The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 229 Defense Circle 1

With almost a thousand anti-aircraft artillery and mountain artillery howitzers and dozens of large and small anti-aircraft guns, mountain artillery and howitzers, He Wei led the main force of the secret service battalion and slowly rushed towards Xiaguan.

If the crowd of fleeing civilians and wounded soldiers he encountered when picking up these friendly troops only made He Wei feel crowded, then as the troops marched closer to the inner city, the situation on the streets also changed from crowded to watertight. , the situation in the inner city is even more chaotic than that in the outer city.

At several main streets leading to the Xiaguan River, local residents in the city and people from the suburbs and even outlying villages and towns came to rebel, almost completely blocking the intersections and streets.

Rich ladies in gorgeous cheongsams, poor farmers in thin clothes, peasant women and old men carrying babies in backpacks, male clerks in mandarin jackets and long gowns, vendors dragging all their belongings, wounded soldiers, stragglers, and students all mixed together. , yelling, crying, and howling, each one of them was rolled and pushed by the crowd like an ant.

Seriously, in troubled times, human life is as cheap as a dog. I would rather be a dog in a prosperous age than a human being in a troubled world.

Trapped in the swarming crowd, He Wei's two infantry companies and the special agent platoon of the special agent battalion, as well as the newly-received artillery unit with a small number of 2,000 people, were simply unable to move even an inch. The trucks pulling the artillery, the mules and horses pulling the artillery, and even The motorcycles belonging to the special agent battalion troops and the cars assigned to the special agent battalion pulling troops were completely blocked on the road.

Some civilians were even squeezed into the marching ranks of the troops. The gaps between the troops' trucks, the mountain artillery and howitzer carriages, and the ammunition auxiliary trucks were all crowded with civilians trying to avoid the flow of people. It was a chaotic situation.

The civilians rushing into the marching column even overturned an ammunition auxiliary truck of the howitzer company. More than twenty 38-type 150mm grenades scattered on the ground. The loud noise of the shell warhead hitting the ground knocked the howitzer over. The officer of the company was so frightened that his face was as pale as pig liver. A dozen soldiers used their rifle butts to smash and curse the civilians and drove them away before they could help the ammunition truck up and collect the shells.

This kind of traffic situation also caused a headache for He Wei. He couldn't organize and direct the traffic because it was completely blocked and no matter how he directed it, it was useless.

"Father, mother, what kind of world is this?"

"Give way, give way."

"Let me go first."

"Fuck you, give me your stuff, or I'll kill you."

"What the hell do you soldiers think? The common people rushed to the river, and the bastards followed suit. The Japanese were right behind them. It is only natural for the common people to run away to survive. What kind of skills do soldiers have to fight against the common people!"

The whole road was filled with cries of crying for father and mother. Some were begging for food, some were scolding, some were fighting to grab things, and some were crying and looking for relatives and children.

Of course, there were also many civilians who, under the rumbling sound of artillery and despair, cursed and criticized He Wei and his army's military vehicles and marching columns. In response, He Wei just pretended that he could not see it. Anyway, the battle ended like this It seems that soldiers deserve to be scolded by the common people.

The only good thing for He Wei was that General Xiao assigned a group of trucks to the secret service camp, and the troops all got on the trucks. Otherwise, if they were marching on foot, He Wei felt that the troops would be overwhelmed by the endless crowd. In such traffic conditions Under this situation, the troop's advance speed is naturally very slow.

At the same speed as a turtle crawling, He Wei and his troops spent several hours finally crawling to their destination.

Yijiangmen.

Yijiang Gate is located on the Ming City Wall in the Drum Tower District of Jinling City. It was built during the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor. There was no city gate here originally. However, during the Changmao Troubles in 1853, the Changmao troops who attacked Jinling City set up a gate on the city wall. An entrance of about twenty meters was exploded at the corner, thus capturing the then Jiangning Mansion and establishing the Kingdom of Heaven in Jinling City.

This explosion was the beginning of the existence of a doorway near Yijiangmen.

The city wall of Yijiangmen is close to the Yangtze River and is regarded as a transportation artery. Later, for the convenience of travel, the residents of the city dug an earthen door hole in the city wall. Then, it was gradually expanded into a city gate and renamed Yijiangmen. In 1929 In 2001, in order to welcome the coffin of former Prime Minister Dr. Sun Yat-sen to be buried in the Sun Yat-sen Cemetery in Jinling City, Yijiang Gate was changed from a single-hole arch to a three-hole arch.

