Republic of China: German-equipped divisions massacred as warlords guarded the nation's borders

Shanghai, Longhua Garrison Command Headquarters. Basement Conference Room 1.

Felix stood at one end of the long table, followed by a group of German men who had just disembarked and still smelled of the sea.

One hundred and fifty.

It's three times more than the first batch.

These people were around forty years old on average, each with broad shoulders and a burly build, deep-set eyes, and a cold, hard gaze like that of a ghost who had just crawled out of a grave.

The leader was a blond, blue-eyed German man with an old scar on his chin that stretched from his left ear to his Adam's apple, as if someone had slashed him with a knife.

Hans Brandt.

Gunnery officer of the German Royal Navy submarine U-32 during World War I, a survivor of the Battle of Jutland. After the war, he was dismissed due to the Weimar government's disarmament order and spent six years carrying sacks at the Hamburg docks, nearly starving to death in the slums.

At this moment, he was looking Chen Zijun up and down with his icy blue eyes.

"Felix." Hans's voice was like sandpaper scraping against a metal plate. "Is this the Chinese man?"

Felix coughed. "Hans, watch your words. This is...?"

"I know who he is," Hans interrupted him, arms crossed, a hint of undisguised contempt on his lips. "An Eastern warlord. A financier who pays us to fight this war."

He glanced around the underground conference room.

"But I need to make one thing clear first."

Hans took a step forward and looked down at Chen Zijun, who was sitting in a chair.

"My brothers and I are men who have wrecked the depths of the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. We have piloted the Empire's most elite war machines and hunted down the ironclad cruisers of the British Royal Navy."

"You Chinese don't even have a single decent submarine, so why should we be loyal to you?"

The atmosphere in the meeting room froze instantly.

Felix's face turned ashen.

Shen Li, standing behind Chen Zijun, had already placed his hand on the holster at his waist.

But Chen Zijun laughed.

He slowly stood up, picked up the military cap from the table, put it on, and walked over to Hans.

Their eyes met in mid-air.

"Captain Brandt." Chen Zijun's voice wasn't loud, but every word carried a chilling pressure. "You're right. Empty words certainly don't carry any weight."

He turned and walked towards the door.

"Come with me."

……

Three military trucks sped through the night, passing through three sentry posts surrounding the headquarters, heading straight for a heavily fortified area downstream of the Huangpu River.

This is the secret military port in Longhua.

The entire port area was completely enclosed by barbed wire and concrete walls, with a bunker equipped with searchlights and heavy machine guns every fifty meters. Anti-aircraft camouflage netting was even erected overhead, completely obscuring everything within the port area.

The truck came to a stop.

Hans jumped out of the car and looked around.

He smelled the salty smell of seawater, along with the unique odor of diesel, steel, and welding slag mixed together.

He was all too familiar with that smell.

This smells like a military port!

"Go ahead," Chen Zijun's voice came from ahead.

The group passed through two steel gates and entered a long underground passage.

At the end of the passage was a huge watertight door.

Chen Zijun turned around and glanced at Hans.

"Captain Brandt, you just said that the Chinese don't even have a single decent submarine?"

Hans snorted coldly and didn't reply.

"Then let me show you what real skill looks like."

Chen Zijun pulled down the red control lever by the door.

The watertight door slowly opened.

Blinding white light poured out from the crack in the door, instantly illuminating the entire passageway.

Hans squinted and peered inside.

Then his pupils suddenly contracted to the size of a pinhead.

A huge semi-underground dock appeared before us.

In the dock, three jet-black submarines were neatly moored in their berths.

It's not an old model like the U-93 from the end of World War I.

But...

"Typ VII..." Hans's voice was forced out of his throat, as if someone were choking him. "This is... Type VII?!"

His legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

Type VII U-boat!

What does this mean?

While the U-93 is a classic, it is, after all, an old product from World War I. These three ships, however, are at least a generation ahead of the U-93 in every aspect of their design!

The streamlined hull, larger caliber torpedo tubes, newly designed conning tower, and welding techniques that far surpass current technological levels are evident even in the hull...

Hans walked to the edge of the berth, squatted down, and touched the hull of the nearest submarine.

Cold steel. No rust. No patches.

Brand new.

It looked like it had just been pushed off the slipway at the Kiel shipyard!

No, it's newer and better than the ones at Kiel Shipyard!

"This is impossible!" Hans jumped to his feet, turned around and glared at Chen Zijun, his voice completely out of control. "The Type VII is still just a blueprint! No country in the world has ever built a real one! How could you..."

He suddenly stopped talking halfway through his sentence.

Because he saw something else.

On the other side of the dock, a row of Germans in dark blue training uniforms were standing there.

Their shoulders were ramrod straight, their gazes were icy, and the Iron Cross, representing supreme honor, was pinned to their chests.

The leader was an old man with short, gray hair and a yellowed medal pinned to his left breast pocket.

