Chapter 10: The Town's Surprise Strike Part 3

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By the time Liu Changqing, Old Zhang, and the others rushed into the command post, Zhang Yun was already filled with confidence in victory. The only thing left to consider was the number of casualties. But since they had struck the unprepared with preparation, and bandits with well-trained soldiers, he believed the losses would not be great.

If soldiers were still killed or wounded in a battle that proceeded so smoothly, then it could only be attributed to fate. How could there ever be no casualties on a battlefield? Zhang Yun was gradually coming to understand this, slowly growing into a qualified battlefield commander.

He ordered the two men at the sniper positions to watch for any enemies escaping from the outskirts of the town, then made his way leisurely toward the enemy command post.

As he walked, he kept an eye on the spoils page. Before setting out against the town, he had used the opportunity of purchasing grain from the civilians to smuggle out and cash in the grain stored in his spoils space. Only nine rifles, two bolts of cloth converted from uniforms, and assorted odds and ends such as watches and canteens—each in quantities too small to reach one whole unit—had remained because he had not found a chance to bring them out.

But after that brief assault lasting only a few minutes, the spoils page rapidly refreshed its figures.

Spoils:

Weapons and Equipment: 3 Type 38 rifles, 18.5 Hanyang-made rifles, 4.5 Shanxi-made 6.5 mm rifles, 1.5 Shanxi Model 17 semi-automatic pistols, 0.5 Mauser pistols, 3.5 Liaoning Model 13 rifles, 1.5 Czech light machine guns, 5.5 homemade rifles, and 0.5 Liaoning-made 80 mm mortars. Twenty-two Shanxi-made grenades, 12.5 Gong-type grenades, and 2.5 Liaoning-made grenades.

Eight hundred and ninety 7.92 mm round-nose cartridges, 240 7.92 mm spitzer cartridges, 243 6.5 mm rifle cartridges, 24 11.43 mm pistol cartridges, 12 7.62 mm pistol cartridges, and 8.5 rounds of unidentified caliber.

Money: 840 yuan in legal tender, 2,460 grams of silver, 173 grams of gold, and 240 yuan in Japanese-issued Lianyin banknotes.

Food: 24 biscuits and 12 sesame flatbreads.

Metal: 2.9 kilograms of iron and 540 grams of copper.

Building Materials: None.

Other: 4.5 damaged Hanyang-made rifles, 1.5 damaged Shanxi-made 6.5 mm rifles, 1.5 damaged Liaoning Model 13 rifles, and 34.5 damaged articles of clothing.

From the information provided by the spoils system, Zhang Yun knew that these items had been obtained from the equipment carried by the bandits he had killed or captured, with the system producing an additional fifty percent. Once the deputy platoon leader and the others finished stripping the bandits and the town had remained occupied for ten minutes, they would achieve complete occupation of Yujia Pass Town. At that point, the spoils system would refresh once more.

Simply looking at the figures displayed on the spoils page filled Zhang Yun with satisfaction. Naturally, it also gave him a renewed appreciation of the chaotic assortment of weapons in China during the War of Resistance.

Since the beginning of the modern era, China had been impoverished and weak, plagued by constant wars and warlord conflicts. It had become a marketplace where the international powers dumped their firearms. In addition, during the period of warlord rule, every warlord had built his own arsenal, manufacturing firearms in various models and using ammunition of different calibers. Across the country, there were at least thirty different models of pistols and rifles, along with nearly ten types of pistol and rifle ammunition. That did not even include the various homemade firearms.

It was said that during the War of Liberation, simply supplying troops with ammunition for more than ten different weapon models was enough to make the logistics personnel curse their fate. Take the 7.92 mm rifle cartridge alone: there were the round-nose cartridges used by Hanyang-made rifles; the light spitzer cartridges used by Chiang Kai-shek rifles, Liaoning Model 13 rifles, and Czech rifles; and the heavy spitzer cartridges used by some Czech heavy machine guns and MG34 machine guns. The 6.5 mm Arisaka rifle cartridge was likewise divided into the standard round used by Type 38 rifles and the reduced-charge round used by the “Crooked Grip” machine gun.

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Then there were the homemade rifles not even recognized by the system—single-shot guns, one-eyed matchlocks, and all manner of other weapons. With every kind of firearm and cartridge mixed together, they were quite simply a logistical nightmare.

Yet these chaotic collections of guns and ammunition were precisely the weapons the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army desperately sought but could rarely obtain.

Looking at the dizzying figures on the spoils page gave Zhang Yun a headache. He decided to stop trying to use the spoils page to reconstruct the actual battlefield haul. Instead, he used the equipment-conversion function directly, consolidating all the rifles into Liaoning Model 13 rifles, all the pistols into Mauser automatic pistols, all the machine guns into Czech light machine guns, all the ammunition into 7.92 mm spitzer cartridges and 7.62 mm pistol cartridges, and all the grenades into Gong-type grenades.

He then converted the food into flour and exchanged the damaged clothing, ammunition pouches, and similar items for bolts of cloth.

As long as he redeemed the weapons as quickly as possible, he would essentially have standardized the calibers. At the very least, one platoon would no longer be using seven or eight different kinds of weapons. As for the weapons in the real world, the Type 38 rifles could continue to be used so that the soldiers became familiar with them. The Hanyang-made rifles, meanwhile, could be phased out gradually and used as training tools for new recruits learning to handle firearms. Once his stockpile of weapons and ammunition was sufficient, he could hand them over to the regiment all at once.

