Courtyard House: I only wiped out 30,000 Japanese pirates

Of course, He Dajun was completely unaware of this.

He Dajun was completely unaware of this. The main reason was the distance from Taiyuan, which slowed down information dissemination.

Moreover, his mind is now entirely focused on recruiting puppet troops.

Sasaki gave him a strict order: recruit 100 people in two days.

He posted the notice written by Lao Yang all over the four courtyards nearby, and then asked Liu Haizhong to go door-to-door to spread the word. As a result, more people signed up than expected.

In those chaotic times, there were too many people who couldn't get enough to eat. As soon as they heard that food, lodging, and military pay were provided, they lined up to squeeze into the courtyard house.

Yan Bugui's account book was filled with several pages, and the ink ran out twice. By nightfall the next day, the number of people who had signed up had exceeded two hundred.

He Dajun did not stop at the two hundred people.

They continued to have Liu Haizhong post notices in even more distant alleys, and had Yi Zhonghai spread the word in the factory that the puppet army was still recruiting. By the third day, the number of applicants had exceeded five hundred.

He organized the roster and delivered it to Sasaki's desk. Sasaki flipped through the densely filled ledger, a smile he hadn't seen for several days appearing on his face.

"He Dajun, you did a great job." Sasaki closed the ledger, took out the permits for ten more rifles from the drawer and handed them over. "These guns are for you. Keep recruiting, the more the better."

He Dajun accepted the approval slip with both hands, bowed deeply, and repeatedly thanked the officer.

At this point, his puppet army had fifteen guns.

The five that Sasaki gave me before, plus these ten.

Fifteen guns, five hundred people, that's an average of more than thirty people sharing one gun.

But that's not important. What's important is that he now has an armed force nominally under his command, and that force is expanding every day.

Next comes the training.

He Dajun's so-called training was not military training; he did not want to train these people to be soldiers capable of fighting.

His training method was ideological education, which, to put it bluntly, was to show loyalty to the Japanese.

Every morning, he would gather people in the courtyard, have a translator read a passage from the Imperial Army's instructions, and then stand in front of the ranks and give a loud speech, talking about how to be loyal to the Imperial Army, how to obey orders, and how to fight against the resistance.

These words were mostly spoken to the Japanese spies mixed in with the troops, so that they could go back and report: He Dajun, the commander of the puppet army, is absolutely loyal to the Imperial Army.

But the training was indeed very effective.

The hooligans, thugs, and hooligans mixed in with the group all lit up when they heard He Dajun say, "There will be a reward for good performance" and "There will be a big reward for capturing resistance fighters."

These people already had no bottom line, and now that they have the skin of a puppet army, they feel they can do whatever they want.

There were also poor people in the group who had come out of desperation, but their voices were drowned out by the noise of the hooligans.

Sasaki was very satisfied with this.

He sent Suzuki to observe the training sessions several times. Suzuki reported back that He Dajun's puppet troops were in high spirits and extremely loyal to the Imperial Army. Although they had not received formal military training, they were more than capable of capturing resistance fighters.

After listening, Sasaki nodded and said, "He Dajun is a capable person."

At this time, the Battle of Shanghai had officially begun.

The Japanese army was indeed formidable.

The several divisions they transferred from other places were all elite, equipped with a large number of tanks and heavy artillery, and they quickly advanced towards the outskirts of Shanghai after approaching.

Although the Kuomintang (KMT) defenders had made preparations before the battle, the equipment gap was simply too large.

Faced with the Japanese tanks, the defenders of Daxia could only fight back with machine guns and grenades, as well as a few artillery pieces, tanks, and aircraft.

But more often than not, people are used to fill the gaps.

The suburbs of Shanghai were quickly ravaged by Japanese artillery fire, and the defending troops suffered heavy casualties, but they continued to fight desperately.

At this moment, Captain Shu's decision to launch the Shanghai campaign surprised everyone.

He brought all of the Kuomintang's elite troops to the Shanghai battlefield for a frenzied attack.

The goal was not to win this battle, but to demonstrate to the international community the Party's determination to resist, thereby facilitating international mediation.

Note that we are not asking the international community for support, but for mediation.

If He Dajun had to sum up this idea in one sentence, it would be: "His head got caught in a door."

But no matter how absurd the decision itself was, the enthusiasm of the people across the country for resisting Japan was indeed ignited.

Newspapers were filled with reports of the battle at the front. People in Shanghai spontaneously organized themselves to help transport the wounded and deliver ammunition to the front lines, and local troops from all over the country began to gather in the direction of Shanghai.

Even Captain Shu's wife traveled from Jingzhou to Shanghai by car to offer her condolences.

This greatly boosted the morale of the residents who participated in the Battle of Shanghai.

In addition, some of the local support troops across the country travel by train, which is faster and may arrive in a few days.

Those troops that march on foot would need to walk for half a month or even longer.

Many of them had not yet reached the front lines and were unaware that a major defeat was imminent.

At the same time.

The topic was being discussed in the streets and alleys of Beijing.

In teahouses, beside public toilets, and on stone benches at alley entrances, people were talking in hushed tones about what was happening at the front.

Some say Shanghai has held, some say it's about to fall, some say Chiang Kai-shek has staked everything on it, and some say if they lose this battle, everything will be over.

He Dajun would read the latest newspaper every day and analyze the news.

The photos in the newspapers became increasingly horrific, filled with images of bombed-out houses and soldiers lying in pools of blood.

He folded the newspaper and placed it on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), remaining silent for a long time.

Bai Ling sat next to him, looking at his profile. His cheekbones were sharp, his lips were pressed into a line, and there was an emotion in his eyes that she rarely saw.

This is a heavy burden of helplessness.

Bai Ling knew what he was thinking.

This man had witnessed real battles on the battlefield; he knew what those photos in the newspapers meant and what the soldiers sent to the front lines would face.

But now he's trapped in Beijing, wearing the skin of a puppet army soldier, bowing and scraping to the Japanese every day. The most he can do is go out at midnight to kill a few Japanese soldiers and blow up a few warehouses.

She didn't disturb him, but simply sat quietly beside him, keeping him company in silence.

After a long time, He Dajun folded the newspaper and placed it on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), then stood up and stretched his shoulders.

I walked to the window and peeked out through the crack.

It was completely dark, and the courtyard was quiet; all the lights in the houses had long been turned off. He turned to Bai Ling and said that he was going out tonight.

Bai Ling looked at him and could tell from his eyes that he was going to do something big tonight.

After the Battle of Shanghai began, the security situation in Beijing became much tighter.

Fearing instability in their rear, the Japanese doubled their patrol frequency, set up double posts on main streets, and even began deploying hidden sentries in alleyways.

But He Dajun had already figured out the patrol patterns in this area, knowing where there were hidden sentries, where there were blind spots, and which alleys could bypass all the sentries.

At 12:30 a.m., he came out of the side room, climbed over the courtyard wall and landed in the alley. He squatted down by the wall to make sure there were no patrol teams nearby, and then followed the route he had already scouted to the point of heading towards the steel mill.

More than half an hour later, he arrived at the perimeter of the steel rolling mill.

Yes, He Dajun is preparing to bomb the steel mill.