Chapter 113 Battle for Shanghai

As soon as the war broke out in the summer of 1937, Du Yuesheng took advantage of the Shanghai Citizens League established in the "January 28th Incident" in 1932 to lead and organize the anti-Japanese forces.Apparently wanting to gain a "patriot halo," Du Yuesheng offered to block Japanese warships by sinking his Dada Steamship Company's ships in the lower Yangtze, while also supplying Chinese generals defending Shanghai with his bulletproof cars.But those widely publicized feats paled in comparison to his secret agreement with Dai Li to defend Shanghai and then to organize an underground anti-Japanese resistance movement.

As soon as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident happened, Dai Li turned his attention to Shanghai.His most critical spy in Shanghai is Wang Zhaohuai, captain of the reconnaissance brigade of the police headquarters, who is also Du Yuesheng's disciple and a member of Hengshe.Prior to that time, the main mission of the Shanghai station was concentrated on anti-communist activities and activities against Chiang Kai-shek's other enemies, so little intelligence was collected on the Japanese.Shen Zui was the person in charge of the Hongkou operation of the Secret Service at that time, and he had only one very low-ranking spy in the Japanese circle: the owner of a pawn shop on Dongyouheng Road.The rest of the intelligence officers in "Little Tokyo" were double agents, working for the Japanese as traitors.The secret service can only figure out the intentions of the Japanese from the nature of the tasks assigned to the Chinese spies by the Japanese, so as to at least have a sense of the direction of the enemy.But these intelligences are often illusory.For example, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a drunken Japanese spy said: "In just a few days, Shanghai will be ours, and your work will be very busy by then!"

A few days later, on August 13, 1937, war really broke out in Shanghai.When Chinese refugees flooded the native areas along the Suzhou River in the north of the city, Dai Li realized how poor their military intelligence was.He immediately ordered agents equipped with radio stations to infiltrate Hongkou, Zhabei and Wusongkou, but with little success.Because the Japanese can easily spot these spies who move against the flow of people.Shen Zui formed a small team of eight agents, including his brother, and set its activity station in Hongkou.But they were spotted by the Japanese within a few weeks and had to be evacuated.Shen Zui and his radio operator, Qiu Shenghu, escaped by hiding their radio station in the stroller of Qiu's just-turned-year-old child, and have never been able to return there since, and for a long time, there was not a single spy in the entire Hongkou District. Secret Service.

Even so, in the bloody street battles in Zhabei, Dai Li still won the image of guerrilla victory.Through his connections with the underground society, the covert spy chief encouraged gangs and underworld organizations to arm themselves against the invaders. Beginning, they were a complete mob, vulnerable to the Japanese army, who attempted to sink the Japanese flagship anchored on the Huangpu River" Izumo's plan also failed.But soon, they began to organize a more regular semi-military team, gathered the backbone of the army outside Shanghai, and established a special task force in late August and early September 1937.