nucmednet Chapter 224 Battle of Tokyo
Chapter 224 Battle of Tokyo
"Baka yarou! Bastard! Ito, you traitor to the Empire!" Mutsuhito's eyes were bloodshot as he glared at Ito Hirobumi kneeling before him, cursing him vehemently. He hadn't expected his prime minister to come and try to persuade him to surrender!
"Your Majesty! I am not a coward who fears death. If my death can persuade the Chinese to withdraw their troops, I am willing to die immediately in front of Your Majesty!" Ito Hirobumi said, his face pale.
"The enemy is simply too powerful. Resistance will only increase unnecessary casualties! For the sake of the royal family and the future of the nation, let's make peace!"
"Negotiation? How can we negotiate? Shen Lian wants me to surrender unconditionally! I would rather die than suffer humiliation."
"I still have hundreds of thousands of loyal soldiers, two million citizens in the city, and fifty million citizens of the empire throughout the land. The enemy army numbers only a few hundred thousand!"
"As long as we are united, we can certainly win a battle! After we defeat the enemy, I will reward you with the riches of kings and nobles!" Muren roared.
"Yes, Your Majesty! We are willing to serve you!" A group of high-ranking Japanese officers and generals knelt down and shouted.
"Your Majesty..." Ito Hirobumi was about to persuade him when he was rudely interrupted by Mutsuhito.
"Shut up! If it weren't for the fact that you've rendered some service to the empire in the past, I would have ordered you to be beheaded and offered as a sacrifice to the flag!"
"Guards! Drag him away and lock him up!" Mutsuhito waved his hand. Several guards came forward and dragged Ito Hirobumi away.
"Let's begin!" Two hours later, seeing that the Japanese army refused to surrender, Shen Lian gave the order to attack.
On November 3, 1905, the Chinese army launched the Battle of Tokyo.
"Boom boom boom boom boom..." Hundreds and thousands of cannons aimed at the walls of Tokyo and began to bombard them relentlessly.
Bullets rained down, sending bricks and stones flying from the city walls, and the bodies of Japanese soldiers were frequently thrown off the walls.
"Kill me!!" "Hurrah!!"
After half an hour of shelling, the auxiliary troops and Russian mercenaries launched an attack from the east and west.
The coerced soldiers were still wearing their original black uniforms, and Shen Lian hadn't provided them with new ones. They only wore red armbands on their left arms with the words "Coerced Army" written on them.
Saburo Ogasawara, his hands resting on his command sword, watched expressionlessly as his soldiers launched their attack.
During the Battle of Fengtian, he escaped the cavalry's pursuit because he ran fast. Unfortunately, by the time he finally reached Chaoyang, it had already been captured by the new army.
Having nowhere to turn, Saburo Ogasawara, not wanting to die, had no choice but to surrender.
After the war, their First Division was purged, and all officers and soldiers who participated in the Port Arthur Massacre were executed.
Ogasawara Saburo escaped with his life because his hands were clean. Later, when Matsushita Kosuke surrendered and formed a coerced army, Ogasawara Saburo wisely joined them.
He was originally from Osaka, and his family had been close friends with Kosuke Matsushita's family since childhood.
Because Saburo Ogasawara was a lieutenant colonel and a graduate of the Army War College, coupled with his relationship with Kosuke Matsushita, he quickly rose through the ranks of the auxiliary military.
He played a crucial role in the capture of Osaka and has since been promoted to colonel. He's quite a figure in the auxiliary forces.
The dark mass of auxiliary troops, in skirmish formation, charged forward, howling. Just as they reached the moat, the previously quiet city walls suddenly erupted in the "rat-a-tat-tat" of machine gun fire.
Several surviving Japanese heavy machine guns roared fiercely, spraying bullets at the auxiliary troops on the opposite bank of the moat. Dozens of auxiliary troops fell to the ground, covered in blood.
"Fire!" A major in the auxiliary force brandished his sword, and the Maxim heavy machine gun beside him opened fire fiercely on the wall.
The other auxiliary soldiers also quickly sought cover and raised their guns to fire desperately at the top of the wall.
Gunfire erupted, and the Japanese, with their superior position, held a significant advantage. Soldiers from the auxiliary forces were continuously killed on the ground.
Saburo Ogasawara frowned and glanced at the artillery position not far away. Dozens of mortars stood in neat rows, their dark muzzles pointing straight at the blue sky.
These are artillerymen from the 1st Army Division, responsible for supporting auxiliary forces in combat.
Ogasawara's regiment had over a thousand men, but not a single artillery piece. Their only heavy weapon was five old Maxim machine guns. The rifles they used were also the old single-shot "Golden Hook" rifles.
"Boom boom boom," Ogasawara Saburo didn't have to wait long. The mortars on the artillery position began bombarding the top of the wall, covering any newly emerging firing points.
"Boom boom boom..." After a series of explosions, the firepower of the Japanese troops on the city wall weakened instantly.
Saburo Ogasawara nodded and waved his hand. A large group of auxiliary soldiers rushed forward carrying sacks and quickly set up fortifications along the riverbank.
Several machine gun emplacements were quickly set up, and the heavy machine gunners opened fire fiercely on the city wall. Other soldiers also lay prone behind sacks and kept firing.
"Charge!" A captain of the auxiliary troops waved his hand, and a large group of auxiliary troops carrying logs rushed forward.
The moat was thirty or forty meters wide, and the wooden bridge over it had been destroyed by the Japanese army beforehand. If they wanted to storm in, they would have to rebuild the bridge.
"Shoot! Shoot! Kill these damned traitors!" A Japanese lieutenant on the city wall, holding a sword, shouted.
The Japanese soldiers on the city wall had their eyes blazing with fury as they desperately fired their guns downwards.
Several gunshots rang out, and a soldier carrying a log, blood gushing from his chest and abdomen, staggered and fell to the ground.
Following behind, a soldier who had been coerced into joining the army gritted his teeth, quickly stepped forward, picked up the log on the ground, and continued to charge forward.
"Machine gun cover!" Two heavy machine guns in the fortifications opened fire fiercely on the city wall, forcing the Japanese soldiers on the wall to duck and take cover. Every now and then, Japanese soldiers were hit by stray bullets and fell on the city wall.
The Japanese troops on the city wall were suppressed, and after the auxiliary troops lost about ten men, they finally gathered enough wood.
Then several carts loaded with sandbags were slowly pushed up, ready to provide cover for the engineers building the bridge at the bridgehead.
Just as the auxiliary military engineers approached the bridgehead, preparing to build the bridge.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..." came a sound of something cutting through the air.
With a deafening roar, the auxiliary troops' positions along the moat were engulfed in flames, and the engineers and auxiliary troops responsible for building the bridge suffered heavy casualties. The timber they had just prepared was also blown to pieces.
One of the heavy machine guns in the fortifications was blown into the air!
"Let them withdraw first!" Just as Saburo Ogasawara was about to order the second wave of troops to move in, a colonel approached and said.
"Yes!" Saburo Ogasawara turned and nodded.
The whistle blew, and the remaining auxiliary troops hurriedly retreated.
"Banzai! Banzai!" The Japanese soldiers on the city wall stood up and shouted loudly after seeing that they had driven back the auxiliary troops.
Knowing it wouldn't be that easy, the new army wasn't surprised at all. They immediately dispatched artillery to retaliate against the Japanese artillery that had just fired.
The sound of explosions began to echo throughout Tokyo. Columns of smoke rose into the sky.
Several planes circled over Tokyo, directing artillery fire.