Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

January 19, 1938, dawn.

The smoke of battle in Nanjing, after settling overnight, did not dissipate. Instead, it mixed with the thick fog of the morning, forming a suffocating yellow-gray haze that shrouded the shattered capital.

Visibility was extremely low; only the occasional flares breaking through the fog and the flashes of explosions could briefly illuminate the chaotic scene on the streets.

Xinjiekou, once the commercial center of Nanjing, is now a ruin.

The charred ruins, twisted steel bars, scattered rubble, and corpses everywhere—including the remains of Chinese soldiers left over from the Battle of Nanjing that hadn't yet been cleared away, now joined by the bodies of Japanese soldiers—form the dominant theme here.

In this desolate ruin, the aura of death suddenly intensified once again.

An elite assault team from the 101st Division, which belonged to the "rebel" forces, quietly infiltrated the core area of ​​Xinjiekou under the cover of darkness and thick fog before dawn, under the strict order of Division Commander Masayoshi Ito to "open a breakthrough at all costs".

Their objective was to seize the General Post Office building, which served as a strategic high ground, and use it as a fulcrum to radiate outwards and disrupt the defensive system of the Central China Expeditionary Army within the city.

The assault team was personally commanded by Major Shoichi Yoshida, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 101st Regiment. Most of the members were volunteers from Tokyo, well-trained and well-equipped.

Machine gunner Private First Class Nakamura Jiro, leading his machine gun squad and carrying a heavy Type 92 heavy machine gun, followed the infantry squad, carefully treading across the ground covered with broken bricks and glass shards, as they approached the post office building.

The building's once magnificent Roman columns and arches have been largely destroyed by artillery fire, leaving the walls riddled with holes, resembling a dying giant.

However, the General Post Office building was guarded by a reinforced company of the 13th Division of the Central China Expeditionary Army.

The 13th Division was known for its tenacity and suffered heavy casualties in the previous Battle of Nanjing. The surviving officers and soldiers were filled with resentment, and now, facing the "rebels" who had "stabbed them in the back," they were even more hostile and filled with hatred.

They utilized the building's robust reinforced concrete structure to set up firing points on every floor, in every window, and at every stairwell corner.

The battle suddenly broke out at almost face-to-face distance!

"Enemy attack! Second floor window! Machine gun!" A scout from the 101st Division had barely uttered the shout when he was riddled with bullets from a Type 11 light machine gun fired from the second floor of the post office.

"Cover! Assault team, move up!" Major Yoshida shouted hoarsely from behind a section of broken wall.

Jiro Nakamura quickly set up the Type 92 heavy machine gun behind a pile of sandbags and began suppressive fire at the second-floor window that was spitting fire.

"Rat-a-tat-tat... Rat-a-tat-tat..." The heavy machine gun roared continuously, and spent cartridges poured down like a waterfall, quickly piling up in a small heap at his feet.

The scorching gun barrel emitted puffs of white vapor, which, upon contact with the cold air, formed an eerie mist.

The 13th Division garrison inside the building immediately retaliated.

Not only machine guns, but also small grenades fired from grenade launchers began to explode around the commando team, scattering shrapnel everywhere.

The weapons, ammunition, and even tactics used by both sides were exactly the same.

An attacking three-man squad attempted to approach the building entrance using a standard "cover, advance" tactic, but the defenders immediately anticipated it and used precise firepower to take down all three men in their path.

The bodies fell in the same position as when they practiced on the training field, except that what flowed out now was real, scalding hot blood.

Jiro Nakamura saw a comrade who was trying to drag the wounded back being blown to pieces by a grenade that flew in from somewhere.

With bloodshot eyes, he relentlessly fired bullets at the building until the barrel overheated and jammed.

During the break while changing the gun barrel, he saw more of his comrades fall on the way of the charge, their blood staining every inch of Xinjiekou Square.

The battle quickly escalated into a brutal struggle, floor by floor, room by room. Soldiers of the 101st Division braved a hail of bullets, blasted open the post office doors, and rushed into the dimly lit first-floor lobby.

Inside the hall, soldiers from both sides clashed amidst collapsed counters, mailbags, and furniture wreckage.

The sounds of Type 38 rifles firing, the muffled thuds of bayonets piercing bodies, the cries of the dying, and the shouts and curses of soldiers from both sides speaking the same Japanese blended together to create a symphony of hell.

"Left corridor! Grenade!"

"Suppress the right-side staircase!"

"Medics! We need medics here!"

Familiar tactical commands rang out between the two sides, and often the other side could immediately counterattack as soon as one side gave the order.

The casualty rate is rising at an alarming rate.

Every step, every room fought for, comes at the cost of several, or even a dozen, lives.

Corpses piled up at the stairwell and in the corridor, blood flowing down the stairs and congealing into dark red, viscous stains.

Nakamura Jiro followed his troops as they struggled upwards, paying a heavy price for each level they captured, while the defending troops retreated to the next level and continued to put up a stubborn resistance.

This building, once a symbol of modern communication, has now become a massive, highly efficient death trap.

At the same time that the Xinjiekou Post Office building was transformed into a living hell, another group of people struggling on the brink of death were hidden in the crisscrossing streets and alleys around it, in the dilapidated shops, and even deeper underground: ordinary Chinese civilians who failed to evacuate Nanjing in time.

Across from the post office, a shop called "Yongan Department Store" had been looted and half of its building had collapsed.

In its dark, damp underground warehouse, which reeked of mold and urine, lived more than thirty nearby residents.

Among them were shivering elderly people, women tightly covering their children's mouths, and young adults with vacant eyes and pale faces.

Whenever a violent explosion or a burst of gunfire came from outside, the entire warehouse would tremble as if an earthquake had struck, and dust and debris would fall from the ceiling.

"Mommy... I'm scared..." a little girl, about five or six years old, said softly with a sob in her voice, but her mother immediately covered her mouth tightly.

"Shh! Don't make a sound! If the Japanese hear us, we're dead!" The mother's voice trembled, filled with extreme fear.

They had been hiding here for days, barely surviving on a bag of moldy rice and rainwater.

They thought the disaster would end after the city fell, but little did they know that an even more terrifying nightmare was just beginning.

The sounds of gunfire outside were no longer the sounds of resistance from the Chinese army, but rather the sounds of "Japanese devils fighting Japanese devils."

This did not bring any sense of security, but instead amplified the fear, because both sides in the conflict were invaders who regarded the lives of the Chinese people as worthless.

In a small alley closer to the post office, the entrance to a makeshift air-raid shelter was half-hidden by rubble.

The cave, which was dug privately by a few families, was now crowded with people.