Courtyard House: I only wiped out 30,000 Japanese pirates

Because He Dajun was at the East Gate, he was able to repel the Japanese attacks multiple times.

At this moment, he stood on the city wall, watching the densely packed Japanese soldiers below tightening their encirclement. He felt unusually calm, or rather, sad and bitter.

At this moment, less than a thousand people remained on the city wall, all watching He Dajun. This man, dressed in tattered clothes and reeking of gunpowder, had become their last pillar of support.

He Dajun turned around and looked at these people. Some were still holding guns, while others had long since lost their guns and were clutching a wood-chopping knife or a sharpened wooden stick.

Some people had bandages on their arms, some had dirty, unrecognizable gauze wrapped around their foreheads, and some had been deafened by artillery fire, unable to hear what others were saying, their eyes fixed on He Dajun's mouth.

A young soldier, around sixteen or seventeen years old, was also there, squatting next to the machine gun, still holding that old barrel in his arms. His face was covered in soot, with only the whites of his eyes and teeth shining brightly in the darkness.

He Dajun had no choice but to say, "Brothers, Jingzhou cannot be defended."

The city wall fell silent for a moment.

No one answered; everyone stared at him. A long, drawn-out whistle drifted from the Japanese camp outside the city, carried away by the night wind across the wilderness.

"If we fight our way out now, there's still a chance of survival. Go out through the east gate, take advantage of the darkness, and run towards the north bank of the river. The Japanese haven't closed their encirclement in the east yet. The fast ones might survive."

He Dajun paused here, his gaze sweeping across the faces. "But there are still hundreds of thousands of people in the city. If we run away, what will happen to them? You can figure that out yourselves. I won't interfere. Those who want to leave can leave now."

As soon as he finished speaking, a voice rang out from the crowd, hoarse as if it had come from underground.

"I'm not leaving."

The speaker was a bearded veteran.

He leaned against a sandbag, his Hanyang rifle empty of bullets, a large tear in the butt banded with rags. He spat on the ground, his bloody saliva dripping from his mouth, his eyes glowing red like burning embers in the firelight.

"My whole family is in the city. My wife, my daughter, and my three-year-old son. If I run away, what will happen to them? I'm not going anywhere; I'll die on the city wall."

Someone else chimed in, their voice low but each word harsh: "I'm not leaving either. My brother died at the North Gate, and my younger brother died at the West Gate. I'd be too ashamed to face my ancestors if I went back alive alone."

"I'm not leaving."

"I'm not leaving either."

"So what if I die? What's there to be afraid of?"

The sounds came one after another, traveling from one end of the city wall to the other.

Some people slammed their rifle butts to the ground, some raised their wood-chopping knives and tapped them on the battlements, and some stood still without saying a word, straightening their backs even more.

The sixteen or seventeen-year-old soldier stood up, his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just hugged the old rifle in his arms tighter and nodded vigorously.

Some people also asked He Dajun what to do.

He Dajun stood by the battlements, with the Japanese camp outside the city behind him.

The distant firelight cast a dark red outline on his back, making his shadow long, like a stone statue standing on a city wall.

He didn't turn around, but simply said, "I will continue to stand guard here. As long as I can stand, the city gates will not be opened from the outside."

After hearing He Dajun's words, many people remained silent for a long while, then shouted in unison, "Then let's stay here together. Let's stay until we die!"

A low chorus of responses echoed from the city wall.

It wasn't cheering, it wasn't slogans, it was pure, exhilarating excitement.

Some said they would defend together, some said they would take a few down with them, and some said they would stay on the city wall as long as they could still pull the trigger.

A soldier whose ears had been deafened probably understood something from the expressions of others. He grinned, revealing a missing front tooth, making his smile awkward, but his eyes shone.

He Dajun then went to a room and retrieved all the usable weapons from the system one by one: grenades, bullets, machine guns, and explosive charges.

Then he sent someone to retrieve them. These people were astonished and asked He Dajun how he had so many weapons.

He Dajun said that this had been prepared in advance.

No one investigated further; they simply piled up their weapons at the base of the city wall, forming several rows.

Of course, these weapons seem numerous, but with so many people, they probably won't last long.

He now only has a little over five million points left.

……

After daybreak, the Japanese infantry continued their attack, with He Dajun holding the fort alone at the front, constantly firing his heavy machine gun.

The Japanese infantrymen scattered into skirmish lines and charged upwards, their helmets reflecting a dark green light in the morning sun.

The gunfire of the Type 92 rifles exploded on the city wall, and bullets poured down from above, sweeping across the open ground like a torrent of red-hot iron.

The dozen or so Japanese soldiers at the front were swept to the ground, and those behind them quickly lay down, but the rappelling fire from the city wall was too tricky, and they couldn't dodge it even when they lay down.

After He Dajun fired two ammunition belts, more than fifty corpses had already fallen below the city.

He didn't count; the system had the numbers.

Fifty-three bullets, four minutes, not a single bullet was wasted.

He tossed the empty ammunition belt aside and reloaded it.

The Japanese reacted quickly. Tanks emerged from behind the jujube grove outside the north gate, their guns lowered, turrets slowly rotating, and fired a shot towards the city gate.

Shells pounded on the ruins of the city gate, and broken bricks and rubble fell like raindrops.

He Dajun was thrown from the battlements by the shockwave and landed on the rubble of the city wall.

He shook his head and got up. His mouth was covered in blood, and his back was burning. He didn't know if he had been cut by shrapnel or hit by gravel.

The tank fired another shot, hitting the city wall and blasting a large breach. Two defending soldiers who were setting up machine guns at the breach were thrown a long way by the blast wave and landed motionless below the city wall.

Meanwhile, the Japanese soldiers who had already breached the other city gates began moving towards the north gate.

The east and south gates have both fallen. The Japanese are attacking from inside the city outwards, preparing to join forces with the attacking troops outside the north gate to launch a pincer attack on the north gate's defenders.

He Dajun shouted loudly from the city wall, ordering his brothers to split into two groups: one group to continue firing at the Japanese soldiers outside the city, and the other group to turn their guns on the Japanese soldiers coming into the city.

After saying that, He Dajun continued to fire the heavy machine gun.

The battle lasted until 11 a.m., when the north gate was finally breached.

The Japanese soldiers surged up through the breach in the city wall, and tank shells had already landed on the streets behind the city wall, blowing houses to smithereens.

He Dajun organized another counter-attack on the city wall. Dozens of men, armed with rifles and grenades, rushed out through the breach and drove the Japanese soldiers who had climbed the wall back down.

But the cost was high; of the dozens who rushed out, less than ten returned.

A soldier carrying the last grenade charged into the Japanese ranks. The grenade exploded, and the soldier, along with several Japanese soldiers at the forefront, fell at the breach.

The city wall was covered in blood, blood from both Japanese soldiers and our own. It was so slippery, like walking on ice.

He Dajun finally shouted, "Brothers, we can't hold on any longer! Retreat to the second line of defense and redeploy!"

Many of the defenders glanced at the corpses lying haphazardly on the city wall, said nothing, and simply nodded.