Devil's Army

The fierce fighting continued until after 8 p.m. The Japanese troops in Zhunian Village were unable to defend themselves effectively, and their defenses were breached in several places.

However, the Japanese army did not retreat because if the Zhunian Village defense line was abandoned, the devil troops would directly endanger Xinpu Town, and then endanger the safety of their command post in Haizhou City.

The Japanese troops stubbornly resisted by hiding in collapsed bunkers, houses, ditches, and pillboxes.

The battle continued until dawn. Lacking reinforcements, the Japanese troops in Zhunian Village finally ran out of ammunition and food and were completely annihilated.

The remaining puppet troops also surrendered.

The main force of the 15th Brigade's 1st Regiment quickly passed through Zhunian Village and surrounded Xinpu Town, launching an attack on it.

The 2nd and 3rd Regiments of the 15th Brigade, respectively, advanced along the Longhai Railway and the Yanhe Highway to the southeast of Xinpu Town (near present-day Yuzhou Park) and launched a fierce attack on Xinpu Town.

The battle raged until dusk, when the setting sun dyed the reeds along the East River in Xinpu Town a blood-red hue.

The wind, carrying the smell of gunpowder, swept past the low mud-brick wall at the entrance of the town. Behind the wall, soldiers of the 144th Independent Infantry Battalion of the 60th Division of the Japanese Army were huddled in sandbag fortifications, staring intently at the two dusty dirt roads to the southeast and due south.

"Rat-a-tat-tat—" Three Type 92 heavy machine guns roared from the high ground of Guandi Temple in the south of the town. The scorching bullets plowed through the wheat field, tearing bloody gashes into the skirmish line of the vanguard of the 1st Regiment of the 15th Brigade.

Meanwhile, assault team members from the 3rd Detachment of the Zhejiang East Guerrilla Column, who were nearby, also rushed over to join the battle.

Crouching low, they charged forward alongside a group of soldiers, using the ridges and mounds of earth for cover. Their Type 24 rifles spat fire intermittently, bullets striking the sandbags and sending sparks flying.

The offensive from the southeast was even fiercer. A dozen or so demolition experts from the 2nd Regiment of the 15th Brigade, carrying explosives, rushed towards the Japanese barbed wire fortress under the cover of light machine guns.

The Japanese grenade launchers went off, and grenades whistled as they crashed into the crowd, sending dirt and shrapnel flying everywhere. Two demolition experts fell to the ground.

The remaining soldiers gritted their teeth and threw the explosive charges at the barbed wire. With a deafening roar, a column of dark brown smoke rose into the air, tearing open a gap more than ten feet wide.

"Charge!" The company commander leading the team roared, brandishing his pistol. The soldiers shouted and charged through the gap, only to be met head-on by a line of Japanese bayonets.

The gleaming bayonets flashed coldly in the twilight, and the two sides instantly clashed. Shouts of battle, the muffled thuds of bayonets piercing flesh, and the groans of the dying mingled together, exploding in the open space in the southeast of the town.

The pressure on the southeastern defense line of the town increased sharply. Under the cover of the reeds, the soldiers of the Third Regiment quietly outflanked the Guandi Temple.

A sniper lay in ambush in the reeds. Through his scope, he saw the head of a Japanese machine gunner just poke out of the bunker when a shot rang out, and the man fell straight down.

The moment the heavy machine guns went silent, the soldiers of the Third Regiment surged onto the mud-brick wall like a tidal wave, and grenades rained down on the fortifications like hailstones. Amid the explosions, the screams of the Japanese soldiers rose and fell.

Battalion Commander Ando Shiro was so anxious in the command post that he was stamping his feet. He only had one small squad left in his reserve force, and he had to both plug the gap in the southeast and guard the Guandi Temple in the south. He simply couldn't be in two places at once.

He grabbed his military knife, about to roar and lead his men in a charge, when he heard a series of hurried footsteps behind him—from the direction of Zhenxi, another burst of gunfire could be faintly heard. It was the feint attack force of the Zhejiang East Guerrilla Force, who had entangled the guards he had left behind in Zhenxi.

As night slowly fell, gunfire continued to erupt in the southeast and due south directions of Xinpu Town.

The blood-red setting sun completely disappeared below the horizon, leaving only the flashes of gunfire flickering in the night.