Chapter 53: The Final Showdown
A communications soldier loudly said to General Kuni Saki: “Your Excellency, the 41st Regiment is fiercely attacking the Chinese defensive line, but the Chinese resistance is very fierce. The 1st Battalion, responsible for the main assault, has suffered heavy losses. Regiment Commander Yamada requests support from the artillery battalion.”
“Support?”
General Kuni Saki’s mouth twitched. “My artillery battalion was dispersed to various places long ago. What do you want me to use to support him? Tell Mr. Yamada that I give him only one day. If he can’t take the church, I will personally go to the front line to take over his command.”
“Hai!” The communications soldier responded in a low voice and turned to leave the command post.
After speaking, General Kuni Saki went to the balcony on the third floor, raised his binoculars, and looked toward the church.
Logically speaking, it should be a sunny morning now, but for some reason, the entire Nanjing was shrouded in a cold dark blue.
In the various directions ahead, explosions rang out from time to time, followed by columns of black smoke. There was no wind in Nanjing today, so these smoke columns rose straight into the sky, like slender black veils connecting heaven and earth.
The battle lasted the entire morning. Zhang Wenshan didn’t know how many Japanese soldiers he had killed. He only knew that his ammunition pouch, which could hold two hundred rounds of bullets, was almost empty, and the area around him was full of scattered shell casings.
Just now, a 75mm artillery shell hit a machine gun position dozens of meters away from him. The huge shockwave and fragments nearly killed him, to the point that he still felt nauseous now.
Now, Zhang Wenshan was lying in a shell crater. He felt the heat in the crater dissipating, and a chill beginning to spread throughout his body.
He propped himself up with his hands to sit upright. His right hand touched a sticky, cold, soft mass. It looked like a lump of mud covered in black gunpowder residue.
He suddenly realized it was a piece of flesh. He didn’t know which part of the body it belonged to, or whose it was.
In that artillery strike just now, all the soldiers in that position were killed. He remembered there seemed to be three soldiers in that position: the oldest was a forty-something veteran from Hebei, and the youngest was a sixteen-year-old boy from Sichuan.
That veteran had even asked him for a cigarette. Zhang Wenshan had curiously asked him why he didn’t smoke the cigarettes issued to everyone by Commander Su.
The veteran had dodged the question and refused to answer. In the end, the Sichuan boy revealed the truth: the veteran had sold his cigarettes to others. He was saving money to send home to get a wife for his son.
Zhang Wenshan clearly remembered the expectant and happy expression on the veteran’s face when he talked about his son, but now it was all gone.
Thinking of the faces and laughter of those three men, Zhang Wenshan’s stomach suddenly convulsed. He bent over and started vomiting, but only acid came out.
He desperately rubbed his hands on the ground, trying to wipe off the bloodstains, but the dark red blood quickly coagulated on his hands in the cold, still glaringly obvious.
“Giggles… giggles…”
While he was constantly wiping his palms, a teeth-gritting metallic friction sound and low rumbling came from the front right, followed by a khaki-colored tank appearing in front of him.
The tall cylindrical turret and short-barreled 37mm tank gun, paired with two Type 91 6.5mm machine guns, all indicated the identity of the intruder… a Type 89 heavy tank.
Of course, that was just the Japanese army’s own name.
In fact, by Western standards, this tank weighing only 12.7 tons fully loaded, with frontal armor just 17mm thick, was at best a light tank.
Nevertheless, even this thing scorned by the West was still a formidable behemoth that was hard to deal with for China with its poor industrial foundation.
Seeing this big guy, Zhang Wenshan immediately sensed trouble. He hadn’t seen this thing all morning today, so why had it suddenly appeared now?
There was only one reason: Japanese reinforcements had arrived.
The moment he saw the tank, Zhang Wenshan felt his scalp go numb, and he instinctively wanted to flee.
This wasn’t cowardice, but the natural reaction of a sniper encountering his natural enemy.
“Giggles…”
This Type 89 tank that had suddenly appeared stopped over a hundred meters from Zhang Wenshan, slowly turning its gun barrel to aim at a half-collapsed earthen house where two soldiers were shooting at it.
“Boom…”
With a flash from the muzzle, the earthen house completely collapsed in the explosion, burying the two men underneath.
As the earthen house was blown down, the accompanying Japanese soldiers cheered. Amid the cheers, the Type 89 tank started moving again. With a giggling sound, the tank advanced toward Zhang Wenshan’s position.
Though the Type 89 tank was mockingly called the “bean tank” by later military enthusiasts, at this moment, it was no different from a man-eating demon to Zhang Wenshan.
Watching this steel monster emitting giggling sounds approach him, Zhang Wenshan felt cold sweat break out on his back, and his palms grew sweaty.
He lay flat on the ruins, wanting to fire, but reason told him that opening fire now was not a wise choice.
But watching the steel beast and dozens of Japanese soldiers approach step by step without being able to fight back filled him with indescribable anxiety.
Several times, Zhang Wenshan felt the urge to jump up and shoot, but reason ultimately held him back.
When the tank passed by him, he felt the ground tremble slightly under the impact of the tracks. Fortunately, his camouflage was effective enough that neither the tank nor the surrounding Japanese soldiers noticed a Chinese soldier lying in the nearby shell crater.
At that moment, time seemed to stop. After an unknown period, the Type 89 tank finally passed by him, and the dozens of soldiers around the tank followed it away.
Zhang Wenshan let out a long breath. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly heard a loud bang from ahead.
“Boom…”
A deafening explosion rang in his ears. The huge blast made his ears ring, and he nearly passed out.
The Type 89 tank, which had been majestic moments ago, was flung several meters into the air as if kicked by a giant, its over-ten-ton body tossed by a tremendous force before crashing heavily to the ground.
Even the turret was shaken loose into the air. Moreover, the dozens of Japanese soldiers around the tank were thrown tumbling by the huge explosion, with several flung into the air before crashing heavily to the ground.
