LRAB Chapter 68 The Meat Grinder in the Rainy Night
Chapter 68 The Meat Grinder in the Rainy Night
Gunshots rang out.
Not one sound, but three consecutive sounds.
boom! boom! boom!
That was Shen Li's warning signal, firing three shots into the air with his sidearm.
Chen Zijun reacted faster than his voice could register. He grabbed Sun Yun's shoulder with his left hand, shoving him down into his seat, while his right hand drew a pistol from his waist. At the same time, he used his body to shield Sun Yun and Ms. Song.
"Don't move."
His voice was calm, as if he were saying that the weather was nice today.
Sun Yun was forced into his seat without struggling. He saw Chen Zijun's gaze completely change in less than a second. The young man who had just been discussing matters of national importance now had eyes as cold as two pieces of iron.
Ms. Song held Sun Yun's hand tightly, her face pale, but she did not scream.
The car door was suddenly pulled open.
Shen Li was soaked to the bone, squatting outside the car door, rainwater dripping down the edge of his helmet.
"Young Marshal! Armed personnel have been spotted at the entrance of an alleyway where the French Concession meets the Chinese-controlled area in the southwest! Approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty men, all dressed in short-sleeved clothing, carrying submachine guns and hand grenades, are rapidly advancing towards the docks!"
"distance?"
"Four hundred meters. We are crossing the last street of the French Concession."
Chen Zijun glanced at his watch.
Eight forty-seven.
Mr. Sun's passenger ship docked only 32 minutes ago.
These people had been waiting for a long time. They had been waiting for this moment. Waiting for their target to disembark, waiting for the bodyguards' attention to be diverted by the conversation, waiting for the sound of rain to cover their footsteps.
Unfortunately, they waited for the wrong person.
"Armored vehicles number one and two, turn around and block the southwest entrance." Chen Zijun's voice was flat. "All light machine guns on high ground, disengage and fire freely."
He paused for a moment.
"Leave no survivors."
Shen Li's lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just nodded.
"yes!"
He turned and ran into the rain.
……
Four hundred meters away.
The last alleyway on the boundary of the French Concession.
One hundred and twenty-three people are moving quickly in the rain.
They were dressed in matching dark short-sleeved shirts, Japanese-style split-toe rubber shoes, and carried Type 14 Nambu pistols at their waists and Type 100 submachine guns in their hands. Each of them also had two Type 97 hand grenades hanging from their belts.
The equipment consisted entirely of the Special Higher Police's direct action team from Japan.
The leader was a man in his thirties with a square face, deep-set eyes, and lips pressed tightly into a line. His name was Jiro Watai, and he was the deputy leader of the Special Higher Police's Shanghai station action team.
He had been lying low in Shanghai for three months.
For the past three months, he had used seven different identities, stayed in twelve different hotels, and changed his communication codes five times. Tonight was his meticulously planned final operation—to take advantage of the chaos as Mr. Sun Yun disembarked from the passenger ship, to forcefully break through the dock's defenses with 123 elite commandos, and to kill the target at all costs.
The checkpoints in the French Concession have been bribed. Three French policemen, having received two thousand francs, "coincidentally" went to the toilet that night because they had diarrhea.
Everything is going according to plan.
Jiro Watai raised his left hand and made a stop gesture.
He peeked out from the alleyway and took a look.
The pier was 300 meters away. You could see the dim yellow lights and the silhouettes of several black cars under them.
But he also saw something else.
Two armored vehicles.
They are turning.
The muzzle of the MG08 heavy machine gun on top of the armored vehicle was slowly pointing towards the alleyway where he was.
Watari's pupils suddenly contracted.
Exposed?
Impossible! His route has been repeatedly scouted; the checkpoints in the French Concession are already...
He didn't have time to finish thinking.
Because the heavy machine guns on the armored vehicle had already opened fire.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap—!
The MG08 water-cooled heavy machine gun has a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute.
If both guns fire simultaneously, that's 900 rounds per minute.
The 7.92mm Mauser bullets spewed out at an initial velocity of 880 meters per second, tearing visible trajectories through the rain.
The brick wall at the entrance of the alley was smashed, with rubble flying everywhere.
The dozen or so assault team members at the forefront were shot into a bloody mist before they even had a chance to raise their guns.
Unlike pistol bullets, 7.92mm full-power rifle bullets do not leave a clean bullet hole when they hit the human body. Instead, they tumble and fragment violently upon penetration, creating a fist-sized cavity inside the body.
When I went in, there was a small hole. When I came out, half of my shoulder was gone.
Blood and bits of flesh splattered all over the wall.
"Scatter! Scatter!"
