Chapter 36: Should We Send Someone To Contact Them?
“Er Dan… did you see that just now? Officer Su was kissing a girl!”
A veteran soldier patted Qiao Er Dan’s shoulder slyly and asked.
“I saw it… so what… what’s your idea?” Qiao Er Dan irritably slapped his hand away. “This is the family matter of our officer. Why do you care so much?”
The veteran soldier was slightly stunned, then a cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth: “Oh… you’ve only received the officer’s pay for how long, and you’re already protecting your master? I don’t know if your master can even… ouch…”
The soldier’s words were not finished when a fist came flying, smashing the unprepared him to the ground.
“Ouch… Qiao Er Dan, you bastard, you actually dare to hit me.” The soldier got up and pounced toward Qiao Er Dan. The two began to wrestle together.
The soldiers nearby saw the two fighting, but instead of stopping them, they started jeering. Some quick-reacting ones even opened betting pools, and it quickly turned into chaos.
Of course, while they were fighting, they were only throwing punches. The rifles on their bodies had already been thrown aside.
This was also an unwritten rule in the army: in the military, if two people have a conflict, both sides can come to blows. Even if they beat each other black and blue, the worst they would get is a scolding from the superior. But if anyone dared to touch a gun, they would be immediately executed upon discovery.
Against the wall nearby, Su Yaoyang and Li Gaoyuan silently watched this scene.
Su Yaoyang took out a cigarette and handed him one, asking, “Old Li… do you think these rabble can withstand the Japanese offensive?”
Li Gaoyuan lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and said indifferently, “Whether they can hold or not is hard to say, but at least these people have resolved our urgent shortage of manpower.”
Su Yaoyang continued to ask, “Can we break out of Nanjing with these people?”
Li Gaoyuan glanced at him and countered, “What do you think?”
“I… forget it… I won’t say it…” Su Yaoyang slumped against the wall in dejection.
Don’t think that because he had easily rushed in just now, it was simple. That was only because he had caught the Japanese off guard. Now, trying to break out would be completely different in difficulty.
Especially with a large number of female students, wounded, and other non-combatants, the difficulty increased exponentially.
“After all this effort, are we still going to die here?”
The more Su Yaoyang thought, the more frustrated he became. After saying a few words to Li Gaoyuan and instructing him to quickly reorganize the new stragglers, he descended from the high wall.
Su Yaoyang, who had come down from the high wall, arrived at the front courtyard. By then, Qiao Er Dan and the soldier’s fight had ended, with Qiao Er Dan victorious, and the soldier slinking away dejectedly.
Looking at the betting soldiers who were either beaming with joy or cursing as they left, Su Yaoyang only felt a wave of exhaustion.
Aren’t army soldiers supposed to be well-trained and resolute in will? Why do they look just like a bunch of street thugs? This didn’t match his definition of an army at all.
Not to mention modern armies, these soldier ruffians were far inferior compared to the more than ten soldiers from Li Gaoyuan’s training team.
What Su Yaoyang didn’t know was that these soldiers in front of him were the normal ones.
Consider a force almost entirely composed of illiterates and bankrupt peasants—how strict could their discipline be? How could they compare to the armies of later generations made up of young people who had received nine years of compulsory education and witnessed the nation’s growing strength from childhood?
Even Li Gaoyuan’s Central Army training team was composed of elite soldiers selected from millions across the nation, and it could be called the benchmark of China’s current military.
Just as Su Yaoyang was headache-inducing over his uneven troops, the 11th Regiment opposite the church was immersed in grief.
The sudden shelling and betrayal from behind caused the 11th Regiment to lose an entire company in just over ten minutes, and adding the losses from the assault, the 11th Regiment’s casualties had already exceeded four hundred.
One must know that during these days of attacking Nanjing City, the 11th Regiment, as one of the main assault units, had lost less than three hundred men.
Now, the losses from attacking a small church were actually greater than those from attacking the city. This made Nagano Yuichiro feel like he had lost all face, especially thinking that Hasegawa was still watching from behind, giving him a sense of utter shame.
“Regiment commander, sir, we should still report to General Kunizaki and request support from the artillery units, right?” Major Morimura Juro, the third battalion commander, couldn’t help but propose again.
“Our regiment was already short one battalion, and we had already suffered considerable losses in the Nanjing offensive. Now we’ve lost nearly four hundred more, leaving only thirteen hundred-plus combat-capable troops in total. If we continue the strong attack, the consequences will be unimaginable!”
No matter how arrogant Nagano Yuichiro was, facing the regiment’s massive losses, he had no choice but to lower his proud head.
He paced back and forth on the spot for several circles, gritted his teeth, and said: “Order the troops to halt the attack. Send someone to report to General Kunizaki again and request artillery support.
Also, have you immediately arrange for the troops to monitor and surround the church.”
“Hai!”
Hearing that the regiment commander had finally accepted his suggestion, Morimura Juro breathed a sigh of relief, responded loudly, and went down.
At this time, neither Nagano Yuichiro nor Su Yaoyang realized that this battle in this unremarkable church had already alarmed higher levels.
Major General Xiao Shanling, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Gendarmerie Command, who had just received the order from the Capital Garrison Headquarters to “assemble at Huaying Camp and stand by,” heard his subordinate report that intense gunfire had come from a location in the city, and even sounds of large-scale shelling had been heard.
“There’s such a thing?” Xiao Shanling was startled and quickly asked, “Which unit is this? How do they have such powerful artillery?”
“Report, sir, our department doesn’t know either.” The reporting adjutant continued, “But our department just heard a message that it seems a Central Military Academy Training Corps has occupied St. Paul’s Church in the city.
There are many women and students in the church, and that Central Army training corps stayed there to block the Japanese in order to protect them.”
“Central Military Academy Training Corps?” Xiao Shanling pondered for a moment after hearing this.
“If it’s that Central Military Academy Training Corps, then it makes sense. Nowadays, only they can go toe-to-toe with the Japanese. But the training corps has already suffered heavy losses, and that unit in the church alone probably won’t hold out for long.”
It must be said that Xiao Shanling’s insight was very sharp; he saw the biggest problem with the training corps at a glance.
The adjutant hesitated: “Commander Xiao, should we send someone to contact that training corps in the church? Even giving them a little support would be good.”
