The First Part of National Humiliation: The Lonely City's Bloody Battle Chapter 26: Blood-Colored War Flag

  The fierce crossfire lasted for a full eight hours, and six Japanese battalions had already gone through two rounds!

  In the face of Song's pre-set terrain firepower, the Japanese mountain artillery was not enough to destroy the Chinese army's defensive fortifications. The Japanese attacking troops were like ants on a grid being driven and slaughtered by the defenders' firepower. Their only effect was to consume a large amount of ammunition from the Chinese army.

  Song Yuanhang's face was exhausted, his eyelids were almost unable to open, and his military uniform was covered in dust and dirt, making it impossible to discern its original color. The days of bitter fighting, combined with the pain, had almost consumed his last bit of energy.

  In the ruins three hundred meters away, two Japanese army lieutenant colonels with smoke all over their bodies and exhausted faces sat back to back on the ground! More than 200 Japanese soldiers who were equally miserable squatted in temporary trenches to rest. These were the only surviving personnel of the two large Japanese detachments.

  The air was filled with a bleak atmosphere, as if the Japanese army was surrounded by an aura of desperation. Some Japanese soldiers who had no intention of resting looked up at the sky with empty gazes that seemed to have lost their souls.

  Undoubtedly! Forcing the use of light infantry to attack such a densely defended, fully fortified and firepower-equipped fortress cluster would be a nightmare for any army in the world.

  Especially the heroic guards of these fortresses were a group of Chinese soldiers who had long since cast aside their lives, and it cannot be denied that most of the Chinese army lacked the confidence, equipment, and training for assault, but when defending, the vast majority of Chinese troops possessed unyielding willpower, they could silently endure the Japanese artillery fire and fight to the death! This may be the inherent advantage hidden in the nature of seemingly ordinary Chinese soldiers.

  Every minute we delay the enemy is a victory for our future! Although most Chinese soldiers do not understand the true meaning of this sentence, they mostly understand the meaning of the two words "hope", which means that living people can get rewards, eat a hot meal, wear clean clothes, and those with good luck may even be able to return home for a few days without gunsmoke. Maybe they can even use their rewards to find a wife and have children.

  The demands of these simple Chinese soldiers were so simple, even to the point of being heart-wrenching.

  The sparse gunfire on the high ground finally stopped! Just like a powerful engine dying, the mood of the Chinese soldiers in the main position was affected to some extent. Everyone will die! The only question is whether it's sooner or later.

  Song Yuanhang, who fell asleep in the bunker, was awakened by Xu Tu'an, who had been missing for a day, and futilely looked through the broken binoculars for a while.

  Song Yuanhang tossed the telescope aside and looked Xu Tu'an up and down, who had his left arm and eye wrapped in bandages, and asked: "Are your injuries severe?"

  Xu Tu'an was taken aback for a moment, he hadn't expected Song Yuanhang to be concerned about his injury first. With gratitude, he nodded and then suddenly shook his head violently, possibly due to the vigorous motion irritating his injured eye. Xu Tu'an pressed his right hand against his temple, making a hissing sound with his mouth.

  Song Yuanhang took a glance at the white fish-like cloud appearing on the horizon, and with things having come to this point, he himself couldn't help but feel responsible. He had thought that by understanding the course of history, he could make several moves, cutting down many enemies, but in doing so, he also led the remaining few thousand brothers of the 200th Division into a desperate situation.

  Dai Anrui's death shattered Song Yuanghai's heart, and he never expected that after the great change, it would end up like this...

  Xu Tu'an knew that Song Yuanhang was under a lot of pressure, but at this moment the military needed encouragement and the soldiers needed a role model.

  Xu Tu'an then pulled out a folded 'Blue Sky with a White Sun' flag from his waist belt and handed it to Song Yuanhang, saying: "Chief of Staff, raise the flag!"

  Song Yuanhang looked at Xu Tu'an in confusion, but suddenly he understood Xu's intention and shouted loudly with a hoarse voice: "Sound the horn and raise the flag!"

  Although the two military bugles were not in harmony and the temporarily recruited trumpeter's level was limited, it did not affect the solemnity and dignity of the flag-raising ceremony at all.

  All the Chinese soldiers in all positions turned their heads to the flagpole on the third floor of the Central Bank, which had already been tilted. Two gendarmes fixed the flagpole and slowly raised the national flag.

  I bow...

  Every Chinese soldier's eyes were moist, it has been seventeen days since they arrived at Tengku! They have held out here for a full seventeen days, what do those battles of mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the past amount to compared to this?

  The wounded who could still move in the basement struggled to see what was going on, while the seriously injured raised their right hands with difficulty!

  The Japanese army seemed to have forgotten the existence of the Chinese snipers they feared most, and stood up one after another, looking around hesitantly.

  The two Japanese army lieutenant colonels looked on in despair as the flag slowly rose in the smoke!

  Disregarding his subordinates' attempts to stop him, Toranosuke Watanabe was stunned by the scene before him as he insisted on visiting the front lines. He had heard from his seniors about the brutality of the Battle of Tsushima during World War I, but what lay before him now was a Chinese army's defensive position with a width of less than 1,000 meters and a depth of 300 meters, where the bodies of Japanese soldiers were piled up in layers, with abandoned weapons and corpses scattered everywhere.

