Beacon Fires and Wolf Fangs

The Battle of Shanghai ended in 1937. Chen Feng, a graduate of the Central Military Academy, returned by a roundabout route to his hometown beneath the occupied Taihang Mountains, carrying a shattered rank and his comrades’ dying wishes. A Japanese company led by Captain Matsui Kenichi was using an “iron-wall encirclement” tactic to hunt down resistance forces behind enemy lines. Their atrocities of burning, killing, and looting ignited Chen Feng’s fury. Drawing on modern military theory far ahead of its time, he rallied scattered soldiers and united hunters with patriotic students to form the “Wolf Fang Squad.”

Armed with nothing but old rifles and homemade land mines, the squad repeatedly pulled off miracles against overwhelming odds. They harassed Japanese supply convoys with “sparrow warfare,” wiped out a machine-gun company’s position with a “heart-piercing strike,” and even turned the tables on a crisis caused by a collaborator’s betrayal, persuading a puppet-army company commander to provide crucial intelligence. When Matsui mobilized the main regiment to launch a retaliatory “mopping-up” campaign, Chen Feng split his squad into small units and used the rugged terrain of the Taihang Mountains to keep the Japanese at bay. With help from allied forces, they ultimately destroyed a vital Japanese arms depot at the cost of more than half their lives, winning the resistance base precious time to recover.

From tactical raids to strategic diversion, and from simple revenge to a struggle for the greater good of the nation, Chen Feng and the Wolf Fang Squad grew stronger in the flames of war, composing a blood-and-iron lament of resistance behind enemy lines with their courage and wisdom.