You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you brought out a Tiger tank?

Lin Feng hummed a little tune as he searched the entire battlefield until it was spotless, leaving not even a single bullet casing behind. Only then did he finally climb into the Sd.Kfz.223 command armored vehicle with satisfaction.

"Let's go, catch up with the main force."

The armored vehicle's tires spun, and it sped away, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.

Less than twenty minutes after Lin Feng left Qibao Town.

A sharp whistling sound suddenly came from the sky. Since August 13, this sound had been frequently heard around the Shanghai-Nanjing area. That's right, it was the unique sound of large-caliber naval guns cutting through the air.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Several enormous fireballs rose into the air in the center of Qibao Town.

The ship that fired the shots was the armored cruiser "Izumo," the flagship of the Japanese Third Fleet, which was anchored on the Huangpu River.

这艘37年前就下水了的万吨级巡洋舰，装备了4门203mm主炮，14门152mm副炮。

The shells falling from the sky were fired by the Izumo.

Intense artillery fire covered the entire town and its surroundings.

The earth churned, houses collapsed, and flames soared into the sky.

However, this devastating firepower, apart from killing a few rats and wild dogs that didn't have time to escape, didn't even scratch the security brigade.

On the distant highway, Lin Feng looked out of the observation window of the armored vehicle at the plume of smoke rising behind him and disdainfully raised his middle finger.

"They can't even catch the shit while it's still hot. That's all the Japanese navy idiots are good for."

-----

Hongkou District, Shanghai.

The headquarters of the Japanese Expeditionary Army in Shanghai.

"Baka yarou!"

A roar shattered the silence.

General Matsui Iwane, commander of the expeditionary force, slammed the teacup in his hand to the ground, shattering it into pieces.

His thin face looked as if a soy sauce shop had been opened; his nose and eyes were squeezed together, and his mustache was trembling with anger.

Before him stood Lieutenant General Masayoshi Ito, commander of the 101st Division, his head bowed, sweating profusely, his body stiff as a log, barely daring to breathe.

"Ito-kun, can you tell me whether your 149th Regiment is actually fighting a war or sleepwalking?!"

Matsui Iwane pointed to the battle report he had just received on the table, his fingers trembling:

Their families and friends are all in Tokyo, and many of them are even shop owners or employees with some social standing. If they were directly removed from the list, how much of a shock would that cause in Tokyo? How would public opinion in China view us?

"Public opinion? Face?"

Matsui Iwane sneered, his white-gloved right hand making brief, intimate contact with Ito Masaki's cheek before he walked to the window and looked towards the Huangpu River:

Do you think we still have any face left?

Just now, Commander Hasegawa of the Third Fleet sent me a telegram inquiring whether the Army was conducting some kind of "suicide exercise" in Qibao Township.

Those navy idiots are probably laughing at us now. They're drinking red wine on the bridge while we army soldiers are rolling around in the mud, and we even wiped out a regiment."

"The situation was very good. We had taken Dachang and were about to drive the Chinese army out of Shanghai. But at this critical juncture, we inexplicably lost a regiment."

"Your faces don't hurt, but mine do."

Matsui Iwane turned around, slapped his face hard, and his eyes burned with raging anger.

"Investigate! Investigate for me!"

He roared, "Activate all our inside contacts in Great Xia, Special Higher Police, Mei Agency, get them all moving!"

I need to know, which unit of the Central Army of China was fighting in Qibao Town at the time? Was it the Training Corps? Or the Tax Police Corps? Or that damned 87th Division?

"Whoever it is, I will seek revenge."

Matsui Iwane slammed his fist hard onto the map, landing precisely on the location of Qibao Town:

"We must find this unit, then concentrate our superior forces to completely annihilate it. I want to use their heads to wash away the shame of the 149th Regiment."

"Hai!"

The Japanese officers responded in unison, their faces filled with murderous intent.

However, they never dreamed that the opponent they hated to the bone and thought was the ace of the National Revolutionary Army was sitting in a Hans armored vehicle, humming a tune and counting the gold coins that had been looted from them.

The so-called mysterious elite unit was, in theory, nothing more than a ragtag brigade cobbled together from local security forces.

-----

A few days later, in the headquarters of the Ninth Army Group in Shanghai, Commander Zhu stood in front of a huge battle map, his eyes bloodshot, and the red and blue pencil in his hand had been broken into several pieces.

too difficult.

It's really hard.

The Ninth Army was the apple of the Nationalist government's eye. When it was first established, it consisted of the 36th, 87th and 88th German-equipped divisions, which were the most elite troops in the entire Great Xia. They were model divisions armed according to the standards of the Hans advisor.

At the start of the war on August 13, they were in high spirits and launched the famous ten-day siege, attempting to drive the Japanese marines stationed in Shanghai into the sea in one fell swoop.

The results of it?

The Japanese army's strong fortifications, naval gunfire, and air superiority caused these three divisions to bleed dry at places like Huishan Wharf and Yangshupu.

With the main force of the Japanese army landing at Baoshan and Chuanshakou, the battle situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

Now, Luodian, that meat grinder, is lost, Dachang is lost, and the defense line on the west side of Songhu is riddled with holes.

Hundreds of thousands of troops were crammed into a narrow area, repeatedly ravaged by the Japanese army, navy, and air force.

"By the way, what about that Zhejiang Provincial Security Third Brigade? Weren't they supposed to arrive two days ago? Why haven't we heard from them yet?"