allonlinenovel Chapter 961 The Navy Idiots are Bombing Us Again!
Chapter 961 The Navy Idiots are Bombing Us Again!
Similar scenes quietly unfolded in several "relatively calm" sections of the long front under the jurisdiction of the 4th Division.
These soldiers from Osaka, the commercial capital, seemed to have brought their innate commercial instincts to the battlefield, turning the bloody front lines into a huge and chaotic "open-air market."
Near another ruin close to an inland river dock, Sergeant Hasegawa of the 4th Division was directing his men to exchange two boxes of captured liquor, labeled in English and possibly stolen from a foreign trading company, for food with a small group of soldiers from the 6th Division of the Central China Expeditionary Army who were trapped in a warehouse.
The other party took out several cans of beef and some crumpled cigarettes.
The transaction was tense and swift. Both sides were armed and vigilantly watched each other and their surroundings. If there was any sign of officers or supervisory troops approaching, they would immediately scatter and pretend that they were engaged in a fierce firefight.
Even more remarkably, in a narrow urban warfare zone, a grenade launcher squad of the 4th Division discovered an abandoned Type 10 grenade launcher with only minor damage to its frame.
Instead of reporting it, they made contact by shouting to a sergeant from the 16th Division of the Central China Expeditionary Army who had been a weapons repairman and was hiding in the building across the street.
After some bargaining, the 4th Division traded the broken grenade launcher and some spare parts for the sergeant to urgently repair two Type 11 light machine guns that had broken down due to malfunction.
The repair work was completed during lulls in the artillery fire, with astonishing efficiency.
This "barter" technical service greatly enhanced the local firepower of the 4th Division squad, while the sergeant of the Central China Expeditionary Army obtained a "hard currency" that could be used for exchange or self-defense in critical moments.
However, the most perplexing and strategically significant "deal" once again occurred with Saburo Kojima.
During a tentative call, he learned that there was a lieutenant staff officer from the Central China Expeditionary Army in the building across the street, a man who seemed particularly interested in enjoying life.
Kojima remembered the small bottle of Scotch whisky he had been given, which he had traded for from an officer, and which had a handwritten English label on it.
This was undoubtedly a huge temptation for officers who enjoyed drinking and were under great pressure.
The island carefully used half a bottle of whiskey as bait.
The lieutenant staff officer was initially wary, but ultimately could not resist the temptation of the fine wine.
On a relatively safe night, the transaction was completed through a "secret passage" made of ropes.
Kojima received a small booklet that was wrapped in oilcloth, slightly wrinkled but well-preserved.
The booklet cover is printed with "Detailed Map of Nanjing City Defense Works (Top Secret)".
Xiaodao is not highly educated and cannot understand the complex icons and markings inside, but he recognizes the words "Nanjing" and "construction". Moreover, it is full of various lines and symbols. He thinks, "This thing must be extraordinary. It looks like a map. Maybe it can bring great merit."
He excitedly handed the booklet to his company commander. The company commander opened it and immediately gasped. The booklet contained detailed markings of the defensive strength of different sections of the Nanjing city wall, the locations of bunkers, firepower configurations, and even the locations of some secret passages and command posts!
This was absolutely crucial intelligence! The squadron leader dared not delay and immediately reported it up the chain of command.
Ultimately, this seemingly insignificant booklet was sent to the division headquarters as "top-level intelligence" at the fastest speed.
This atlas, which Kojima obtained in exchange for half a bottle of wine, provided crucial information for the "rebels" to adjust their offensive priorities and precisely strike the core defensive nodes and command hubs of the Central China Expeditionary Army, and even accelerated the course of the civil war in Nanjing to some extent.
Most of the mid- to high-ranking officers in the 4th Division were fully aware of their subordinates' almost "rebellious" business practices, but they tacitly approved of them or even secretly encouraged them.
"As long as they can win the battle and hold their ground, even if they 'sell' the entire city of Nanjing, as long as they can get a good price, I'll accept it."
After all, this is the style of our Fourth Division. Hahaha!
Thus, on this land soaked in blood and fire, the soldiers of the 4th Division transformed the brutal battlefield into a huge, darkly humorous "battlefield black market."
This deeply ingrained "business instinct" and pragmatic philosophy became an alternative, distorted survival rule and intelligence-gathering method in this bizarre civil war within the Japanese army, where infighting took place. In an extremely absurd way, it profoundly reflected the complexity of human nature and the nihilism of war, highlighting the cruelty and absurdity of this tragedy of fratricide to the extreme.
While the soldiers of the 4th Division were conducting their unique "battlefield economics" amidst the ruins, a more sophisticated and symbolic psychological war was quietly unfolding on the gloomy skyline of Nanjing, accompanied by the roar of engines.
As noon approached, the gloom that had lingered for days seemed to dissipate briefly, but the sunlight offered no warmth to the ravaged city; instead, it illuminated the devastation of the ruins even more vividly.
Suddenly, a sound different from the roar of the Army's Type 97 fighter jet engine came from the southeast sky.
Soon, several small silver-gray dots appeared in the clouds, gradually growing larger and revealing clear outlines. They were six Mitsubishi Type 96 land-based attack aircraft painted with the navy's iconic dark gray camouflage and bearing a striking Rising Sun emblem under their wings.
They came from the air wing of naval vessels such as the "Kaga" anchored outside the mouth of the Yangtze River.
These twin-engine medium bombers did not dive to drop bombs as they usually do when carrying out ground attack missions. Instead, they maintained an altitude of about two thousand meters and flew over Nanjing in a neat "V" formation.
They flew over the eastern and southern areas of the city where the fighting was fierce, and even deliberately circled twice over the northern part of the city, near Xiaguan, where the remnants of the Central China Expeditionary Army might gather.
The soldiers of both armies, who were fighting or catching their breath on the ground, couldn't help but look up at the group of uninvited guests, their hearts filled with doubt and a sense of unease.
"The navy idiots are bombing us again!! Take cover!!" A soldier from the Central China Expeditionary Army, hiding behind the ruins, shouted in terror.
However, the expected bombs did not fall. Instead, as the aircraft flew over the designated area, the bomb bay doors on the fuselage slowly opened, and what poured down was not deadly steel, but a flurry of white paper flakes.
Tens of thousands of leaflets, like a sudden blizzard, fluttered in the winter wind, covering the smoke-filled battlefield, falling on the remaining streets and positions controlled by the Central China Expeditionary Army, and even drifting into the interlocking battle zones between the two sides.
At first, the soldiers on the ground thought it was a common propaganda piece, perhaps a slogan to persuade the remaining Chinese soldiers to surrender or to boost morale.
But when some of the bolder soldiers picked up the leaflets that had fallen in front of them and read the contents in the dim light, almost everyone was stunned and then showed an expression of disbelief.