Heinrich.

Hans knew him.

No, everyone in the entire German submariner community knows him.

The ghost captain of U-47. A record of sinking 100,000 tons. The Grim Reaper of the North Sea.

"Heinrich?!" Hans's eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"

Heinrich stepped forward and shook hands firmly with Hans.

"Old brother." A rare smile appeared on Heinrich's lips. "Welcome to the East."

"You...you're already here?" Hans's voice was still trembling.

"It's been more than three months." Heinrich patted the hull of the Type VII submarine behind him, his voice carrying something Hans had never heard from him before.

pride.

"Hans, let me tell you something from the bottom of my heart." Heinrich's blue eyes looked directly at Hans. "In Germany, we are discarded trash. The Emperor has run away, the Republic doesn't want us, and they can't even pay our discharge wages."

"But here, someone gave us a second chance to take up arms."

He pointed at Chen Zijun.

"Moreover, the weapons he gave us were even better than those from the Empire at its peak."

Hans opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything for a moment.

He turned back to the three Type VII submarines, his eyes already red.

Six years.

Six years of carrying sacks at the Hamburg docks.

Six years of being despised and scorned as a defeated nation.

For six years, he dreamed countless times of returning to the submarine's command center, listening to the ticking of the sonar, and waiting for the muffled explosion after the torpedo hit its target.

Every time I wake up, I see the damp, moldy ceiling of a Hamburg slum.

And now.

Thousands of miles away in the East, someone not only gave him a submarine, but also a submarine that was even more advanced than the one in his dream.

Hans took a deep breath, slowly turned around, and faced Chen Zijun.

Then he did something that no one expected.

He snapped his feet together, raised his right hand to his temple, and gave a perfect German Imperial Navy salute.

"Herr General!"

His voice was so loud it echoed throughout the entire dock.

"Hans Brandt, Gunnery Officer of U-32, reporting for duty!"

The 150 German veterans behind him snapped to attention with a snap.

One hundred and fifty military salutes.

neat and tidy.

It's like a wall made of steel.

Felix let out a long breath, only then realizing that his back was soaked with cold sweat.

Shen Li also released his hand from the holster.

Chen Zijun simply nodded, his gaze passing over the 150 German lone wolves and looking at the three pitch-black steel behemoths behind them.

Welcome to the team.

He paused, his voice suddenly turning cold.

"From today onwards, you have a new identity. You are no longer mercenaries or instructors, but full-fledged officers and soldiers of the Chen Family Army's First Special Submarine Squadron."

"Your commander is Heinrich."

"Your enemy is that arrogant group of Japanese in the East China Sea."

"And you only have one task."

A chilling killing intent flashed in Chen Zijun's eyes.

"May every warship flying the Japanese flag sink to the bottom of the sea forever!"

"Jawohl!!!"

One hundred and fifty throats simultaneously erupted in deafening roars.

At this moment, the top of the dock at the Longhua secret military port was trembling slightly.

The lone wolves of Germany have finally found a new home in the East.

They were once the last embers in the ruins forgotten by the world, and now, that fire will reignite in the abyss of the East China Sea.

Just as the entire dock was immersed in the fervent oath-taking ceremony, Shen Li hurriedly returned from outside, his face ashen.

"Young Marshal!"

He clutched a newly deciphered telegram in his hand, his voice filled with barely suppressed tension.

"Military Intelligence Bureau intercepted a top-secret radio message! The First Overseas Fleet of the Japanese Combined Fleet, led by flagship battleship Hyuga under the personal command of Yamaguchi Tamon, along with over twenty main warships including battleship Yamashiro, arrived in the waters off Wusongkou early this morning and is currently assembling its forces!"

"Simultaneously intercepted communications from troop transport ships indicate that at least two Imperial Guard divisions have begun assembling on the Japanese mainland!"

"Preliminary assessment... the Japanese intend to seize Shanghai this time!"

The entire dock fell silent instantly.

All the German veterans turned their gazes toward Chen Zijun.

Shen Li's lips were trembling slightly.

This is no longer the Third Fleet that only had a few destroyers and light cruisers.

Battleship Hyuga, Battleship Yamashiro!

That's a battleship weighing over 30,000 tons!

A mobile sea fortress equipped with eight 356mm main guns!

Yamaguchi Tamon was the most ferocious and bloodthirsty offensive commander in the Japanese Navy!

But there was no fear on Chen Zijun's face.

He even laughed.

That smile was cold, fanatical, and filled with a chilling excitement.

"OK."

Chen Zijun walked to the nautical chart, picked up a red pen, and drew a large circle at the location of the Wusongkou estuary.

"I was just worried about not having any prey."

He turned his head and looked at Heinrich and Hans.

"Captains, are your wolf packs ready?"

In Heinrich's blue eyes, the primal and frenzied fire of a hunter spotting his prey ignited.

"Ready to serve at any time."