Chapter 6 5. Blood-stained double "twelve"

This day is December 12th. On this day in Tokyo, Japan, a newspaper published an editorial saying: "Today last year was the day when the Xi'an Incident broke out and Chiang Kai-shek's life was at stake. Today, one year later, our army will enter the urban area of ​​Nanjing..." The Japanese want to completely humiliate Chiang Kai-shek, and let him "enjoy" ten times the humiliation of the Xi'an Incident.They seem to have a winning ticket and are determined to win. This is not a poem, this is the last cry of the Chinese soldiers guarding the city of Nanjing on December 12, 1937.

In fact, Matsui Iwane's military deployment and military orders for the final attack on Nanjing City were formulated and officially issued five days before December 12.We now have the opportunity to look up this military order from the military archives left by the Japanese army: 1. The two armies advanced to the line indicated by "China's Order No. 27".Prepare for the subsequent siege. 2. In the case that the commander or municipal government of Nanking still remains in the city, they should advise the other party to open the city in order to seek our troops to enter the city peacefully.

At this time, each division should first let a brigade of infantry selected by the draft enter the city as the main force.Carry out sweeping operations in sub-regions of the city. 3. If the enemy's remnant soldiers still hold out stubbornly, all the artillery that has reached the front line should be deployed to attack and capture the city wall.Each division uses a wing as the backbone force to sweep the city. The main forces other than the ones mentioned above are gathered at the indicated places outside the city. 4. During the sweeping battle in the city, the combat area should be designated, and the troops should be strictly guarded to ensure that there will be no incidents of accidental injury between friendly troops, and to make them clearly responsible for illegal acts.

5. The combat areas of the two armies in the city are as follows: Gonghemen—Gongyuan Road—Zhongzheng Street—Zhongzheng Road—Hanzhong Road. 6. The city gates guarded by each army: Dispatched troops: Zhongshan Gate, Taiping Gate, Heping Gate Tenth Army: Republic Gate, Zhonghua Gate, Shuixi Gate The six city gates of Nanjing chosen by Matsui Iwane are not only the main roads into Nanjing, but also the key military sites guarded by the Chinese defenders.Matsui Iwane handed over the most difficult task to Yanagawa's 10th Army.The Japanese 10th Army seemed to have a special grudge against the Chinese army. After accepting the mission, they fought to the death with the Chinese defenders.

The Japanese 10th Army attacked Zijin Mountain and Yuhuatai first, because they were the outer barriers leading to the "Zhonghua Gate" in Nanjing. Losing Zijin Mountain and Yuhuatai meant that Nanjing City was torn apart.The Chinese garrison here has a heavy force, including Sun Yuanliang's 88th Division and Chiang Kai-shek's best-equipped, strongest, and most-staffed "Imperial Forest Army"-the Teaching Corps.Sun Yuanliang is the commander of the 72nd Army, and he also serves as the commander of the 88th Division.There are 3 brigades and directly subordinate troops under the teaching corps, with a total of more than 30,000 people. Such two troops guard Zijin Mountain and Yuhuatai, which shows how important this place is.

Before the 12th, in these two important places, the enemy and the enemy have launched many life-and-death fights.The Japanese army first attacked the positions around Qilinmen, where the defenders were weak, but the positions were lost first.Afterwards, the enemy concentrated their forces to attack the Tiger Cave position in the South Zijin Mountain. Due to the obvious terrain of the position, artillery fire was easy to attack. Therefore, after a day of fierce fighting in the Tiger Cave position, the defenders voluntarily gave up and retreated to the second peak of Zijin Mountain.The Japanese army thought that the Chinese defenders were vulnerable, so they marched proudly to the second peak of Zijin Mountain, but they didn't know that Chiang Kai-shek's elite troops, the teaching corps, were stationed here.This team has been stationed in this area for 4 years. They practiced in actual combat every day on weekdays. They were familiar with the terrain and had strong fortifications.The Japanese army, who had suffered a loss, quickly dispatched troops and generals, and launched a tug-of-war with the defenders at the second peak of Zijin Mountain and the area around Xishan Mountain. But the position is still firmly in the hands of the Chinese defenders.The Japanese army, unable to attack for a long time, was in a hurry. Not only did they continue to increase their troops, but they also dispatched cannon armor-piercing shells to shoot directly at the Chinese defenders' positions.The huge explosion was deafening, and the fortifications made of cement and huge stones were lifted several feet high.But what the Japanese army did not expect was that such rounds of bombing, the dispatch of chariots to sweep again and again, and the repeated attacks of the death squads were all repelled by the Chinese side. On the 11th, there were several reckless fights. Although the thick layer of Zijin Mountain was bleeding and crying, it still refused to hang its high head.

