Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

At this moment, only the remnants of his 35th Army, Yang Weiyuan's 213th Brigade, and the hastily formed militia remained in this thousand-year-old ancient city, with a total strength of less than 10,000 people.

Outside the city was the elite Japanese 5th Division led by Seishirō Itagaki.

At dawn on the 5th, the roar of Japanese heavy artillery tore through the tranquility of dawn.

Thick smoke rose from the direction of the arsenal outside the north gate. Under the cover of tanks, the Japanese Fifth Division launched the first wave of attack on the Taiyuan city wall.

The northeast corner of the city wall was instantly engulfed in flames.

The Japanese army concentrated 12 mountain cannons to fire at this section of the city wall built in the Ming Dynasty.

Bricks and stones flew, smoke filled the air, and the defending soldiers were shocked to the point of bleeding from their ears and noses.

Dong Qiwu, commander of the 218th Brigade, went to the front line in person, set up a machine gun behind the battlements of the city wall, and fired fiercely at the charging Japanese troops.

"Aim at the tank tracks!" Dong Qiwu's roar was intermittent amid the explosions.

The soldiers tied five grenades into a bundle and threw them from the top of the city wall when the tanks approached.

With a loud bang, the track of the leading Japanese tank broke, and it collapsed on the spot, emitting black smoke.

But more tanks continued to advance, and Japanese infantry poured in like a tide.

Private First Class Wang Dashan was a veteran who survived the Battle of Xinkou. He operated a Jin-made machine gun and fired bursts at the crawling Japanese troops.

"Save bullets! Wait until the Japs get closer before shooting!" He shouted to the 17-year-old recruit Li Xiaogou beside him.

Li Xiaogou's face was pale and his hands were shaking so much that he could hardly pull the bolt.

At around 8 a.m., a section of the city wall collapsed due to continuous blasting by Japanese engineers, leaving a five-meter-wide gap.

The Japanese troops swarmed in, cheering "Aboard!"

"Follow me!" Liu Jingxin, commander of the 421st Regiment, led the reserve troops to rush towards the gap.

A bloody hand-to-hand combat with bayonets broke out in the narrow gap.

The soldiers wrestled with the Japanese army, the dull sound of bayonets piercing bodies, the wails of the dying, and the angry roars intertwined into one.

Liu Jingxin, holding a big knife, chopped down three Japanese soldiers in succession. His left arm was also cut by the bayonet, and blood soaked through his military uniform.

At this moment, a grenade exploded at the gap, and seven or eight soldiers fell down at the same time.

"Block the gap! Don't let a single Japanese soldier in!" Fu Zuoyi's voice suddenly sounded behind him.

The commander-in-chief personally came with his guards to provide reinforcements.

The soldiers' morale was greatly boosted when they saw the commander-in-chief in person at the front line. After half an hour of fierce fighting, they finally wiped out the invading Japanese troops and temporarily blocked the gap.

The battle on the city wall continued until noon.

The Japanese army changed its tactics. While focusing on attacking the city walls, it also sent an engineering team to sneak under the city to carry out blasting.

The defenders used machine gun fire to prevent the demolition team from approaching.

Many soldiers picked up bricks and stones and threw them down, and some even jumped off the city wall and died together with the enemy.

On the 6th, the Japanese army deployed more troops and extended the battle line into the city.

Street fighting broke out in every street and between every house.

The defenders took advantage of their familiarity with the terrain and fought house by house with the Japanese army.

The hand-to-hand combat on Dabeimen Street was particularly brutal.

A squad of Japanese troops broke into the street corner and were surrounded by the defenders.

Soldiers fired at the Japanese from the windows and rooftops of shops facing the street, and grenades exploded in the narrow streets.

Er Gouzi, a grocery store clerk who was originally an ordinary young man in the city, also picked up the rifle of the fallen soldier and shot at the Japanese army from the attic window of his house.

"You damn Japs, I'm going to fight you to the death!" Er Gouzi roared while shooting.

