Chapter 1: Reborn as a Platoon Leader in Bright Sword

"I never imagined I would actually transmigrate into the world of 'Drawing Sword.' Sigh, although I always felt a deep sense of injustice watching that show, seeing those valiant Eighth Route Army soldiers facing the Japanese invaders with such crude weaponry, and wishing I could help them, I never truly wanted to find myself on the front lines of the War of Resistance."

Inside a dilapidated mountain temple, Zhang Yun paced back and forth, clad in an old, patched grey uniform. He still couldn't believe he had arrived in the world of 'Drawing Sword.'

Before his transmigration, Zhang Yun was just an ordinary college student who grew up in Shanxi. After graduation, he landed a job maintaining equipment at the Shanxi War of Resistance Memorial Hall. His daily tasks involved equipment maintenance and cleaning exhibits; when crowds were heavy, he would even moonlight as a crowd control steward. He was, all in all, a white-collar worker with a stable job, some spare cash, and free time.

Due to his work, he often dismantled and maintained the firearms on display—many were real guns collected after the war, while others were modern replicas. He had become intimately familiar with the weapons used during the war, such as the Arisaka Type 38, the Chiang Kai-shek rifle, the Hanyang 88, the M1 Garand, as well as mortars and infantry guns. He had even practiced at local shooting ranges; while he wasn't a marksman capable of hitting a willow leaf from a hundred paces, he was competent enough to hit a fixed target at 100 meters. Through years of exposure, he had gained a profound understanding of the history of the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi, deeply feeling the hardships they faced while fighting the Japanese invaders and dealing with treacherous domestic enemies. He had often fantasized about returning to that era to fight alongside the martyrs against the Japanese.

Just before he transmigrated, Zhang Yun was re-watching the hit series "Drawing Sword" (the Li Youbin version) when his television suddenly exploded. An electronic voice seemed to echo in his mind: "Karma Civilization Strategy Game Cheat System Initialized." He then lost consciousness, and when he woke up, he was on the Shanxi battlefield in 1938.

Initially, Zhang Yun thought he had transmigrated into history itself. It was only after discovering memories of Li Yunlong, Kong Jie, and Commander Cheng—especially the face of "that handsome young man from the ten miles and eight townships," played by actor Li Youbin—that he realized he had landed inside the television drama.

From the original owner's memories, he learned that it was March 1938. A month and a half ago, Li Yunlong had just taken command of the newly formed New First Regiment. The original owner, coincidentally also named Zhang Yun, did not belong to the New First Regiment, but rather the 3rd Platoon, 1st Company, 3rd Battalion of the newly established Training Regiment (or Supplementary Regiment) under the 386th Brigade, where Li Yunlong was also stationed. Although the original owner was only 22, he was a battle-hardened veteran who had followed the Red Army on the Long March. He had previously been a platoon leader in the 771st Regiment of the 386th Brigade, was wounded in the Shentou Ridge ambush, and after recovering, was assigned to the Training Regiment to assist in the recruitment and training of new soldiers.

Currently, the Training Regiment's recruit battalion was stationed in the Taihang Mountains near Yangquan. Considering that the Japanese had already occupied most of the cities in Shanxi, they had to mobilize the local masses to join the war effort. Following brigade orders, the battalions were split into companies and platoons, dispersing to gather scattered troops, build up numbers, conduct guerrilla warfare, and establish bases.

(The "Drawing Sword" novel is not strictly accurate; the 386th Brigade mostly operated in Eastern and Southern Shanxi and Western Hebei, and never stayed in Northwest Shanxi for long. Many stories deviate from historical facts. To stay consistent, this story will follow the "Drawing Sword" world.)

Following orders, Zhang Yun had arranged for his deputy platoon leader to remain at the base in Xiaowang Village to help the villagers with farming and defense. He himself had taken over ten men from the first platoon to the vicinity of Xiaohuozhuang in Xiyang County to conduct propaganda and recruitment. On their way back, they were discovered by Japanese and puppet troops. The original Zhang Yun had ordered an emergency retreat and stayed behind to provide cover, but while protecting a new recruit, he was wounded by a Japanese grenade launcher and fell into a coma. That was when the 21st-century Zhang Yun arrived.

