The Communists woke up to find that the thunderstorm which had dispatched Joooray had since passed, and also that no-one else had been dispatched during the night. The Socialists were relieved to see this, and GeneralHankerchief once again took credit for this accomplishment.

"And who knows, maybe all the reactionary thought has been purged from our People's Army, through the leadership of the Party as directed by myself, the Chairman and Party Secretary of the People's Extraordinary Detachment." declared the Chairman and Party Secretary proudly

"Hold on," questioned a Maoist "Since when were you the Party Secretary of this here military force? We did not elect you to such a position!"

"Au contraire" replied GeneralHankerchief (Despite the fact that none of his audience could speak French) "As the supreme Party authority in the region, I have the authority to create and dissolve party titles at will; thus, I have added to my responsibilities that of the Party Secretariat. With the increased power that my new office affords me, I have decided to reshuffle my Officer Corps. Comrade Seamus Fermanagh is relieved of his post as the Medical Officer, and he has been allocated the position of Special Operative. Comrade Jolt has been promoted to the role of Medical Officer! Congratulations you two! You shall be using your new powers shortly, I fear."

For about 200 metres away, over a small hill and down a gentle slop, the Wenti Bridge crossed the Nuqi River. As the Communists had feared, it was patrolled by Kuomintang soldiers. But, thankfully, thanks to the wise leadership of PEXDET, the Reds were well prepared to take the bridge from the clutches of the international Counter-Revolutionary conspiracy. The mountain gun and the mortar which they had dragged with them all this time was about to come in useful.

***

Bu Jingyi was standing on guard on Wenti Bridge. A half hearted defender of the Nationalist cause, he wasn't that much committed to the defence of the Motherland against the invading Japanese. But duty was duty, and he was obligated to defend this bridge. He would actually have much rather have been at home in Sichuan with his young family, tending to his crop, but he had had the misfortune to be conscripted into the National Revolutionary Army. There wasn't much he could do about it except wait his time out, and hopefully eventually get posted to a location where he could slip away from his superiors. He'd heard that only 3/5s of soldiers conscripted into the army actually made it through training, with the rest either dying or going AWOL in the night. Now would be a good time to do it actually. The night was dark, thanks to the new moon, and the clouds obscured the starlight. He couldn't help but think of the time when he-

Pa-CHUNK

What was that? Bu immediately stood up, peering into the darkness without much success. It was certainly not a natural noise, and he picked up his rifle to make sure than nothing human was skulking around in the gloom. He thought he could hear whisperings in the dark, but an annoying whistling from above was preventing him from being able to make out what was said. He better call the Colonel in charge of the guard to see if he could pick anything being said out of the infernal EEEEEEEEE-

Ka-BOOM

The mortar shell slammed into Bu's position with a satisfyingly humongous explosion. The fireball didn't just light up the night sky, it bathing everywhere in sight of the fortress in a cosy orange glow for several seconds, and illuminating the Communists' manic glee. The flames revealed GeneralHankerchief, who was standing on a small hillock with his arm fully outstretched, bellowing an order to the mountain gun crew.

Earth jumped up and the trees shook as the mountain gun fired a shell straight at the Wenti Bridge gate, blowing it to smithereens. Now it was the turn of the Kuomintang to scream and cry out in panic, as the Socialists rushed forced, yelling battle cries and storming the bridge. The Nationalists all ran to the South Bank of the bridge and attempted to fight off the attackers, but to no avail, thanks at least in part to the demon who dropped in from the North Bank. Breathing flame, he belched napalm all over the stone bridge, catching many of the Nationalist grunts unaware, and shortly dead. The demon wielded his flamethrower with skill and self-indulgence, laughing as he did so. But he stumbled in the assault, and his torch swung to the side to engulf Comrade AVSM in liquid fire. He screamed, and attempted to flee from the all-consuming fire, but he only managed to run into the side of the bridge from where he toppled, soaring down into the depths of the Nuqi Gorge like a dying firefly.

As the survivors from the North Bank caught the Rightists in a pincer movement, one of the Communists hung back. wideyedwanderer was a bit nervous, as he'd neer fought in a battle before. The screaming, the fire and the explosions all terrified him, and gave him pause. He waited on the North Side of the Gorge, ostensibly protecting the rear from any attempts by the Kuomintang to bring up reinforcements, although he knew as well as anyone that there was no chance of that happening. But, a movement could be seen in the gloom. It wasn't enough to be a reinforcing army, maybe one man at most. Pointing his rifle cautiously, he shuffled over to the rustling, out of sight from the bridge. The man disappeared behind a tree, and wideyedwanderer followed. Sidling around the tree, he couldn't see anything; the man had disappeared.

"Huh. Was probably just another conscript like-"

He was cut short by a sword bursting out of his stomach. He gasped and choked as a voice whispered in his ear

"Just so you know, we're not cowards. We've just been biding our time."

The mystery man then pulled his blade out of wideyedwanderer's belly, and decapitated wideyedwanderer in a one swoop.

When the smoke and all the corpses had been cleared, the Chairman and Party Secretary stood on the wall of the bridge to make a speech

"Welcome back comrades! Reunited, we are are at our strongest...even if we have endured a few casualties along the way. wideyedwanderer's death is of particular concern. As the killers came from the North Bank, they must both have been in the Assault Squad. However, we now know that YLC was in fact a Japanese Soldier, not even a collaborator, but a full-blooded imperialist! Lucky us!"

The Socialists then gathered their packs and set off over the bridge further North, towards Yan'an, though dusty plains and and Gobi sandstorms.

Alive: 16/40

ACIN
ATPG
autolycus
Captain Blackadder
Cute Wolf
Death is yonder
Double A
GeneralHankerchief
Jolt
Joooray
landlubber
Nictel
Renata
Seamus Fermanagh
Sigurd
Split

Lynched players 11/40

Azathoth
Beefy187
shlin28
Niklas
Pinman
TheFlax
YLC
miotas
M3YUZ
Romanic
Joooray


Killed Players 12/40

Winston Hughes
Sasaki Kojiro
taka
Beskar
Chaotix
Psychonaut
johnhughthom
Secura
CDF
aThis
Yaesikhaan
wideyedwanderer


Devoured by Rats/Consumed by Flames - 3

Thermal Mercury
Wishazu
AVSM