When He Wei led his troops to see Yijiang Gate, they finally breathed a sigh of relief, because the traffic situation had finally improved. They saw that on the city wall near Yijiang Gate, a large number of sandbags had been used to pile up a rough structure leading directly to the city wall. Passage, and a large number of military police are also maintaining order nearby.

Inside the gate of Yijiang Gate, a mountain of neither high nor short is billowing with thick smoke. This mountain was originally called "Siwang Mountain". It was the place where Sun Quan, Emperor of the Eastern Wu Dynasty, and others climbed up to look around during the Three Kingdoms period, so it was called "Siwang Mountain". "The mountains that used to be covered with lush green vegetation have been completely burned down by the continuous bombings from Japanese planes. The charred trees and burning vegetation have risen into the sky with flames and thick black smoke. There are still piles of smoke scattered around the mountains. There were densely packed corpses.

The tragic condition of this mountain seems to be a microcosm of the pain endured by this city and this country.

But amid the blazing flames and billowing smoke, only the eight characters "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, faith, and peace" made of granite still stood proudly.

He Wei saw the crowded crowd arriving here, and was soon forcibly diverted by armed military police. There were also a large number of traffic policemen in black police uniforms holding wooden sticks and directing the crowds to march separately along the roads and side streets. .

The congestion on the main road improved instantly and became more orderly. The military police and traffic police were performing their duties to divert traffic. He Wei could tell at a glance that this was the handiwork of General Xiao. General Xiao also had police officers among his multiple part-time jobs. As the director of the department, all the police officers in the city are under his command.

Seeing the gradually orderly flow of people, He Wei also felt that it was a good move to cooperate with General Xiao.

The crowds separated under the command of the military police and police officers, led by the military police, entered various narrow street intersections and nearby empty buildings to rest and settle temporarily, while densely packed people were piling up along the large number of sandbags. Crowds of people climbed up the city wall along the simple passage formed by the passage. Every citizen who climbed up the city wall along the passage looked happy, as if they saw the hope of life. And those people who were temporarily resting in the streets, alleys, and buildings were Full of envy.

Needless to say, the passages made of sandbags were also the work of He Wei. He looked at those passages and the city gate of Yijiang Gate with mixed feelings in his heart.

Now, almost all the people are using the sandbag passage he made to climb directly to the city wall, and then leave the city in the same way. However, the Yijiangmen gate, which is supposed to function as a normal passage, has been blocked by the military police. , the blockade lines and blockade poles were pulled up. Except for the officers and soldiers of the gendarmerie and military vehicles, no common people passed here.

In the original Battle of Jinling, in order to resist the Japanese attack, the Chinese defenders blocked two of the three-hole city gates of Yijiang Gate, leaving only one hole for people to pass through.

After the massive defeat of the Chinese garrison, the retreating troops and the fleeing people swarmed in and rushed to Yijiang Gate, preparing to leave the city and cross the river to retreat.

Just such a small door hole has actually become the passage of life and death for hundreds of thousands of people.

However, only some of the people and troops who arrived first took advantage of the small crowd and rushed out through Yijiang Gate, while more defenders and people were crowded and blocked in this narrow passage. The soldiers and civilians fought for the road and attacked each other. .

In the end, most of the people failed to rush out of the short few hundred meters, let alone find a way out. What they were waiting for was the Japanese army that came to cover them up. This small Yijiangmen doorway has actually become the boundary between life and death for many people.

I don’t know how many life and death, joys and sorrows I have witnessed.

Of course, now, thanks to the temporary access created by He Wei, there are more access ways out of the city, and there are more ways for people to survive. The speed, efficiency and number of people leaving the city have doubled.

As long as you leave the city and board the gendarmerie ferry near Xiaguan Pier, you can escape from the ancient city of Jinling that is about to fall into enemy hands.

Looking at the happy people on the simple passage, He Wei felt greatly relieved, thinking that all his hard work was not in vain.

The marching column led by He Wei naturally did not need to fight with the people, but drove directly to the Yijiang Gate. There were military policemen armed with machine guns and medium-sized rifles everywhere near the gate, and temporary fortifications piled up with sandbags were nearby. There were several Czech light machine guns mounted on it, and the city wall above the Yijiang Gate entrance was also filled with sandbags.

Eighteen Type 24 Maxim heavy machine guns equipped with anti-aircraft equipment from the heavy machine gun battalion directly under the Military Police Headquarters were pointed at the sky. Dozens of shooters wearing black goggles were vigilantly observing the sky covered with white clouds.