At dawn on the 12th, after the Japanese army redeployed several squadrons of planes to bombard them, they fired heavy artillery directly at the highlands on the north side of Zijin Mountain from the left and right... Immediately, fireballs rolled across the mountain peaks, rocks flew into the sky, and there was a sound of killing and shouting . "Hold on! Brothers, as long as we hold on for a few more hours, reinforcements will arrive, and we will be able to defend the Zijin Mountain defense line..." Li Kaixi, head of the 3rd Regiment of the Teaching Corps, shook the hair on his head after being thrown out of the fortification by the bomb. Mu Tu ordered the soldiers around him, and led the last dozens of remnants to a ruined position, ready to fight the enemy to the death.

"Regimental Commander, the reinforcements won't come! I heard that the Zhonghua Gate has fallen... Our regiment is under attack from the front and rear, what should we do?" The subordinates asked Li Kaixi for instructions. "I'm calling the brigade commander!" Li Kaixi picked up the phone and shook it desperately, but no one answered. "Brigade Commander! Brigadier Commander! I request support! Request support—!" "Commander, stop fighting. Brigadier and the others have already slipped away..." "Damn, they slipped away? They slipped away before the battle was over?" Li Kaixi couldn't believe it, but no one answered the phone, and there was no additional troops. Looking at the chaos of other friendly troops in front of and behind the position, he finally believed it. , "My God! Can the national army be undefeated? Nanjing, my poor Nanjing..." Commander Li said that every day should not be done, and that the ground was not working.In the end, he had no choice but to kowtow three times to the corpses of hundreds of comrades-in-arms around him, and then hastily left a position on the north side of Zijin Mountain.

"Strange, the enemy's main position is still in fierce battle. Why did they evacuate here instead?" The Japanese army commanded the main attack on the Zijin Mountain position was the 30th Infantry Brigade of the 16th Division of the ace army Major General Sasaki as the brigade commander.Sasaki, who had fought for two days and failed to take the position on the north side of Zijin Mountain, was a little confused at the moment. "Be sure not to be careless! On the great moment of the last day of attacking Nanjing, our brigade must not embarrass the commander-in-chief!" Sasaki warned his subordinates.

Afterwards, he moved some of his troops to a nearby small highland called Xingwei Village, preparing to attack the left flank of Zijin Mountain. "We must take the main peak today!" Although Sasaki's boss, Lieutenant General Nakajima Konzago, was injured, he still holds the power of the 16th Division. . "Have the heavy mortars arrived? Without heavy artillery, the main position of Zijin Mountain cannot be breached, let alone the city gate!" Sasaki yelled. "Adjust two squadrons of your heavy mortar brigade, and the 33rd regiment will cooperate with you in attacking! Now we are waiting for you to take Zijin Mountain!" Nakajima replied.

