In November, the autumn rain was falling again, and under the gloomy sky, there were bleak and desolate eyes, and bands of ragged and depressed soldiers were gathering into a gray river, flowing westward in disarray. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Along the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the road to the west of the highway was crowded with troops who had retreated from the Songhu battlefield, and they fled in a hurry with their tired bodies, and blood stains could still be seen on their mottled and dirty military uniforms.

The wounded soldiers were dripping in the muddy water with sticks, and the blood oozing from the bandages that wrapped the wounds had turned a dark red and covered with gray mud, and their smoky, black faces were numb and depressed.

Six elite divisions of the Japanese 10 th Army quietly landed in Hangzhou Bay on the night of 5 November, appearing in the flank and rear of the Chinese defenders in the Songhu battlefield; after the Japanese army landed, they quickly conquered Songjiang and other places, and then attacked in two directions, one along the south bank of Taihu Lake to Nanjing, and the other line of troops pointed directly at Qingpu and other transportation hubs, and the battlefield situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and nearly 700,000 Chinese troops were about to fall into a dangerous situation of being encircled in a frontal fierce battle.

Faced with the critical situation, the Chinese Third Theater Command had to formulate a new battle plan, and in order to consolidate the defense of the national capital Nanjing, it ordered the Shanghai defenders to withdraw from the battle, retreat to the rear of the Wufu line of defense fortifications, and alternately cover the retreat to Nanjing.

When the Chinese defenders of Shanghai withdrew alternately, only one day later, the wise Chairman Chiang was about to convene a meeting in the Belgian capital because of the Nine-Power Pact, and in order to win international support, he demanded that the defenders of Shanghai, who had begun to gradually withdraw, return to their original positions and continue to hold on for at least a week.

At that time, communications were not smooth, some troops complied with the order to return to attack the positions they had abandoned and continued to hold on, and some troops continued to retreat without receiving orders, and hundreds of thousands of troops were in chaos, coupled with the rapid action of the Japanese pursuing troops, and the planes in the sky bombarded the Chinese Chinese defenders in disarray, so that the hundreds of thousands of Chinese defenders who had retreated in an orderly manner fell into a state of confusion, and finally turned into a major rout.

The Chinese defenders fought fiercely on the bloody battlefield of Songhu for nearly three months, both mentally and physically, and had reached the end of the crossbow, many troops had been reorganized five or six times, and a large number of veterans had died, and the new recruits were all student soldiers and untrained young men.

There was a commotion on the retreating road, the soldiers belonging to different units were mixed together, and it was completely chaotic at the moment, the soldiers couldn't find their commander, and the commander couldn't find their own soldiers, everyone was running away, because the pursuing troops of the devil soldiers had already caught up with their butts, and they had to run if they wanted to live.

There was no point in resisting, the troops were scattered, the people were confused, and the ranks were not easy to lead, even if there were those enthusiastic young officers who wanted to lead the team to stop the Japanese army, but it was difficult to support it alone, and they were quickly defeated, scattered and then mixed into the defeated team.

The so-called defeat is like this, many people are unwilling to lose one position after another, unwilling to give up the soil that has paid countless blood and lives to defend to the Japanese, but the army is defeated, and no matter how unwilling they are, they only leave their hearts full of grief and indignation.

On the barren hill, Liu Mingleng, deputy of the 174th Division's Supplementary Regiment, wrapped in a dirty and sloppy military uniform, looked at the crowded and noisy road, muttering to himself in disbelief, why was he defeated?

The soldiers were not brave, they stuck to the trenches full of mud and corpses, fought to the death, starved, lacked clothes and medicine, fought hand-to-hand with the devils with flesh and blood without ammunition, fought with white knives, blood stained the earth, and corpses piled up, but the result was still defeated, confused, and completely defeated.

There were young officers wearing general's epaulettes who followed the procession with blank eyes, howling and crying as they walked, and they went all the way to the battlefield, and the brothers died and were finally defeated, and it was difficult to accept the fact that they had gone all the way.