"Although I'm not a complete greenhorn, and my body has healed during the transmigration, my marksmanship is only average—far from the precision of a sharpshooter. My command experience is limited to the platoon level. How can I gain a foothold in this war, survive, and help everyone win battles?" Zhang Yun pondered, feeling anxious.

He currently had only 40 soldiers, including only four old Red Army veterans and seven veterans who had joined during the expansion in Northern Shaanxi. The rest were local village boys who had joined recently, including three wounded men. As for equipment, they had only 10 rifles, one pistol, and 61 rounds of ammunition. The rifles were mostly Hanyang 88s, their rifling severely worn down. Being a unit of raw recruits, they were woefully under-equipped.

Although they had temporarily escaped the pursuit and were hiding in this mountain temple, their presence had been exposed, and the enemy would likely arrive soon. This start left Zhang Yun, a white-collar worker from the new century, feeling panicked and lost. The Shanxi battlefield was far harsher and more brutal than the TV show.

"Wait, what was that Karma Civilization cheat system I heard before?" Zhang Yun suddenly remembered the cause of his arrival. A stream of information flooded his brain, giving him a deep understanding of the "Karma Civilization Strategy Game Cheat System."

The origin of this system was complex. The Karma Civilization was a Level 9 civilization from another universe. They used a super strategy game, blending reality and illusion, to select expansionist pioneer commanders who were cunning and adept at warfare. As with any game, there were cheats. Certain families within the Karma Civilization had commissioned super-scientists to customize this cheat, embedding it into the game for their kin to use. However, the civilization's oversight department discovered it and destroyed the cheat. Through a stroke of luck, parts of the cheat's core entered this universe and carried Zhang Yun into the world of "Drawing Sword."

The cheat had only one function: a 50% bonus on all captured loot.

Loot was categorized in two ways: first, supplies seized from enemies killed by him or his soldiers; second, supplies seized from a location ten minutes after a battle ended, consisting of all strategic resources that could be scavenged within 24 hours.

(This is crucial: the 0.5x bonus means he doesn't need to worry about the difficulties of encirclement. Historically, even when the Eighth Route Army or the Nationalist forces killed many Japanese or puppet soldiers, they often recovered very few weapons because the Japanese had strict discipline regarding the recovery or destruction of gear. Puppet troops were less disciplined, which is why commanders like Li Yunlong often treated them as "mobile weapon depots." Furthermore, the 0.5x capture function ignores civilian impact; it automatically calculates all strategic resources in a village within 24 hours, including weapons, currency, grain, cloth, metals, and cement, excluding furniture or soil. The surplus loot can be stored in a trans-dimensional space and summoned within a 3-kilometer radius of Zhang Yun.)

Because of the trans-dimensional storage and the disparity in weapon systems across civilizations, the system also featured a "Resource Adaptation" function. This allowed for changing weapon types (e.g., converting Type 38 rifles into Hanyang 88s, Chiang Kai-sheks, or Mosin-Nagants, provided they were currently in use in this era), changing ammunition calibers, and repairing firearms by merging two damaged units.

What delighted Zhang Yun most was the ability to exchange firearms for ammunition: one rifle/pistol equaled 1,000 rounds, one light machine gun 3,000 rounds, one heavy machine gun 6,000 rounds, and one cannon 2,000 shells. Half-weapons could be exchanged for half the ammunition. This effectively solved his unit's ammunition crisis.

The resource adaptation was even more exaggerated. Any captured materials stored in the trans-dimensional space could be converted based on market prices—turning captured uniforms into raw cloth, millet and pork into rice and beef, or scrap metal into copper. Money could also be converted, such as changing local currency into gold, silver, or US dollars. However, it could not cross categories; money or metals could not be directly turned into weapons.

The Level 9 civilization's cheat was truly miraculous. Although its incomplete state limited it to a single core function, it had many practical applications. Zhang Yun could now see a path forward. He could raid Japanese-occupied villages; even if he only captured 50% of the total resources, it would be a massive windfall, enough to sustain a large force. Even in defensive battles where loot was usually scarce, the system would count the weapons and uniforms of the fallen, and by converting those weapons into ammunition, he could turn a profit.