On December 11, the Japanese 16th Division stormed the positions of the Chinese army north and south of the Purple Mountain. Purple Mountain and the area south of it, the teaching corps resolutely resisted. After a fierce battle, the Japanese army made no progress, but its right flank troops captured the positions of Yangfang Mountain and Yinkong Mountain defended by the 2nd Army Corps, and advanced to the vicinity of Yaohua Gate. In order to make it easy for the 16th Division to attack and cut off the defenders' eastward retreat in a timely manner, the Japanese "Shanghai Dispatch Army" transferred the Yamada Detachment from the 13th Division, which was waiting for ships to cross the river in Zhenjiang, joined the battle from the right flank of the 16th Division, and attacked the Wulong Mountain and Shogunate Mountain Forts. The main forces of the 114th Division and the 6th Division of the Japanese 10th Army continued to attack Yuhuatai. The second line of positions of the 88th Division was again destroyed, and the defenders were forced to hold on to the core positions. The right flank of the Japanese 114th Division began to attack the Zhonghua Gate, and the city gate was destroyed by artillery fire. A small number of Japanese troops once broke into the city, but were annihilated by the troops of the 88th Division defending the city walls. A part of the left flank of the Japanese 6th Division advanced north along the east bank of the Yangtze River, repelled a battalion of the 2nd Military Police Teaching Regiment at Shangxinhe, and occupied the cotton embankment position outside the Shuixi Gate. The Japanese Kunizaki detachment crossed the Yangtze River near Cihu Lake in Dangtu Bei, marched north along the west bank, and moved towards Pukou. The 18th Division of the Japanese Army, which occupied Wuhu, was no longer involved in the attack on Nanjing because it was transferred to Hangzhou.

When it was discovered that the combat effectiveness and morale of the troops withdrawn to Nanjing were far inferior to those of the Songhu battle, the main position on the periphery of Nanjing was only defended for two or three days before it was lost, and the reconstructed position was not firmly established, that is, it was broken through and forced by the enemy in the main direction. When he learned that there were Japanese troops crossing the river near Dangtu, he felt that the situation was even more critical. In order to prevent the defenders of Nanjing from being surrounded and annihilated by the enemy, Chiang Kai-shek considered ordering the defenders of Nanjing to retreat at noon on the 11th, and then ordered Gu Zhutong, who was in Jiangbei at the time, to inform Tang Shengzhi by telephone. Gu Yaotang crossed the river and went north that night, causing the defenders to break through. Tang Shengzhi was afraid that he would be unable to bear the responsibility in the future if he suddenly withdrew, so he demanded that he must first convey the intention of the supreme commander to the defending generals before he could evacuate. That night, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to Tang Shengzhi: "If the situation cannot last for a long time, you can retreat in order to sort out and anticipate a counteroffensive." Tang Shengzhi decided to start retreating on the night of the 14th after studying with Luo Zhuoying, Liu Xing, the two deputy commanders and Chief of Staff Zhou. At about 2 a.m. on the 12th, the staff officers were summoned to draw up a retreat plan and order.

Battle of the walls

From dawn on December 12, the Japanese army concentrated artillery and aviation fire to launch a fierce attack on the compound positions and city walls. On the south side of the city, the battle lasted until around 10 o'clock, and the Yuhuatai position was captured by the Japanese army. The remnants of the 264th Brigade of the 88th Division, which defended the place, could not retreat into the city because the gate of Zhonghua Gate had been blocked, so they moved laterally under enemy fire and marched north along the moat around the city, causing heavy casualties. After the Japanese occupied Yuhuatai, they condescended and intensified their fire attack on Zhonghua Gate. Some officers and soldiers of the 262nd Brigade of the 88th Division held the walled position and struggled to block the attack; Sun Yuanliang, commander of the 88th Division, led a team directly under the division and a part of the 262nd Brigade to retreat to Xiaguan without authorization, attempting to cross the river and retreat northward, but was dissuaded by Song Xilian, commander of the 36th Division, in Rujiangmen, and still returned to Zhonghua Gate to fight. To the east of the city, the Japanese 16th Division was still fighting fiercely in the area of Xiaoling, Weixi Mountain and Purple Mountain. Because the 9th Division was counterattacked by the defenders in the area of Guanghuamen, the "Shanghai Dispatch Army" made no progress outside the city, and on the 11th, it ordered the 3rd Division of the Mobile Force, which was controlled near Suzhou, to advance rapidly; On the morning of the 12th, the 9th Division was ordered to stop the offensive and carry out reorganization, and the 3rd Division was ordered to join the battle from the left flank of the 9th Division and attack the castle wall.