Jiro Watai roared, but his voice was completely drowned out by the roar of the machine gun.
Some of the assault team members tried to climb over the wall to bypass the danger, but as soon as they reached the top, they were accurately shot down by light machine guns from the high ground around the dock.
The four light machine guns on the warehouse roof looked down upon the alleyway and the surrounding walls, turning them into roofless coffins.
Some attempted to retaliate with grenades, but the effective throwing range of the Type 97 grenade was only 30 to 40 meters, while the firing range of the armored vehicle was over 300 meters.
This is not a battle.
This is a massacre.
A one-sided, predictable massacre.
Jiro Watai lay crouching behind a corpse, his face covered in blood. He didn't know if it was his own or someone else's.
Only one thought occupied his mind: the intelligence was wrong.
This is seriously incorrect.
The intelligence he received said that Chen Jiajun's dock guard consisted of only a platoon of ordinary soldiers and two cars used for show.
No one told him there would be armored vehicles.
No one told him there would be heavy machine gun fire.
No one told him that Chen Zijun knew from the beginning that they were coming.
"Retreat! Retreat now—!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs.
But there are not many people left who can hear his voice.
three minutes.
From the first gunshot to the last scream, it took a total of three minutes.
Of the 123 elite Special Higher Police officers, 119 have fallen.
Of the remaining four, two had broken legs and were crawling in the mud, one had half his face sliced off by shrapnel and was unconscious, and the last one was kneeling in the middle of the alley with his hands raised, trembling all over, his pants already wet.
It's still raining.
But the water in the alley had turned red.
……
Inside the black sedan.
The entire process took less than five minutes from start to finish.
Chen Zijun stood in front of Sun Yun and Ms. Song with his body the whole time, never putting down the gun in his hand.
Until the gunfire outside completely stopped.
"Alright." He put away his pistol, turned around, and said, "Mr. Sun, Ms. Song, you've been frightened."
Sun Yun slowly sat up straight.
His face was pale, not from fear, but from shock.
He saw everything outside through the crack in the car window.
Armored vehicles, heavy machine guns, crossfire, clear the area in three minutes.
He fought for thirty years, witnessed the devastation of Huanghuagang, the smoke of the National Protection War, and countless crushing defeats.
But he had never seen this level of overwhelming firepower before.
"Your soldiers..." His voice was a little hoarse. "Very strong."
"Not bad," Chen Zijun said casually. "Tonight it's just the guard battalion. Not the main force."
Sun Yun glanced at him.
Not considered a key player?
The guard battalion has armored vehicles and water-cooled heavy machine guns, so what is the main force?
He didn't press further. But there was something unreadable in his eyes.
……
At the same time.
The entourage member in the gray Zhongshan suit—Chiang Kai-shek's confidant—was huddled in the back seat of another car.
His hands were trembling uncontrollably.
He wasn't scared by the gunfire. He was a veteran of war.
He was frightened by those numbers.
Two armored vehicles, four light machine guns positioned on high ground, a total of six firing positions. In three minutes, more than 120 people were wiped out.
Such firepower density and tactical proficiency are something that even the elite troops of the Northern Expeditionary Army, let alone the Whampoa Military Academy students in the south, could not achieve.
With trembling hands, he quickly jotted down a few lines in a small notebook.
Then he closed the notebook and shut his eyes.
There was only one thought in my mind.
We absolutely must not go to war with this person. Absolutely not.
……
Outside the dock.
Shen Li led a class to the alley.
The rain washed away the bloodstains on the ground, but they were still shockingly red.
More than a hundred corpses lay scattered haphazardly in the alley. Some were shot in two, some were unrecognizable, and some were still in the position of raising their guns, though the guns were nowhere to be found.
Shen Li bent down, picked up a Type 100 submachine gun, glanced at it, and threw it aside.
"Japanese goods".
He stood up and looked at the wreckage scattered all over the ground.
three minutes.
Three more minutes passed.
He thought of Wusongkou, the Izumo, and every action the Japanese army took in Shanghai…
Each time, Chen Zijun solves problems in a simple, brutal, and suffocating way.
No negotiation, no maneuvering, no giving anyone a chance.
Just crush it.
The walkie-talkie crackled to life.
"Lieutenant Shen," Chen Zijun's voice came from inside.
"Young Marshal, your subordinate is here."
"Keep a few intact bodies. Transport the rest to the entrance of the French Concession police station and pile them up."
Shen Li was taken aback.
"Let those Frenchmen see what happens to the stuff they blindly let in."
Shen Li nodded expressionlessly.
"clear."
He turned and gave orders to the soldiers behind him.
It rained harder and harder.
But tonight, no one in Shanghai can sleep.