Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

Chapter 917 Tomorrow the Japanese will be standing here drawing.

When the Japanese troops crossed to the middle of the river, the light and heavy machine guns of the defending troops suddenly opened fire.

Bullets swept across the river like a storm, and Japanese soldiers on the rubber boats were hit and fell into the water, which quickly turned the river a pale red.

Wave after wave of Japanese troops were repelled, but more enemy troops surged in like a tide.

The machine gunner's gun barrel was already red-hot, and his hands were scalded and blistered, but he still kept the trigger firmly on his hand.

When a Japanese grenade launcher shell landed near the machine gun position, he was blown away, and his mangled body fell into the Qinhuai River.

The stone arch bridge located in the east of the town became the focus of the dispute between the two sides.

The Japanese army brought in tanks and attempted to force their way across the only stone bridge.

Zhou Zhenqiang, the battalion commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 466th Regiment, led the remaining eighty-odd soldiers in a desperate defense of the bridgehead.

"The explosive charge!" Zhou Zhenqiang roared.

Soldiers without anti-tank weapons, clutching cluster grenades, charged forward amidst the machine gun fire of the tanks.

One falls, another takes its place...

Until someone crawled to the bottom of the tank and detonated the explosive charge on their chest... The tank tracks snapped in the explosion, but it also took the soldier's life...

On that day, the defending troops destroyed four Japanese tanks with their own flesh and blood, and the bridgehead was piled high with the corpses of soldiers from both sides.

By the second day of the battle, the defending forces had suffered more than half their casualties.

After receiving basic first aid, the wounded continued fighting, while non-combat personnel such as cooks and communications soldiers also took up arms and joined the battle.

Division Commander Li Jiang was wounded in the left arm by shrapnel, but he still insisted on commanding from the front line.

As night fell, the Japanese offensive slowed down slightly, but the defenders dared not relax their vigilance in the slightest.

The soldiers used the cover of night to repair fortifications and transport ammunition.

Medics searched for survivors on the front lines with flashlights, but often only brought back cold bodies.

In the dead of night, some soldiers secretly took out photos of their families and looked at them one last time by the moonlight.

On the 28th, the Japanese army changed tactics, bringing in more heavy artillery and aircraft to carry out carpet bombing of Moling Pass.

The entire ancient town was engulfed in flames, the thousand-year-old bluestone road was blasted into craters, and the fish in the river were killed by the shock and floated to the surface.

After the artillery bombardment, the Japanese army launched a general offensive, spearheaded by tanks and followed closely by infantry.

The defending troops' positions were divided and surrounded, and each company and platoon fought independently.

Amidst the ruins of the town hall, a platoon of defenders fought a bloody battle for two hours against Japanese troops who outnumbered them ten to one, ultimately sacrificing their lives heroically.

The tributaries of the Qinhuai River have been blocked by corpses, and the river water has turned dark red.

When the soldiers were starving and thirsty, they could only drink a mouthful of blood water to continue fighting.

By dusk, the garrison at Moling Pass had dwindled to less than a thousand men. At that moment, the Nanjing Garrison Command issued an order: "The blocking mission has been completed. Immediately advance towards Nanjing City."

Division Commander Li Jiang set up his command post in the last line of defense, inside an abandoned mill.

He knew that retreating was more difficult than holding on at this point.

The Japanese army has formed a semi-encirclement, and someone must cover the rear.

"The Third Battalion will cover the rear, and the rest of the personnel will retreat in batches." Li Jiang's voice was hoarse but firm: "The wounded should go first, those who can walk should be helped, and those who cannot walk should be helped. No one should be left behind."

The soldiers in the rearguard silently gathered the remaining ammunition, and everyone knew what that meant.

But no one backed down.

Battalion Commander Zhou Zhenqiang stood at the front of the troops and said only one sentence: "Let the brothers return to Nanjing alive."

The retreat began under the cover of night.

The wounded men helped each other and moved silently along the pre-reconnaissance path.

The rearguard set up ambush points at key intersections, risking their lives to buy every minute for their comrades.

The Japanese army quickly discovered the retreat of the defending troops and immediately launched a pursuit.

The rearguard ambushed the enemy in a narrow river bend, and when the Japanese vanguard entered firing range, all weapons opened fire simultaneously.

