The pollen at night. You should have positioned him upwind or assigned him a different role. Leadership is not just about terrain and weapons. It is about your men. Their strengths, their weaknesses, their aching feet, and their runny noses."
The lessons were harsh, but the corrections were immediate and logical. They began to see the sense behind the severity. Each failure was a puzzle, and Li Fan provided the solution. The group's dynamic solidified. Zhao Quan became the steadfast disciplinarian, Liu Feng the cunning planner, Chen Rui the determined apprentice. Wang and Bao became the reliable, stoic backbone.
---
Date: April 9, 1936
The two-week mark arrived. Li Fan called a rest day, but it wasn't for resting. After a breakfast of thick millet porridge, he gathered them.
"You can move quietly, most of the time. You can hit a man-sized target at one hundred meters, most of the time. You can follow orders. This is the bare minimum." He paused, letting the faint praise settle. "Now, we must decide. This canyon is a womb. It is safe. It is also a trap. Outside, the world moves. Local warlords consolidate. The Red Army is somewhere to the north, gathering strength. The Japanese look hungrily at the north. We cannot stay here forever, living on millet and hope."
He laid out a crude map he'd drawn on cured sheepskin, based on their and the prisoners' information. "We need intelligence. We need a mission. Liu Feng."
"Sir."
"You and Chen Rui will conduct a reconnaissance patrol. Target: the village of Gaojiashan, here, approximately fifteen li to the east. It's a known trading post. Mission parameters: Infiltrate, observe. Primary objectives: Estimate population, identify any garrison or militia presence, assess food and resource availability. Secondary: Listen for news—of armies, of bandits, of anything significant. Rules of engagement: Do not be seen. Do not interact. Do not fight unless cornered. You have forty-eight hours. Report back here by dawn on the eleventh."
It was their first real test. Liu Feng's eyes lit up with analytical fire. Chen Rui looked terrified but nodded fiercely.
"Zhao Quan, you, Wang, and Bao will fortify the Den's entrance. I want a fallback fighting position here, and an escape route scouted up the western cliff. Use the ropes."
As they set to their tasks, Li Fan pulled Liu Feng aside. "Chen Rui is green. He is your responsibility. His eyes are good, and his heart is strong, but his judgment is untested. Use him as your eyes, not your voice. If he falters, bring him home. The mission is secondary to the team. Understood?"
"Understood, sir," Liu Feng said, his expression grave. The weight of command, however small, settled on his shoulders.
At noon, the two scouts moved out. Liu Feng had opted for a circuitous route, using a series of gullies to mask their approach. Chen Rui moved behind him, his Hanyang 88 slung across his back, his eyes wide, trying to mimic Liu Feng's fluid, silent gait.
Li Fan watched them disappear into the yellow-brown landscape. This was the first tendril, the first shadow reaching out from the Den. He felt a pang of anxiety he hadn't felt since his first command in the 21st century. It wasn't just about the mission's success. It was about the seed he was planting. Would it take root in this hard, unforgiving soil?
Zhao Quan approached, standing beside him. "They will learn, sir."
"They must," Li Fan said quietly. "Or we all die. And the first lesson of command, Zhao Quan, is that sending men out is always harder than going yourself."
He looked at the map. Gaojiashan. A dot on sheepskin. The first step out of the canyon, and into the swirling currents of 1936. The training was over. Now, the war—their small, shadowy war—was about to begin.
End of Chapter 2