His father was killed in the Japanese bombing, and at this moment, there was only the flame of revenge in his heart.

A grenade exploded in the attic, and Ergouzi died heroically at the age of nineteen.

The Drum Tower became the focus of contention between the two sides.

This Ming Dynasty building is strategically located at the crossroads in the city center.

The Japanese army deployed a squadron of troops and attacked the Drum Tower under the cover of tanks.

More than half of the soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the 421st Regiment guarding here suffered casualties. The battalion commander, Wang Deming, was shot in the abdomen and his intestines were flowing out. He pressed the wound with his hand and continued to command the battle.

"Brothers, today is the day for us to serve our country with loyalty!" Wang Deming leaned against the stone railing of the Drum Tower and threw a grenade with his last bit of strength.

The soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese troops who were charging at them, and the sounds of bayonets clashing, shouts, and screams filled the air.

Private First Class Liu Tiezhu was stabbed seven times, but he detonated his last grenade and rushed into the enemy group.

In Liuxiang Commercial Street, the Japanese army suffered a blow from tunnel warfare.

The defenders used the crisscrossing tunnel system under Taiyuan City to attack the Japanese army's flanks and rear in a mysterious manner.

After the Japanese army occupied ground buildings, they were often attacked from tunnels at night.

Many Japanese soldiers had their throats cut while they were sleeping, and they never understood where the enemy came from until their death.

However, the Japanese army quickly responded with brutal measures, dropping poison gas bombs into the tunnels or directly blowing up the tunnel exits.

Hundreds of defending soldiers and civilians suffocated to death in the tunnels.

However, the existence of the tunnel still greatly slowed down the Japanese army's advance.

In Taiyuan City, the Catholic Church became a temporary rescue center.

Sister Mary from France led the female students of the church school to care for the wounded day and night.

The medicine soon ran out, and they could only simply clean the wound with salt water and bandage it with bandages made from torn sheets.

The groans of seriously wounded soldiers were endless, but every time a new wounded was brought in, they would endure the pain and make room for their comrades.

"God bless you." Sister Mary wiped the cheek of a soldier whose eyes were blinded by the explosion.

The soldier, no more than eighteen or nineteen, murmured, "Sister, I can't see... but I can still shoot. Give me a grenade."

. . . . . . .

On the seventh day, the war situation deteriorated rapidly.

The Japanese army dispatched 150mm heavy artillery and bombers to carry out indiscriminate bombardment of the city.

Incendiary bombs were dropped into residential areas, and the entire southeastern part of the city was engulfed in flames.

The thousand-year-old Chongshan Temple was engulfed in flames. The monks vowed to fight to the death and knelt and chanted scriptures under the leadership of the abbot until they were engulfed by the flames.

A tower at the Twin Pagodas Temple was hit by a shell, causing half of it to collapse, crushing nearby houses. Thick smoke obscured the sky, and the city of Taiyuan resembled a living hell.

In the sea of ​​fire, the workers' self-defense forces launched an epic battle.

Workers at the Northwest Steel Plant used factory machine tools to make grenade casings and used fertilizer to make gunpowder.

Master Li, an old worker, led young workers to lay mines and traps in the factory.

When a small group of Japanese troops broke into the factory, the workers fought the enemy with steel drills and hammers.

"Defend the factory! We can't let the devils succeed!" Master Li smashed the head of a Japanese soldier with a hammer.

The workers fought fiercely with the Japanese army and preserved the key equipment.

In the end, most of the workers died heroically, their bodies intertwined with those of the Japanese soldiers, maintaining fighting postures.

The plight of civilians was particularly tragic.

Many people were trapped in the sea of ​​fire and forced to commit suicide by jumping into wells.

More than one hundred bodies were later recovered from a well in the south of the city, most of them women and children.

Japanese tanks ran over the fleeing crowds, and the streets were covered in blood and flesh, a horrific sight.