The night battle lasted a full two hours. The rearguard troops were all killed in action, but they bought precious time for their retreating comrades.

At dawn, when the surviving defenders reached the outer defense line of Nanjing, only 673 men remained.

. . . . . . . . . . .

At dusk, the area inside and outside the Nanjing city walls transformed into a giant construction site.

As the outer positions fell one after another, the garrison commander issued an emergency order to complete the reinforcement of all positions within 24 hours.

Every brick and stone in this ancient capital of six dynasties became the last barrier against the Japanese army's steel torrent.

The construction of the fortifications was tragically temporary.

In the Guanghuamen section, the 87th Division's engineering battalion discovered that the pre-built reinforced concrete bunker had rotten bamboo strips protruding from it, and the original contractor's shoddy workmanship had now become a deadly hidden danger.

Enraged, Battalion Commander Zhou Zhenqiang drew his gun and shot two civilian laborers who deserted their posts. He then personally led his troops to carry abandoned railway tracks from the Jinling Machinery Bureau to reinforce the city walls.

If cement is unavailable, glutinous rice paste mixed with lime can be used as a substitute.

Lacking steel plates, they soaked and covered the door panels requisitioned from the entire city with sand.

Fire holes were chiseled out of the city bricks left over from the Ming Dynasty, the painted boats on the Qinhuai River were dismantled and turned into obstacles, and even the stele forest in the Confucius Temple was turned into anti-tank posts.

As the retreating troops poured into the city, the Nanjing defenders presented a strangely chaotic situation.

Soldiers of the 66th Army of the Guangdong Army, who had withdrawn from the Xicheng defense line, were covered in gunpowder smoke and stood shoulder to shoulder with the German-equipped elite troops of the Training Corps.

The artillerymen of Jiangyin Fortress dragged their remaining heavy cannons through the streets and alleys, while the remnants of the 20th Army of the Sichuan Army replaced their empty rifles with broadswords.

The reorganization process was fraught with chaos and sacrifice.

At Xiaguan Wharf, Wang Yaowu, commander of the 51st Division of the 74th Army, discovered that his three regiments had only more than 3,000 men left. He immediately took in the scattered officers and soldiers of the Tax Police Corps to replenish the unit.

These exhausted troops had barely caught their breath before being thrown into the second line of defense at Yuhuatai.

Even more heartbreaking was the recruitment of new soldiers. More than 30,000 local young men from Nanjing were hastily conscripted, most of whom did not even know how to cock a rifle and could only undergo intensive pre-war training under the supervision of veterans.

Liu Mingzhang, an instructor in the training corps, saw a child soldier vomiting at the foot of the city wall. When he went up to ask him what was wrong, he found that the boy was only sixteen years old and had been a student at Zhonghua Middle School before the war.

The restructuring of the command system is even more tragic.

The garrison command divided Nanjing into six defense zones, but the telephone lines were repeatedly cut by Japanese artillery fire, and the death rate of messengers was as high as 30%.

They had to use the aviation signal lights at the Ming Palace Airport as a backup means of communication, while the Training Corps Observation Post on the top of Zijin Mountain used flag signals to communicate with the various departments.

The disruption of logistical supplies plunged the defenders into even deeper despair.

When the quartermaster inspected the warehouse, he found that there was only enough rifle ammunition to last for three days of combat, and less than 500 rounds of heavy artillery shells.

Even more serious is the food shortage. The food reserves originally planned to last for two months have been mostly consumed due to the influx of refugees.

The garrison began slaughtering the mules and horses of the transport team, and even the laboratory animals from the medical school were served on the dinner table.

The scarcity of medical resources has led to human tragedies.

The basement of the Central Hospital was crammed with more than 2,000 wounded soldiers. After the anesthetics ran out, amputation surgeries could only be performed by restraining the wounded soldiers.

The accumulation of mental stress was more devastating than the shortage of supplies, and the officer class also suffered immense torment.

Inside the underground bunker of the garrison command, the staff officers marked the lost positions on the map with red pencils. As the red circles approached the city wall, Deputy Chief of Staff Yu Nianci suddenly smashed an ink bottle: "What are you drawing for! The Japanese will be standing here drawing tomorrow!"