Around noon, under the heavy artillery bombardment of the Japanese army, the Zhonghua Gate and the city wall west of it collapsed in several places, and a Japanese army broke through the gap into the city under the cover of artillery fire. The 88th Division was then withdrawn. At that time, a large number of residents in Zhonghua Gate fled to the refugee area in the north of the city to escape the shelling and Japanese troops, and crowded the streets with the retreating stragglers, and the order in the city began to fall into chaos.

In order to carry out the retreat in a planned and organized manner, the garrison headquarters instructed the 36th Division at 14 o'clock to be responsible for maintaining order in the city and at Xiaguan. However, at this time, the 1st Division of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army had broken into the Zhonghua Gate, the 16th Division and the 3rd Division had approached the Zhongshan Gate and Guanghua Gate, and the left wing brigade of the 6th Division had approached the Shuixi Gate. The 2nd Army Corps of the defending army retreated to Wulong Mountain, the teaching corps retreated to Purple Mountain, and the 74th Army sent people to erect a pontoon bridge over the Sanchai River, attempting to cross the river and retreat to Pukou, but was stopped by the 36th Division, and the defenders of Nanjing had begun to waver. Tang Shengzhi and the others decided to retreat that night. Although Chiang Kai-shek telegraphed Tang Shengzhi and asked him to retreat when he could not last long, he always considered more political considerations and hoped to hold out for a longer period of time, so on the 12th he sent a letter to Tang Shengzhi, Luo Zhuoying, and Liu Xing, putting forward his own hopes.

Evacuation of Nanjing

At 17 o'clock on December 12, the garrison headquarters convened a meeting of generals above the division level to arrange the retreat. Tang Shengzhi first briefly explained the current situation and asked if everyone could continue to hold on. None of the generals at the meeting spoke. Tang Shengzhi then showed Chiang Kai-shek's telegram ordering the defenders to retreat, and the chief of staff, Zhou Hui, distributed the mimeographed retreat order and breakthrough plan of the General Staff Office.

The basic spirit of the garrison headquarters' breakout plan is that most of the garrison headquarters will break through from the front, and one part will cross the river from Xiaguan with the headquarters. However, after the written order was issued, Tang Shengzhi issued another verbal instruction, stipulating that the 87th Division, the 88th Division, the 74th Army, and the Teaching Corps "if they cannot all break through, they can cross the river and assemble at Chuzhou when there is a ferry." This greatly reduced the seriousness of the order and created an excuse for not carrying out the order, so that the troops that were to break through from the front as stipulated in the plan were not carried out according to the order, except for most of the 66th Army and the 83rd Army of the Guangdong Army. The troops, which were based on verbal instructions, were bound to flock together to Shimonoseki, where the enemy had not yet reached, in order to quickly and safely cross the river and withdraw northward; Many of the troops that did not receive the order to retreat retreated because they found friendly forces retreating. Although they received orders but did not know the details of the retreat plan, the brigade and regiment commanders also believed that since the higher authorities wanted the army to retreat, they must have prepared a large number of means to cross the river at Xiaguan, so they also flocked to Xiaguan.

Most of the army and division commanders who decided to cross the river at Xiaguan did not start the retreat at the time specified in the order, but deployed their troops to retreat immediately after the meeting ended. Some units were withdrawn before orders were received. For example, the 2nd Army Corps of the Garrison Command is responsible for holding the Oolong

The mountain fortress should be the last to retreat in order to cover the retreat and breakthrough of other troops, but Xu Yuanquan led his 41st and 48th divisions from Zhoujiasha and Huangnidang Wharf on the afternoon of the 12th to take the civilian ships controlled there in advance to Jiangbei at the earliest, and went to Jiangxi for rectification via Anhui. After the troops of the Wulong Mountain Fortress withdrew from Xu Yuanquan's department, they also destroyed the artillery and withdrew to Jiangbei that night. Some generals only made a retreat call to their subordinate troops, or went back to arrange the retreat, then broke away from the troops, arrived at Xiaguan first, and took a ferry with the garrison headquarters and the 36th Division to Jiangbei first. For example, Wang Jingjiu, commander of the 71st Army, and Shen Fazao, commander of the 87th Division of the army, did not return to the command post at all; After Gui Yongqing, the captain of the teaching corps, returned to the command post in the basement of Fuguishan, he informed the staff of the retreat task, that is, to leave the chief of staff Qiu Qingquan to deal with the documents, etc., and went to Xiaguan alone; Hu Qiru, commander of the 2nd Brigade, learned of the retreat earlier, and without waiting for the end of the meeting, he immediately informed the commander of the 3rd Regiment by telephone that the commander of the 3rd Regiment would act as the brigade commander and go to Xiaguan alone on the pretext that he had been ordered to go to Xiaguan to contact the 36th Division.