The next offensive battle was unexpected by Sasaki. Later, he recorded in his "diary": "The position was a sea of ​​fire, and suddenly there was a burst of fierce gunfire from behind. I ran out and asked: 'What's the matter?'" Answer: "Just after repelling the enemy soldiers, how come a large group of them came down from the mountain?" I felt a little unbelievable, and asked: "Is it a defeated army?" After a while, just as I was about to rest, the officer screamed again." Later Sasaki recorded: "The enemy army is still rushing down from the Zijin Mountain, group after group, covering the sky and covering the ground, full of enemy troops. They all They are the soldiers of the Instructor stationed on the top of Zijin Mountain. They tried to cut a bloody path through the gaps in our detachment, counterattack, and break out... This army is the most valiant direct line of Chiang Kai-shek, so it is also the last to fight tenaciously to the end Valiant troop." Iwasaki Masaharu was a senior soldier of the 1st Independent Engineer Regiment of the Japanese Dispatch Army. He also praised the Chinese soldiers in a letter to his family: "It is really worthy of the regular army of China. We died with a smile on our guns. If men like this accounted for one-tenth of the total population of China, it would be quite difficult for Japan to fight them." The Japanese have suffered. Yuhuatai is one kilometer south of Zhonghua Gate in Nanjing. It is a hilly area with a maximum altitude of 60 meters. It is the southern pass of Nanjing City and was formerly known as "Jinling South Gate".Since ancient times, Yuhuatai has been a place where heroes shed their blood. Yang Bangyi of the Southern Song Dynasty was defeated by the enemy here in the Southern Song Dynasty, and left behind his masterpiece through the ages. Yin Weijun, a heroine of the Revolution of 1911, resisted the Qing army for ten days and ten nights at Yuhuatai, and finally won the final victory for the revolutionary army. Leave an immortal reputation.During the Great Revolution, Yun Daiying, an early leader of the Communist Party, fought unyieldingly for communism, and was finally shot here by the Kuomintang reactionaries... Yuhuatai has always been a place of bloodshed.The Japanese army attempted to break through the southern gate of Nanjing, only to encounter stubborn resistance from the Chinese defenders. On the morning of the 9th, the Japanese army sent a unit to attack Yuhuatai, but they suffered heavy losses.Later, another alliance was added to attack again.The 527th Regiment and 528th Regiment of the 88th Division of the former garrison fought one after another without giving up an inch of ground. In front of the more than 2,000-meter-long position, they fought hand-to-hand with the Japanese army. As a result, they repelled the enemy attack again, leaving six to seven hundred dead Japanese soldiers in front of the position. In the early morning of the 10th, the Japanese army sent planes and chariots to rush towards Yuhuatai in an attempt to wipe out the defenders.Unexpectedly, the Chinese officers and soldiers on the battlefield became more and more courageous as they fought, the Japanese army was unable to attack for a long time and lost again. On the 11th, the enemy pressed heavy troops on the southern front, and at the same time carried out an enveloping attack on the Zhonghua Gate on the back road of Yuhuatai.As a result, Zhonghua Gate was not breached that day, and Yuhua Terrace was still standing majestically on the side of the defenders, but the Japanese army left more than a thousand corpses in pain on this famous cemetery in Nanjing. "Good job! All of my 88 divisions are good!" Sun Yuanliang, the division commander, was proud of this for a long time. On the afternoon of the 12th, the Japanese army broke through the Zhonghua Gate first.Before breaking through the Zhonghua Gate, the Japanese army thought that Yuhuatai was no longer a problem. Unexpectedly, the soldiers of the 88th Division of the Chinese garrison continued to fight tenaciously between Yuhuatai and Zhonghuamen, and the Japanese army left four to five hundred corpses... The casualties of the 88th Division of the defenders were naturally not light. Zhu Chi, the commander of the 262nd Brigade, Gao Zhisong, the commander of the 362nd Brigade, and more than 2,000 officers and soldiers died for the country. In this battle to defend Zijin Mountain and Yuhuatai, the regiment officer who was later reinforced and wounded in battle, Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 305th regiment of the 74th Division, and Wang Yaowu, commander of the 51st Division, fought against the Japanese army.Among them, Zhang Lingfu's 305th regiment fought the hardest. The whole regiment lost more than a thousand officers and soldiers, and there were very few officers below the company commander. Zhang Lingfu was seriously injured and was forcibly pulled from the front line by Wang Yaowu.Zhang Lingfu is also famous because in this