Chapter 14: Heading into the City

Li Jingsong had received the call from the Army Commander—his father, Li Tianyuan—ordering him to retreat immediately. Though he felt a sting of reluctance, he had no desire to die on the beach.

But his staff officers weren’t so quick to move. They surrounded him, their voices thick with concern. “Commander, what about the men on the line? What happens to the troops?”

“We can’t worry about them right now,” Li Jingsong whispered, his eyes darting around. “We have to leave. Once we’re safe, we’ll find a way to save them. If we order a general retreat now, the roads will clog and we’ll never get out!”

“Sir, if you do this, who will ever follow you into battle again?” a senior staff officer asked, his voice trembling with grief. “The boys are out there bleeding for us. You saw it yourself—they just retook the lost ground. If you abandon them, what will they think?”

“Enough talk!” the Chief of Staff barked, stepping in. He was Li Jingsong’s cousin and shared the family’s survival instinct. “This is a direct order from the Army Commander. Are we going to disobey? If you want to stay and play the hero, stay! The rest of us are leaving!”

“Move! Pack everything! We’re going now!” Li Jingsong commanded, finally making his choice.

On the front lines, the soldiers were completely oblivious to the cowardice unfolding at headquarters. They were still locked in a desperate struggle against the Allied landing force.

“Give ’em hell, boys!” a Company Commander yelled, his voice hoarse. His unit was down to a fraction of its original strength.

“Wait… why have they stopped?” Hu Hao muttered. He had been firing steadily, but he noticed the Allied troops weren’t charging with the same suicidal fervor anymore. Instead, they were lying flat on the sand, returning fire but making no effort to advance. This had been going on for several minutes.

A cold dread settled in Hu Hao’s stomach. He realized the tactical reality instantly. “Dammit. We’re in trouble. Someone else’s line must have broken.”

After another few minutes of sporadic exchange, the Allied forces actually began to pull back toward their boats. Hu Hao watched them go, but his eyes were fixed on the rear. The promised reinforcements had never arrived.

“Hey! Which regiment are you with?” Hu Hao crouched down, addressing a soldier from the unit that had reinforced them earlier.

“4th Regiment, sir!”

“Do you know if the 5th Regiment moved up yet?”

“Hao-ge, they’re still in the rear! Only our 4th Regiment got the order to move!”

The firing died down completely, leaving an eerie silence over the beach. Hu Hao’s face was grim.

“What is it, Hao-ge?” one of his squad members asked.

“Trouble, boys. We were supposed to get massive reinforcements, but they never came. And did you see the enemy? They were about to break us, then they just… left. That means our other sectors are gone. They don’t need to break our front anymore because they can just circle around and kill us from behind.”

“What? Broken already?” Huan Xingtao stared at him, stunned.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Why stop the slaughter here? Because they’ve already won elsewhere. They’ll be coming for our backs soon.”

“Damn it… we’re right in the middle of the division’s sector. We have no idea what’s happening on the flanks,” Huan Xingtao said, standing up to peer left and right. Their division held five miles of coastline, separated from the next division by another five-mile gap. They were isolated.

“Look! Look there!” Suddenly, soldiers in the distance began jumping out of the trenches and running toward the rear.

“What’s happening?” the men cried.

Hu Hao’s face turned white with rage. He heard the panicked shouts of the fleeing men: The Commander’s gone! The General has run away!

“That son of a bitch!” Hu Hao roared. “Move, boys! Grab every scrap of ammo you can carry! Grab food! The General has abandoned us! He’s gone!”

“What?” The soldiers were paralyzed. The thought of their Division Commander deserting them while they were still in the thick of the fight was a betrayal they couldn’t process.

“Move it! I thought he was a man, but he’s just a coward!” Hu Hao vaulted over the trench wall and began sprinting toward the rear. His squad and the men who had followed him in the breach didn’t hesitate; they followed his lead.

“I know where the vehicles are!” a soldier from another company yelled. “There are Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) in the woods over there!”