He had chosen this approach because the best rifles currently available in China were, broadly speaking, imported German Mausers, Chiang Kai-shek rifles, and Liaoning Model 13 rifles, followed by Japanese Type 38 rifles. The American M1 Garand was an excellent rifle, but it had not yet appeared on the market. The United States itself was still gradually rearming with it.

The import channels and the arsenals producing Chiang Kai-shek rifles were all controlled by Chiang Kai-shek. Only the Central Army possessed large quantities of imported German rifles and Chiang Kai-shek rifles. If Zhang Yun suddenly produced a pile of Kar98ks or Chiang Kai-shek rifles, Chiang Kai-shek and the Eighth Route Army headquarters would probably be utterly bewildered. If he brought out a pile of American weapons, even the American consulate would likely take notice.

“It’s all because this cheat system can’t be revealed. I’m still far too weak, and I can’t afford to appear too strange. Once I have a whole regiment under my command…”

Zhang Yun thought silently to himself. When he looked at the spoils page again, it seemed much cleaner.

Spoils:

Weapons and Equipment: 33 Liaoning Model 13 rifles, 2.5 Mauser pistols, 1.5 Czech light machine guns, 0.5 Liaoning-made 80 mm mortars, and 22 Gong-type grenades.

One thousand four hundred and eighty 7.92 mm spitzer cartridges and 46 7.62 mm pistol cartridges.

Money: 840 yuan in legal tender, 2,460 grams of silver, 173 grams of gold, and 240 yuan in Japanese-issued Lianyin banknotes.

Food: 7 kilograms of flour.

Metal: 2.9 kilograms of iron and 540 grams of copper.

Building Materials: None.

Other: Eight damaged Liaoning Model 13 rifles.

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Interesting. He had discovered two noteworthy points: four or five homemade rifles could be exchanged for one Liaoning Model 13 rifle. Also, this bandit stronghold actually possessed a mortar, although no shells had been found.

Zhang Yun entered the command post, where the fierce battle had just ended. The soldiers were cheerfully gathering the spoils. Liu Changqing had prudently arranged for two machine-gun teams to occupy the high ground on the rooftops, while he himself led several soldiers from room to room, searching each one.

Seeing Changqing and his men searching the houses on the left, Zhang Yun noticed that no one had yet entered the building behind and to the right of the main hall. He drew the “bastard pistol” hanging from his belt and pretended to search that room as well.

Once inside, Zhang Yun carefully examined the room. It was fairly large and quite bare. There were only two chests, one large and one small, with nothing else in sight. Clearly, the room was being used for temporary storage. But being adjacent to the command post, it naturally contained things the enemy valued highly.

He cautiously opened the first chest. Inside were rolls of silver dollars, with a large gold bar in the middle. Two boxes of Mauser pistol cartridges were neatly arranged on the right, while a large gun case rested at the edge. Zhang Yun carefully picked it up and opened it.

Inside lay a brand-new Mauser “Twenty-Shot,” gleaming beautifully.

Although he was not particularly fond of the Mauser pistol, with its considerable weight and severe tendency toward bullet ricochet, it was still far better than the bastard pistol currently in his hand. Acting on instinct, Zhang Yun hung the Mauser at his waist.

He then opened the second chest. Though he had anticipated something of the sort, he was still overjoyed by what he found inside. Disassembled and carefully packed within was a Liaoning-made 80 mm mortar, at least eighty percent new. The barrel, sight, base plate, traversing mechanism, and every other component were present.

Clearly, someone among this band of robbers had possessed considerable expertise with mortars. Otherwise, they would never have protected the weapon so meticulously.

If the bandits had possessed shells, and their soldiers had been even somewhat better trained, then forget Zhang Yun’s fifty-odd men—even three hundred might not have been enough to break into this town.

A mortar might appear to be the simplest kind of artillery, but the increase it provided to a unit’s combat power was extraordinary. With a mortar, enemy heavy weapons positions were easy prey, each one destroyed by a single round. Without one, soldiers had to sacrifice their lives one position at a time to eliminate the enemy’s firepower.

Having obtained this mortar, Zhang Yun was already looking forward to the day it would reveal its power.

With that thought, he wasted no more time. Now was the perfect moment to cash in the equipment.

With a movement of his mind, large quantities of weapons and equipment suddenly appeared in neat rows throughout the room: thirty rifles, one Czech light machine gun, two Mauser pistols, and more than ten thousand 7.92 mm spitzer cartridges. The total included three intact rifles, eight damaged rifles, and half a light machine gun converted through the system, along with the weapons obtained from the spoils.

Finally, two hundred mortar shells appeared in crates stacked in the corner.

Zhang Yun once again discovered a small flaw in the system. Under normal circumstances, a gun cost roughly as much as the eight hundred shells used with it. Yet the cheat system allowed one gun to be exchanged for two thousand rounds. Mortars were even more absurd: because a mortar was so cheap to manufacture, one was actually worth only about two hundred shells, but the system still allowed it to be exchanged for two thousand mortar rounds.

“Perhaps—just perhaps—alien technology is based on energy weapons, so artillery shells are cheap.”

Zhang Yun thought happily to himself. He had just exchanged half a mortar for one thousand shells, but had brought out only two hundred. Otherwise, they truly would not have been able to carry away all those spoils.

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