Soldiers Sortie - Plot

Plot

In the beginning, Xu San-duo was a shy village boy. He used to be bullied by almost every one in his small village. San-duo's father was disappointed at him for being weak and made San-duo through cursing and beating.

One day, Shi Jin, a Non-Commissioned Officer from the People's Liberation Army, appeared in San-duo's village as a recruiting officer. Under the sincere request by San-duo's father, Shi Jin accepted San-duo to give him a chance to change. Shi Jin also recruited Cheng Cai, so Xu San-duo and Cheng Cai went to the boot camp together.

In the boot camp, San-duo's performance was terrible and he was immature. San-duo's poor performance made his squad become the worst one in the boot camp. Captain Gao, the commanding officer of the 7th Company of Regiment 702 and the course officer of the boot camp, did not like San-duo. Also, NCO Wu Liu-yi, an elite soldier and the second in command of San-duo's squad, tried his best to train San-duo but ended in disappointment. San-duo and Cheng Cai became friends in the boot camp even though Cheng Cai used to bully San-duo back in the village they were from.

San-duo completed his training in the boot camp and was dispatched to the 5th Squad of the 3rd Company of Regiment 702, a squad stationed at a desolate fuel outpost. Although Shi Jin, the recruiter, attempted to take San-duo to his own squad, but was disapproved by Capt. Gao.

Cheng Cai, the other boy who was enlisted together with San-duo, was sent to the 7th Company (as known as "the Steel 7th Company" due to its highly decorated history). That was because the boot camp's course officer, Gao, appointed few top trainees for his own company, and Cheng Cai was one of them.

The base of the 5th Squad was located on a remote grassland, so the members (including their squad leader, NCO Ma) felt that they were a "forsaken team" and lost their discipline. They felt uncomfortable when San-duo kept maintaining his discipline that he had learned from the boot camp. San-duo kept his routine physical exercises and drills even there was no supervision in the desolated 5th Squad.

The soldiers of the 5th Squad wanted San-duo to be out of their sight and told him to do anything he wanted but not to bother them. Ma gave San-duo an idea of building a pathway between the barrack and the post of the 5th Squad, where there were no pedestrian roads. San-duo's effort initially looked funny to the other soldiers, but later they were all moved by San-duo's attitude, energy, and persistence. They eventually joined in the building of the roads with rocks and made a red star in the intersection. Their effort was spotted by a military helicopter and caught some attention from the headquarter of Regiment 702.

One day, Zhang, a military journalist from Regiment 702, was sent to interview the 5th Squad. Ma told Zhang the story about San-duo, and Zhang told the Commanding Officer of Regiment 702 San-duo's story when he went back to the headquarters.

The Regiment's CO, Colonel Wang, was surprised at the story and arranged a meeting with San-duo. Col. Wang asked San-duo to talk about himself, but San-duo was nervous and speechless.

In the colonel's office, a Type 90 armored personnel carrier model caught San-duo's eyes. Wang noticed that and told San-duo that he would give him the APC model if San-duo did something meaningful. Also, the regiment leader decided to send San-duo to the motorized infantry company - Steel 7th Company.

Gao refused to accept San-duo to his company, but Shi Jin, who recruited San-duo to the boot camp, convinced Gao to give San-duo a chance. Finally, Gao agreed reluctantly.

During their training, San-duo felt motion sickness when he and his teammates were riding on a real APC. It made Captain Gao outraged, so San-duo tried hard to overcome this weakness until Gao recognized San-duo's efforts.

Unfortunately, after over a year with San-duo in his squad, Shi Jin, now a Class 3 NCO, had to be released because the duration of his contract of service had exceeded that in the regulations of PLA. Moreover, his degradation of performance was another reason for his discharge.

Shi was honorably discharged from the army. San-duo did not want letting Shi go. Shi's right hand man and best friend, Liu-yi, felt that San-duo occupied too much time of Shi Jin in the training and caused his discharge. Liu-yi became more hostile toward San-duo.

Gao wanted San-duo to learn more and grow up, so he made San-duo to take Shi's place. San-duo became the acting squad leader of the 3rd Squad, although his rank didn't change.

A newly founded SOF unit, A-Unit, participated in a military exercise with Regiment 702 as the opposing force. During the battle, Cheng Cai showed his talent in marksmanship. Also, San-duo captured A-Unit's ground leader, Lieutenant Colonel Yuan. San-duo could not have done so without the exercises he had on his own.

After that exercise, Cheng Cai thought that there were too many competitors in the 7th Company and decided to be transferred to the 3rd Company for easier chance of promotion. His decision and action shocked the squad and hurt Gao who always liked him.

The entire PLA was undergoing a reform for the new era of warfare in order to improve combat efficiency. The entire Regiment 702 was ordered to be set as an example to the rest of the T-Division.

