Chapter 134: Battle of Huangcao Ridge

October 25, 1950, the cold wind on Huangcao Ridge cut the face like a knife. Li Ping'an led the entire company to lie in a snow hollow on the shady side of the main peak, his frozen fingers tracing the map: Yantai Peak is our nail, we must nail it down here!

The rookie Wang Da Niu puffed white breath and asked, "Company commander, do the American Japanese Soldiers really come through here?"

The First Infantry Division, the US army's ace. Li Ping'an scooped snow to rub on his face for a wake‑up, and they had climbed up from Yuan Mountain, intending to have the western Eighth Group Army wrap us like dumplings.

Suddenly, the sound of tracks came from afar. Recon Soldier Tie Zhu rolled and crawled, slipping into the bunker: "They're coming! Over twenty iron turtles, followed by a mass of infantry!"

Prepare for battle! Li Ping'an blew the bamboo whistle, and the position instantly filled with the clack of rifle bolts being pulled.

The US attack went berserk. First, planes dropped bombs as if they were dumplings, then artillery shells rained down like hail. The rookies huddled in the artillery shelter shivering, while Li Ping'an lay at the observation slit counting craters: "Well, this is perfect for us to repair fortifications!"

When the tanks advanced to three hundred meters, Li Ping'an leapt out of the trench with a sudden burst:

The volunteer army's fire erupted like a hornet's nest. Li Ping'an focused on the officers, and with each crack of the sniper rifle a man waving a handgun fell. When the tanks went haywire, the Demolition Group hauled cluster grenades forward. A soldier hit by machine‑gun fire scrambled desperately into the tank's undercarriage.

Er Gouzi! Tie Zhu's eyes reddened as he tried to charge, but Li Ping'an held him back: "Hold it! Get closer before you fire!"

The US troops fell right into the trap, infantry swarming up like a hive. At fifty meters, Li Ping'an sounded the charge horn. The soldiers leapt from the craters, grenades raining down like hail. A melee erupted in an instant; Wang Da Niu thrust his bayonet to flip a tall American, while his own scalp was shredded by a grazing bullet.

After repelling seven assaults on the first day, the ground before the position was littered with corpses. At night the temperature fell to minus thirty degrees, and the soldiers could only rub snow on their faces to stave off frostbite. Li Ping'an draped his only cotton coat over a wounded comrade, while he gnawed at frozen fried noodles: "Keep moving, don't fall asleep!"

The next day the US forces changed tactics, using flamethrowers to clear a path. When the tongues of fire threatened to engulf the machine‑gun nest, Li Ping'an swung his engineer's spade to beat back the flames, his palms blistered. The medic came to dress wounds, and he tore the bandage to wrap around the gun barrel: "This makes a perfect heat shield!"

The bloodiest fight for Yantai Peak occurred on October 29. The third company's position was flattened by bombs, and the company commander, dying, carved two characters with his bayonet into a stone. When Li Ping'an led reinforcements, he saw a soldier whose eyes had been blown out still fumbling with a grenade: "Commander… where are the enemies?"

Straight ahead! Li Ping'an, tears in his eyes, steadied his arm,

The fighting lasted until November 3, and the company was down to fewer than sixty men. Ammunition was running low, so Li Ping'an ordered the soldiers to scavenge bullets from US corpses and keep firing. Tie Zhu, while crushing bullets, muttered: "This round isn't a loss, using American bullets to kill American Japanese Soldiers!"

On November 5 before dawn, the US forces launched a general assault. Tanks formed a wedge formation and charged, and Li Ping'an recalled the Demolition skills of the Flying Eagle Team. He led his men to fashion improvised mines from captured explosives, burying them on the tanks' inevitable path. When the lead vehicle triggered the trap, the entire armored column was thrown into chaos.

Beautiful! A staff officer of the headquarters raised the Telescope and shouted, "This tactic should be promoted army‑wide!"

But the trouble came right after. The US forces sent snipers to target the officers, and a bullet blew Li Ping'an's cap off. He simply shed his coat, exposing his scarred body, and ran across the position: "Come on! Shoot right here!"

The soldiers, inspired by the company commander, stood upright to fire. Wang Da Niu lifted a demolition tube and leapt off the cliff, perishing together with the wall‑climbing US troops. The explosion echoing from the cliff base became Huangcao Ridge's most heroic mark.

On November 7, a victory report came from the western front: the main forces had finished their work. When headquarters ordered a retreat, Li Ping'an was prying open a can with his bayonet. After reading the telegram, he plopped into the trench: "Brothers… we held the line…"

That night of the retreat, snow blanketed the battlefield. Li Ping'an was the last to leave, and he buried an Iron Box at the summit of Yantai Peak, containing the company's roster. As he turned, he heard a humming from the cliff base—a American soldier with a broken leg.

Commander, is he dead? Tie Zhu raised his gun and asked.

Li Ping'an tore open the first‑aid kit: "They're all raised by their parents." While bandaging, he found a doll's photograph in the soldier's pocket and gently slipped it back onto the chest.

In this delaying battle, Li Ping'an's casualties amounted to three‑quarters, while they killed or wounded over two hundred enemies and destroyed twelve armored tanks. As the survivors helped each other retreat, brother units along the way stood at attention and saluted.

On a field hospital bed, Li Ping'an wrote his first post‑war letter to Ping Le: "Brother's doing fine, the snow here is as white as Beiping…" his pen paused for a long while, then added: "Take good care of yourself, practice Tai Chi diligently; I'll go back to take the teaching exam."

Snow continues to fall on Huangcao Ridge, covering the scorched earth and blood. Yet the four newly‑carved characters of 'Blood‑Forged Great Wall' on the cliff become clearer under the moonlight, like the imprint this battle left on history—those who create miracles with broken guns and battered artillery are always the ones with conviction.