The First Book of National Heroes: The Lonely City's Bloody Battle Chapter 34: The Melancholy of the East Gourd

  At this time, the sky was drizzling with fine rain, and the thick fog began to drift slowly! Watanabe Masao, with a solemn expression, stretched out his hand to catch the falling raindrops, silent and speechless. Takeuchi Hiroshi was also bewildered by Watanabe's strange attitude.

  In the ruins three hundred meters away, Song Yuanhang dragged his almost disintegrating body and slowly sat down under a broken wall, pulling open the gun chamber of the two Japanese Type 38 rifles he had just picked up one by one. The empty gun chambers made him very disappointed.

  Song Yuanhang knew that the Japanese were using their usual tricks, reducing the enemy's gains while striking at their morale, shaking their determination to resist to the end. He threw his rifle aside and leaned against a broken wall, trying to conserve and recover his strength as much as possible, striving to take out a few more devils with his last chance.

  Although the Chinese soldiers were surrounded by the Japanese army, not a single one showed any signs of fear or panic. These soldiers had crawled out from piles of dead bodies and no longer knew what fear was.

  Song Yuanhang scanned all the soldiers with his eyes and found that Lao Shandong was gone, while the student soldier before was struggling to pinch a cloth strip wrapped around the broken leg of glasses with his bandaged hand.

  Song Yuanhang felt that he should do something at this time, but he didn't know what to do. Finally, Song Yuanhang decided to sing a song. For the last song of his life, Song Yuanhang almost exhausted all his skills.

  Finally, Song Yuanhang chose the famous historical song "March of the Volunteers"! Unfortunately, this song was adapted from a poem written by student soldiers in India in 1943, and Chinese soldiers at that time did not know how to sing it.

  "Sorry, brother! I'll borrow your lyrics!" After muttering to himself for a moment, Song Yuanhang started humming softly in time with the beat: "Don't you see, General Han's final stand, weak and worn out, asking for a long rope."

  Don't you see, Ban Dingyuan, lightly riding a swift steed, hastening to war beyond the distant frontier!

  A man should be brave and resolute in the face of danger; how can he let his life be misled by Confucianism?

  The situation is as precarious as a pile of eggs, with messengers rushing about without a moment's pause!

  Cast aside my brush of former times, take up my battle-axe of today.

  Over 100,000 comrades responded to the call, singing a battle hymn and joining the army together.

  Rise up and join the army, wipe out the shame of the barbarian invasion, vow to sweep away the Japanese slaves without regard for one's own life!

  Overcome emotions and lightly sever thoughts of home, generously hold out a heart that repays one's country.

  With a proud smile, he rushes to the battlefield, the great flag unfurls, shining brighter than the sun.

  The air blows Taibai into the sky of August, and the strength pulls the long arrow to shoot at the heavenly wolf.

  A stone was transported back to Jinling, and the provinces of Ji, Lu, Ji, He were pacified one after another.

  The warship breaks through the waves in the Bohai Sea, and the iron bird swoops down on Tokyo!

  One night, smashing the Japanese slave den, the Pacific Ocean is all red.

  Mount Fuji waves the Han flag, cherry blossom trees under drunk Hu concubine.

  Return in triumph, watched by thousands of people, flowers thrown before the horse's hooves

  The threshold is born with a bright smile and white hair, the village is jubilant and proud of its beauty.

  The first great achievement in Chinese history, from then on China was known as the Dragon Nation.

  Still retaining its residual prestige to punish injustice, it is necessary for all humanity around the world to share in the great Han Chinese culture!

  On the other hand, the Japanese army was shouting in poor Chinese to ask the Chinese soldiers to lay down their weapons and promised humanitarian treatment. The Japanese shout made a wounded Chinese soldier laugh so hard that fresh blood seeped out of his wound again. The hatred between the two nations had escalated to the point where it would only end with one side being completely annihilated, otherwise it would be impossible to resolve forever.

