In November, the autumn rain fell again. Under the gloomy sky, the eyes were full of desolation and desolation. Groups of ragged and depressed soldiers were gathering into a gray river, flowing westward in embarrassment.
Along the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the highway heading west was crowded with troops who had retreated from the Songhu battlefield. They dragged their tired bodies and fled in a hurry. Blood stains were faintly visible on the mottled and dirty uniforms.
The wounded soldiers leaned on wooden sticks and dipped their feet into the muddy water. The blood seeping out from the bandages wrapped around the wounds had turned dark red, covering the gray mud. Their gunpowder-smoked black
The dark face was numb and depressed.
Six elite divisions of the Japanese Tenth Army quietly landed from Hangzhou Bay on the night of November 5th and appeared on the flanks and rear of the Chinese defenders on the Songhu battlefield. After landing, the Japanese troops quickly captured Songjiang and other places and then attacked in two directions, all along the Taihu Lake
The south bank was heading straight towards Nanjing, and another line of troops was heading towards Qingpu and other transportation hubs. The battlefield situation took a turn for the worse. Nearly 700,000 Chinese troops were fighting fiercely in the front and were about to fall into a dangerous situation of being surrounded.
Faced with the critical situation, China's Third Theater Command had to formulate a new combat plan. In order to consolidate the defense of the capital Nanjing, it ordered the Shanghai garrison to withdraw from the battle, retreat to the Wufu front-line defense fortifications in the rear, and alternately cover the retreat to Nanjing.
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When China's Shanghai garrison was withdrawing alternately, only one day later, the wise Chairman Chiang Kai-shek was about to hold a meeting in the Belgian capital due to the Nine-Nation Convention. In order to gain international support, he asked the Shanghai garrison, which had begun to gradually withdraw, to return to their original positions and continue.
After holding on for at least a week, orders were changed day and night, and the troops who were withdrawing in an orderly manner suddenly fell into chaos.
Communication was poor at that time. Some troops obeyed the order and returned to attack the abandoned positions and continued to hold on. Some troops did not receive the order and continued to retreat. Hundreds of thousands of troops were in chaos. In addition, the Japanese pursuit troops moved quickly, and the sky
Planes bombarded China's chaotic Chinese defenders indiscriminately, causing hundreds of thousands of Chinese defenders who originally retreated in an orderly manner to fall into a state of chaos, which eventually turned into a great rout.
The Chinese defenders have been fighting fiercely on the flesh-and-blood battlefield of Songhu for nearly three months. They are exhausted both mentally and physically. They have reached the end of their strength. Many troops have been replenished five or six times. A large number of veterans have been killed, and new recruits have been added.
They are all student soldiers and untrained young adults. Faced with such a chaotic situation, they are even more panicked.
There was a commotion on the retreating road. Soldiers belonging to different units were mixed together. At this moment, it was completely chaotic. The soldiers could not find their commander, and the commander could not find his own soldiers. Everyone was immersed in escaping because the Japanese soldiers
The pursuing troops are already catching up with us. We must run if we want to stay alive.
Resistance has no meaning anymore. The troops are scattered, people are confused, and it is difficult to lead the team. Even if there are those enthusiastic young officers who want to lead the team to stop the Japanese army, they are unable to support them alone. They are quickly defeated and dispersed.
He blended into the defeated team again.
The so-called defeat is like this. Many people are not willing to lose positions one after another, and are not willing to give up the soil that they spent countless blood and lives to defend to the Japanese. But the army is defeated, so what if they are unwilling to do so.
, leaving only a heart full of sorrow and indignation.
On a deserted hill, Liu Ming, the deputy of the supplementary regiment of the 174th Division, wrapped in a dirty and sloppy military uniform, looked at the crowded and noisy road in confusion, muttering to himself in disbelief, why did he lose?
The soldiers were indeed brave. They stood firm in the trenches filled with muddy corpses and fought to the death. They endured hunger, lacked clothing and medicine, and had no ammunition. They fought hand-to-hand with the Japanese with their flesh and blood. The ground was stained red with blood and corpses piled up in hand-to-hand combat.
It was a mountain, but in the end it was still a defeat, a confused defeat, a complete defeat.
