The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 386: Death of the Japanese Navy Elite
Half an hour later, the battle was over, the deafening shouts of killing faded away, and a faint smoke was still floating over the battlefield. The yellow and green fields and mud turned into a mixture of black, white and red after the bloody battle.

Thousands of corpses of Japanese and Nationalist soldiers covered the ground, some intact and some incomplete, with blood flowing all over the ground. The high summer temperature made the air filled with the smell of blood, gunpowder, stench, and feces and urine. Even if the monsoon from the river blew hard, it could not blow away the disgusting smell.

On the battlefield where a fierce battle had just ended, more than a thousand officers and soldiers from the 1st Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps and the Special Service Company and Engineer Company were dispersing. Some of them were searching and sorting through the piles of Japanese soldiers' corpses scattered on the open ground, kicking over and pushing away the bodies of the Japanese soldiers who had died in a hideous state, stripping off the equipment, bayonets, helmets, weapons and ammunition from the bodies, and briefcases that might contain important documents from the bodies of officers and non-commissioned officers.

Another part of the officers and soldiers entered the second line of the Japanese army's position, searched for remaining enemies in the communication trenches and hiding places of the second line of the Japanese army's position, counted the results of the battle, and counted and transported the remaining supplies in the Japanese army's position.

An open area in the center of the battlefield was filled with spoils picked up by officers and soldiers, including Type 1920 rifles, bayonets, Swiss-made SIG submachine guns, Type mm grenade launchers, Taisho -year-old light machine guns, Type heavy machine guns, command knives, pistols, various boxes of ammunition, telephones, double-wire lines and various engineering equipment were placed together in rows.

Not far from these Japanese weapons were mountains of Nationalist weapons, including at least a thousand Hanyang rifles, dozens of Mauser pistols, submachine guns, Qiangpai revolvers, Mauser pistols and other pistols, as well as dozens of Czech light machine guns, a dozen Type 24 heavy machine guns, hundreds of boxes of Gong-made long-handled grenades and five Type 20 82mm mortars.

The captured Japanese-made equipment were naturally the weapons used by the annihilated Japanese troops. As for these Chinese weapons, they were the weapons and ammunition abandoned by the 18th Brigade of the 54th Division, which was suddenly defeated by the Japanese army overnight.

After the landing Japanese troops defeated the 54th Brigade, the equipment left behind by the 54th Brigade undoubtedly became the spoils of war of the Japanese army. Even the Japanese baggage soldiers and service soldiers who had just been annihilated fought in the battlefield with these weapons and equipment seized from the Chinese army. With the demise of the Japanese army, these Chinese weapons were returned to their original owners.

The ill-fated fate of these Chinese weapons and their experience of falling into the hands of the enemy and then being recaptured is the best evidence of the war situation between the two sides in the past few days.

The Japanese army landed and launched a surprise attack on the west bank of the Fuchi River. The 18th Brigade of the 54th Division was immediately defeated and the positions on the west bank of the Fuchi River were lost in an instant. At this critical moment, the assault corps attacked in time, first repelled the Japanese army that attempted to cross the river and land on the west bank of the Fuchi River, and then took the initiative to land on the west bank of the Fuchi River and annihilated the main force of the Japanese army. Finally, it turned the tide and saved the crisis.

In the command bunker of the Japanese second-line position, He Wei was sitting on a Japanese camp bed with his arms and legs spread out, drinking a bottle of captured Japanese soda in one hand and stuffing a captured butter bread into his mouth with the other hand, while he carefully looked at a burnt and incomplete diagram of the battle plan.

In the corner, He Wei's orderly Tao Heiwa was squatting beside several large boxes, also grabbing the confiscated bread and yokan and feasting on them.

All the troops were cleaning up the mess and sweeping the battlefield in an orderly manner outside, and He Wei rushed to the command post of the Japanese second line of defense after the battle. He led his men to turn the Japanese command post upside down, hoping to seize some confidential documents that would be useful for judging the enemy situation and the next battle.

Unfortunately, He Wei's hopes were dashed. The Japanese commander, Kitaro Tsuchi, had already made up his mind to fight to the death before he personally led his troops to attack. As a result, almost all the documents in the command post were burned and the radio station was blown up. Therefore, all He Wei got in the ruined command post was a burnt and incomplete map and a large number of supplies, equipment, weapons and ammunition that had nothing to do with combat intelligence.