After the marching column led by He Wei stopped, Fang Jing, commander of the second infantry company, immediately went to negotiate with the gendarmerie troops guarding the gate of Yijiang Gate.

"Batalion Commander, someone is coming from the front."

Tao Heiwa, who was sitting in the second row of the off-road vehicle, pointed to the long queue of marching troops in front of him. He Wei raised his head and saw a motorcycle from the gendarmerie troop speeding towards him. Then, a man with a serious look on his face The smiling gendarmerie captain jumped off his motorcycle.

The captain saluted and said respectfully to He Wei: "Commander He, Commander He, I've been waiting for a long time."

Nowadays, the gendarmerie has naturally made a lot of money by selling cross-river ferry tickets near Xiaguan for more than a month. It can be said that it has made huge profits at a very low cost. The gendarmerie has always been well treated. , the military police made a lot of money, and these lower-level officers naturally had to share some benefits, and they naturally knew that He Wei was the first initiator of this unfunded transaction.

Facing this person who had brought great benefits, the captain officer was naturally respectful.

He Wei just nodded to the captain officer indifferently and said, "Well, let us go. Hey, how is the situation near Xiaguan now?"

"Battle Commander He, I will release you immediately. Please wait a moment. The situation around Xiaguan is not bad now. It is not as noisy as in the city. General Xiao has placed the three regiments of our military police force and the military police headquarters directly under the special agent battalion. The entire heavy machine gun battalion directly under the Central Government is deployed here to keep an eye on the situation, together with police officers from three brigades to maintain order. Don’t worry, even though there are so many people fleeing, there will definitely be no trouble.”

"Approximately how many people are there in this area now?"

He Wei asked the officer.

"It's probably about 140,000 to 50,000 at least. We can take away 40,000 people every night. If we take the risk of transporting during the day, we can take away more. But Japanese planes bomb from time to time. The risk of transporting during the day is too high, so we don't dare to transport them during the day." The boat is sailing, but ordinary people come here every day. Sometimes there are ten thousand people here, and sometimes there are two or three thousand people coming here every day."

"You can see that there are not many people around now. In fact, we have evacuated the people to nearby buildings, houses, and streets. There are empty houses and unoccupied buildings everywhere. Instead of letting the poor people live there, It's freezing outside, so it's better to let them hide in houses and streets than to lie down on the road and wait for Japanese planes to bomb them and wait to die."

said the military police captain.

He Wei added: "Then the transportation capacity still needs to be strengthened."

The captain officer repeatedly said yes.

"Battle Commander He, who says it's not the case? The military police units stationed in other places are also busy looking for ships. The navy has also got a bunch of sampans, which can help with transportation to some extent. In the past two days, I have also heard that on the other side of the river, The Seventeenth Army Corps in Pukou will also get involved."

"Seventeenth Army Corps? General Hu Zongnan's troops?"

He Wei asked.

"Yes, it is Commander Hu's army. It is said to be a legion, but in fact it is just one army. It is the Old First Army, the starting unit of our Central Army. There are only two divisions in total. We have been in full swing for more than a month. They are on the other side of the river. Pukou also gradually discovered that we collect money to transport people across the river. Who wouldn’t want to do this profitable thing? I heard that they also want to get involved and build some ships to transport people together.”

"Good thing, good thing, more boats can save more people."

He Wei said.

The military police captain showed some disdain and dissatisfaction. Obviously, he was very dissatisfied with the newly joined Seventeenth Legion. For this kind of cross-cutting behavior, in the view of the military police captain, he was obviously trying to steal benefits from them.

He Wei is happy to see this happen. If more people join in, more people will naturally be saved.

"Open the door, open the door."

While the two were chatting, there was a noise in front of them. The blockade and blockade poles in front of the three-hole gate of Yijiang Gate were opened by the military police. He Wei's small marching column of two thousand people also slowly began to march. Opened out through Yijiang Gate.

When you go out from here, you are greeted by an endless open space, and what you can see is the rolling river.

He Wei's car also slowly started to move forward, and he could not help but feel a little expectant and uneasy in his heart, because he knew that after passing this city gate, it was equivalent to leaving the city, and in front of it was the Xiaguan Pier, and nearby , and the large-scale defensive position he personally proposed to deploy, euphemistically called: Xiaguan Defense Circle.

(End of this chapter)