  The Chinese soldiers were all drawn in by Song Yuanhang's singing, listening to the very uplifting lyrics, making these Chinese soldiers who were already wounded and far away from home feel that they were not alone, would not be forgotten by future generations, even if they sacrificed themselves, it was extremely valuable, because everything was for the nation and country, thinking of their families, a few people started to choke back tears, while more people followed Song Yuanhang's intermittent humming.

  The faint singing of the Chinese soldiers made Watanabe Masao jump up from the ammunition box, grab his Chinese interpreter and shout: "Translate the lyrics for me, every single word!"

  When the translation was made, one load of stone was returned to Jinling, and the black tiles were laid out in order, the waves crashed against the Lou ship, and the iron bird swooped down on Tokyo! One night, the Japanese cave was smashed, the Pacific Ocean turned red, the Fuji Mountain flew the Chinese flag, and the cherry blossom tree was drunk with the Hu concubine. After this translation came out, all the high-ranking Japanese military officers present finally understood how naive and ridiculous their previous idea of forcing Chinese soldiers to surrender was.

  "Destroy them all!" Takeuchi Hiroshi's face twisted into a grotesque grimace.

  Several Japanese army lieutenants led hundreds of so-called "hidden forces" into the battlefield!

  When the already frightened Japanese soldiers were in a brief melee with Chinese soldiers, just tens of seconds later, the Japanese attacking troops fell into chaos and retreated again. As Song Yuanhang stabbed down a Japanese lieutenant, several Japanese soldiers who did not dare to get close raised their guns.

  Inside the Japanese command post, Takeuchi Hiroshi could no longer bear the shame brought by the failure of the troops in a single attack and gave the order to open fire!

  As the Japanese soldiers opened fire on Song Yuanhang, artillery shells also whizzed in with a sharp whistling sound. Song Yuanhang, who had leapt up, only felt a slight numbness in his neck before everything went dark. Covered under the rubble, Song Yuanhang was still muttering: "Damn it! That bastard said the little Japanese wouldn't shoot with their bayonets? What a load of crap, really got me killed!"

  The last shout of the Chinese soldiers was drowned out by the thunderous artillery fire, this was the final desperate blow launched by Tonggu's last defenders at the cost of their lives, and with it half a battalion of Japanese troops were buried!

  After the battle, Watanabe Tadashi and Takeuchi Hiroshi accompanied the Imperial Headquarters' special envoy Yamashita Tomoyuki on a stroll through the ruins, where Japanese medical soldiers were desperately trying to rescue the wounded, while surviving Japanese soldiers sat beside their fallen comrades and wept.

  In the midst of a battlefield like hell, hundreds of bodies were piled up on top of each other, as if slaughtered. Medical personnel held onto a glimmer of hope and searched for survivors among the broken bodies.

  Unlike previous battles, most Chinese soldiers wore Japanese military uniforms this time, so all the bodies were Japanese. This made it difficult for the grassroots officers of the Japanese army to verify the bodies one by one according to the name list. Some Japanese troops even found fellow villagers and friends of the fallen soldiers to help identify them. However, faced with those bodies that were blown up beyond recognition and dismembered, the Japanese military officers could only try their best to find complete bodies to make up the numbers.

  Some troops that suffered heavy casualties were even more miserable. The lucky survivors didn't even bother to identify the bodies, they just hastily pulled together enough bodies to meet the quota.

  "There's a survivor!" A Japanese army nurse struggled to throw away a piece of wooden board, and frantically dug through the rubble with both hands!

  Watanabe Masao gazed at the wounded soldier, covered in bruises and bloodstains, wearing a tattered military uniform and boots, being carried out of the ruins. His heart ached as he yelled to the army doctor: "You must save him!"

  Suddenly, several tens of meters away, the Japanese army appeared to be in a state of confusion. Tōbē Masao grabbed a lieutenant who was running past him with a flustered expression and asked loudly, "What's going on?"

  "Major, on meeting him, hastily saluted and said: 'Report to the division commander, have Chinese soldiers just launched a counterattack?'"

