Not enough Japanese devils to kill? 1.4 billion people volunteer for the Battle of Shanghai.

The Second Company consisted of 88 soldiers, including the company commander.

Rushing out the gate.

They charged toward the three Japanese tanks that had already run over the street corner, and toward the dark mass of infantry behind the tanks.

This is suicide.

They know.

But they knew even more that they could not retreat, and China could not perish.

Zhao Dashan, at the very front, could already see the Rising Sun Flag on the tank turret. He gripped his rifle tightly and began to run—

Just then.

He heard a strange sound.

It wasn't the sound of gunfire or explosions, but rather a sharp, high-speed whistling sound as something tore through the air.

It came from above.

A plume of white smoke pierced the night sky.

It rose from the ruins behind the bank building and flew in an almost straight trajectory toward the Japanese tank at the front.

Flight time: 1.5 seconds.

Point of impact: frontal armor of the tank, driver's compartment.

boom--!!!

The explosion did not come from the outside; it broke out from inside the tank.

The shaped charge pierced the steel plate like a hot knife through butter, detonating the ammunition inside the vehicle.

The entire tank looked like a tin can that had been stepped on by a giant; the turret was blown into the air, and the hull disintegrated in the flames.

Immediately afterwards—

The second plume of white smoke.

The second tank exploded.

The Japanese infantrymen were stunned.

They looked up and saw several small points of light in the night sky—not stars, but some kind of flying thing.

Four "Sharp Blade-3" drones swooped down from high altitude.

Each drone has a dark green cylinder attached to its bottom.

The first warhead landed precisely on the engine compartment of the third tank. The thermobaric warhead detonated, and the tank was instantly engulfed in intense flames.

The second and third bullets landed on the infantry.

The explosion was not a typical gunpowder explosion—it was a thermobaric effect. The first explosion consumed oxygen, and the second explosion generated a high-temperature shock wave.

Before the Japanese soldiers could understand what was happening, they felt difficulty breathing and were then thrown away by an unseen force.

The fourth drone did not drop any bombs. It hovered over the battlefield, its bottom camera slowly rotating.

Further away.

Lu Bei knelt on the ground at the window on the third floor of the bank building.

The QBU-191 sniper rifle in his hand was fitted with a suppressor.

Through the scope, the crosshairs were pressed against the head of a Japanese lieutenant who was wielding a sword.

"The first one," Lu Bei said softly.

Pull the trigger.

puff.

A cloud of blood exploded from the back of the lieutenant's head, and his body fell forward.

The muzzle moved slightly.

The second target was the machine gunner. The man was trying to set up a Type 92 heavy machine gun on the rubble.

puff.

The machine gunner fell.

The third, the fourth, the fifth...

Lu Bei's firing rhythm was as steady as a clock. Every slight "thud" meant the disappearance of a Japanese command point or firing position.

The main entrance of the bank building.

Liu Xiao and eighty-seven soldiers were all frozen in place.

They gripped their bayoneted guns, staring at the hellish scene before them—

Three tanks were burning, and Japanese infantrymen scattered amidst their cries of agony, but they... hadn't fired a single shot.

"What...what is this..." Zhao Dashan murmured.

He saw those "little flying things".

I saw a fleeting glimmer of light from a window in the distant ruins; it was the muzzle flash of a sniper rifle.

I witnessed the bizarre scene of a tank exploding from the inside.

This is not the kind of war he understands.

"Reinforcements!" Liu Xiao suddenly said, his voice trembling. "Reinforcements have arrived."

Bian Yun emerged from the shadows behind the building.

Lu Bei, Chen Shitou, and Shuanzhu followed behind him.

The four men were all dressed in the same gray cloth uniforms as the garrison, but their equipment was completely different—night vision goggles, tactical vests, strange firearms, and a tablet computer displaying drone footage.

Liu Xiao stared at them, her gaze finally settling on Bian Yun's face.

"Who are you...?"

"They were sent by Battalion Commander Yao of the Third Battalion," Bian Yun said. "My name is Bian Yun, and this is Lu Bei. We come from... New China."

"New China?" Liu Xiao repeated the word, as if chewing on unfamiliar food.

