Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

"Get into position! Quickly!" Xie Chengrui's voice was particularly jarring in the suddenly silent air.

The defending soldiers rushed out of their bunkers and quickly took up firing positions.

Li Desheng led his platoon to their designated position, only to find it had been bombed to the ground. They could only rely on the craters and rubble to organize their defense.

Through the gradually dissipating smoke, a terrifying scene appeared: at least twelve Japanese tanks were crossing the moat, followed by a dense array of infantry, estimated to be two battalions in number.

"Wait for my order before firing!" Xie Chengrui shouted as he ran along the position. "Let the Japanese get within fifty meters! Demolition team, prepare!"

Li Desheng held his breath, watching the Japanese troops surge in like a tide.

The sounds of tank tracks and Japanese soldiers' howls mingled together, creating an eerie symphony of war.

Three hundred meters, two hundred meters, one hundred meters... The Japanese troops were moving faster and faster; they had broken through to within eighty meters of the breach in the city wall.

"Attack!" Xie Chengrui gave the order.

6:35 a.m.

The breach in the city wall instantly turned into a death zone.

The defenders opened fire with all their firepower at once, heavy machine guns spewing flames and grenades raining down.

The Japanese soldiers at the forefront fell like wheat being harvested, but the troops behind them did not retreat and continued to charge over the corpses of their comrades.

Li Desheng aimed at a Japanese officer wielding a sword and pulled the trigger.

The officer fell to the ground, but more Japanese soldiers immediately surged forward. Wang Amao fired wildly until the barrel overheated and jammed.

"Change guns!" Li Desheng tossed him a captured Type 38 rifle, while he himself picked up a grenade and threw it toward the tank.

The first group of Japanese soldiers who rushed through the breach met an even more terrible fate. The defenders used tung oil to ignite the pre-set fire trenches, turning dozens of Japanese soldiers into human torches, their screams sending chills down one's spine.

However, the Japanese forces were too numerous, and the tanks began to use their direct-fire guns to suppress the defenders' firing positions.

One Type 95 tank even forced its way up the slope of the breach, but was quickly destroyed by cluster grenades, buying valuable time for the subsequent infantry.

"Commander! The left flank has been breached!" the messenger reported, his face covered in blood.

Xie Chengrui grabbed a rifle with a fixed bayonet: "Reserves, follow me!"

7:15 a.m.

The battle has entered its most brutal phase.

The breach was piled high with corpses, and soldiers from both sides were fighting fiercely amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The sounds of clashing bayonets, roars, and screams filled the air.

At 8:00 AM, the Japanese launched their second attack.

Yoshizumi Ryosuke was furious in the observation post.

The first attack failed, resulting in over four hundred casualties.

He ordered the artillery to conduct a second round of bombardment, while simultaneously dispatching engineering troops to prepare to blow up the city walls.

Even more fatally, the Japanese army changed its main attack direction. While launching a frontal assault, an elite commando team used smoke screens as cover to quietly move to the section of the city wall that had been bombed and collapsed on the west side of Guanghua Gate.

The garrison here is weak, consisting of only half a platoon.

At 8:20 a.m., the Japanese army suddenly launched an attack from this unexpected direction.

With the flank of the defending army under threat, Xie Chengrui had to send reinforcements, which made the frontal defense line even more strained.

Li Desheng's squad was transferred to the western flank. When they arrived, the Japanese had already broken through the outer defensive line and were engaged in grenade fighting with the defenders.

9 am.

By 9 a.m., the defenders of Guanghua Gate had suffered more than half casualties and were running out of ammunition.

Hsieh Cheng-jui himself was also injured in multiple places. His left arm was cut open by shrapnel, but he continued to command after a simple bandage.

To make matters worse, communication lines were severed by artillery fire, making it impossible to contact headquarters.

The reinforcements were blocked by Japanese artillery fire on the street leading to Guanghua Gate.

Xie Chengrui counted the number of men and found that there were fewer than two hundred soldiers who could fight, and the Japanese army launched its third wave of attack.

This time, the Japanese army even used special incendiary bombs, and the entire breach in the city wall was engulfed in flames.

"Commander, let's retreat! If we don't retreat now, we're all doomed!" a battalion commander pleaded.

Xie Chengrui looked at the streets and alleys of Nanjing behind him and shook his head: "We can't retreat. Every hour we hold off the Japanese gives the people in the city an extra hour to evacuate."

10 am.

Just when the guards at Guanghua Gate were on the verge of despair, an unexpected turning point occurred.

A Guangdong army unit broke through the Japanese artillery barrage and launched a counterattack from the flank.

Although there were only a little over two hundred of them, their sudden appearance disrupted the Japanese army's offensive rhythm.

Meanwhile, the city's militia braved artillery fire to deliver ammunition and food to the defending troops, and even ordinary citizens spontaneously joined the fight, using rudimentary weapons to attack the Japanese army.

Most encouragingly, troops were transferred from other positions of the Training Corps and finally broke through the Japanese army's blockade to reinforce Guanghua Gate.

Xie Chengrui seized this opportunity to reorganize the defense.

He deployed the newly arrived reinforcements to the second line of defense, forming a deep defense, evacuating the wounded, and replenishing ammunition and supplies.

The Japanese army's third wave of attack began at this very moment.

The Japanese troops, who had been fighting for several hours, were surprised to find that the defenders' firepower had not weakened but had become even more intense.

Yoshizumi Ryosuke was forced to order a halt to the offensive and a redeployment of his forces.

Noon.

At noon, the flag of the Republic of China was still flying over the Guanghua Gate position.

. . . . . . . . . .

At Zhonghua Gate, this once magnificent structure that symbolized the power of the Ming Dynasty is now riddled with holes. The walls are covered with craters from cannonballs, and the battlements are broken and dilapidated, like the jagged teeth of a giant beast.

The remnants of the 264th Brigade of the 88th Division held their ground on these ruins.

They were exhausted, their uniforms tattered, their faces blackened by gunpowder smoke, but their eyes still burned with an indomitable flame.

After several days of bloody fighting, troop strength was drastically reduced and ammunition was running out. Everyone knew that the final moment was approaching.

Brigade Commander Liao Lingqi, a once tough and capable man from Hunan, now had sunken eyes and a hoarse voice, but his back was still straight as he patrolled back and forth on the city wall, encouraging the few remaining brothers with the roughest words.

Suddenly, an unusual commotion arose on the Japanese position, followed by the crack of whips and muffled cries.

With the help of the faint daylight and the occasional flares, the defenders witnessed a chilling scene.

Groups of ragged, emaciated people were being driven forward by Japanese soldiers with bayonets, staggering along.

They were laborers forcibly conscripted by the Japanese army, but at this moment they became the first flesh and blood shield in the attack on Zhonghua Gate.

The Japanese 6th Division's 47th Regiment began its "corpse-stacking tactic," using innocent casualties to deplete the defenders' ammunition and morale, while the main force followed closely behind, waiting for an opportunity to break through.

"Damn Japanese devils! Beasts!" A young soldier gritted his teeth, his finger tightly gripping the trigger, but unable to bring himself to fire.

The defenders on the city wall were caught in a great dilemma: if they fired, the bullets would first pierce their fellow countrymen who had also suffered greatly.

Without firing a shot, the Japanese troops could easily approach the city walls and moat using these human shields.

The atmosphere of tension and indignation was almost suffocating.