Feng Shengfa, Xu Shijiu and his troops had just withdrawn from Anting, Li Fangliang, the commander of the engineer of the 14th Division, ordered the blow up the Anting Highway Bridge.

On this day, more than 500,000 people from the 80th Division, left from Taicang, Nanxiang, Beixinjing, Nanshi, and Pudong, have basically passed Anting. There are basically no established troops behind the 58th Division, only scattered officers and soldiers who are disabled or sick due to injuries, as well as some defeated soldiers who are separated from the troops.

On this day, the Japanese army had been divided into three routes. The middle route followed the Shanghai-Nanjing Highway and bit the butt of the Chinese army and chased forward. The Japanese army on the left had captured Pingwang on the southeast bank of Taihu Lake, and the Japanese army on the right had also approached Changshu. The first national defense line built by the National Government spent a lot of money to build, the Wufu Line, was left behind by the Japanese army.

On this day, the eighty military advisors who had just left the battlefield of Songhu were tired and hungry, and they were extremely scarce with weapons, bullets and drugs. The officers and soldiers had neither fighting spirit nor fighting spirit. If both Japanese troops on the left and right launched a centripetal attack on Wuxian (Suzhou) on the east bank of Taihu Lake, the national army would definitely not be able to withstand it. In the end, these eighty divisions would be surrounded and annihilated by the Japanese army near Wuxian.

Fortunately, such a thing did not happen. The Japanese army on the left, namely the commander of the 10th Army, Yanagawa Heisuke, did not take the orders of Matsui Ishione, the commander of the Central China Front Army. After the 18th Division captured Hirai, Yanagawa Heisuke did not order him to go north to attack Wuxian, but ordered him to continue westward to attack Nanxun and threaten Wuxing.

Obviously, the old Japanese devil, Heisuke Yanagawa, had a much greater ambition than Matsui Ishigen. Matsui Ishigen only wanted to encircle and annihilate the main force of the National Army east of Wuxian, but did not think of crossing the terminating line set by the base camp. However, the old Japanese devil tried to draw a larger encirclement on the map, and used the 10th Army to bypass the south bank of Taihu Lake, and went straight to Wuhu through Changxing, Guangde, and Yixing. Then he went west through the Yangtze River to block the northwest river surface of Nanjing, and then surrounded the main force of the National Army in Nanjing.

The two old Japanese disagree, and the 10th Army and the Shanghai Condemnation Army failed to form tactical coordination. The 11th Japanese Army, which had already been exhausted from veterans, encountered a new opponent near Changshu. This new opponent was the New Fourth Army adapted from the Red Army guerrillas in the seven provinces of Jiangnan.

Although the New Fourth Army was not large in number, it followed a set of tactics that were completely different from the National Army, which made the Japanese army very uncomfortable, resulting in the progress of the war. It was not until November 19 that it captured Changshu. By this time, the main force of the National Army who had left the battlefield of Songhu had already left Wuxian and retreated through Wuxi along the Shanghai-Nanjing Highway.

Of course, if Yanagawa Heisuke's strategy can be successfully implemented, then hundreds of thousands of national troops left out of the Songhu battlefield will still be surrounded by the Japanese army near Nanjing. However, Yanagawa Heisuke also encountered a new opponent in Changxing, Si'an and Guangde on the southern bank of Taihu Lake, and this new opponent is the Sichuan Army.

Although the weapons and equipment of the Sichuan Army were poor, most of the officers and soldiers were still wearing single-clad straw sandals in the winter, and their local cloth uniforms were also tattered, similar to beggars. However, the morale of the Sichuan Army was very high. From the army to the division commanders to the big head soldiers, everyone was proud of fighting the national war. The strong fighting will was similar to the Central Army who had just stepped onto the battlefield of Songhu.

Since the landing of Kinshan Guard, Yanagawa Heisuke's 10th Legion has basically not encountered decent resistance. Koji Wun's tense nerves suddenly relaxed. They thought that they could easily reach Nanjing by burning, killing, plundering, but they hit the Sichuan Army head-on and were caught off guard.

The Sichuan Army really created a miracle on the Guangde battlefield!

The Japanese Navy was also stubbornly resisted by the Chinese Navy in the Jiangyin Fortress and was unable to go up the river for a long time.

By the time the commander of Rao Guohua died, the Japanese army finally captured Guangde. It was November 30. In the past, the more than 80 main divisions left behind from the battlefield in Songhu, except for the Central Military Academy Teaching Corps, the 36th Division and other few left-behind troops, all the remaining troops had retreated to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui for replenishment.

But these are all later stories, so I won’t talk about it for now.

Besides, the 58th Division and the 19th Brigade retreated along the Kun-Hu Highway to Kunshan. They were bombarded and strafed by Japanese bombers on the way. Fortunately, Feng Shengfa and Xu Shijiu were very experienced. As soon as the Japanese bombers appeared, they immediately ordered the troops to enter the ditches on the side of the road to hide, without letting the troops hide in the woods.

As a result, the Japanese bombers threw bombs into the woods. Almost all the bombs exploded in the sky, and there was nowhere to be found. The National Army, who hid in the woods, suffered heavy casualties. However, the officers and soldiers of the 58th Division and the 19th Brigade hid in the roadside ditches before the Japanese bombers entered the strafing angle, with minimal casualties.

