Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

Just as the sky over Nanjing was shrouded in spy clouds and everyone in the Tianjin Military Police Headquarters was busy with their own trivial matters, the situation in Shanghai underwent a fundamental change.

The morning light pierced through the clouds in the east, but was diluted by the gray-blue sea fog that filled the mouth of the Yangtze River, and shone weakly on the turbid and rolling water surface.

The morning of August 1937, 8, fell in a suffocating dullness.

There was no wind, and the mighty eastward tide of the Huangpu River seemed stagnant. The air was filled with lingering smoke, rust, and a faint smell of blood, mixed with the salty smell of sea water.

It penetrated into every trench, every dilapidated fortification, and also seeped deep into the nostrils of the soldiers guarding behind the Chuanshakou beach. Before the war began, the dead silence had already covered the area like a shroud.

Through the high-magnification telescope, Group Army Commander-in-Chief Zhang Zhizhong gazed at the foggy river mouth.

The temporary Jiading Command Headquarters bunker beneath his feet was extremely hot and stuffy, with water droplets seeping from the walls dripping silently.

The passion and determination of five days ago have been replaced by heaviness. Five days, just five days!

The 87th, 88th and 36th Divisions, regarded as the Tiger Guards, those elite troops wearing sophisticated German equipment, suffered heavy losses in the Hongkou and Yangshupu areas due to the resistance of the Japanese army relying on the concession fortresses and the crazy resistance of the Japanese expatriates.

The repeated house-to-house fighting claimed the lives of thousands of loyal and brave men. The battlefield became a meat grinder and the offensive momentum was exhausted. Now that Japanese reinforcements are approaching, the troops have to go on the defensive and wait for more reinforcements to arrive in Shanghai!

"Report!" The adjutant's urgent voice pierced the stagnant air, handing over a telegram slightly damp with sweat: "The main force of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force commanded by Matsui Iwane has completed its assembly in the sea east of Jinshanwei.

The main reinforcement force, the 2nd Division and the 12th Division of the Japanese Kwantung Army, have entered the anchorage at the mouth of the Yangtze River under the escort of ships!

The Commander-in-Chief has ordered our troops to stop them at all costs, and reinforcements are on the way! "

Zhang Zhizhong suddenly clenched his knuckles, and the thin paper instantly became wrinkled and made a creaking sound under the weight.

The Kwantung Army! That was an elite wolf pack soaked in the black soil of Northeast China and the blood of their compatriots.

Once they land here, the flank of the entire Songhu battlefield will be penetrated, and all the troops still fighting bloody battles in Hongkou, Wusong and Zhabei will be trapped in a desperate situation of being attacked from both sides!

Zhang Zhizhong had only one thought in his mind at this moment... He had lost...

The superiors only told me to block the attack, but no other orders. This said it all: I have failed, and it is time to change people.

Do I blame myself? No... I just feel unwilling...

"Telegraph order!" Zhang Zhizhong's voice boomed in the stuffy bunker, hoarse but resolute. "Order the 56th Division Independent Brigade! Led by Zhou Zhenqiang personally, at all costs, to urgently reinforce troops at Chuanshakou and the Shizilin beachhead!

Stop the enemy on the mudflats!"

An order forged in blood and fire was issued. On a muddy road more than 60 kilometers away from Chuanshakou, a troop of several thousand people began a forced march with exhausted and numb steps. Their destination was the deadly mudflats of Chuanshakou.

. . . . . . . . .

At the same time that Zhang Zhizhong issued the military order in a stern voice, at the offshore anchorage at the mouth of the vast Yangtze River.

The giant steel object was silently tearing away the last of the sea fog, revealing its cruel true face.

The view suddenly broadens.

The gray sky was low and the sea breeze was weak. Only the sound of waves hitting the cold steel hull echoed on the empty lead-gray sea.

Dozens of transport ships as fierce as iron mountains, their dark hulls arranged in battle formation in the mist, looked like crouching sea beasts.