"China eighty-eight years from now." Bian Yun walked up to him and handed him a water bottle. "Have some water. Then let the wounded come down; we have medicine."

Liu Xiao didn't take the water bottle. He looked behind Bian Yun—Lu Bei was examining a wounded soldier's leg injury, taking out silver styptic powder and a syringe from his bag.

Lu Bei injected him with a tube of clear liquid and then sprinkled hemostatic powder on it.

The bleeding has really stopped.

"This medicine..." Liu Xiao's voice choked.

"It can treat infections and save lives," Bian Yun said, "but we didn't bring many. We'll treat the seriously injured first."

Twenty minutes later.

At the temporary first aid station on the first floor of the bank building, all seven seriously injured people received treatment.

The medicine worked incredibly fast—the high fever began to subside, the shock subsided, and even the soldier with his intestines protruding began to breathe steadily.

Zhao Dashan squatted down next to a wounded soldier, looking at the clean white bandage wrapped around his chest, and then at the dark strip of cloth in his own hand.

"Why is this bandage so white?" he murmured.

"It's sterile, so there's no risk of infection," Bian Yun said.

Zhao Dashan looked up at him, his eyes red: "You...you really came from the new China?"

"Yes."

"The new China..." Zhao Dashan repeated, then suddenly grabbed Bian Yun's hand, "The new China...did we win? Did we drive the Japanese away?"

His hands were covered in calluses and scars, and he was very strong, gripping Bian Yun painfully.

But Bian Yun didn't pull away.

"We won." He looked into the old man's eyes and said, word by word, "We won in 1945. Now, no one dares to bully China."

Zhao Dashan was stunned for a long time.

Then he let go and covered his face.

My shoulders started to shake.

At first there was no sound, only trembling. Later, suppressed sobs leaked from between his fingers, like a wounded wild animal.

He cried.

This 42-year-old veteran, who had fought in the Central Plains War and witnessed countless deaths, knelt in the ruins of 1937 and wept bitterly for a war that had not yet begun but was destined to be won.

Liu Xiao walked to the window.

Outside the window, the Japanese army's defeat continued. Drones hovered in the night sky, occasionally dropping a grenade that detonated Japanese ammunition piles.

Upstairs, Lu Bei used a sniper rifle to "call out" the Japanese officers one by one in an attempt to reorganize the army.

This was not a battle, it was a massacre—a one-sided, crushing massacre.

"These weapons..." Liu Xiao's voice was dry, "...everyone in the new China...had them?"

"No." Bian Yun walked to his side. "But the military has that. And it's even better—they have missiles that can fly thousands of kilometers, aircraft carriers that can stay at sea for months without docking, and armor that's ten times thicker than these tanks."

He paused:

"The new China asked me to pass on a message to you—future generations will never forget."

Liu Xiao turned her head and looked at Bian Yun.

Looked for a long time.

Then he raised his right hand and saluted.

This is not a subordinate's greeting to a superior. It is a soldier of one era responding most solemnly to a promise made to another.

"Tell the new China," Liu Xiao said, tears finally falling, "Tell them...we've waited for this day."

"We've arrived..."

9:03 PM.

The gunfire at the bank building completely stopped.

The Japanese army abandoned more than a hundred corpses and the wreckage of three tanks before retreating two kilometers away.

Inside the building, eighty-seven soldiers are still alive...

Bian Yun took a deep breath and entered the battlefield report into the intelligence computer.

Battle Report from the Bank Building:

Second Company Liu Xiaobu: Originally 87 people, now 87 people remain (7 seriously injured are now stable).

Japanese soldiers killed: estimated at 120-140 (including 9 commanders).

Destroyed equipment: Type 95 light tank x3, Type 92 heavy machine gun x6, grenade launcher x4

消耗物资：PF-97火箭弹×2，反坦克手雷×3，狙击枪弹×41，医疗用品约1/3

时间：1937年8月15日21:17

Return countdown: 6 hours 41 minutes

Next phase: Hold the bank building, wait to rendezvous with the main position, and attempt to establish communication.

"They weren't crying because they were saved, but because they finally realized that all the sacrifices truly had an impact."

—Bian Yun, Post-War Records