Chapter 45: Chance Encounter
Facing Hasegawa’s angry rebuke, the usually arrogant Nagano Yusaburo lowered his head like a defeated rooster. Hasegawa continued, “What you need to do now is retreat quickly, protect the regimental flag and withdraw to the rear, understand?”
“Alright!” Nagano Yusaburo gritted his teeth. “I’ll immediately order the troops to retreat, and afterward, I’ll personally apologize to Colonel Kunizaki.”
“Yoshi, that’s the demeanor of a warrior of the Great Japanese Empire.” Seeing this subordinate, who used to bare his fangs at him from time to time, finally lower his arrogant head, Hasegawa felt as refreshed as drinking a large bowl of sour plum soup on a hot summer day, even though he knew it wasn’t time to celebrate. But on the surface, he still pretended to be serious and nodded.
“I’ll give the order right away…”
“Woo… boom…”
Just as Nagano Yusaburo finished speaking, an explosion sounded dozens of meters away from the two men, accompanied by bursts of gunfire and screams.
Immediately after, panicked footsteps echoed around them. Soon, a lieutenant rushed in and shouted loudly, “Regimental commander, the Chinese are coming! The guard company is engaging them now, but they probably won’t hold out much longer. You’d better withdraw quickly.”
“What… how could they be so fast?”
Nagano Yusaburo’s expression changed slightly. “Is our guard unit eating dry rice? How could they not hold up right from the start of the fight?”
Around the regimental headquarters of the Japanese Army, there are generally two infantry squads（about 60 men）, one Type 92 heavy machine gun, and several grenade launcher teams deployed as guard forces. During combat, they also build simple cover, set up sentries, and booby traps.
Normally, such guard forces wouldn’t collapse so quickly unless facing overwhelming enemy numbers. This was the reason for Nagano Yusaburo’s fury.
“This isn’t the time to pursue that—let’s go now!”
In contrast, Hasegawa was more straightforward. He directly grabbed Nagano Yusaburo and ran toward the gate.
Don’t think that just because Japanese high command always talks about honorable death and seppuku, that applies to lower officers and soldiers. Officers at the rank of colonel and above are different.
Why throw away a comfortable life and casually play at disembowelment? That would make them fools.
“Da-da-da… boom boom…”
Just as Hasegawa and Nagano Yusaburo stepped out of the command post, urgent gunfire reached their ears, followed immediately by two massive explosions.
“The Chinese… the Chinese are coming!” Accompanied by several panicked shouts, the Type 11 light machine gun on the rooftop opened fire.
“Da-da-da-da…”
Urgent bullets hit the road on the right side, making popping sounds.
“Left side… people coming from the left too…”
“Quick… go from the back!”
Hasegawa’s expression changed, and he pulled Nagano Yusaburo toward the rear.
At this point, the two men could no longer care about dignity. They ran for their lives at full speed. As colonels, they had bright futures ahead and didn’t want to lose their lives here.
“Faster… pick up the pace…”
Su Yaoyang led a small team of security regiment soldiers quickly toward the area of intense gunfire. When they arrived at a street, they saw dozens of their own soldiers fiercely attacking two houses ahead.
The enemy’s counterfire was also fierce. A firepower net consisting of one Type 92 heavy machine gun and two Type 11 light machine guns was desperately pouring bullets at them. The dense bullets pinned the attacking troops down.
The leading platoon leader organized several assaults, but apart from leaving a few corpses, there was no effect.
Su Yaoyang watched for a while and said to the soldiers behind him, “We can’t attack head-on like this. Let’s go around—follow me!”
With that, Su Yaoyang carried his Garand rifle to the side of a house on the street, drilled through a large hole blasted in an earthen wall, and the soldiers behind followed suit.
The group had just passed through the wall and not gone far on the other street when more than ten figures suddenly emerged from a house ahead. Caught off guard, both sides nearly collided head-on.
“Clack-clack…”
The sound of bolts being pulled back rang out almost simultaneously. Everyone aimed their gun muzzles at each other, followed by voices in Chinese mixed with Japanese.
“Don’t move…”
“Drop your weapons… now!”
“Don’t move, lower your guns!”
“Drop your weapons!”
Both sides were equally agitated and fearful, with hoarse shouts, black gun muzzles pointed at each other. The difference was one side held Type 38 rifles, the other Thompsons and Garand rifles.
The reason neither side fired was that everyone feared mutual destruction—like a skinny stick fighting a wolf, afraid of everyone perishing together if shots were fired.
The Japanese group that unexpectedly ran into Su Yaoyang’s team was none other than Hasegawa, Nagano Yusaburo, and several guard soldiers.
To be honest, facing the sudden situation, both sides were stunned. Everyone’s hearts were in their throats. With muzzles pointed directly at each other, no one but a blind man could miss.
Looking at the bloodshot eyes filled with agitation, Su Yaoyang felt his gun hand trembling. If the little devil opposite twitched his finger, his traversal journey would end right there.
After a few seconds of standoff, Su Yaoyang calmed down. He then noticed that among the Japanese opposite, two had colonel shoulder insignia with two bars and three stars.
“Colonels!”
Seeing two colonels right in front of him, Su Yaoyang immediately realized he’d hooked big fish. A thought surged in his mind: he absolutely couldn’t let these guys escape.
“Hey… you Chinese opposite, I think we can talk this over properly.” At that moment, one colonel spoke up in slightly accented English.
“What…”
When the word “Chinese” entered Su Yaoyang’s ears, he felt a rush of heat surge into his head.
In his over twenty years of life, he’d watched plenty of films and dramas, including anti-Japanese ones, so he naturally knew the meaning of “Chinese.”
It was a term loaded with extreme derogatory meaning, implying unclean and dirty. It was a word specially invented by the Japanese to describe China, carrying strong contempt and insult. It was widely used to scorn and humiliate Chinese people.
As soon as that word came out, the initial shock and fear in Su Yaoyang’s heart vanished instantly. His eyes turned bloodshot. He didn’t even hear what the other side continued saying before his right hand instinctively pulled the trigger.
“Bang bang bang…”
Accompanied by crisp gunshots, the soldiers on both sides, nerves stretched to the limit, almost simultaneously made the same motion…
