If the Chinese army's withdrawal from the Songhu battlefield was considered a rout, then it was a rout after the Nanjing defense battle.
The so-called top brass of the national army finally paid the price for their double-crossing in formulating the strategy for the defense of Nanjing.
Why do you say that? At the beginning, they made a high-profile declaration that they would defend Nanjing to the death, blocked several city gates, and took away the boats on the Yangtze River. This was the posture of a last-ditch fight!
However, with the Japanese attack, the bloody troops who dared to resist suffered heavy losses. At this time, as the high-level commander, he should mobilize the reserve team to plug the gap opened by the Japanese army and regain the lost position!
But at this time, someone who had moved to Chongqing gave the supreme commander in charge of the defense of Nanjing an order to retreat, and the commander issued an extremely simple retreat plan, and then he He crossed the river and escaped on the small steamer he had left behind.
Once the commander ran away, how could the subordinates still have the intention to fight the Japanese army again?
The national army is already full of factions. The troops within a faction of the national army often have the tradition of "not moving like a mountain when friendly forces are in trouble", but now they can't even do "not moving like a mountain".
If they can really "move as still as a mountain", then they can still count as holding a position. But now, instead of going to rescue, they have abandoned their position, so that the Japanese army can flank the Chinese army teammates who dare to resist. .
The division commander ran away, the brigade commander ran away, the regiment commander ran away after him, the officers abandoned the soldiers, and the soldiers could not find the officers, so the great rout occurred.
This situation is like the leader of the sheep disappearing, so doesn’t the flock just let the sheep go?
To sum it up briefly, the commander will cut off the retreat of the officers and soldiers if he wants to fight. Fierce fighting was going on ahead, and many positions had not yet lost their commanders, but they had escaped through the survival paths they had reserved.
It's just that the commander had a way out to escape, but the remaining tens of thousands of officers and soldiers had no way out. The city gate was blocked, and seeing a powerful enemy coming in again, how could a rout not happen?
If we follow the words of Northeastern people, isn't it just you officials who are playing tricks on people?
And this is also the sorrow of the lower class.
I remember a certain protagonist in one of the books said something like, "It hurts, and you get used to it."
But isn't it the same in fighting? If you lose, you will get used to it.
It cannot be said that the Chinese army has not won a battle since the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, but the victory was only partial. Since they were used to losing, tens of thousands of officers and soldiers lost their fighting spirit and formed a torrent of rout on the streets of Nanjing.
At this time, several Japanese tanks that had already rushed into Nanjing exacerbated the rout.
"Boom", the sound of artillery sounded, and a barricade built by the Chinese army in front was directly smashed by the artillery shell, and the soil in the sandbag turned into flying dust all over the sky.
The Japanese soldier in the tank saw the barricade collapsed by a cannon, and he looked out from the observation gap and saw that there were no obstacles on the street. Then he said something, and the tank headed elsewhere. drove down the street.
The tank is the vanguard of the infantry, and the so-called chariot soldiers of the Japanese army are just clearing obstacles for the infantry.
"Run!" Just as the Japanese tank turned around, soldiers suddenly shouted in the ruins next to the barricade.
And as he shouted, dozens more soldiers emerged from the ruins.
They were all veterans. They had just seen Japanese tanks chasing after them. Instead of hiding behind the nearby houses, they hid in the ruins that had been blown up by Japanese planes.
The reason why they are hiding here is that they believe that the Japanese tanks will only pick valuable targets to fire, instead of using artillery fire to plow the ruins again. This situation is just like veterans who usually hide under the shells when hiding from artillery. The crater created after the explosion is general.
"Why are you running? My brothers were all killed, and I want to take revenge!" At this moment, a soldier suddenly shouted at the collapsed barricade. He really came from among the ruins. Climb up.
The moment he stood up, his body swayed, and he even shook his head vigorously twice.
He was very lucky because all the members of his squad guarding the barricade had been killed except him, and he shook his head twice to try to wake himself up.
The fragments of the shell did not hurt him, but the air wave of the explosion still affected him.
"Why take revenge? I withdrew from the Songhu battlefield. Too many brothers have died. Can you take revenge?" the soldier from before shouted.
"Why are you all running away? Didn't you say you swore to live and die with Nanjing?" Upon hearing what the soldier said, the soldier who had just climbed up from the ruins of the barricade suddenly started crying. He stretched out his dirty hands to wipe them. He glanced at his eyes, and a few streaks of black ash appeared on his originally immature face.
He is not old, he looks about seventeen or eighteen years old. Just because he is young and still has blood, he is very simple and does not care about his own life or death.
"Go quickly, it's never too late for a gentleman to take revenge!" At this time, a voice sounded in his ears.
This sentence is quite reasonable, and it is always heard more than what the soldier said before, "Can you take revenge?"
The soldier looked up and saw that the man who was running beside him was in his twenties. He had two guns slung on his body, one was a box cannon with a long magazine, and the other was a flower machine.
He must be an officer, the soldier guessed with tears in his eyes.
At this moment, the soldier looked around again and saw another long, lean soldier picking up a flower trap in the ruins beside him. It belonged to his squad leader, but his squad leader now He was already lying under the collapsed barricade, with only two legs sticking out from under a few sandbags.
"Hold the magazine, what's the use of just holding the gun?" At this time, the soldier carrying the cannon said.
The lean soldier was embarrassed when he heard what he said. Just because the barricade had been blown down, how could he know where the other magazines of the squad leader who had died in the battle were.
"No matter how good the gun is, it doesn't matter if you don't want it. Are you running away without looking at it?" The lean soldier was very frustrated and threw the flower machine he had just picked up to the ground.
"Pick it up!" At this time, the soldier hanging the cannon said, "If you have a gun in your hand, at least you can choose how to die!"
He spoke in a strong tone, sounding stern.
When the lean soldier heard what he said, he quickly picked up his gun again.
"It's over there!" the only surviving soldier in the barricade suddenly said, and then he ran a few steps forward, stretched out his hand and pulled hard on a belt exposed under a sandbag.
Fortunately, the sandbag had been exposed, and the sand had been released and it didn't weigh as much. So a backpack appeared. The soldier opened the backpack, and it turned out to be full of Hua Gao's magazines.
The two newcomers in front of him didn't know it at this moment, but he knew that this backpack was not just for the squad leader himself, but it was the bullets for the new flower machine and box cannon of the whole class.
But who would have thought that before they fired a single shot, he would be the only one left in the class.
"Oops." The soldier carrying the cannon showed surprise and joy on his face.
"This is too heavy! I can't even carry it!" But the lean soldier was in a dilemma.
"Carry it all on your back! Just treat it as the gold and silver you stole! Okay, let's go!" At this time, the soldier carrying the box cannon ordered again, and even as he moved, he did not forget to reach out and pull the A handful of surviving soldiers.
The young soldier looked back at the ruins, and finally ran away with them.
At this point, the identities of the two soldiers who came after them were already obvious.
The one carrying the cannon is Shang Zhen, and the other one with a lean body is naturally Bai Zhan.
"Let's run inside. Didn't you say we won't run from the north?" The person disappeared, but Bai Zhan's questioning voice came from the alley.
"Can you afford to mess with the Japs' tanks? Are you familiar with the place ahead if you don't tell me? Let's go back!" Naturally it was Shang Zhen who asked Bai Zhan in return.