battle of defending the city, he ordered his subordinates to carry the coffin to the battlefield, which can be described as a tragic move!Ma Weilong, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the Teaching Corps during the Battle of Zijin Mountain in the Battle of Nanjing, was killed half a year later in the battle with the Japanese army in Lankao, Henan... The "changing commander" who served as the supreme commander of the Teaching Corps during the Nanjing Defense War Gui Yongqing, the "defeated general", had another fate because of his special relationship with Chiang Kai-shek and He Yingqin: after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, he was promoted again and again, until he arrived in Taiwan and became the commander-in-chief of the "National Army" Navy, the chief of the general staff of the General Staff Headquarters, and a He was a senior general, but his life was not long. He died of illness in 1954 at the age of 54. It is also a common practice for the defeated Kuomintang generals to be able to sell well with Chiang Kai-shek, and to slip away quickly in each war.But the warriors who stayed on the front line of the city are still fighting and shopping in the flames of war... This day is the 12th. The defense of Nanjing on the 12th was mainly concentrated inside and outside the various city gates. The Battle of Gwanghwamun was another place where blood flowed like a river. This place is an important part of the city gate of Nanjing. The magnificent city gate has eight gates, and the moat water 35 meters wide and 5 meters deep forms a solid barrier in its outer moat.When the lieutenant of the Ito Battalion of the Japanese Army, Nakagawa Shaozuo, secretly came to observe Guanghuamen in a light armored vehicle, he secretly gasped: Oh my god, how did this pass?At this time, Guanghua Gate was guarded by the guards. The road leading to the city gate was blocked by trenches of defensive chariots and five roadblocks. On both sides of the road, there were five dense barbed wire fences blocking the water.There are 28 heavy machine gun shooting holes on the west side of the city gate and on the city wall, guarded by Chiang Kai-shek's most elite teaching corps and other ace troops of the "National Army". But if you want to break into Nanjing City, Guanghua Gate is a gate you must pass through. The Japanese army is also determined to win.Their first battle to attack Guanghuamen started at dawn on the 9th. The elite 9th Division cooperated with multiple chariots to launch a fierce attack on the defenders around Hongmao Mountain outside the city gate.A battalion of the teaching corps defended the battle here. As a result, nearly half of them suffered casualties and had to retreat to the city wall of Guanghuamen.Just before dawn, the Japanese army sent planes to directly bomb Guanghuamen. The defenders could not dodge the rain of bombs, killing and injuring more than a hundred people.Seeing that the city gate was about to fall, Commander Tang Shengzhi hurriedly mobilized and taught the Second Regiment to quickly increase troops to support him. "Let's go right away, take the bus!" Instructed the reinforcements of the Second Regiment to put on their weapons, boarded several buses under their control, and headed straight for Guanghuamen. "Are you here to support?" Xiang Hongyuan, the platoon leader of the reinforcements, had just arrived at the city gate, and a black-faced head stood up by the gate wall, crying with excitement, "You are finally here! I will let you take command !" The platoon leader Xiang finally found out that he was the commander of the garrison, so he said: "That's no good, we haven't figured out the enemy's situation yet, you have to help us." "Okay, it's good if you come! Just come!" Wiping his tears, the officer pointed to the outside of the city gate and said, "The enemy army is only a hundred meters away from here...don't poke your head out. Several of my soldiers died like this." At this moment, the sound of an airplane sounded over the platoon leader's head. "Lie down—!" As soon as they exited, several bombs fell in the city gate behind them. "Grandma! The little devil is too deceitful! Their bombs fell into the wall of the Supervision Department inside the city gate. My two recruits and brothers were killed and injured. I have no one! I am here Fight them!" At this time, a company commander of the garrison with a Sichuan accent rushed to the side of the platoon leader, picked up his submachine gun and fired a round outside the city gate. "Da da da……" "Boom—" The sound of submachine guns provoked a burst of shells and machine gun bullets from the Japanese army. "Don't shoot indiscriminately!" The platoon leader hurriedly stopped, "Now the enemy has more troops than us, we must not expose our firepower easily, otherwise we will suffer a big loss." How can we figure out the enemy's situation?Say to the machine gunner next to the platoon leader: "I have a way." After speaking, he took out a small