Although no useful documents were obtained, He Wei was shocked by other supplies that had little to do with combat intelligence found in the command post. The large boxes next to Tao Heiwa were filled with all kinds of food and drink, including milk candy, yokan, biscuits, bread, pancakes, snacks, stationery, dried plums, caviar and other precious foods, as well as Kagatsuru sake produced in Hiroshima, Gekkeikan Beach wine produced in Hyogo, imported whiskey, and a variety of Japanese brand cigarettes and other high-quality tobacco and alcohol.

From this we can see that the generous treatment of the Japanese Navy and the title of "local tyrants" in the Japanese military system are indeed not false. When He Wei fought against the Japanese Army in the past, the most seized food supplies were canned food and biscuits. But now, in his first fight with the Japanese Marine Corps, he seized so many good cigarettes, good wines and famous foods, which shows how wealthy the Japanese Navy is.

Just as He Wei was eating and drinking in front of a torn map, the battalion commander Fu Chen walked into the command post quickly, handed He Wei a pile of documents, and said, "Captain, here are all the documents and materials we seized from the bodies of the Japanese soldiers. We just sorted them out and they should be useful."

He Wei took the document handed to him by Fu Chen, threw a bottle of soda and half a bag of bread to Fu Chen, and then began to read it carefully.

Although the Japanese army burned almost all the confidential documents in the command post, He Wei would not rely solely on searching for confidential documents in the Japanese command post to judge the enemy situation and the war situation. That would be too stupid.

Therefore, He Wei took a different approach and ordered Fu Chen to have the officers and soldiers pay special attention to the briefcases on the bodies of Japanese officers and non-commissioned officers when cleaning the battlefield. Once a briefcase was found, it was to be handed over immediately. The paper documents, papers, orders and notes in the briefcases should be sorted out and handed over to He Wei as soon as possible for judging the enemy situation and battle situation.

Although the military documents and notes in the hands of these Japanese grassroots officers and non-commissioned officers were not as detailed and accurate as the confidential documents such as telegrams handled by the Japanese command agencies, they could still reflect the general situation of their troops.

Although He Wei could not fully understand the Japanese on the blood-stained documents, the Japanese writing of that era contained quite a lot of Chinese characters. Therefore, he was able to understand the content and meaning of the documents through the Chinese characters on the documents and infer about 50% to 60%.

Based on these documents and the actual experience of the battle just now, He Wei quickly deduced the general situation of the battle. In this offensive that just ended, which combined flanking assaults with heavy machine gun firepower attacks, more than 18 Japanese temporary combat troops composed of logistics soldiers and service soldiers were fiercely attacked by the assault corps and the captured officers and soldiers of the th Division who rose up to resist. Except for a few who managed to escape, the rest were all annihilated.

If we also take into account the three infantry squadrons, a heavy machine gun squadron, an artillery squadron and the artillery squadron of the 4th Special Marine Corps of the Japanese Marine Corps that were annihilated in the first line of defense of the Japanese Army, the attack organized by He Wei overnight wiped out the entire 5th Special Marine Corps of the Japanese Marine Corps, the artillery squadron of the 4th Special Marine Corps, and the baggage and service troops, totaling more than 2,000 people.

If the time range is expanded to include the results of the battle to repel the Japanese troops who landed on the east bank of the Fuchi River, then those killed by He Wei's assault corps were the entire 4th Special Marine Corps and the 5th Special Marine Corps of the Japanese Marine Corps, as well as the baggage and service troops, totaling more than 3,000 people. Calculated based on the Japanese Army's troop strength, this is almost the strength of a field infantry regiment.

He Wei nodded slightly and said, "We fought well this time. We killed 3,000 of those damned men, which is almost the strength of a regiment. Have you calculated the casualties of your battalion?"

Fu Chen chewed the bread, took out the notebook from his bag, opened it and read: "Since the battle to stop the Japanese troops from crossing the Fuchi River to the east bank, our battalion has suffered a total of 378 casualties, including 258 killed, 120 slightly injured or seriously injured, one company commander injured, four platoon leaders killed, two seriously injured, and one slightly injured. When counting the casualties, I also asked about the special forces company, the engineering company, the mountain artillery company of the artillery battalion, and the tank defense artillery company. These companies have a total of 34 killed and 50 slightly or seriously injured since the start of the battle. The total number of casualties in various units is 462."

"Fortunately, this deal is not a loss, it's worth it!"

