Chapter 106: Blood-Stained Valley

The sun hung high in the sky, and the Russians were still desperately resisting the bandits' onslaught. The one advantage the Russians held was that their reinforcements were just behind them—only a few hundred meters away—so the Russian soldiers remained courageous and confident in their struggle against the bandits.

Bayonet combat is a simple form of warfare; when two blades clash, a few crisp strikes decide life or death. Precisely because it is so simple, the conflict reached a fever pitch the moment they made contact.

Biaozi had just gutted a Russian, but having charged too far forward, he found himself surrounded by six or seven men. He and another bandit stood back-to-back, struggling to parry the incoming blades, but they soon faltered. The brother beside him hesitated for a split second, and a bayonet lunged toward Biaozi’s back.

Biaozi barely dodged the lethal blow, but his back was slashed open by a deep wound. He ignored the injury, but the movement forced him apart from his comrade, leaving them both fighting in isolation.

"Someone, help!" Biaozi roared.

The brother tried to push back toward Biaozi, but three Russians blocked his path, parrying him away with every strike. They were just a step or two apart, yet they could not bridge the gap. The brother grew desperate, and in a moment of distraction, a Russian thrust his bayonet through his gut. As the blade was pulled out, half his intestines spilled forth. A look of agonizing pain crossed the brother's face. Ignoring the enemies around him, he swung his rifle with all his might, smashing it into the head of the soldier who had impaled him. "Screw your grandmother!"

The Russian’s brains were splattered by the blow, but two more bayonets plunged into the brother's body simultaneously. He suddenly dropped his rifle, reached behind him with one hand to pull out a grenade with the pin already pulled, and jerked his teeth against the fuse cord. With his other hand, he grabbed the collar of the Russian in front of him. "Biaozi, get back!"

The Russian he had grabbed was seized with panic, struggling to shake off the bandit’s arm, but the brother looked at him and grinned, his mouth filled with blood.

Biaozi scrambled back two steps, and then a thunderous explosion rocked the earth.

"Brothers, kill them!"

Biaozi’s lips trembled as he shouted once more. The bandits surged through the gap created by the blast into the Russian formation. The foreign reporters watching the battle from afar were left stunned.

The Russian army was not, as Commander Kuropatkin had claimed, using overwhelming firepower to render the bandits helpless. On the contrary, the bandits fighting on the field appeared incredibly fierce. It was a common sight to see wounded bandits strap grenades to their bodies and charge into the thickest clusters of Russians. When their bayonets bent, they didn't hesitate to grapple with their opponents and drag them to the ground.

Mark witnessed one such gruesome scene: when a bandit’s arm was severed by a Russian bayonet, his rifle fell to the ground, but he immediately wrapped his remaining arm tightly around the Russian’s neck. Despite several other Russian soldiers stabbing him repeatedly, he opened his mouth and bit down hard on the Russian's throat. Even after the bandit’s head was severed by the Russians, they could not pry his teeth from the soldier's throat.

The Russian reinforcements were blocked. Just a hundred meters from the valley entrance, Qian Yao and the brothers of the Fourth Company stood in their path.

That hundred-meter distance became an insurmountable barrier. Akberli first attacked from the front, then from the left, and then from the right. First came the regular Russian troops, then the Qing forces using human-wave tactics, and finally, the two combined. Yet, those few hundred bandits stood as firm as boulders, forcing the commanders to watch helplessly as the thousand Russian soldiers at the valley entrance were slaughtered, unable to send aid.

Akberli grew frantic, for he realized the bandits' intention: they were trying to escape! With the entire army in motion, the Russian lines were riddled with gaps. These gaps might not have mattered during the assault, but now, "Yang the Devil" was launching a counter-offensive.

He had to pin Yang down and prevent him from breaking out of the mountain pass. To keep him trapped in the valley, Akberli’s first priority was to wipe out the Fourth Company.

"Artillery!" Akberli bellowed. "Fire at them!"

He pointed at the position held by the hundred men of the Fourth Company. The Russians concentrated a dozen cannons and unleashed a barrage of fire, followed by a fifth charge of over a thousand men.

Qian Yao was buried under the earth kicked up by the shelling. When he raised his head, he saw the enemy was already close. He didn't have time to see how many of his men were still alive; he raised his rifle and fired. "Brothers, fire at will!"

The sparse gunfire showed that few men remained capable of fighting. Such light fire density could not stop the Russians and Qing troops from rushing forward. Qian Yao spotted a machine gun nearby, surrounded by the bodies of his comrades. He crawled over and pushed aside the corpses, only to find the gun was out of ammunition.

"Ammo! Machine gun ammo!"

Qian Yao shouted at the top of his lungs. A bandit whose leg had been blown off crawled over, clutching a crate of ammunition. He didn't say a word, helped Qian Yao load the gun, and then began crawling toward the oncoming enemy. Every time he passed a corpse, he searched it for grenades; if he found any, he clutched them to his chest and kept crawling. Blood gushed from his severed thigh, leaving a long, crimson trail behind him.

Qian Yao’s eyes burned with hot tears. Watching the brother crawl forward, he suddenly opened fire, screaming, "Ah...!"

The bandit crawled to within a dozen paces of the charging enemy and lay still. As the first foot stepped onto his back, he detonated the dozen grenades beneath him.

Qian Yao’s force had dwindled from over three hundred to two hundred, then to a hundred. After repelling the enemy's fifth charge, he saw that few brothers were left. In less than half an hour, the Russians and Qing troops had launched five charges! They had no fortifications, no artillery support like the Russians; they had only crawled on the ground and resisted with pure courage.

That half-hour was bought with the lives of hundreds of men from the Fourth Company. The tide of the battle in the valley finally began to turn in favor of the bandits. Zhao Yansun, who was supposed to have seized the other exit of the valley in Akberli’s plan to cut off the bandits' retreat, returned with his troops.

But he hadn't come to help. Zhao Yansun was running for his life, with Liu Xianhe in hot pursuit, shouting, "Zhao Yansun! I am the son of Liu Yikun! Stop right there!"