In early 1939, Japanese invaders occupied Guangdong and Guangxi. The Dongjiang Column, which stayed behind to continue the fight, formed an urban action squad. Their battlefield was not the mountains or the plains, but the dazzling, chaotic city. Each member had a different skill. There was squad leader Qi Zhonglei, a graduate of a Japanese military academy who excelled with all kinds of firearms, nicknamed "Lieutenant"; Mei Yanfang, born into a wealthy family and skilled in light-footed movement, grenades, and deadly throwing knives, nicknamed "One-Cut Plum"; the loyal, taciturn northern heartthrob Ma Zhenkui, a master of martial arts, nicknamed "Crippled Horse"; his younger sister Ma Lanlan, an explosives expert who could put any troublemaker in their place, nicknamed "Blue Phoenix"; the alluring Lei Xiuzhi, skilled at gathering intelligence, nicknamed "Nine-Year-Old Red"; and the silver-tongued Liu Xianglin, who excelled at disguises and extracting information, nicknamed "Young Master Liu." Like the swordsmen of old, this squad was always slipping into the heart of enemy territory to deal the Japanese a crushing blow.
After squad leader Qi Zhonglei cleverly arranged the elimination of Ryuda, head of the Black Dragon Society, an organization under the Japanese Special Higher Police, he incurred the wrath of Takeuchi Hideo, supreme commander of the Special Higher Police in the Japanese South China Theater. Takeuchi summoned his former subordinate Hokushin Shinsaku from Japan and launched a brutal campaign of revenge and extermination against the Dongjiang Column's underground network.
The Japanese army's reprisals caused terrible losses. The action squad struck back and eliminated Takeuchi Hideo. Hokushin Shinsaku took his place, and from then on bore a deep grudge against the squad. He clashed with the guerrillas again and again, but every time he was defeated.
