The Ximeng Guerrilla Force

The blood-red dawn tore through the spring night of 1936. Tiesen, an underground Communist Party member, was ordered to call off an uprising. But deep in Guangzhi Mountain, he witnessed his comrades lying dead in the wilderness. The bloodstains of the deceased at the scene pointed to a Kuomintang survey team, yet the truth was far more monstrous than anyone could imagine.

The Japanese army’s ace spy Takano wore the disguise of a geologist as he pointed his surveying instruments at the lifeline of the Taihang Mountains. The private army of the tyrannical Wu family, Kuomintang hidden sentries, and a Japanese spy network formed an inescapable web. Yet Tiesen’s Anti-Japanese Salvation League guerrillas carved a way out while under siege and stumbled upon a secret weapons factory hidden in Huangyadong. As bayonets unleashed the flames of resistance against Japan, their old vow to root out tyranny became a poisoned blade: a bloody mystery surrounding the destruction of the entire Wu family drove Wu Xiaotian to defect and surrender the city, bringing the whole Shanxi merchant alliance with him!

Branded traitors, the Anti-Japanese Salvation League guerrillas fought their way out of hell. The machine tools at the Huangyadong Arsenal roared in Tiesen’s hands, playing a symphony of revenge. When the embedded spy Takano finally tore off his human mask, an even harsher metallic screech rang through the thousand peaks of the Taihang Mountains. It was the rusty wail of the city gate’s hinges as Wu Xiaotian abandoned the darkness for the light, a geomantic map in hand. The bloody game of chess had reached its final chapter. Tiesen gripped the smoke-stained map as the guerrillas’ horses trampled the curfew clappers of Licheng beneath their hooves.