SHADOWS OF THE VALLEY
Chapter 7: Hard Forging and Distant Thunder
Date: July 20, 1936
Location: Site Delta (High Mountain Meadow), Northern Shaanxi
The air was thin and clean at Site Delta, a high, hidden meadow nestled between two granite peaks. It was their most remote base yet, a training ground far from the probing fingers of Captain Ma or local warlords. The unit—now nine strong—had been here for three weeks, and the sound echoing off the stone was no longer just the wind. It was the sound of transformation: the repetitive thwack of axe on wood, the grunt of men in hand-to-hand drill, the crisp, echoing report of controlled rifle fire.
Xu Hong and Lin Mao were no longer raw recruits; they were raw material in the forge. Li Fan stood observing as Zhao Quan put them through the paces of a new drill.
"Two-man bounding overwatch!" Zhao Quan barked. "Xu Hong, advance!"
Xu Hong, lean and wire-tough now, burst from behind a boulder and sprinted ten meters down the slope before diving prone behind a fallen log, bringing his Lee-Enfield to bear.
"Covering!" Zhao Quan yelled.
Lin Mao rose from his own cover and moved past Xu Hong, his Vz. 24 rifle scanning ahead. They moved in ragged but effective leaps, communicating with sharp hand chops. It was basic, but it was light-years ahead of the desperate scavengers they'd been a month ago.
"Good!" Li Fan called out, walking down to them. "Now, reverse it. Under fire. Imagine tracers cutting the air above you. Your movement must be lower, faster. Your partner's covering fire must be believable. Lin Mao, when you fire, don't just point the gun. Pick a specific rock, a shadow, a target. Make Xu Hong believe you're suppressing something."
They ran it again. This time, dirt kicked up near Xu Hong as Lin Mao, following Li Fan's instruction, aimed his dry-fire at a specific clump of weeds. Xu Hong instinctively flinched lower, his crawl becoming more urgent. The psychology of fire was being learned.
As the men took a water break, Liu Feng appeared at the tree line, returning from one of his long-range reconnaissance loops. He moved with a new weariness, not just physical. He went straight to the small, clear stream, drank deeply, and then approached Li Fan.
"Report," Li Fan said, noting the tightness around Liu Feng's eyes.
"Captain Ma's forces have withdrawn from our old sector," Liu Feng began, laying out a bark-map on a flat stone. Wang and Bao, his team members, gathered close. "The patrols have stopped. It seems your message was received. However." He pointed to an area further east, beyond the Luo River. "There is a new concentration. A Kuomintang regular battalion, elements of the 17th Army, moving into this region. They are not searching for shadows. They are digging in. Preparing defensive positions."
Li Fan studied the marks. "A response to the Red Army's consolidation north of Yan'an."
"Undoubtedly," Liu Feng agreed. "But their presence changes the calculus for everyone. Bandit groups are being wiped out or absorbed. Smaller warlords are pledging allegiance. The space for… independent operators is shrinking."
"And the Red Army?" Chen Rui asked, his curiosity innocent.
Liu Feng glanced at Li Fan, who gave a slight nod. "Their influence grows," Liu Feng said carefully. "They are recruiting, preaching land reform. Their scouts are everywhere, but they are subtle. They watch, they talk to peasants, they disappear. They are like us, in a way. But with a larger purpose."
Li Fan kept his expression neutral. The political landscape was crystallizing. The Kuomintang noose was tightening in some areas, while the Communist appeal spread like groundwater. His small group existed in the cracks between these tectonic plates.
"Our space shrinks," Li Fan acknowledged. "So we become smaller, sharper, and more necessary. We are not a battalion to hold ground. We are a scalpel. And in a time of looming war, even large armies need scalpels." He turned to the group. "Our training now has a new focus. Not just ambush and exfiltration. We begin training in deep reconnaissance, target interdiction, and partisan support. We learn to be the eyes and the sting for a larger force, even if that force does not yet know we exist."
He pointed to Zhang Wei and the Type 11. "You. You love the noise and the power. Starting tomorrow, you learn to hate it. You learn to carry that gun twenty miles and not fire a single round. You learn that its greatest value is the threat it represents, not the bullets it spends."
Zhang Wei looked confused but nodded.
"Liu Feng, your task is critical. You, Wang, and Bao will map the new Kuomintang battalion's positions, their supply routes, their routine. Do not engage. Be ghosts. We need to know their habits, their vulnerabilities."
"Understood."
That evening, around a carefully shielded fire pit, the unit's internal dynamics continued to evolve. Xu Hong, with a regular army background, and Zhao Quan, with his natural command authority, debated patrol formations. Chen Rui was teaching Lin Mao's sister, who had quietly insisted on staying with the unit and was now their medic-in-training, how to strip and clean a Hanyang 88. "If you're going to patch us up, you should know what makes the holes," he said, his tone surprisingly gentle.
Li Fan watched it all. This was the team-building that no drill could instill. The shared hardship, the incremental trust, the slow emergence of a collective identity. They were no longer just his men. They were becoming each other's men.
