My name is Zhao Yang. I graduated with a degree in history and served in the army for eight years.
On August 13, 1937, I woke up to find that the Battle of Shanghai had already begun. Everyone in my battalion was dead. I was the only one left, with a beat-up rifle in my hands and a blank notebook in my pocket, picked up from a Japanese soldier's corpse.
Later, I met Li Mingyi, a sixth-term graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy who could quote infantry manuals nonstop. He looked at me like I was a deserter. We couldn't stand each other for quite a while, but from that day on, we stayed bound together for eight years in this mire of mud and blood.
I filled the notebook from beginning to end, recording tactics, terrain, and the names of comrades who were never even remembered.
By the time I reached the last page, the war was over.
Just one sentence: Our blood had not run cold, and our country had not fallen. We won.