mirror from his pocket, tied it with two rifle butts, and tied the small mirror on it, and then carefully lay down on his back to the battlement move.This photo was amazing. Platoon Leader Xiang and the others found that the enemy was quietly moving towards the city gate under the cover of 9 tanks... "Not good! The enemy wants to occupy the small flour mill over there, and then pass through there to condescend to attack our city gate!" Looking forward to the left side of the platoon leader moving towards the Japanese army, he found a flour mill more than a hundred feet away from the Guanghuamen tower. Moreover, the roof of the wooden factory building was higher than the city wall. Once the enemy occupied the flour factory, the consequences would be disastrous. "We must level up the flour mill first, otherwise we will not only be unable to defend the city gate, but we will all be beaten to death by them!" Xiang platoon leader sweated anxiously. "Then how do you do it?" The defenders exclaimed. "Be the first to burn this flour mill!" Said the platoon leader. "We organize death squads to go. Who wants to go? If the task is completed, the soldiers will be promoted to platoon leader after returning!" "I go!" "I'll go too! Those who are not promoted, as long as they guard the city gate, they are willing to die!" Immediately, a dozen soldiers stood up. "Good job!" The platoon leader Xiang was very excited, "There are too many people to rush through. You line up in a line, each carry straw and matches, go along the city wall, hang it down with a rope, and set it on fire. ..." The action begins.The first soldier had just been lowered about a meter from the battlements when he was found and killed by the Japanese army.The second one went up and was beaten to death again. The third soldier said: "Now it's my turn! But we can't follow the old way, we need to change the place." This man was clever. First, he changed the rope to another battlement, and second, he suddenly jumped off when he was halfway down. ... "Cover -!" The platoon leader immediately ordered his comrades to shoot at the enemy's formation. "Boom!" In the fierce battle between the enemy and us, I saw a flame bursting from the flour mill... "Success!" "Success!" The Guanghuamen defenders cheered repeatedly. How can the Japanese army swallow this loss?Seeing that the frontal attack was blocked, they changed their tactics. Taking advantage of the smoky dusk, a Japanese plainclothes death squad rushed towards Guanghua Gate along the moat, trying to start hand-to-hand combat with the defenders on the position in an instant, thus breaking through the gate. "Guanghuamen is extremely urgent, what else can we do to withstand the enemy?" Gui Yongqing, the leader of the teaching team, seemed to be asking for help from his subordinate, Captain Xie Chengrui, on the phone. Guanghuamen is in charge of the people led by the head of the teaching team, Xie Chengrui. "There is no other good move. The officers and soldiers have been killed and injured countless times in two days, so there is no other way. I think we should use the last trick!" Xie Chengrui gritted his teeth and said. "What's the trick, tell me quickly, thank you, Captain." "Ask the headquarter to support a few cars of gasoline! I will carry the gasoline myself." Gui Yongqing was suddenly silent.After a while, he said: "Okay! I'll ask the chief of staff to adjust the gasoline immediately!" Gasoline is coming.Xie Chengrui personally led more than 20 death-death team members, carrying oil barrels on their backs, and rushed to Guanghuamen, taking advantage of the night, poured barrels of gasoline out along the city gate... The arrogant Japanese army didn't know that our defenders had this trick, and they were also taking advantage of the night to carry out the so-called "final decisive battle".But this time they suffered a big loss—— "Come on!" A bunch of flames suddenly lit up at the gate of Guanghuamen, and then spread out like a wall of fire like lightning, heading straight for the enemy's formation—— "Yeah..." In the light of the fire, I saw the Japanese army dancing wildly like a demon, and soon turned into balls of fire, and then fell down and burned... "Die, die!" The Japanese soldiers behind scolded and fled in a hurry. "Come on—" Suddenly, the Guanghuamen, which had been motionless for several days, opened suddenly, and Xie Chengrui led the defenders, armed with a dozen machine guns, and swept towards the enemy group. What a happy counterattack to wipe out the enemy!Since then, Guanghua Gate has left a good reputation for anti-Japanese heroism. This is a fragment of the Gwanghwamun blocking battle.The Chinese defenders went crazy, and the Japanese attack went crazy too! "Baga—!" Teams of Japanese death squads with white belts on their heads and the words "must win" written on them, holding light machine guns in one hand and wielding big knives in the other, headed towards the city gate under the cover of tanks. rush... "Grenade! Grenades