LRAB Chapter 74 The Decisive Battle Outside Nanjing
Chapter 74 The Decisive Battle Outside Nanjing
Under the searchlight, 1,400 Fujian soldiers knelt on the official road as if they had lost their souls.
Weapons were scattered all over the ground.
Rifles, grenades, bayonets, canteens, ammunition belts... piled up like a small mountain.
Shen Li stood next to the lead tank, still clutching the metal megaphone in his hand, and coldly glanced at the surrendering troops in front of him.
Behind him, the engines of twelve Krupp light tanks roared low, their exhaust pipes spewing out puffs of white mist that dissipated into the night.
Four hundred German-trained infantrymen, each holding a Mauser rifle, stood in two rows without uttering a word.
The silence was unsettling.
A communications soldier jogged over.
"Chief of Staff! Ma Zhongnan has been taken to the armored vehicle at the back. He has two adjutants and a brigade staff officer with him. Should we separate them?"
Shen Li thought for a moment.
"No need. Untie his two adjutants and give them some water. As for Ma Zhongnan, just send two people to keep an eye on him, but don't insult him."
The communications soldier was taken aback. "That's it?"
"that's all."
Shen Li placed the megaphone on the tank's armor plating. "These people will be needed later. The Chen family army's policy of not killing surrendered soldiers is not just a joke."
He took a map out of his pocket and unfolded it using the light bulb on the tank.
"Those who surrender will be organized into groups and escorted to the temporary reception point in Jurong, while the wounded will be treated by military doctors."
His finger slid across the map to the city of Nanjing.
"Next goal."
The adjutant next to him came closer.
"Chief of Staff, an urgent telegram from the Young Marshal."
Shen Li took the telegram and scanned two lines.
The telegram contained only one sentence:
"The granary cannot be left overnight; it must be destroyed tonight."
Shen Li put the telegram into his uniform pocket.
He looked up at the sky.
The moon has already risen, hanging behind a thin layer of clouds, like a copper plate covered with a layer of gray.
"Has Zang Keping arrived yet?"
"We've arrived. The advance platoon of the independent armored battalion is already waiting outside Zhonghua Gate, and the two following infantry battalions are advancing along the Jiangdong Gate direction."
Shen Li nodded.
"Alright. Tell Zang Keping there's no need to wait. Take his men straight into the city, targeting the four flour mills. I'll watch over the prisoners outside; he can handle things in the city himself."
He paused.
"The gatekeeper at the flour mill is a Japanese ronin! Tell him he doesn't need to be polite."
……
Xiaguan, within Nanjing city.
Two o'clock in the morning.
The streets were deserted, and most of the streetlights were off.
The artillery battles of the past two days have frightened the city's residents so much that they have kept their doors and windows tightly shut, and only a few stray cats are seen darting around on the garbage heaps.
A deep engine sound came from the direction of Jiangdong Gate.
First, one.
Then two. Three.
It eventually became a long string.
Six armored personnel carriers and four military trucks, with their headlights off and only their sunshades on slightly, slowly advanced along Xiaguan Street.
Each truck carried more than twenty fully armed German-trained infantrymen. MG34 machine guns were mounted on sandbags on the roof, with ammunition belts already attached.
Zang Keping stood on the second armored vehicle.
He was wearing an old military overcoat over a gray-green uniform in the style of the Chen Family Army, with his beret pulled low, revealing a pair of eyes as cold as a hawk's.
"Reporting to the brigade commander!"
A platoon leader approached, his voice hushed, "The 'Hefeng Flour Factory' is just 500 meters ahead, which is our first target. Our men have already scouted the area outside. There are four Japanese guards at the gate, and probably more than a dozen inside. They're all carrying rifles, along with a few military swords."
Zang Keping remained silent.
He took a pair of binoculars out of his coat pocket and looked ahead for a few seconds.
Two dim kerosene lamps could be seen hanging at the entrance of the flour mill, and four Japanese ronin dressed in plain clothes leaned against the gateposts, some smoking cigarettes and others dozing off while holding rifles.
"How many guns?"
"We observed seventeen rifles and three pistols. There were also two men with sabers on their hips."
Zang Keping put the binoculars away.
"Not enough for my whole class to beat."
He turned around.
"First platoon, charge from the front. Second platoon, climb over the west wall and block the back gate. Third platoon, set up your MG34s and aim them at the gate."
His tone was as indifferent as if he were asking what to have for dinner.
"End the battle within three minutes of opening fire. Leave no one alive."
"yes!"
The platoon leader turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Three minutes later.
Four Japanese ronin at the entrance of the flour mill suddenly realized something was wrong.
A muffled engine sound came from afar, growing ever closer.
A ronin threw away his cigarette butt and picked up his rifle.
"Who's over there!" he shouted in broken Chinese.
His response was a row of searchlights.
As the white light exploded, two MG34s opened fire from the front.
Da da da da da!
The muzzle flash formed a continuous line of fire in the darkness.
The 7.92mm bullets, firing at a rate of 900 rounds per minute, riddled the flour mill's gate and pillars with holes.
The four ronin didn't even have time to raise their hands.
Three were instantly turned into mincemeat and fell under the goalpost. The fourth had half his head sliced off by shrapnel and slid straight down the wall.
At the same time, a muffled sound came from the direction of the west wall.
The soldiers of the second platoon scaled the wall and, after landing, advanced towards the warehouse in three-person combat teams.
The Japanese ronin in the warehouse were awakened by the gunshots and hurriedly grabbed their weapons and rushed out.