Surrounding them is an even more formidable steel barrier, the massive cruiser "Izumo". The two twin 203mm main turrets at the bow reflect a cold and hard luster in the thin morning light, with the muzzles pointing grimly towards the southwest coastline.

Several light cruisers and seven or eight smaller but more swift and ferocious destroyers, the "Snow Wind," the "Tianjin Wind," and the "Tokijin Wind," were patrolling at high speed around the transport fleet like a school of hungry sharks.

On the side of the huge transport ship, the clear names of the ships can be vaguely seen, "Asama Maru", "Tatsuta Maru", and "Chitose Maru". They are the giant boxes that carry hell.

The crowded deck was covered with dense yellow figures, soldiers from the 2nd and 12th Divisions of the Kwantung Army, known as the elite of the elite in the Japanese Army.

However, at this moment, almost half of the soldiers in the two divisions seemed extremely nervous. . . . They were all replacement soldiers who had been training at home. This was their first time on a real battlefield after being assigned to their respective divisions.

They were different from the veterans standing beside them. They spoke with ease and contempt for the Chinese army, but the tension in their expressions could not be hidden.

Most of the old soldiers were silent, holding their Type 38 rifles with bayonets on them, their faces looking a little blue against the lead-gray sky.

The long sea turbulence and the damp and cold morning mist could not erase the beast-like desire for conquest in their eyes, which had been nurtured by militarism for a long time.

Military boots pounded heavily on the metal deck, baggage horses neighed restlessly deep in the cabin, and the tracks of tanks and artillery vehicles rubbed against each other, making a harsh noise inside the cabin.

The entire huge fleet, like a heavy leaden cloud, carrying a soul-trembling pressure, slowly and unstoppably rolled towards the increasingly clear coastline of the Yangtze River estuary and the mudflats of Chuanshakou.

"Get on board!" A sharp whistle shattered the last tranquility of the sea. The Japanese squadron leaders drew their swords and roared fiercely.

The soldiers moved.

The heavy footsteps became more frequent and heavier, and the sound of metal clashing was endless.

The crane on the side of the ship creaked and began to slowly lower the landing craft into the sea.

These iron-hulled ships, painted iron-gray and shaped like giant lentils, are mainly medium-sized motor boats that can carry dozens of infantrymen and a small number of light vehicles. There are also some smaller, relatively low-hulled folding boats.

They were like pupae falling from the belly of a mother animal, crashing one after another onto the gray-green sea, stirring up turbid waves.

The fully armed soldiers fell into the boat quickly along the shaking rope net like dumplings.

The space inside the boat was small and damp. The soldiers were huddled together, their helmets almost touching their backs. The air was filled with the smell of sweat, vomit and the salty smell of sea water.

The engine roared to life, emitting thick black smoke that mixed with the sea breeze and blew onto the soldiers' tense faces.

Inside a medium-sized boat, a sergeant tightly grasped the cold iron sheet of the boat's side with both hands, greedily inhaling the cold but salty air, trying to suppress the discomfort in his stomach.

He looked past the crouching helmets of the soldiers in front of him and stared at the increasingly clear outline of the coastline, his eyes flashing with morbid excitement: "Gentlemen! His Majesty the Emperor is calling for a holy war! The Chinese cowards can only hide behind simple fortifications and shoot from behind!

We will prove that the soldiers of the empire are invincible!

After landing, kill all those Chinese pigs who are in the way!" A young soldier who had just joined the army sat next to me, holding his rifle tightly, his face pale and his lips trembling, not knowing whether it was from cold or fear.

A large group of landing craft quickly separated from the mother ship.

Like a school of steel piranhas that smelled blood, they were protected by the fierce gunfire of several destroyers.

With the first earth-shaking salvo roar from the main gun group of "Izumo" as the prologue, it broke through the heavy sea water and accelerated to sprint towards the beach through the gaps in the sky-high water columns raised by the ship's guns!

The roar of the engine, the sharp sound of the wind and the roar of the waves raged in the cabin.