  Watanabe Masao was stunned as if struck by five thunders. He could hardly believe that Chinese soldiers could still launch a counterattack. It wasn't until later that someone reported that two heavily bleeding Chinese wounded soldiers had fainted in the ruins, and when they came to, they found that the battle had already ended, but they still launched a counterattack against the Imperial Army.

  In front of the ruins where two Chinese soldiers had fought their last battle, dozens of Japanese officers and hundreds of soldiers took off their hats, bowed deeply in the face of the two tattered bodies of Chinese wounded soldiers. The pale knife wounds and bullet holes on the two bodies were a faint blue-white color, without a single drop of fresh blood!

  Chinese soldiers have shed all their blood and fought until the last moment of their lives!

  In the evening, Watanabe Masao and Takeuchi Hiroshi and Yamashima Taira sat in a temporary tent drinking sake, although there was fresh tuna meat, unfortunately all three had their own concerns, facing the usual delicacy also had no appetite, just quietly drinking clear liquor.

  Unlike Watanabe and Takeuchi, the special envoy Yamashita Heiichi is a thorough 'China expert'! Yamashita Heiichi, who graduated from the Department of Politics at Tokyo University in 1928, had a particularly strong interest in Chinese history, especially China's experience of being conquered by foreign tribes many times. Like many Japanese people, before today, Yamashita Heiichi also naively believed that the government only wanted to destroy the Nationalist government, and for the ordinary Chinese people, it was just a matter of changing the tax collector.

  Northeast China has been occupied, North China has been occupied, and even Nanjing, the capital of China, has been captured. The Chinese government is now only shrinking in the southwest region, but the hope of victory is getting farther and farther away.

  Watanabe sighed, raised his wine glass and took a sip before continuing: "Nowadays, the Chinese are becoming less and less willing to surrender, and their resistance is getting stronger. In many places in Songhu, even if only one Chinese soldier is left, he will still fight on? Compared to a few years ago, the Imperial Japanese Army's invincibility is truly a difference between heaven and earth!"

  "China is really too big! Once the Chinese people unite, it will be extremely unfavorable to us!"

  After a brief report! The staff officers of the second group each put down a battle report that had just been counted in front of their division commanders.

  Watanabe Masao and Takeuchi Hiroshi exchanged a glance, turning their eyes to the battle reports placed in front of them. As they flipped through the reports, row after row of numbers of casualties and names of fallen officers flashed before their eyes. The heavy losses suffered by the troops were shocking, and the hands of the two division commanders trembled slightly as they read the reports.

  Yamashima Heiichi took the war report from Takeuchi Hiroshi's hand and found that Takeuchi Hiroshi had no reaction at all? So he called out in a low voice: "General Takeuchi? General Takeuchi?"

  Takeshi Tsubouchi pushed him, and Tsutomu Takeuchi suddenly came to his senses, hastily got up and came before Shimahei Yamashina, kneeling down on the ground with reverence, and no matter how much Shimahei Yamashina tried to persuade him, he refused to get up.

  With curiosity, Yamashita opened the battle report of the 55th Division and sucked in a breath of cold air. His hands began to tremble as he read that before entering combat, the 55th Division had three infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, one cavalry regiment, with armored vehicles, engineers, and logistics personnel totaling over 33,900 people. According to the report, the number of officers and soldiers killed in action was over 7,600, plus the wounded, resulting in a loss of more than half of the division's personnel.

  Yama Shima Hei hastily opened the battle report of the 56th Division, the situation was slightly better than that of the 55th Division, but the number of officers and soldiers killed in action had reached over 5,000, plus the wounded, the entire division had lost one-third of its personnel!

  After hesitating for a moment, Yamashita suddenly tore the two battle reports to shreds and said in an excited voice: "It's those shameless Chinese who disguised themselves as our Great Japanese Imperial Army. Tell each unit to re-identify!"

  Takinori Bambuku and Masao Watanabe, who had been holding their breath, finally let out a sigh of relief. With such heavy casualties from just one battle with the ancient siege corps, they would definitely be held accountable by headquarters. However, if they spread these losses over future battles, it would be much more effective. The only problem was that their subordinate units would be severely undermanned for a long time to come.