Lost and Spy

Chapter 477

One general is incompetent, and the three armies are exhausted!

Tang Shengzhi, who had vowed to stay in Nanjing for at least half a year, stayed in his reinforced headquarters, and the only order he could issue was:

"Hold it, you must hold it up for me!"

How to top?No one knows which army is defending the front, which army is covering the flanks, and which army is serving as the reserve team.

The only thing that can be relied on is the frontline commander's own decision.

The artillery fire of the Japanese army has been almost crazy.

The entire city of Nanjing was baptized by artillery fire.

And the soldiers on the front line are still fighting bloody battles there!

Extremely brutal and bloody hand-to-hand battles have already broken out many times.

There is no doubt that in this defensive battle, the 51st Division under the command of Wang Yaowu was always on the front line and suffered the most casualties.

Saihong Bridge, Huayan Temple, and Zhonghua Gate are all positions they are responsible for guarding.

"Order the troops to continue to advance. I must drive out the Japanese troops on the front line of Zhonghua Gate." In order to boost morale, Wang Yaowu, who was commanding the troops on the front line at this time, issued an order to the troops to stick to the positions on all fronts, and called them "revolutionary soldiers." Li Tianxia, ​​the brigade commander of the 153rd Brigade, was ordered to:
"You immediately lead the special agent company of the division headquarters to supervise the battle. If there are any troops that retreat without authorization, no matter what part they belong to, they will be dealt with by military law!"

"Then what about other units? Like the 88th Division or the 58th Division?" Li Tianxia asked cautiously.

The teacher's almost cold words made him feel palpitations involuntarily.

Wang Yaowu didn't hesitate at all: "What are the retreating defeated soldiers doing? They will all be executed. We must not mess up our army's position because of the rout."

Li Tianxia nodded silently. He knew that once a rout formed, the entire defense line would probably collapse. A rout could wipe out the retreat of a group of people, and the retreat of a group of people would cause the entire defense line to collapse.

"Order a battalion of the 88th Division of the troops to launch an attack on the Japanese army immediately. Anyone who disobeys the dispatch or retreats will be killed!"

Wang Yaowu's almost cold words made Li Tianxia's heart rise again. She belongs to the 51st Division, and the other party belongs to the 88th Division. If the teacher says to kill, he will kill him?

But an order is an order!
According to the orders of Wang Yaowu and Li Tianxia's brigade commanders, the 51st Division, with Zhang Lingfu's 305th regiment as the main force, immediately launched a comprehensive counterattack against the front line of Huayan Temple.

However, the counterattack was not very smooth. In the continuous shelling of the Japanese army, their counterattack suffered a lot of casualties. The sound of shell explosions was full of billowing smoke, while the Chinese soldiers who counterattacked were unobstructed. Exposure to the street caused heavy casualties, so that the corpses of Chinese soldiers lay outside the gate of Zhonghua.In the hail of bullets, the 51st Division and part of the 88th Division continued to advance tenaciously despite heavy casualties.

The command of the entire battalion fell into chaos, and each combat company could only fight on its own, desperately organizing the attack.

The rising flares exploded from time to time, and the slowly fading flares were like the occasional sunlight in the dark night, bringing light like daytime to this killing battlefield.

It's just that every time the flares rise, people are deeply shocked by the corpses pouring into sight.

In addition to the 51st Division's frontal attack, the 88st Division of the [-]th Division organized a group of brave teams to make a roundabout from the flanks and use the frontal cover to advance forward.

The shells dropped one after another raised columns of smoke in the ruins, one after another went straight to the sky, hanging high in the night.

The cold wind in the winter night makes people feel very uncomfortable, icy and biting, scraping on the face like a knife.

At this time, Li Tianxia quietly looked at the gray night alone, watching the Japanese army launch wave after wave of large-scale bombardment on the ruined position.

Amidst the dull explosion, the ground under the feet trembled slightly, and the fireworks lingered above the battlefield.

"I belong to the 88th Division. Damn, you have no right to arrest me!"

Li Tianxia's attention was drawn to the swearing by an officer who retreated from the front line, and there was still a rout after all.

The officer was soon hit on the cheek by a soldier of the special agent company of the division headquarters with a gun butt: "You shameless deserter, you still have the face to scream!"

Li Tianxia walked up to the retreating officer, squatted down, and stared at the trembling officer who was being escorted: "The commander has an order that anyone who retreats will be severely punished by military law."

After finishing speaking, he stood up and said to a group of ragged soldiers:
"Behind us is Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China. No one can retreat without the order of the Minister's Department. Kill one and make an example. Will you die bravely on your own ground, or die under the guns of your own people? See for yourself. Let's do it!"

Then, Li Tianxia took off her gloves, and slapped the trembling officer's bloody face fiercely: "This man should not be a fucking deserter in his next life. As an officer, he actually abandoned all his brothers. Fortunately, you still a magistrate.

"Ignoring the venomous gaze, Li Tianxia turned around and glanced at the deserters who retreated: "Do you want to die like this, or go back to the camp and fight the devils to the death?" "

"Damn, brothers, this is death, that is death, and I will fight with the little devil."