But the moment they rushed out of the warehouse, they were met with three grenades.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The blast wave, carrying shrapnel and debris, swept outwards in all directions.
This was immediately followed by a burst of fire from Mauser rifles.
Bang! Bang bang! Bang!
A Japanese ronin drew his sword and charged out, howling, only to be struck in the chest and throat by two bullets simultaneously. The sword flew out of his hand, and he fell backward into a pool of blood.
From the moment the guns were fired until the last ronin fell to the ground, it took less than two and a half minutes.
Zang Keping walked into the flour mill courtyard, stepping over the bullet casings scattered on the ground.
More than a dozen corpses lay scattered on the ground. Blood and flour were mixed together, forming a pool of pinkish sludge.
He stepped over a still-convulsing corpse with a blank expression and walked to the warehouse door.
The door lock was a huge iron lock.
"Smash it open."
Two soldiers swung their rifle butts and smashed the lock off in no time.
The warehouse door was flung open with a bang.
Zang Keping turned on his flashlight and shone it inside.
Then he froze.
The warehouse is the size of three interconnected storage rooms.
The room was filled with neatly stacked burlap sacks. The words "Refined Wheat Flour" were printed on the sacks in both Japanese and Chinese.
One bag at a time.
Stacks upon stacks.
They were stacked from the ground all the way to the roof, so densely packed that you couldn't see the end.
"How many of these are there?" The platoon leader next to him was dumbfounded.
Zang Keping squatted down and tore a hole in the nearest burlap sack.
White flour gushed out of the mouth.
He went to the back and tore open another sack.
It's not flour.
It's rice.
High-quality rice with plump grains and a golden color.
"inventory."
Zang Keping stood up, clapped the flour off his hands, and said, "Register every single bag for me."
He took out his telegram book from his pocket and quickly wrote a few lines.
Tear it off and hand it to the communications soldier.
Send it in plaintext.
The communications soldier glanced at the telegram.
"Plain...plain code?"
"Yes. Plain text." Zang Keping smiled coldly. "Let everyone hear it."
……
The crackdown on the last three flour mills was even more swift and decisive.
The six ronin from the Pukou family surrendered immediately upon seeing the armored vehicles lined up outside. Zang Keping's men took control of the entire factory area without firing a single shot.
The guards at the Liuhe residence attempted to escape through the back door, but were caught red-handed by an infantry squad that had circled around to the rear. Two ronin tried to draw their swords in resistance, but were pinned to the wall by three bullets.
The last one is near the Drum Tower.
The leader of the ronin there was a short, stocky man with a buzz cut who spoke fluent Chinese. He stood at the door and shouted at Zang Keping's men, "This is Mitsui & Co.'s property! You can't..."
He hadn't finished speaking.
A 7.92mm bullet went into his mouth.
When it came out from the back of the head, it brought with it a piece of bone fragments and brain matter.
His body felt as if someone had pushed him from behind, and he fell backward.
Zang Keping didn't even look at it.
"Clear the area. Next."
……
4:30 a.m.
They acquired all four flour mills.
The battle lasted less than two hours in total.
Thirty-one Japanese ronin were killed and four were captured alive.
Chen Jiajun's casualties: zero.
The list of captured supplies is still being compiled, but just visually inspecting it has already made all the participating officers gasp in shock.
More than 23,000 shi of rice. More than 7,000 shi of flour. A certain amount of cotton cloth. A certain amount of tung oil.
All together, that's enough to feed an army of 30,000 for half a year.
Zang Keping stood at the entrance of the largest warehouse in the Hefeng Flour Factory, with several empty sacks under his feet.
The plaintext telegram in his telegram book had already been sent.
The telegram contained only sixteen characters:
"The Nanjing granary has fallen, and the enemy's main force has been annihilated. Zang Keping, Independent Armored Brigade, Southeast Front Army of the National Revolutionary Army."
This telegram was broadcast in plain text to all the forces along the Yangtze River that were still operating radio stations.
When the officer on duty saw these sixteen characters in the telegraph room of the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai, he dropped his teacup.
The Japanese liaison station in Nanjing has been destroyed.
Thirty thousand shi of supplies vanished into thin air.
Mitsui & Co.'s meticulously planned logistical support network, built over half a year, was uprooted overnight. It was the foundation that gave them the confidence to instigate Sun Yuanfeng to seize Nanjing right under Chen Zijun's nose, but now it's all gone.
Meanwhile, in Fuzhou, a thousand miles away.
In the study of Sun Yuanfeng, the military governor of Fujian, the adjutant placed the newly translated telegram on the desk with trembling hands.
Sun Yuanfeng glanced down.
His face went from ashen to deathly pale.
Ma Zhongnan surrendered.
Fourteen hundred elite soldiers, without firing a single shot, all knelt down.
Nanjing also ran out of grain.
His carefully cultivated trump cards, which he had accumulated over half a year, were all harvested by Chen Zijun like weeds, one crop after another.
The telegram slipped from his fingers.
He smashed the inkstone on the table with a single blow.
But no one heard what he said.
Because at that moment, it seemed as if a pair of cold eyes were staring at him from across mountains and rivers in the darkness.
That was Chen Zijun sitting in his study in Shanghai, drinking tea.
He put down his teacup, a slight smirk playing on his lips.
"Next, it's Sun Yuanfeng's turn. Does he really think that just because he ambushed my father and was fought off, I, his son, can just ignore it?"
"You attacked me from behind; it's your business if my father defends himself."
"But as a son, I'm avenging my father, and if I punish you, you have to accept it..."