The 7th Company had all the best soldiers in the Regiment 702 (which had caused an uneven distribution of force as a whole), so they were ordered to be reorganised, which means to give up their resources, to re-dispatch their personnel, and to disband. All of men in the company were dispatched to other units; however, San-duo and Gao had to stay and guard their empty barrack and equipments.

Gao was heartbroken when the last platoon of the 7th Company left.

San-duo kept the barrack clean and continued training by himself as he did in the 5th Squad of 3rd Company. Day by day, Gao was moved by San-duo's positive attitude and tenacity because he had always looked down upon San-duo before.

San-duo and Gao were chosen to stay for special reasons. One day, an order from the high-up was sent to Col. Wang to promote Gao as the Division Recon Battalion Second In Command. Gao was then promoted to the rank of Major.

Before Gao moved to his new position, he confessed to Wang that he underestimated San-duo and said: "...he (San-duo) takes everything as a life saver, things that everybody else ignores and things that are as minuscule as grass. He is now grown up. I now realize that whatever he grasped wasn't grass, but a tree as high as the sky." He proposed to take San-duo with him, but Wang did not approve.

Gao accepted San-duo as one of his most trusted soldiers.

Liu-yi (the best of the former Steel 7 Company and most respected man by Gao) was asked to visit San-duo by Gao's demand because San-duo is the only one who was left behind to guard the empty barracks of the 7th company.

Liu-yi found that San-duo was confused about his future. San-duo told Liu-yi that the human resources department told him that he will be promoted to NCO if he extend his service contract, but his father asked him to go home. He was unable to make the decision. Liu-yi helped San-duo to find out what he wants. Then, Liu-yi helped him to tell his father that it was better to let him stay in the army. San-duo was promoted to Class 1 NCO for extend his service period in the army.

One day, a colonel, the CO of A-Unit, came to Col. Wang's office and wanted to pick some soldiers through a screening process.

Gao came, too and saw that Liu-yi wasn't in the best condition. San-duo told Gao that Liu-yi's back pain was bothering him, so Gao gave Liu-yi a bottle of medicine to relief his back pain.

When San-duo went back to his room during a break, he was sneaked and jumped by a man he knew - Lieutenant Colonel Yuan Lang. He told San-duo that his team is looking for new members. Yuan invited San-duo to participate the test that Unit A set up, he claimed that he only wants the first three of the candidates from the contest.

There a lot of soldiers eager to participate the contest. The contest was conduct by both Yuan's men from the Unit A and Gao's men from reconnaissance battalion. During the contest, San-duo teamed up with Cheng Cai. Many ex-members of the 7th company still regarded Cheng Cai as a betrayer, but they let Cai come with them anyways.

The contest was not easy: in 72 hours, the candidates had to steal a map from a heavy fortified camp site that guarded by Yuan's men. They also had to avoid being arrest by Gao's patrols. A lot of candidates even cannot "survive" more than 10 seconds from the start due to "heavy fire" from both Yuan's and Gao's men's sniping posts, but San-duo's team overcame the difficulties and got the map. Liu-yi injured his leg in the contest at the very last moment, so San-duo carried him while Cheng Cai provide fire cover. They were rushing to the finish line, but San-duo had not enough stamina to dash for finish while carrying Liu-yi. They saw a candidate reached the line, and that mean only two vacancies left. Cheng-cai began to run to the line because there are few teams in the sight and they may take the places. Liu-yi thought that it was meaningless to carry him to the finish line and forced himself to quit because he didn't want San-duo to carry him while other competitors were catching up. San-duo left Liu-yi to Yuan's medics to reach the line after Cheng Cai. At the end of the contest, San-duo, Cheng Cai, and the third man (who did not join Unit A after the contest) were the only few candidates able to reach the finish line.

San-duo blamed Cheng Cai for abandoning Liu-yi in the last moment. Although from 7th-company, Cheng Cai did not follow the creed - Never Abandon, Never Give Up. They later visited Liu-yi in the hospital and overheard that Liu-yi's leg won't fully recover.

San-duo and Cai followed Yuan to the Unit A. Just before their departure, Wang gave San-duo his APC model which caught San-duo's eye during their meeting two years ago. When they arrived at the base of the Unit A, they are surprised all of the members are officers because they were the only two members with NCO's rank.

In the first day, they met fellow trainees and also their roommates Wu Zhe, a young Lieutenant Commander from the Navy, and a paratrooper named Tuo Yong-Gang. They became friends on the first day. The trainees were called by their numbers instead of names. Xu San-duo was the last one - 42.

The selection process wasn't easy, and there were some candidates failing everyday. Tuo Yong-Gang was the first out because he challenged Yuan during in the fire range and lost on the bet where Yuan scored a 25/25 whereas the candidates only got 3 or 4 out of 25. Yuan cannot accepted a man with hot temper in his team. There were only 8 or 9 out of 42 made through the 3 month training, both Xu San-duo and Cheng Cai were among them.