There were young officers wearing general officer's epaulettes who followed the team with dull eyes, crying loudly as they walked. They rushed thousands of miles to the battlefield, all their brothers died, and they were defeated in the end. It was difficult to accept this fact.
"How can I have the face to go back and face the elders in my hometown!" The officer was wailing and shouting at the sky. The depressed and embarrassed soldiers were still walking with expressionless faces, thinking that he had gone crazy.
Bang - blood sprayed, and a blood hole appeared in the temple of the sad and angry young officer. The officer with a haggard face chose to end his life by suicide. His body, like those soldiers who died on this land, will sleep forever.
Here it is.
"Regiment Deputy Liu, let's go quickly, the Japanese are about to catch up." Company Commander Li Tiezhu, whose face was covered in blood, saw Deputy Liu Ming staring at the officer who committed suicide. He was worried that he would not be able to think about it, so he hurriedly surrounded him and followed the team to retreat.
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"Alas..." Liu Ming looked at the young officer who fell in the ditch by the road, sighed heavily, shook his head helplessly, and continued to retreat for his life while holding on to a stick.
…
Countless people were crowded at the Qingyang Port highway bridge. The soldiers were in a panic and looked panicked. The faces of the senior officials sitting in the cars were full of irritability. The driver pressed the horn hard and the piercing horn sounded continuously.
Due to the chaos and haste of the retreat, most of the bridges were not protected and had been blown up by Japanese planes. The retreating troops could only retreat from this remaining road bridge to Kunshan, and then along the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.
Towards Suzhou and Wuxi, so it becomes crowded and noisy.
The water network in the south of the Yangtze River is criss-crossed, and the crisscrossing water network and ditches have become a fatal obstacle to the retreating troops. They can only retreat along a few major roads and railways, and these roads are crowded with retreating troops and fleeing people.
, ox-carts, horse-drawn carriages and parcels made the roads impassable.
The Japanese planes circled back and forth over these roads, shooting at low altitudes with machine guns and dropping bombs, turning this retreat road into a road of death. The burning houses and broken corpses on the roadside added to the desolation.
Tragic scene.
"Hurry up! Hurry up!" A regimental deputy of the 87th Division was urging loudly. Dozens of National Army soldiers were busy placing explosives up and down Qingyang Port, preparing to blow up the highway bridge and delay the Japanese pursuit.
force.
"Everyone, step back - cross the bridge elsewhere, the bridge here has exploded!" A row of soldiers with live ammunition blocked the retreating team, and the team immediately caused a commotion.
"Wait until we get over and blow up the bridge!"
Someone was praying loudly: "The devils have caught up with us, let us pass!"
"Make way for me, or I'll shoot!" Some people raised their guns and aimed at the soldiers of the 87th Division blocking the way.
"Brothers! I'm sorry! We also have military orders and are ordered to blow up the bridge. If the bridge is taken away by the Japanese, no one will survive. You should find another place to cross the river!" the regiment deputy of the 87th Division!
He shouted at the top of his lungs, but still could not suppress the commotion.
"Damn, those guys from the 87th Division are going to blow up the bridge. We can't cross. I'm afraid we have to find another place to cross the river." Panting, Yang Dashu, with his head wrapped in a thick bandage, returned to the road and ran to the road full of people.
Zhang Hongying, the health captain with a haggard face, said next to her.
Zhang Hongying's fair face was covered with mud, and she looked even more haggard. After hearing Yang Dashu's words, she became a little anxious: "What should I do?"
Yang Dashu sighed: "Let's walk along the river and see if we can find a fishing boat crossing the river and try our luck."
While they were talking, gunshots suddenly erupted at the bridge. A group of men dressed as Nationalist soldiers suddenly opened fire with their guns. The soldiers of the 87th Division who were guarding the bridge were caught off guard and swept down. The scene suddenly lost control.
Yang Dashu thought someone was desperate to cross the bridge, but suddenly he heard those who fired the shots speaking non-Chinese, and then he realized that they might be Japanese soldiers who had sneaked into the broken ranks.
Yang Dashu pulled Zhang Hongying, who still didn't understand what was going on, and said: "The Japanese soldiers have captured the bridge. We can't stay here for long. Let's get out of here quickly!"