"What kind of face do you have to go back and face your hometown fathers!" The officers were weeping, they were screaming in the sky, and the discouraged soldiers were still walking with blank faces, thinking that he had gone mad.

Bang - blood splattered, a bloody hole appeared in the temple of the grief-stricken young officer, and the emaciated officer chose to end his life by suicide, and his body rested here forever like the soldiers who died in this land.

"Deputy Liu Tuan, let's go, the devil is about to catch up." Li Tiezhu, the company commander with a bloody face, saw the regiment deputy Liu Ming's eyes staring at the officer who killed himself, and he was worried that he would not be able to think about it, so he hurriedly hugged him and withdrew with the team.

"Alas......" Liu Ming looked at the young officer who fell in the ditch by the roadside, sighed heavily, shook his head helplessly, and continued to retreat and flee for his life with a stick.

……

Countless people were crowded at the bridge of the Qingyang Port Highway, the embarrassed soldiers were in a hurry, the high-ranking officials and dignitaries sitting in the cars were full of irritability, and the drivers pressed their horns vigorously, and the piercing horns continued to sound.

Due to the confusion and haste of the retreat, most of the bridges have been blown up by the devil's planes because they are not protected, and the retreating troops can only withdraw from this remaining road bridge to Kunshan, and then along the Beijing-Shanghai railway to Suzhou and Wuxi, so it becomes crowded and noisy.

The Jiangnan region was crisscrossed by a network of water networks and ditches, which became a deadly obstacle for the retreating troops, who could only retreat along a few major roads and railways, which were crowded with retreating soldiers and fleeing civilians, and the roads were flooded by ox carts and horse-drawn carts.

The devil's planes circled back and forth over these roads, machine guns firing at low altitudes and dropping bombs, turning the retreat into a road of death, and the burning houses and broken corpses on the side of the road added to the bleak and miserable scene.

"Hurry up! Hurry up! "A regimental deputy of the 87th Division was urging loudly, dozens of national ... Soldiers were busy planting explosives up and down Qingyang Port, preparing to blow up the highway bridge and delay the pursuing troops of the Japanese army.

"Everybody stand back - cross the bridge from somewhere else, the bridge here is blown up!" A platoon of heavily armed soldiers blocked the retreating ranks, which immediately caused a commotion.

"Let's blow up the bridge when we get there!"

Someone is praying loudly: "The devil has caught up, let's pass!"

"Get out of the way for Lao Tzu, or Lao Tzu will shoot!" Others raised their guns and aimed them at the soldiers of the 87th Division who were blocking the way.

"Brethren! I'm sorry! We also have a military order, and we are ordered to blow up the bridge, if this bridge is taken by the devils, no one will survive, you better find another place to cross the river! The regimental deputy of the 87th Division shouted at the top of his voice, but he still couldn't suppress the riot.

"Damn, those grandsons of the 87th Division are going to blow up the bridge, we can't cross it, I'm afraid we have to find another place to cross the river." Yang Dashu, who was wrapped in a thick bandage on his head, panted back to the side of the road, and ran to the haggard health captain Zhang Hongying and said.

Zhang Hongying's fair face was covered with mud and dust, and she looked even more haggard, and she was a little anxious after hearing Yang Dashu's words: "What can I do about this?"

Yang Dashu sighed: "Let's go along the river and see if we can find a fishing boat to cross the river, let's try our luck."

While he was talking, suddenly there was a loud gunfire at the bridgehead. The soldiers of the 87th Division who were guarding the bridgehead were caught off guard and swept down, and the scene was out of control for a while.

Yang Dashu thought that someone had taken a risk to force his way across the bridge, but suddenly he heard the people who fired the guns babbling out of Chinese, and then he realized that they might be ghost soldiers who had infiltrated the rout.

Yang Dashu pulled Zhang Hongying, who didn't understand what was going on, and said: "The devil soldiers have captured the bridge, we can't stay here for a long time, let's get out of here quickly!"