  The casualties of soldiers and the loss of technical equipment are just a report in a numerical game for decision-makers, but for generals on the front line, it is only a small or large replacement of subordinates. However, more than 3,000 soldiers were buried in this narrow space, and Watanabe Masao felt like he was about to suffocate.

  The 55th and 56th Divisions almost all infantry regiments have participated in the attack on the core fortifications, yesterday there were even low-level officers who proposed to abandon the attack, although the latter was forced to commit suicide, but the impact is huge, this is also the first time since the war started in 37 that lower-level officers put forward the request "we don't fight anymore"!

  Looking at the empty eyes of his own soldiers, Watanabe Masao raised his head again to gaze at the flag fluttering above the Reserve Bank. He clearly knew that his soldiers could no longer fight, but how come the Chinese were still able to put up a fight? What kind of people were these Chinese soldiers? Were they all made of iron?

  Watanabe Masao, who had been racking his brains without finding a solution, finally received some good news: the Chinese were almost out of ammunition!

  "Hand-to-hand combat is indeed a strong point of the Imperial Army!" Watanabe Masao's mouth finally cracked a smile.

  A new round of offensive finally launched, Takeuchi Hiroshi and Watanabe Masao divided the 1000-meter semi-circular front line, with the 55th Division and 56th Division each sending a large team to launch an attack.

  After issuing the last three boxes of ammunition, Quartermaster Fu Quanzai led two assistants holding several hand grenades to find Song Yuanghai, and also brought him dozens of received telegrams. Song Yuanghai, who was troubled by the ammunition crisis, casually pointed to a location and threw the telegram into an empty ammunition box before turning around and leaving.

  The white-blade battle that the Japanese army had been expecting finally broke out at the main gate of the bank, which had already been blown to pieces. More than a dozen heavy machine guns with sufficient ammunition remained silent under Song Yuanhang's command. Song Yuanhang's order to them was that all Chinese soldiers in front of the door would fall down, or if they were filled by the Japanese army within 300 meters, they could open fire on their own.

  Song Yuanghai personally led a company of garrison troops to charge forward, while the rest of the troops retreated to the second line to reorganize. A junior officer who tried to hold back Song Yuanghai was struck by his rifle butt.

  As the Japanese army approached, at a distance where Chinese soldiers could see their eyebrows and beards, Song Yuanhang shouted: "Brothers! Since ancient times, who has not died? Those who die with me today will follow me to enjoy happiness after death, our old Song family is rich! Those who fight with me against the little devils above are my brothers, and I won't let you down when we get there!"

  The simple-minded Chinese soldiers mostly lacked culture, in their eyes Song Yuanhang was a figure like royalty, if others weren't afraid to die, why should they be? Moreover, most Chinese soldiers believed in the existence of an afterlife...

  The Chinese soldiers, who had long given up hope of returning alive, fired their last rounds of ammunition and soon became entangled with the Japanese troops. In just over a dozen seconds, they were overwhelmed by the enemy.

  The brave but hopeless Chinese soldiers fired bullets, then used bayonets, then gun stocks, and finally fists, helmets, and entrenching tools - anything that could be used as a weapon - to strike at the dense crowds of Japanese troops on all sides. When they were exhausted and thought it was all over, they detonated their own last hand grenade.

  The Japanese soldiers, who had been brutal and ferocious like beasts, were stunned. They dodged the Chinese soldiers everywhere, and the entire offensive momentum suddenly fell into chaos. The follow-up support troops were also blocked and mixed together.

  Song Yuanhang, who was in the front line with a hot head, did not have any grenades. After continuously stabbing down several Japanese soldiers, he was pushed to the ground by the crowd. The yellow school uniform basically saved his life. Two Japanese soldiers pulled him up from the ground as if he were one of their own people.

  Song Yuanhang, who had just pulled out a gun to kill the two kind-hearted people, was knocked to the ground by the blast wave from an explosive package detonated by a nearby Chinese soldier and fainted after hitting his head on a rock.

  The machine guns of the Chinese garrison finally opened fire, and the dense hail of bullets mowed down the Japanese soldiers in confusion, just like a reaper harvesting wheat.

  After breaking through the hopeless tide of Japanese troops retreating like a tidal wave, the medical soldier was lucky to find Song Yuanhang breathing weakly among the piles of corpses!

  The Japanese army's position came the angry scolding of officers and the miserable howling of soldiers, that was Japanese officers using clubs and scabbards to beat their soldiers. Unfortunately, Japanese soldiers would rather be beaten to death by officers than launch an attack on Chinese defensive positions.

  The bloody battle of more than a dozen days has made the arrogant Japanese know what 'copper wall and iron wall' is! The proud and arrogant Great Japanese Imperial Army bumped into the copper wall and iron wall with a broken head and bleeding.

  Even the Japanese tank regiment that had been arrogant to the extreme had disappeared, in recent days, dozens of Japanese tanks were destroyed by brave Chinese soldiers while attempting to encircle, especially those Chinese tanks that served as mobile firepower and ghost-like units, which the Japanese tank troops privately referred to as "tank graveyard"!

  Song Yuanhang, who was rushed back for emergency treatment, woke up quickly. Firstly, his injuries were not severe and secondly, Xu Tu'an almost inserted a tube of cooling oil into his nostrils.