You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you ended up with a German-equipped division

Chapter 29: Flirtatious Movements Mislead the Japanese Army

They misjudged the enemy's breakout route from the very beginning.

"Break through to our rear? Isn't that suicide?"

Nakagawa Hiroshi said with considerable surprise.

But then I thought about it again. Their main mobile forces were all along the Suzhou River, in the Nanxiang and Anting areas. The forces that were really concentrated in the rear were actually not many.

The enemy might actually gain something unexpected by doing the opposite.

Yoshizumi Ryosuke was also quite surprised, and his gaze immediately fell on the map.

"Pengpu Town, that was fast. Hmph, but now that we've found your location, you can't escape."

The straight-line distance between Pengpu Town and Sihang Warehouse is seven or eight kilometers.

It's only been a little over an hour since this group of enemies broke through. They've been blocked by some Japanese troops along the way, yet they've still managed to get this far.

After saying this, he immediately added:

"They are concentrating their forces in the Pengpu Town area; they may be attempting a breakout to the north."

On Zhongshan Road, Yang Ruifu led the remaining forty-odd soldiers of the 88th Division in a fierce battle against the Japanese army.

Two reinforced Japanese squads had trapped them in the area and were now taking turns attacking the block where Yang Ruifu's battalion was located.

There were originally two Japanese companies here.

However, they had just received orders to march rapidly toward Pengpu Town, saying that the enemy's main force was there.

Therefore, only more than 150 Japanese soldiers, plus artillery units in the rear, were left besieging Yang Ruifu.

The previous two attacks both ended in failure, but Yang Ruifu's side also suffered heavy losses of soldiers under Japanese artillery fire and attacks.

Of the more than forty men, only thirty-five are still capable of fighting; the rest are mostly lightly wounded or even seriously wounded.

Another round of shelling came, and the building where Yang Ruifu was located was hit by a 105mm grenade.

This was fired from a Japanese 105mm howitzer, which was a division-level artillery piece.

In order to deal with this breakout force of only a few hundred people, the furious Yoshizumi Ryosuke has begun to mobilize division-level heavy artillery.

Yang Ruifu, who had been thrown over by the blast wave, got up amidst the smoke, dust, and ruins.

Suddenly, he found his vision becoming extremely blurry, and he could not see anything in the darkness.

"My glasses! Where are my glasses?!"

Yang Ruifu panicked.

He is severely nearsighted; without glasses, he is practically blind even in the daytime, let alone in the dark.

But no soldiers could respond to him. The few soldiers guarding the building had either been buried by the collapsing structure or killed by artillery shells in the explosion.

Yang Ruifu felt utterly helpless and frantically knelt on the ground, searching for his glasses.

Footsteps approached, growing closer and more frequent.

They're Japanese devils!

The attack following artillery bombardment.

Yang Ruifu knew that, being unable to see, he had almost lost his fighting ability.

He fumbled for the Mauser C96 pistol at his waist, preparing to die for his country.

But at that moment, a familiar voice suddenly rang out.

"Old Yang, it's me, Jiang He."

Upon hearing that voice, Yang Ruifu's heart skipped a beat, his eyes welled up, and he almost cried.

"Battalion Commander Li, you...you're back?"

Yang Ruifu stretched out his hand, searching for Li Jianghe's palm as if he were blind.

At that moment, a broken pair of glasses was shoved into his hand; it was the one Li Jianghe had picked up from the ground when he rushed over.

I put on the glasses, thankfully the lenses were intact.

"What's the situation now?"

Li Jianghe asked Yang Ruifu.

Yang Ruifu pointed to the Japanese troops opposite and said:

"At least two Japanese squads have cornered us here, and the Japanese have used division-level heavy artillery to bombard us. We can't escape even if we want to, so we might as well stay and fight them to the death."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Li Jianghe again.

"Wait a minute, why are you back? Aren't you just here to die?"

Li Jianghe grinned, offering no explanation, but instead looked towards the area where the Japanese soldiers were located and said:

"Let's take them out, then break through."

"Kill them? How many men did you bring back? Two reinforced Japanese squads, more than a hundred men."

"I can muster at most thirty combat-ready men right now."

Yang Ruifu thought Li Jianghe was starting to talk in his sleep.

"Just wait and see."

Li Jianghe smiled mysteriously and looked ahead.

After the shelling ended, the Japanese squad began to charge into the area.

Just as these Japanese soldiers entered the alley, a burst of gunfire suddenly erupted from the almost completely leveled street.

PPSh submachine guns and MP40 submachine guns roared and howled in the night, their bullets piercing the bodies of Japanese soldiers.

At the same time, there were MG34 machine guns firing at the Japanese soldiers. The dense gunfire was like a spinning chainsaw, and the bullets that hit the Japanese soldiers tore their bodies apart.

The attacking Japanese troops realized something was wrong; why had the enemy's firepower suddenly increased to such an extent?

They hurriedly retreated, and as they saw the Japanese army retreating, Wang Dayong's Northeastern accent echoed once again through the streets of Shanghai.

"Charge! Kill these bastards!"

The Japanese squads were caught off guard and retreated at an even faster pace, not expecting the enemy to dare to pursue them.

But at that moment, they saw dense gunfire and explosions coming from the street where the squad's command post was located.

Six assault squads, divided into two teams, advanced diagonally from both flanks of the Japanese army, launching their attack simultaneously while the main force on the front was counterattacking.

In this way, the three forces formed a triangular encirclement, like a scythe being swung, slashing at the Japanese army.

Gunfire and explosions continued, and Li Jianghe and Yang Ruifu led the remaining soldiers to charge forward.

In less than ten minutes, the two Japanese squads had suffered more than half casualties, and the rest fled in panic, leaving behind many more corpses.

In this battle, they killed 63 Japanese soldiers, including a Japanese squad leader.

Li Jianghe dared not linger here and led his troops to break through to the north, marching rapidly towards Caojia Lane in Luodian.

He knew very well that the darkness was their best cover, and once the sun came out, if they had not yet found a place to hide, they would likely be discovered and wiped out by the Japanese army.

On the south bank of the Suzhou Creek, Commander He, Commander Chen, and others were using binoculars to observe the area where fierce fighting was taking place in the darkness.

"Didn't Xie Jinyuan and the others lay down their weapons? What's the situation with the battle on the north bank?"

"Commander Chen asked."

"It was Li Jianghe. He didn't stay behind with Xie Jinyuan. Instead, he led his troops to break through the encirclement, and they actually managed to fight their way out."

As Commander He spoke, he looked at Commander Chen beside him and said:

"The Chairman's idea is to see if we can save them, even if it means firing half a round of artillery shells."

He knew very well that while the request didn't sound too unreasonable, it was actually very difficult to fulfill.

The Nationalist army's ammunition was almost exhausted, and even this half-full load of shells was extremely precious. How could they possibly fire on a mere few hundred people?