“This way! Run!” Hu Hao directed.

They ran for five minutes through the brush until they found the hidden motor pool.

“Get in! Everyone, cram in! Go, go, go!” Hu Hao shouted. The retreat was turning into a rout—as the mountain falls, so goes the army.

Huan Xingtao took the driver’s seat of an APC while Hu Hao hopped onto the roof, manning the heavy machine gun.

“Reverse! Head for the main road! Faster!” Hu Hao barked.

Huan Xingtao floored the accelerator. The engine roared, and the armored vehicle surged forward, followed by a handful of other trucks and carriers that had joined their desperate exodus. After ten minutes of driving, Hu Hao spotted Allied armored cars in the distance to their left.

“Move it! Allied scouts are on our tail! Faster!”

“The pedal’s through the floor, Hao-ge!” Huan Xingtao yelled from inside.

“Bastard! How could the Commander just leave us?” the soldiers inside cursed. “He’s the General! He didn’t even give the order to fall back!” The betrayal burned as much as the fear.

They drove at top speed for nearly an hour, putting 60 kilometers between them and the shore. Finally, Hu Hao saw a checkpoint ahead. Soldiers were flagging them down.

“87th Division! Has our Commander passed through?” Hu Hao yelled from his perch.

A long line of vehicles began to form behind Hu Hao’s APC.

“He went through not long ago,” a Sergeant at the checkpoint replied, looking up at Hu Hao. “Are you retreating?”

“Yes. Open the gate!”

The checkpoint guards, unaware of the total collapse at the front, opened the barriers. They watched in shock as a massive, disorganized column of 87th Division vehicles began to thunder past.

“Hey! You’d better run too!” Hu Hao yelled back at the guards as they cleared the gate. “The front is lost!”

“What?” The guards stood frozen as the realization hit.

“Move! Get the trucks! We’re leaving!” the Sergeant screamed.

Hu Hao’s convoy continued along the highway, but within five kilometers, they hit a small city—and a massive traffic jam. Thousands of civilians were fleeing in their cars, having heard the rumors of the breakthrough. Ahead, Hu Hao could see the distinctive command vehicles of the Division Staff, stuck in the mess.

“The Commander is right there! He’s stuck too!” He Jizhong shouted, peeking his head out. “The road is blocked! What do we do?”

“Hao-ge, if we’re stuck here, the Allies will catch us! What do we do?” someone from the vehicle behind them yelled.

“They’ll definitely catch us,” Hu Hao replied. “They need to expand their bridgehead quickly. They won’t stop for a traffic jam.”

“Then what? The bridge is a few miles ahead and it’s a parking lot! We’re sitting ducks!”

“Dammit… the road is dead,” Hu Hao muttered. He looked toward the city skyline. “Turn, boys! Head into the city! Now!”

“The city? Are you serious?” Huan Xingtao yelled. “We’ll be trapped if the enemy surrounds it!”

“If we stay on this road, we’re dead in ten minutes. In the city, we have a fighting chance. GO!”

“Right!” Huan Xingtao wrenched the wheel. The APC lurched off the pavement, bumping across the farmland toward the urban outskirts. Some vehicles in the convoy hesitated, staying on the road.

“What are you waiting for? When the tanks get here, you’re just target practice! Run! Get into the city!” Hu Hao roared at them.

Some followed; others stayed, hoping the bridge would clear. They didn’t know that Allied bombers had already taken out half the bridge, leaving it a single-lane bottleneck clogged with burning wreckage.

As Hu Hao’s APC roared into the city streets, he looked up and saw the silhouettes of bombers in the distance.

“Find a building! Smash the glass doors and drive the vehicle inside!” Hu Hao shouted, dropping into the hatch and slamming the lid shut. “Huan Xingtao, aim for that storefront! GO!”

“What? Right now?”

“JUST DO IT! BOMBERS!”

Huan Xingtao didn’t wait for a second order. He swung the APC around and aimed the heavy steel nose at a massive glass display window.