From the rising sun until the setting sun was like blood, with the help of more than 2,000 people from the 37th Infantry Regiment who were hurriedly transferred from the 3rd Division, they climbed up and down the ruins like hard-working ants.
But there were too many people, and they were unable to lift a concrete block weighing a thousand kilograms, let alone rescue a living person who was still breathing.
A lot of corpses stuck in the cracks of various rocks were dug out, because it was very simple. If they were pressed and stuck, just use a knife to chop the corpse into several pieces and pull it out.
At the end of the day, more than twenty mutilated corpses were pulled out, but that was already the greatest result of the hard work of more than 2,000 Japanese troops.
But even this was not without cost. For these corpses, which were only left in half, the ruins that had been pried loose had another small collapse accident, and several more Japanese infantry were buried inside.
Seeing this scene, the Japanese Army Lieutenant General who arrived at the scene in person despite his busy schedule couldn't help but became furious. He roared loudly on the bank of the Suzhou River like a trapped animal, and even slapped the Captain of the Engineer Regiment who did not enter the warehouse but managed to save his life.
Some big mouths.
However, if anger is useful, why do we need artillery?
Unless we get thousands of kilograms of explosives and blow up the ruins to see if we can find the regimental flag of the 36th Infantry Regiment?
But if one accidentally blows the golden crest of the alliance flag to the concession area, the trap will become even bigger.
Finally, when night fell and the groans in the ruins were almost silent, the Japanese army gave up the rescue operation.
When the Japanese army retreated like a tide, except for a symbolic detachment, it meant that the 36th Infantry Regiment that could have entered Sihang Warehouse in a victorious manner was abandoned.
In fact, until the end of the entire Songhu Battle half a month later, and even until the end of the entire war, the Japanese troops who occupied Songhu did not conduct any excavations on the ruins.
The 36th Infantry Regiment, which lost its regiment flag and lost most of its officers in the battle, was abandoned by the 3rd Division on the evening of November 1 and placed under the direct jurisdiction of the dispatched army headquarters.
Toyoda Hide, the unlucky guy, turned out to be a lucky one. Because of the unlucky attributes of the 36th Infantry Regiment, no junior officer was willing to serve. The dispatch army headquarters had no choice but to appoint him as the acting captain of the 36th Infantry Regiment.
Although the level was not promoted, the position was jumped two levels in a row. Even though it seemed that the new captain of the new science and technology alliance did not show a smile when he saw the defeated soldiers.
Other units are under the direct control of the high command, which means they have raised their standards, but for the 36th Infantry Regiment, even an idiot knows that it may only be a matter of time before their designation is revoked.
Perhaps the only thing these unlucky guys are thankful for is that they can stay away from the war from now on.
A week later, some unlucky and lucky people returned to China on transport ships and never set foot on Chinese soil again in their lives.
Perhaps, they don't want to come to this painful land anymore. The desperate moans of their colleagues in the ruins will always become their nightmare.
As for the other part, the war is not over yet!
.........
After the war, China did not excavate and organize the ruins of Sihang Warehouse. Instead, it built the Sihang Warehouse Monument on the top of the ruins. The list of all participants in the 524th Regiment of the 88th Division was included in it.
The names of Yue Changqing and ninety-two other people are also engraved on the base of the monument. This is a tribute to them from the whole of China. I believe that the soldiers who are buried here will not refuse their company.
The army and the people are essentially like fish and water.
The monument with a white marble base has experienced several years of wind and rain. A dozen small trees have grown around it surrounded by concrete ruins.
Some people say that the hero who died in Sihang Warehouse came back and transformed into a tree to protect his position and his country; others say that it was actually the hundreds of Japanese corpses that gradually rotted in the ruins that provided enough nutrients.
Nourishes the tree seeds brought by the birds...
But regardless of that theory, in the end no one touched the small trees that grew tenaciously in the ruins, even if they were not precious species, just miscellaneous trees.
With the passage of time, decades have passed by, and the past battlefields and ruins have disappeared, replaced by a tree-shaded hill, green in spring and dry in winter, and prosperous every year.
But no matter how the seasons change, the only thing that remains unchanged is the monument and the name on it.
China has not forgotten them, and neither has this nation forgotten them.
Lao Zhang and Lao Zhou, a bank clerk and a rickshaw driver during the war, two fellow Henan fellows who were originally very different in status and could not communicate with each other, became friends because of this battle.
Although the concession was captured by the Japanese army a few years later due to the outbreak of the Pacific War, they helped each other and survived those difficult years and lived sixty years later.
Two ordinary old men from Songhu who were completely retired had no other hobbies and nothing to do, so they brought teapots and sat next to the ruins of Sihang Warehouse. In their words, they came to accompany the soldiers who were buried here.
Naturally, when someone asked him about it, the old man would tell them about the battlefield that broke out decades ago and the stories of those people.
Many young people have asked them whether the heroic unit successfully evacuated in the end, or died fighting with the Japanese invaders under this famous ruins. The two old people always said with red eyes that they must have left.
But actually, they don't know either.
Because they had not even seen anyone in the warehouse, as ordinary people they had no way of knowing whether they were dead or alive and continuing to fight the Japanese invaders on other battlefields.
However, an unexpected incident gave them, who were already old and about to die, the answer they had wanted to hear for decades.
As the city becomes more and more developed, available land becomes less and less. Zhabei District, which has become a core area, is full of skyscrapers. Only this area is an eyesore of small mounds covered with trees.
Finally, someone set their sights on this place, hoping to invest huge sums of money to develop it, remove the unsightly ruins, and move the monument to the Suzhou River dozens of meters away.
Capital is only interested in money and never cares about spiritual totems.
However, there are still some ordinary people who have not forgotten the past who do not agree.
The two old men who accidentally learned the news were holding wooden sticks, just like the soldiers holding steel guns in those days, and stood in front of the large excavator with the local residents.
Back then, it was they who took their lives to protect the people. Now, it is the people's turn to protect them.
The government sent high-level officials to persuade with earnest words, promising not to damage the monument in the slightest and to build a new memorial hall on the spot. But what does that mean?
The positions that the Japanese could not capture back then were actually occupied by bloody capital, and the elderly and residents refused to take over.
Until, a white-haired old man with numerous medals on his chest appeared.
There is no need to go into details about the process. The end result is the complete defeat of capital and the preservation of ruins.
After giving a trembling military salute to the ruins, the old man bowed to the two men and thanked them for their decades of cleaning the monument, and for paying homage to the soldiers who died here during the Qingming Festival.
Because that is his comrade-in-arms.
What made Lao Zhang and Lao Zhou extremely excited was that they finally heard the happiest news in the past fifty or sixty years.
Under the monument where they stop and stare every day, there is no sadness of the Chinese soldiers, only the souls of the Japanese invaders.
On November 1st, except for the two dozen people who died in Sihang Warehouse the day before, more than a hundred people escaped.
Although some people died one after another in the battle against the Japanese invaders in the future, many people still saw the dawn of victory.
