Chapter 144: Collectible
“Regiment Commander… the Fourth Battalion reports that they have occupied the positions behind the county town, and the garrison fled without firing a shot.”
“Good!”
Su Yaoyang nodded in satisfaction, then instructed: “Since the rear positions have already been occupied, we don’t need to leave so many people in the county town.
Order Huang Guantao to lead the Second Battalion to take down Longquan Pass and Shaxi Town as well, and transfer four tanks to him from the tank company.
Tell him to move fast; the Japanese reinforcements could arrive at any moment.”
“Understood!”
With a series of orders issued, the entire security regiment operated methodically like a machine wound up tight, as teams of soldiers in gray-green uniforms rode trucks speeding toward various Japanese strongholds in Wuta County.
On the city wall, when Nagano Shinzo heard that the rear defensive line had been breached and even shouts of killing were coming from behind, he knew his life was probably going to end today.
He pulled a photo from his pocket; in it, he was dressed in uniform with a serious expression, and a young woman holding a baby nestled beside him, gazing tenderly ahead.
He let out a long breath of turbid air and murmured: “Sakurako… Nanako… farewell forever.”
“Captain, the Chinese are attacking from behind!” The lieutenant’s desperate voice rang out beside him.
Nagano Shinzo slowly put the photo back in his pocket, glanced at the other man, and said solemnly: “Yokota-kun, the highest honor for a soldier is to die on the battlefield. Do I need to teach you that?
From the moment you chose to serve His Majesty the Emperor, your life no longer belonged to you. Now, please pick up your weapon and face the samurai’s final glory with me!”
With that, Nagano Shinzo scanned the surroundings; the remaining hundred or so soldiers were all looking at him eagerly.
With a “clang,” he drew his army sword and pointed it forward, shouting loudly: “Warriors of the Empire, the Chinese tanks are coming toward us.
Now, follow me and die together for His Majesty the Emperor!”
“Banzai…”
With that, Nagano Shinzo jumped down from the low city wall and charged toward the tanks approaching from the front.
Seeing their supreme commander Nagano Shinzo leading the charge, the remaining hundred or so Japanese soldiers went berserk as well, grabbing their Type 38 rifles and following him, including that lieutenant.
“Banzai!”
“Banzai!”
The fierce sun dyed the crumbling city wall golden red, and Nagano Shinzo’s army sword traced a piercing arc in the sunlight.
When the first bullet grazed past his ear, he smelled the scorched odor of his sideburns burning.
Then a rain of bullets poured down; the instant the 7.62mm rounds pierced his abdomen, he saw the blood mist he sprayed condense into tiny rainbows in the sunset.
As the army sword slipped from his hand and clanged against the tank armor, the crisp sound was even more piercing than the dull crack of his bones breaking.
His lower body still in a running pose, he toppled into a shell crater, his intestines sliding onto the scorched earth like a severed rope.
He struggled to crawl forward on his elbows, his bullet-plowed abdominal cavity dragging a winding trail of blood, the earthy smell mixed with gunpowder suddenly becoming exceptionally clear.
The last thing that entered his eyes was the smoke and dust kicked up by the tank treads, and his own severed hand still clutching at nothingness.
Half an hour after Nagano Shinzo’s death, the battle ended, with corpses strewn everywhere on the battlefield.
Amid the crunching sound of footsteps on gravel, Su Yaoyang arrived at the battlefield surrounded by Pi Ruoyu and over a dozen guards.
Pi Ruoyu bent down to pick up the army sword from the ground, and looking at the brass fittings on the scabbard and the tassel mixed with tea brown and red, he couldn’t help but laugh: “Yo… it’s an officer’s sword.”
Su Yaoyang glanced at the army sword, then at the corpse lying on the ground with eyes wide open in death, squatted down, rummaged in the pocket of its uniform, and pulled out an officer’s ID and a photo.
Looking at the serious-faced man and the woman holding the baby in the photo, he casually tossed the photo to the ground, then turned to Pi Ruoyu and said: “What… you like collecting Japanese army swords?”
“I do like them a bit.” Pi Ruoyu smiled: “Collecting a few Japanese army swords can serve as trophies, and when the War of Resistance is won or when I’m old, I can pass them on to my son or grandson.
Or, stepping back ten thousand steps, if my descendants fall on hard times in the future, at least they can exchange them for some money. Don’t you think so, Regiment Commander?”
“Tsk…”
Su Yaoyang looked at Pi Ruoyu as if seeing him for the first time, sizing him up carefully for a long while before finally giving him a thumbs up. “Old Pi, you’re the man!”
Others might not know, but didn’t he know?
In later generations, due to the collecting craze, the prices of War of Resistance items continued to rise.
For example, on the market, an ordinary lieutenant’s sword Type 3/iron rod sword price reached five thousand to twenty thousand.
A captain’s sword Type 94/95 price ranged from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand.
As for general’s swords traditional jade steel sword, no need to mention; at least fifty thousand starting, even two hundred thousand ones existed.
Of course, the above were just for ordinary condition swords; for fine items or those with special historical background, the prices were sky-high.
Take the Type 94 captain’s sword in Pi Ruoyu’s hand; if he wrote a material proving its capture origin and history now, and paired it with the captured officer’s ID and that photo, the price would be at least one million base.
Of course, if you captured a general’s sword with imperial chrysanthemum blade or historical famous sword, it would be even more incredible.
For instance, the sword surrendered by Okamura Yasuji when signing the surrender agreement—if put on the market for sale, don’t even think about it without ten million.
Precisely because he knew this, Su Yaoyang gave Pi Ruoyu a thumbs up for thinking of this layer so early.
However, this also reminded Su Yaoyang that in the future, if he captured more Japanese army swords or battle flags and such trophies, he should strike when the time came, or else wouldn’t he just be cheaply giving them to Pi Ruoyu?
Pi Ruoyu naturally didn’t know that his casual words had unwittingly sparked his boss’s enthusiasm for collecting army swords.
Seeing Su Yaoyang staring blankly in thought, he couldn’t help but laugh: “Regiment Commander… what are you thinking about?”
“Oh… nothing.” Coming back to his senses, Su Yaoyang waved his hand. “I was lost in thought about some things.”
“Buzz buzz buzz…”
“Woo woo woo…”
The sky was suddenly torn apart. Su Yaoyang’s fingertip still hung in mid-air as his ears filled with the shriek of metal friction against air.
He looked up and saw the lead-gray clouds pierced by over a dozen black dots, those black dots trailing long smoke tails like red-hot iron nails brutally hammered into the firmament.
Soon, six Type 96 attack bombers appeared before everyone, the scarlet insignia on their wings glaringly conspicuous.