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Date: August 5, 1936
Location: Eastern Observation Post, overlooking Kuomintang 3rd Battalion positions
The heat was oppressive, a damp blanket that clung to everything. Li Fan was on a joint observation patrol with Liu Feng's team, verifying their reports. They lay in a hide scraped into a brush-covered hillside, overlooking a river crossing the Kuomintang battalion used for supply.
Through his scope, Li Fan observed the ritual. A convoy of three mule-drawn carts, escorted by a squad of bored-looking soldiers. They moved on a predictable schedule. He noted the sentry post positions, the gaps in their observation, the lazy routine.
"They feel secure," Liu Feng whispered beside him, his notebook open. "Their discipline is for show. Morning and evening muster are sharp. Midday, like now, they are sluggish."
"Arrogance," Li Fan murmured. "It's always the weakness of a large, conventional force facing an unseen enemy." A thought, dangerous and compelling, formed. "We need to remind them they are not secure. Not to start a fight, but to… educate them. And to test our new skills."
Liu Feng raised an eyebrow.
"We won't touch the convoy," Li Fan said, his eyes scanning the riverbank. "We'll touch something they think is safe. That signal station on the far hill." He indicated a small wooden hut with a wire antenna—a field telephone link. "It's isolated. Guarded by two men. We cut the wire, not at the station, but a half-mile back. We take the spool of replacement wire from their storage box. We leave no other sign."
Liu Feng's sharp mind saw it immediately. "A nuisance. A malfunction. They'll waste man-hours checking the line, repairing it. It sows doubt. It makes them feel watched without proving an enemy is present."
"And it gives our new scouts," Li Fan nodded towards Wang and Bao, who were monitoring the flanks, "a practical, low-risk infiltration exercise. Tonight."
The operation was a masterpiece of petty harassment. Wang, who had become unnervingly good at silent movement, led Bao to the designated stretch of wire. Using insulated cutters from the Heishan Fort haul, they severed the line cleanly, buried the ends, and covered the disturbance. Bao, with his strong back, located the spare wire spool in an unlocked shed and hauled it away into the night. The two guards at the station smoked and talked, never knowing their link to headquarters had been surgically disabled two kilometers away.
The next morning, watching through the scope, Li Fan saw the beautiful result: confusion, followed by agitation. A repair team was dispatched, trudging along the line. They found nothing until they stumbled upon the cut. Their animated, frustrated gestures were pure theater. The entire battalion's communications were down for six hours.
"A mosquito bite on a tiger," Li Fan said to Liu Feng as they withdrew. "But enough mosquitoes can drive a tiger mad, make it lash out blindly, tire it out."
"We are mosquitoes now?" Liu Feng asked, a rare, dry hint of humor in his voice.
"We are whatever the situation requires," Li Fan replied. "Tonight, we were mechanics. Faulty mechanics."
When they returned to Site Delta two days later, they found the main group buzzing with a different energy. Xu Hong met them, uncharacteristically excited.
"Sir. We had a visitor. While you were gone."
Li Fan's hand went instinctively to his pistol. "Explain."
"A single man. Red Army. A political officer, I think. He came to the lower meadow, alone. He called out, saying he knew we were here, that he came to talk, not to fight."
Zhao Quan took up the story, his face a mask of professional caution. "We had him covered from three angles. He didn't try to hide. He carried only a pistol. He said his name was Commissar Deng. He said they have been aware of 'the efficient ghosts' in the valley for some time. He said they admire our work against the local exploiters and the collaborationist patrols."
Li Fan felt history's door creak open. "What did he want?"
"He said they share a common enemy in the feudal lords and the Japanese collaborators. He offered no direct alliance. He said… he said if we ever needed sanctuary, or if we had intelligence on Kuomintang movements that could aid the people's cause, we would know how to find them." Zhao Quan produced a small, folded piece of paper. "He left this. Said it was a sign of good faith."
Li Fan unfolded it. It was a hand-drawn, but accurate, map showing the locations of two recently established Kuomintang machine gun nests along the river—information more detailed than Liu Feng had yet gathered. A gift. A test.
"What did you tell him?" Li Fan asked.
"I told him we were hunters, not politicians," Zhao Quan said. "I thanked him for the information and said we would consider his words. He smiled, said 'The people will remember their friends,' and left the way he came."
Li Fan stared at the map. The offer was clear, and perilous. Alignment with the Red Army would make them a permanent, high-value target for the Kuomintang. But it also offered a potential future, a larger purpose beyond simple survival. It was a crossroads, years ahead of the one he had privately envisioned for 1945.
He looked at his men—his nine shadows, forged in hardship, skilled in silence. They were not ready for politics. They were ready for war. And war, the great, terrible war against the invaders from across the sea, was coming. That would be the true test, the forge where his company would be tempered, and where his silent vow to serve the people's cause would find its moment.
"We acknowledge the gift," Li Fan said finally, folding the map away. "We use the intelligence. We do not change our course. We continue to train, to grow, to become sharper. The time for choosing sides will come. But it is not today. Today, we remain shadows. But shadows that even the Red Army has begun to notice."
The distant thunder was no longer just meteorological. It was the rumble of armies, of history on the march. And in their high mountain meadow, a small, sharp blade was being honed, waiting for its moment to cut.
End of Chapter 7