hit tanks——" Seeing that the enemy tanks were approaching the gate of the city, the commander of the garrison organized a grenade firepower network quickly and wisely, paralyzing the enemy tanks at the gate of the city.At this time, more than a dozen Japanese soldiers took the opportunity to sneak into the city gate. "Stop them! Block them quickly!" Seeing this, the death squad of the defending army yelled, while relying on their familiarity with the topography of the city wall, they hung them slowly from the city wall with a rope, and killed the invading enemy by surprise. "Sir, give us a reward! You see—" The garrison battalion commander of the 83rd Army, Deng Longguang, led a dozen soldiers, carrying bamboo baskets in which more than a dozen heads of the Japanese army were sold. level, as well as captured light machine guns, revolvers, 38-type rifles and knives, ran to the officer with infinite glory to ask for the reward. "Award! This award!" Commander Tang Shengzhi responded repeatedly when he heard about it, but before his rewards could be distributed to the brave defenders of Guanghuamen, news came that Guanghuamen had been breached by the enemy. The Chinese army after the war said that the Battle of Guanghuamen was the most tragic battle in the entire Nanjing War, and it lasted for more than three days.The see-saw battle between the two sides was far more intense and thrilling than what the author described, and a large number of warriors were left here.The regiment leader Xie Chengrui was just one of them. This poor defender was sick before the battle, and was burned by the flames of war during the two-day defense of the city gate. In the middle of the night on the 12th, Commander Xie was trampled to death by his own soldiers because of the crowd when he was passing by Yijiangmen with the stragglers who were withdrawing to the river to cross the river... "That's Captain Xie! You can't step on him! You can't..." Liu Yongcheng, a staff member of the General Staff Office who fled together, knelt on the ground and cried bitterly when he saw Commander Xie Chengrui being trampled to blood by countless rioters. But it doesn't help at all. This is the tragedy that happened in the last hours of the 12th. Unforgettable tragedies abound in and around Nanjing on December 12, 1937. Before being enslaved, the city of Nanjing was in a suffocating moment. The Zhonghua Gate is the place the enemy most wants to enter.Zhonghua Gate-Nanjing City-Chinese government, they are connected in this way in the minds of Chinese people.The Japanese also thought so, so in the final order issued by the Japanese commander Matsui Iwane, this battle was regarded as the "finishing work" of attacking Nanjing-obviously, the practical and symbolic significance of breaking through the Zhonghua Gate was particularly important. The Japanese army sent the 6th Division to attack Zhonghuamen, and at the same time cooperated with several flying squadrons, 2 tank brigades, and several regiments of infantry and engineers. The Chinese defenders are heavy troops such as Wang Yaowu division.The city wall of Zhonghuamen seems to be stronger than that of Guanghuamen, and the defensive force is even more "impregnable". More than 30 mortars.Outside the city wall, there used to be a dense residential area, but now due to the preparations for combat defense, before the arrival of the Japanese army, all of them were destroyed to the ground.In this way, standing on the city wall, you can see the front more than 200 meters away, and any movement of the enemy is in the eyes of the defenders.This move can be regarded as a brilliant tactic of the Chinese defenders. However, the Japanese army is not stupid, they are arranging targeted offensive tactics—— It was just dawn on the 12th, when the antiaircraft artillery on the ground and the planes in the sky dropped bombs, and they attacked inside and outside the city walls of Zhonghuamen like a mountain roaring and a tsunami. Come…… Ten minutes passed.The Japanese army wanted to see what happened, but was disappointed: Zhonghua Gate and the city wall remained intact, showing no sign of collapsing or losing their hold! The Japanese commander was stunned for a while, then suddenly yelled and ordered several 75-ton tanks to rush towards the city gate—trying to use them to smash open the gate.The result: Except for a few "dong dong" echoes, the city gate was sealed tightly. The Japanese commander was dumbfounded again. "Baga——" This time, a group of engineers carrying explosives went up: under the cover of heavy artillery, they approached the root of the city wall and ignited dozens of packets of explosives... "Boom—" "Boom! Boom—" After the gunpowder smoke passed, look at the city wall again: except for some wall coverings and bricks that fell off in a few places, the big city wall still stands proudly, like an elephant being bitten by a small bug! The Japanese army was stupid, the Japanese army was crazy, and the Japanese army