In He Wei's opinion, it was indeed a very cost-effective deal to defeat the Japanese Marines of nearly 18 people with less than 18 casualties in several consecutive battles. Of course, the premise is to only compare the losses of the assault corps with the number of landing Japanese troops annihilated. If the losses caused to the 18th Division by the landing Japanese troops were taken into account, then this deal could hardly be called a cost-effective deal. After all, the landing Japanese troops destroyed a brigade of the th Division with very minor losses. Although He Wei avenged the th Division, the losses caused were irreparable.

Fu Chen shook his head and said, "Captain, but the loss of those captured soldiers of the 18th Division is not small."

He Wei asked: "How much did they lose?"

"I asked their leading officer, and out of the more than 670 captured officers and soldiers, only about 200 are still breathing."

"More than 670 people were killed and only 200 were left. That's nearly 500 people killed."

He Wei sighed. Fu Chen also sighed and said, "Yes, although these captured officers and soldiers have only been captured for a few days, the Japanese do not treat them as human beings at all. They have been forcing them to work as coolies to build fortifications. In the previous battle, they were used as human shields. They have no way to survive, and they see our assault corps coming. They can only fight the devils in the battle. If they don't fight hard, they will die. If they fight hard, they still have a chance to survive."

In the battle just now, the captured officers and soldiers of the 18th Division also participated in the siege of the Japanese army. The performance of these captured officers and soldiers in the battle can be said to be very brave. Although their tactical qualities were extremely poor and their physical fitness was weak, they all fought desperately with the Japanese army like crazy in the battle, and transformed all the resentment of being oppressed, enslaved, abused and killed by the Japanese army for several days into the courage to fight, and fought the Japanese army to the death with unparalleled bravery and bloodiness.

Of course, as Fu Chen said, the price paid by the captured officers and soldiers of the 18th Division in such a life-and-death fight was also extremely heavy.

Recalling the tragic scene of the bloody battle between the captured officers and soldiers of the 18th Division and the Japanese army, He Wei suddenly remembered something and asked, "By the way, how is the captured lieutenant colonel? Is he still hysterical?"

Fu Chen snorted and said, "Yang Biao is looking at that guy right now, and he's still the same. I don't think that Japanese lieutenant colonel is hysterical, he's probably really crazy."

Although the battle just now was fruitful and more than 600 Japanese soldiers were almost wiped out, although so many Japanese soldiers were killed, not many were captured alive.

In fact, in the final stage of the battle, some Japanese baggage soldiers gave up resistance when they saw that there was no hope of breaking out. They dropped their weapons and surrendered, preparing to become prisoners of the Chinese army in order to survive. After all, with the tactical qualities and fighting will of these Japanese baggage soldiers and service soldiers, it was not easy for them to repeatedly try to break out under the swift, powerful and desperate offensive of the Assault Corps and the captured officers and soldiers of the 18th Division. It was only natural for them to give up resistance and surrender when they were on the verge of despair at the last moment of the battle.

Originally, He Wei had no intention of taking any prisoners, but before he could take any action, those Japanese soldiers who had given up resistance were killed by the captured officers and soldiers of the 18th Division. After the battle, there was almost no living Japanese soldier on the battlefield.

Of course, this does not mean that no one was captured alive. In the melee, Yang Biao's special forces company successfully captured a Japanese prisoner. This was also the only prisoner captured in this battle and since He Wei's troops fought with the landing Japanese Marine Corps.

Moreover, the only Japanese prisoner was a big fish, a lieutenant colonel of the Japanese Marine Corps. The crazy and hysterical lieutenant colonel that He Wei and Fu Chen mentioned was this person.

Thinking of the Japanese lieutenant colonel officer, He Wei stood up and paced slowly, and asked Fu Chen again: "When you were cleaning the battlefield, did you find a Japanese officer with a higher rank than lieutenant colonel among the corpses?"

Fu Chen answered confidently: "No, most of them were lieutenants. The highest rank found among the Japanese corpses was only a major."

He Wei sneered when he heard this, and immediately picked up his pistol and said to Fu Chen: "Okay, that's it. It seems that the crazy lieutenant colonel we captured is most likely the highest commander of this landing Japanese army. Let's go out and take a look."

After leaving the command post and walking along the communication trench in the Japanese position to a large shelter, He Wei and Fu Chen soon saw the captured Japanese lieutenant colonel, who was none other than Kitaro Tsuchi, the highest commander of the landing Japanese troops.

In front of a thick log used to support the roof of the shelter, the special forces company commander Yang Biao and several special forces company soldiers were looking at Tsuchi Kitaro who was tied to the log with disgust.