Although Yuan told the remaining candidates that they were accepted as a member of the Unit A, there was a final test ahead, but no one knew about it. One day, Yuan told them to get ready to deploy into a chemical factory to eliminate a group of terrorists who claimed to have weapons of mass destruction. The deployment became chaos and the candidates' team members were out of contact. All candidates believed that they were in a real situation.

San-duo showed amazing abilities by sneaking into the location where the "weapons of mass destruction" were and "destroyed" it after he "lost" all of his teammates.

Wu Zhe saw some evidences showing that the operation wasn't real, but he still participated in it until he was "killed".

In other hands, Cheng Cai, the best trainee, gave up right after he thought his teammates were "died".

During evaluation, Yuan gave a heart-pound talk to Cheng Cai and revealing that Cai treats everyone else as his competitor and getting ahead was his only focus in life. Cai failed to recall the creed from "Steel" 7th Company when asked by Yuan Lang, and Cheng Cai was convinced that he had treated everyone in a "cold" way ever since enlisting. Yuan said, "To you (Cai), the 'Steel' 7th company is nothing more than a stop, you will move on when you find a better place if you later find another better stop, then the Unit A will be just another stop of yours. We can't go with comrades like you to the battlefield..."

Cai was dismissed and sent back to the 5th Squad of the 3rd Company of Regiment 702.

San-duo knew that Cheng Cai loves sniping, but there was no sniper rifle issue for the 5th squad, so San-duo bought a sniper rifle scope and gave it to Cheng Cai as a farewell gift.

The training with the Unit A continued day by day.

During an ambush against armed drug-smuggling groups, San-duo killed a female drug smuggler. San-duo felt guilty of it, and he could carry on his morale after returning to base. After hearing that San-duo wanted to go back home, Yuan gave San-duo a 30-day vacation to explore the world outside the forces before making the final decision. Yuan let San-duo to have his own way to cure his inside pain.

San-duo left his barrack and went to the cities. He changed clothes and tried to act as a normal civilian but he still caught the attention from people passing by. San-duo realized that he is somewhat different from the people outside no matter how he acted, so he gave up, put back on his uniform, and went to his previous unit, Regiment 702, to visit his former comrades. Unfortunately, all his friends were transferred.(He didn't know that most of the ex-7th Company members were transferred and became Gao's men.)

San-duo met the newly promoted Maj, the former Politruk of the 3rd Company. San-duo later learned that Liu-yi was discharged after San-duo and Cheng Cai went to the Unit A. The CO of the 1st Company, his neighbor, handed San-duo a letter from Liu-yi while they were having dinner together.

Although San-duo didn't talk much about his trauma after killing the smuggler. He soon realized that San-duo needed to see someone to help him. He called San-duo's former superior, Gao, possibly the only one able to talk him out of stress. Gao sent two ex-roommates of San-duo to bring him over. Gao didn't say much when San-duo arrived at his training site.

Gao told San-duo that they were going to make a stop at Cheng Cai's barrack for the night. Cheng Cai impressed Gao's Recon Unit after beating them in a shooting contest with the Type-81 rifle (with San-duo's scope taped on it) whereas Gao's men used the newest QBZ-95 rifle. After that, Cheng Cai met Gao who was still disappointed with him, but the two men got themselves straightened out after Cheng Cai admitted that he was wrong for leaving the "Steel" 7th Company.

Gao later shouted at San-duo to motivate him. San-duo was cheered up and decided to go back to A-Unit. Gao said that life is full of problems overlapped with other problems, and you can't be ready for all of them, so you might just move forward to solve them one by one along the way.

When they were talking, a bad news from San-duo's family arrived. San-duo learned that his home had an accident when his father got into trouble with some dynamite (for mining) that exploded and injure the neighbors. San-duo went back to his home and saw that it was destroyed. His father was sent to jail, and his brothers could not see hope to restore their home. San-duo had to seek help from the Unit A and borrowed RMB¥200,000 from almost every one in the base with the help of his CO Yuan Lang. San-duo insisted on repaying his comrades with his salary over a period of 17 years although some members of the Unit A said there was no need to return the money.

Cheng Cai once again joined A-Unit after being recommended by Gao, but Yuan was upset because he had not found a single thing he appreciated in Cheng Cai. San-duo tried to persuade Yuan and told him that Cheng Cai had changed and was no longer arrogant and self-oriented as before. Yuan gave Cheng Cai a chance in the end.

The story concluded in a training exercise called "Operation Silence" where Cheng Cai proved to Yuan that his is a worthy member of the Unit A after defeating Maj. Gao's team. San-duo was happy to know that things were getting better for his friend.

There are no female characters in the series.