played it completely-they didn't use anything at the beginning, only using teams of soldiers and bright bayonets... Bushido spirit is the last weapon of the Japanese army, and it is also the force they believe can best defeat the enemy. But here—in front of the Chinese defenders at Zhonghua Gate, the Japanese Bushido spirit no longer worked. Li Tianxia, ​​commander of the 153rd brigade of the defending army, and Qiu Weida, commander of the 306th regiment of the garrison, took turns commanding officers and soldiers. They used guns or bodies to block the attacking enemy more than 10 times at the base of the city wall and at the gate of the city. The battle has entered a white-hot state.Both the enemy and the enemy were all red-eyed, and only rows of fallen corpses blocked every inch of land they attacked and defended. "Withdraw! Commander Tang called and asked us to withdraw..." The injured regiment leader Qiu Weida didn't believe it.Brigadier Li Tianxia didn't believe it either.But it was true. Near the evening, the headquarters finally sent a staff officer to convey the request of Commander Tang Shengzhi: the 153rd brigade and other defenders in the Zhonghuamen area all evacuated to the Yangtze River and prepared to cross the river. "Both of my battalion commanders are dead! There are more than 1,300 people in the regiment, and I am waiting for one or two hundred people. How can I explain to the dead brothers? How can I explain it!" Qiu Weida cried bitterly, but couldn't help it. Willing to give up Zhonghuamen. However, the order to evacuate was true. Attached is a copy of the regulations on the order of crossing the river by various ministries (omitted).This order was signed by Tang Shengzhi, Commander-in-Chief of the Nanjing Garrison.According to the memories of Tang Shengzhi and other Kuomintang generals, at noon on the 11th, Tang Shengzhi received a call from Gu Zhutong, Chief of Staff of the General Staff Headquarters. Jiang retreated towards Jinpu Road, and his defenders took the opportunity to break through. "Retreat at this time, I am afraid the frontline soldiers will not obey orders!" Tang Shengzhi wondered. Gu Zhutong said: "The chairman has already issued an order, so don't worry about it. You hurry to Pukou, I want Hu Zongnan to wait for you in Pukou." Tang Shengzhi shook his head again and again: "It's not right, it's not right, let me retreat at this time, what should the troops do? I can't leave!" "You won't leave a chief of staff to explain it?" Gu Zhutong said. Tang Shengzhi didn't leave that night. He thought about it all night, and felt that if he left, he would really feel sorry for all the defenders who were fighting in the sea of ​​blood. At 5:00 p.m. on the 12th, Tang Shengzhi urgently summoned the army and division commander-level officers of the garrison headquarters to his office, read out Chiang Kai-shek's order, and issued the prepared retreat and deployment order to each garrison on mimeographed paper. General, finally he took out a piece of paper and asked the generals to sign their names under the words "agreed to evacuate". "He did this clearly to shirk responsibility, and he didn't discuss it with us at all, forcing us to write our names on it." When a teacher who was present at the time recalled this incident later, he was still very angry with Tang Shengzhi's behavior. After Tang Shengzhi evacuated Nanjing on the night of the 12th, he arrived in Wuhan a few days ago, presented a summary of the Nanjing campaign to Chiang Kai-shek, and said, "All responsibilities are mine, and I request punishment."Chiang Kai-shek didn't say anything, and then Tang said he was sick and returned to his hometown in Hunan to take care of the elderly... This is a later story. But when Tang Shengzhi's order was issued, except for Deng Longguang and Ye Zhao, who were newly recruited from Guangdong, broke through and retreated as planned, Song Xilian's troops withdrew to Pukou, and not many of the remaining Chinese defenders retreated according to the order, because most of them did not retreat at all. I didn't know that the headquarters had issued an order to evacuate on the afternoon of the 12th, and some troops were stuck with the enemy in the line of fire, and it was impossible to receive any orders. Chiang Kai-shek's communication and radio troops had already packed up after noon on the 12th. The household belongings go first... Alas!Alas!My poor frontline soldiers, what is the fate of the last night and tomorrow that awaits you on the 12th? Maybe everyone has thought about it, but no one has thought of it—in fact, there are only two simple words: death. The officers and soldiers of the Chinese defenders after the 12th are likely to die waiting for them.What awaits them is the final fate of bitter and bloody battles... Oh, on December 12, 1937, there were clouds of white snow floating over the city of Nanjing, but the ground there was scorched and convulsed by patches of flames and pools of blood boiled by the flames...