After the Japanese bomber group flew away, the road was already in chaos.

Looking around, there were corpses everywhere on the road and in the grass on the roadside, including soldiers of the National Army and civilians who fled. Some of them had just been killed by the bombing and were bleeding all over the ground, while others had been dead for many days. The bodies had begun to smell. Some soldiers of the National Army did not die of Japanese bombing, but were sick and dead.

Disease is the second killer to the Japanese guns and cannons for the soldiers of the National Army!

People eat grains and cereals, and they still have headaches and fevers several times a year. In high-intensity battles, it is even more uncommon for Chinese soldiers to get sick. Due to the lack of sufficient anti-inflammatory drugs, even if they are burned by hot sand or a little skin on their knees, the result is likely to be fatal.

The 19th Brigade retreated from Anting along the Kun-Hu Highway to Kunshan. All the way, the wounded were seen waiting for death by lying on the road. Many of the wounded were actually not seriously injured. Either the quilt had a small hole in the arms and legs, or the shrapnel had a broken skin. As a result, the wound was infected, and then the fever was gone. The commander escaped and the robe was lost. The only thing they could do was lying on the road and wait for death slowly.

Many wounded people died like this.

During the Battle of Shanghai, the National Army suffered 300,000 casualties and about 150,000 casualties. Among them, less than 50,000 soldiers of the National Army were killed directly on the battlefield, and more than 100,000 were injured. Then, due to lack of medical treatment and medicine, they died in despair while waiting for rescue, or fell behind in retreat and died quietly.

Feng Shengfa and Xu Shijiu had no choice but to do anything about these wounded men who fell out of the team, because many officers and soldiers of the 58th Division and the 19th Brigade were also injured and sick, and their men were still too busy to take care of their injuries. How could they draw out their hands to save these wounded men waiting to die on the roadside?

Feng Shengfa, who was walking beside Xu Shijiu, sighed and said sadly: "How great would it be if there were ten to twenty divisions on the Wufu line as the strategic reserve team?" If there were ten to twenty divisions on the Wufu line, you could go forward to Taicang and Kunshan to support it. A big defeat would not have happened, and the loss of the national army would have been much smaller.

Xu Shijiu was speechless. He believed that Chairman Jiang must have regretted it at this moment.

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Chairman Jiang really regrets it.

Chairman Jiang had already visited Suzhou and had condolences to the first troops left from the battlefield of Songhu. This unit was the 88th Division. The 88th Division, which was very energetic, had completely turned into another situation. First, there were disorganized personnel and few veterans. Most of them were strong men who had just been replenished and had never even touched guns. Secondly, they were not equipped and had lost technical equipment. There were only a few light and heavy machine guns left. Many officers and soldiers even lost their guns. Once again, they were listless. Most officers and soldiers looked depressed and their eyes were dull. Finally, they were tired and sick. Many officers and soldiers were sick and there were smug in the shelter.

Even the 88th Division, known as the "Imperial Guard", has become like this, and other divisions can be imagined.

Chairman Jiang really regretted it after coming out of the 88th Division's shelter station in Suzhou. He even regretted it. If he could not turn back and give him the chance to fight the Battle of Shanghai again, he would never obey the trick of the old German man Falkenhausen and put all the main forces of the national army into the suburbs of Shanghai to fight a strategic decisive battle with the Japanese army.

But unfortunately, it is impossible to turn back late, and there is no regret in this world to buy medicine, so Chairman Jiang has to drink the bitter wine he brewed by himself. He has to face the bad situation after the great defeat of Songhu. The defeated national army from the battlefield of Songhu is no longer possible to gain a foothold in Wufu and Xicheng Line, and Nanjing has become a strategic death!

When hundreds of thousands of national troops on the battlefield in the Shanghai were taking great strides, Chairman Jiang held three consecutive aide meetings to discuss whether to defend Nanjing. Liu Fei, head of the commander's combat team, proposed to leave ten to sixteen regiments in Fukuo and the periphery of Nanjing to make symbolic resistance, and also strive for rest for the main force.

Liu Fei's point of view is undoubtedly correct. The more than 500,000 national troops who were defeated from the battlefield in Songhu have reached their limits in terms of physical strength and energy, and their morale is depressed. What we need most now is rest, rather than letting them stay in Nanjing and continue to fight the Japanese army to the death. Doing so is a huge waste of military strength.

However, Tang Shengzhi believed that Nanjing was the location of the tomb of "the first to be the governor" and should be defended with heavy troops!

Chairman Jiang finally adopted Tang Shengzhi's opinion and threatened him to stay behind, forcing Tang Shengzhi to volunteer to take on the important task of the Nanjing Garrison Commander. Then Chairman Jiang began to arrest troops everywhere. In addition to the Central Military Academy Teaching Corps and the Gendarmerie Corps, the 71st Army, 72nd Army, 78th Army, 66th Army, 74th Army, and 88th Army were successively assigned to the garrison headquarters, and finally even transferred Xu Yuanquan's 2nd Army from Hubei.
Chapter completed!