Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

However, even in this hellish environment, the flames of resistance still burn tenaciously on every inch of scorched earth.

The fierce battle reached its climax at the breach in the city wall.

A section of the eastern city wall was blasted open by Japanese heavy artillery, leaving a gap several meters wide, which became a death zone repeatedly fought over by both sides.

The defenders built temporary fortifications here using sandbags, door and window panels and the remains of their fallen comrades.

Whenever the Japanese infantry launched a charge under the cover of tanks, the defenders fought back with grenades, machine guns and even swords.

A 19-year-old company commander, after being hit by several bullets, detonated the last grenade in his arms and died together with three Japanese soldiers who rushed through the gap.

Before the smoke had cleared, the old soldier from the kitchen squad rushed up carrying an ammunition box and shouted to the surviving soldiers, "Eat your fill and then fight!" He then set up a pot at the gap to cook. Stray bullets hit the iron pot from time to time, making a harsh sound.

The street fighting in the city was equally brutal.

When the Japanese army broke through the outer wall, the defenders retreated to the barricades and fought with the enemy house by house.

On Bell Tower Street, soldiers chiseled firing holes in the walls of houses, turning the entire street into a deadly trap.

A shopkeeper took the initiative to open his store and let the soldiers set up a machine gun from his attic window to control the intersection.

When the Japanese tanks approached, the defending soldiers tied grenades all over their bodies, jumped out of the second-floor window, and landed accurately next to the tank tracks.

Merchants in the market not only donated all their stored food, but also directly participated in the battle.

Wang Laowu, the owner of a butcher shop, picked up his ancestral meat-cleaving knife and chopped two Japanese soldiers in a street fight, eventually dying a heroic death.

The noodle shop workers made pancakes during the day and picked up the rifles of the fallen soldiers at night to replenish the dwindling city defense team.

The rescue team organized by the residents of the city dragged the wounded back from the front line under the artillery fire.

A woman was shot in the leg while rescuing someone, but she still crawled dozens of meters to drag the wounded to a safe place.

The defending command demonstrated outstanding adaptability.

Faced with the severe situation of emergency on all defense lines, the command center accurately deployed limited troops and mixed new recruits with veterans.

When a section of the defense is under pressure, there are always reserves to fill in in time.

Chief of Staff Chen Bingqian had not slept for three days and three nights. He stood in front of the map, issuing orders in a hoarse voice, his eyes bloodshot but he remained calm.

The performance of grassroots officers and soldiers is inspiring.

Li Yingfu, chief of staff of the 218th Brigade, held a machine gun and stood like an iron tower at the gap in the city wall, repelling three consecutive Japanese charges. He was wounded in many places but still insisted on fighting until his bullets ran out.

With the observation post destroyed, artillery regiment commander Liu Zhenheng personally operated a mountain cannon to fire directly, and the shells accurately hit the Japanese tanks. When he fired the third shell, the enemy bullet penetrated his chest. Before he fell, he was still trying to load the fourth shell.

What was particularly moving was the performance of the student volunteers.

Students from the Chemistry Department of Shanxi University used bottles and jars in the laboratory to make Molotov cocktails. They stood on the roof and dropped them accurately when Japanese tanks passed by.

Students from the Department of Literature formed a battlefield propaganda team, compiling battle reports amid the sound of gunfire and recording the names of every martyr.

The young students who could have evacuated safely chose to live and die with the city.

During the battle for the Drum Tower, student captain Zhang Mingde was hit by several bullets, but he still leaned on the railing and blew the charge horn. Before the horn ended, he was already dead.

On a cold November night, the defending strongholds were divided and surrounded by the Japanese army one by one.

At the Provincial Library, more than a hundred wounded soldiers used grenades to fight the Japanese army room by room.

When their ammunition ran out, they refused to be captured, so they set fire to their thousand-year-old collection of books and died collectively in the fire of civilization.

The firelight illuminated their young and determined faces, and the ashes of the pages fell like black snow over Taiyuan.

The breakout from the Fen River became another bloody battle.

The remaining defenders broke out from the west gate and fought fiercely with the Japanese interception troops on the banks of the Fen River.

The river water was icy cold, and the soldiers supported each other as they waded across the river. Japanese machine guns strafed the crossing troops, and the water surface turned blood red.

The communicator was carrying a radio on his back and was hit by a bullet in the middle of the river, but he still insisted on holding the radio on his head until it sank to the bottom of the water.

His hands remained in a lifting posture, as if holding up the unyielding dignity of this nation.

When the remaining troops who had broken through the encirclement and retreated arrived at Xishan, they looked back at Taiyuan and saw the whole city in flames, but sporadic gunshots indicated that the resistance was still continuing.

Some soldiers split up into small groups and continued guerrilla warfare in the ruins, making Taiyuan, which was occupied by the Japanese army, never peaceful.

Although this defense battle, which lasted four days and three nights, ended with the fall of the city, the courage and spirit of sacrifice shown by the defenders and citizens have become an indelible page in the history of the War of Resistance.

As one surviving officer wrote in his diary: "We withdraw from Taiyuan today, but the seeds of resistance have been sown across the mountains and rivers, and will one day blossom and bear fruit on every inch of land."

This thousand-year-old city is written with blood, not only with the tragedy of failure, but also with the most dazzling brilliance of humanity that a nation bursts out at the moment of its survival.

Every nameless sacrifice has contributed to the eternal spiritual legacy of this battle.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Putting his thoughts aside about the Battle of Shanxi, Zhou Zhengqing focused his attention on this boring internal meeting room.

Two hours later, the "two-faced" meeting at the North China Front Army Headquarters finally ended.

The officers left one by one, with the high spirits they showed when facing the reporters still on their faces, but only they themselves knew the hard-to-dispel solemnity deep in their eyes.

Zhou Zhengqing politely declined Terauchi Hisaichi's invitation to dinner. After a brief greeting with several familiar generals, he led Jingren to the car waiting at the gate of the headquarters compound.

The two of them got into the back seat of the car, one in front and one behind.

The driver was Yamatani Masaki. When he saw Zhou Zhengqing and Jingren get in the car, he became very alert, started the car smoothly, drove out of the heavily guarded headquarters compound, and merged into the slightly deserted streets of Peking at dusk.

Soon after the vehicle drove out, Prince Jingren relaxed his upright sitting posture, leaning lazily on the comfortable leather seat, raising his hand to loosen the windbreaker button. The reserved expression on his face that he maintained in formal occasions also faded a little, replaced by a real emotion mixed with ridicule and helplessness.

"Heh." He chuckled and shook his head: "General Terauchi has done a great job of preserving his appearance this time.

In front of those reporters, he described Shanxi as if it were a stroll in his own backyard.

He turned to look at Zhou Zhengqing with a sharp look in his eyes: "Takasaki-kun, look at the faces of those people in the small conference room just now, they looked like their father had died.

Twenty-six thousand died in battle and forty thousand were injured, and this is just a preliminary statistic!

Taking Taiyuan at such a price, I really don’t know whether it is a win or a loss.

Itagaki's "Road to Destroy the Song Dynasty" sounds incredibly ambitious, but in the end... Haha... It was such a disappointment, so embarrassing...

Jingren made no secret of the disdain in his tone.

Zhou Zhengqing did not respond immediately, but looked calmly at the street scene passing by quickly outside the window.

In early winter in Tianjin, the gray walls and black tiles exude an ancient silence, which is in sharp contrast to the hustle and bustle in the conference room just now.