This Japanese naval elite, who had become famous in the Battle of Shanghai, successfully defeated the attack of the Chinese army's elite German-equipped division, and successfully forced back the 800 Chinese soldiers guarding the Sihang Warehouse, was now sitting on the ground in a daze. Suddenly, he shook his body very hard to try to break free from the restraints, and then he became very quiet and stared at the battlefield around him with scarlet eyes. From time to time, he would make some strange noises, as if he was roaring, or telling a story, and even laughed occasionally. He looked crazy and didn't look like an elite at all.

Just as He Wei and Fu Chen had just discussed Tsuchi Kitaro in the command post, using words such as "hysterical" and "crazy" to describe him, Tsuchi Kitaro was indeed crazy.

He was very lucky. He was not killed by a machine gun, nor was he killed by a mortar bombardment, nor was he killed in the melee that had just ended. He was only hit by two stray bullets in his calf. These two stray bullets did not hit the bones or vital parts, but just went through and left two bullet holes in Kitaro Tsuchi's calf.

But compared with the physical pain, the mental blow brought by the troops being annihilated by the Chinese army was even more terrible.

Originally, after repeated setbacks and facing a hopeless situation, Tsuchiji Kitaro had made up his mind to die and was prepared for all his troops to die in battle. He decided to invest all available combat forces and adopt the despicable method of using prisoners as human shields and shields to launch a tragic, desperate assault on the Chinese army in front of him, implementing the spirit of Bushido through attack and death in battle.

However, He Wei's tactics of combining frontal attack with heavy machine gun overtaking fire and flanking attack did not allow Tsuchi Kitaro's desperate assault plan to be implemented.

So, after seeing his troops being surrounded and attacked by the Chinese army before they could even launch a charge, and being beaten and forced to flee in all directions like stray dogs, Tsuchi Kitaro's mental defenses were quickly broken, and then he completely collapsed!

From the defeat of his river crossing attack by the 1st Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps, to the annihilation of the mixed tank and infantry search force he sent out by He Wei's troops, to the loss of the first line of defense of this position and the complete loss of the defenders, Tsuchi Kitaro could attribute all these defeats to the excellent command level of the enemy commander and the excellent combat effectiveness of the enemy troops.

Although these defeats were failures, miserable defeats, they could barely be attributed to his lack of skills, not to his lack of fighting spirit. After all, they were within his acceptable range.

It was for this reason that he wanted to end the landing operation with a desperate attack at the last moment, which would end in failure but still be tragic. He did not seek to achieve any tactical goals, but only hoped to have a "final battle" full of tragic momentum and the spirit of Bushido.

But Tsuchi Kitaro did not expect that even at the last moment, his tragic battle of not seeking to achieve tactical goals but only to die in glory was not carried out. The result was that not only could he not defeat the Chinese army in a head-on confrontation, but he was also deprived of the chance to die in glory and honor in the attack.

So, facing the huge mental blow, Kitaro Tsuchi went crazy, completely crazy, and then he ran around and shouted wildly on the battlefield. In a crazy state, he became a prisoner of the special forces company directly under the assault corps, and has remained in this state until now.

He Wei looked at Kitaro Tsuchi as if he were a pitiful creature. He Wei did not have much interest in the captured lieutenant colonel. A crazy Japanese officer could not play any role for him, and there was no point in keeping him. Moreover, before the battle began, He Wei had decided to kill the supreme commander of the Japanese army with his own hands. Now that it has been confirmed that this crazy lieutenant colonel is the supreme commander of the Japanese army, there is absolutely no reason for He Wei to keep this guy.

He Wei picked up the gun and walked coldly to the side of Tsuchi Kitaro, but Tsuchi Kitaro seemed not to have seen He Wei at all. He was still in that crazy state, crying, laughing, and chattering.

At this moment, in Kitaro Tsuchi's world, he recalled the years when he was studying at the Japanese Naval Academy, recalled the days and nights of fighting with the elite German-equipped division of the Chinese army during the Battle of Shanghai, and the highlight moment when he was commended by his superiors for forcing back the 800 Chinese soldiers guarding the Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai. Scenes from the past, one by one, were replaying in the mind of this crazy elite Japanese naval officer.

Suddenly, there was a sound of gunshot. He Wei raised his twenty-gun pistol and pulled the trigger without mercy. A 7.63mm pistol bullet blew up Kitaro Tsuchi's head, ending the fantasy of this Japanese naval elite and also completely ending the life of this elite invader.

(End of this chapter)