The officer also reluctantly got up, saluted Li Tianxia, ​​and led a group of rout soldiers who had retreated in a mess, turned around and rushed towards the position surrounded by flames.

The athletes on the front line fought repeatedly with the Japanese pirates at the risk of sacrificing their lives, braving the three-dimensional artillery fire from the air and the ground, and did not retreat.

But they probably didn't expect that when each of them was about to throw their lives in the capital, from noon on the 11th, the headquarters had already considered retreating.

On the 12th, the chairman of the committee called Tang Shengzhi personally, asking him to stay in Nanjing for one more day. If he can persist for more than half a month, a large number of reinforcements can arrive.

But what people never expected was that when this telegram reached Tang Shengzhi, the commander-in-chief who had vowed to be able to defend Nanjing had already issued a hasty retreat order.

retreat?How to retreat?Who retreats first, who is responsible for the sniper cover?

Whether it is the eight items of the "Nanjing Garrison Breakout Plan" formulated at 12 pm on the 3th, or the six points of the "Nanjing Garrison Breakout Plan", they are all very vague and general.

Among the eight points and six points, there are a lot of words such as "self-explosion, coordinated destruction, and crossing the river when there is a last resort".

How the 36th Division covering the crossing of the river should fight, the specific time to stick to it, when they can withdraw, etc., did not say anything.

The basic core of this hastily drawn up retreat plan was that most of them forcibly broke through from the front, and a small part followed the garrison headquarters to cross the river from Xiaguan.

But as soon as the written order was issued, Tang Shengzhi suddenly changed his mind and ordered the 87th Division, 88th Division, 74th Army, and the Central Teaching Corps, which are direct troops of the Central Army, to cross the river first when there is a ferry, and assemble in the direction of Chuzhou.

For a commander, the most taboo thing is to get lost in battle and to backtrack on one's promise.

But this Commander Tang has been involved in everything!

What is even more ridiculous?
The wharf along the river outside Yijiang Gate was crowded with people and the order was chaotic.

There are tens of thousands of people who want to cross the river, but there are only two or three ferry boats.

Finally, the seriously overloaded ferry arrived in the middle of the river, and Hu Zongnan's First Army at Pukou on the opposite bank actually fired shots to prevent the ferry that had withdrawn from the south from docking.

Because Commander Tang is famous, no one is allowed to evacuate Nanjing.

Then, when his commander-in-chief fled in a hurry, the retreat order did not have time to inform the defenders on the north bank.

It is rare in ancient and modern times for a dignified commander to be so stupid.

Xiao Shanling, commander of the Nanjing Gendarmerie, could leave, but he did not.

"Let me stay with the gendarmerie, resist the devil's attack, and cover the retreat of the friendly army!"

This is an order issued by Xiao Shan Order.

"Commander Xiao, our Captain Qiu is injured in his leg, what should we do, what should we do?"

Several soldiers from the 306th regiment retreated from the front line, and the regiment leader Qiu Weida who carried them panicked.

"Hurry up, Wang Yaowu knows you haven't crossed the river, so he found a boat to pick you up after a lot of hard work, let's go!" Xiao Shanling couldn't think about it: "It's right there at the coal port!"

"Commander Xiao, come with us!" Qiu Weida said hastily.

"If I don't leave, the capital will fall, and I will be a disgrace to the revolutionary soldiers! I am ready to die for my country." Xiao Shanling smiled miserably: "Qiu Weida, do you know that Meng Shaoyuan?"

"Yes, we fought together in Qingpu."

Xiao Shanling took a deep breath: "I have the opportunity to meet that little rascal, tell him that my brother can't do what he promised, I, Xiao Shanling, will keep my promise all my life, but this time I will break my promise!"

"What I want Commander Xiao to do is, no matter what the defense of Nanjing looks like, I want Commander Xiao to live well. A living Commander can bring more impact to the country than a dead one. Commander wants more. Please promise me!"

That's what Meng Shaoyuan begged him that day.

Xiao Shanling broke his promise.

The country was ruined and the family was destroyed, the capital fell, and Xiao Shanling, the commander of Nanjing's garrison, had no face to live on.

There's always going to be soldiers, there's a high-ranking officer who's going to shed blood on the city.

That person is Xiao Shan Ling!

Not everyone is like Tang Shengzhi.

On December 1937, 12, Nanjing retreated.

At night, Qiu Weida, head of the 51th Regiment of the 306st Division, was pulled from the water onto the boat with a rope tied around his waist.

The next day, Xiao Shanling, Deputy Commander of Nanjing Gendarmerie, Commander of Nanjing Garrison, and Air Defense Commander, led the soldiers in a bloody hand-to-hand battle with the Japanese army in Xiaguan. The fierce battle lasted for 5 hours. In the end, thousands of soldiers sacrificed heroically due to the outnumbered and helpless.

Those soldiers who were still alive and unwilling to be subjugated slaves put the muzzle of their guns in their mouths at the last moment and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Xiao Shanling committed suicide with a gun and fulfilled his promise to live and die with Nanjing.When he died, half of his body stood upright in the river and did not fall down.

It is said that Xiao Shanling's last words before he died for the country were:
"Little rogue, see you in the next life!"

On December 1937, 12, Nanjing, the city was broken...

(End of this chapter)