Because most of the troops in the city retreated along the Zhongshan Road, the left and right gates of the Rujiang Gate have been opened

After being blocked, only the middle gate can be passed, and the various departments compete to pass through, not giving in to each other, and many people are trampled to death because they are squeezed down. For example, Xie Chengrui, the commander of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Brigade of the Teaching Corps, bravely resisted many attacks by the Japanese army on the Guanghuamen position, but was trampled to death by the crowd in the Rujiangmen Gate cave. Some generals, such as Li Jiang, commander of the 156th Division of the 83rd Army, saw that the city gate could not be squeezed through, so they hung themselves from the east side of the gate with legging cloth and fled out of the city.

The situation at Xiaguan was even more chaotic, and all the troops had lost their grasp and were competing to be the first to cross. Due to the small number of ships and the large number of people, some ships sank due to overloading. Most of the officers and men had no boats to ride, so they dismantled the door panels and other things to make rafts to cross the river, and some of them died because of the raging water and poor control.

Due to the withdrawal of the defenders of the Wulong Mountain Fortress, the "Wen Tianxiang" ** speedboat squadron that was originally moored in the Straw Shoe Gorge and Santaidong (Yanzi Ji Nan) also galloped to Datong on the night of the 12th, and at dawn on December 13, the Japanese Yamada detachment occupied the Wulong Mountain without a fight; The Japanese naval ships reached the Xiaguan River through the blockade line, and the 16th Division of the Japanese Army also entered the river near Baguazhou by boat. A large number of Chinese officers and men who were crossing the river were killed or wounded by the fire of the Japanese Navy and the 16th Division and the collision of ships. Xiao Shanling, deputy commander of the gendarmerie, died in the middle of the crossing. At the same time, the divisions of the Japanese army had entered the city of Nanjing from Zhongshan Gate, Guanghua Gate, Zhonghua Gate, Shuixi Gate and other places; The Tiangu detachment, which was originally in Zhenjiang, had crossed the Yangtze River and was advancing towards Yangzhou; The Kunisaki detachment has arrived at Jiangpo and is advancing towards Pukou. The Chinese army, which had crossed to Jiangbei, retreated along the Jinpu Road in the direction of Xuzhou.

On December 14, according to the instructions of the Chinese base camp, Tang Shengzhi announced at Linhuai Pass that the headquarters of the Nanjing Garrison Commander would be abolished, and the garrison troops withdrawn to Jiangbei would be reassigned to the Third Theater. The Battle for Nanjing was basically over.

From the afternoon of December 12, the retreat and breakthrough of the various units of the Nanjing Garrison are roughly as follows (the number of the National Army breaking through and retreating according to the album of the 60th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre is 32,144):

On the evening of the 12th, garrison commander Tang Shengzhi, deputy commanders Luo Zhuoying and Liu Xing, and officers and men of the commander's department crossed the river from the Xiaguan Coal Port to Pukou by a small steamer that had been prepared, and received information that the Japanese army had reached the vicinity of Jiangpu and was encircling Pukou, so they moved closer to the headquarters of the commander of the Third Theater in Yangzhou. When they arrived in Yangzhou at 7 o'clock on the 13th, Gu Zhutong and the headquarters of the commander of the Third Theater had moved to Linhuaiguan, leaving behind six trucks when they left. Tang Shengzhi and other principal officials and guards took a car to Chuzhou to transfer to a train, and arrived at Linhuai Pass that night.

After the headquarters crossed the river, the 78th Army and the 36th Division also crossed the river by boat in batches at the coal port, assembled in Wuyi, and then went to Bengbu by car, and then transferred to Xinyang to Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province for rectification. After Ye Zhao and Deng Longguang attended the meeting, the 66th Army and the 83rd Army (both Guangdong troops) jointly studied and decided: If Tang Shengzhi did not obey Tang Shengzhi's order for the 83rd Army to cover the breakthrough of other troops and then break through at 6 o'clock the next morning, the two armies were under the unified command of Ye Zhao, and according to the plan, they broke through from the front and moved to the designated place, and immediately ordered all divisions to "break through from Taipingmen in the order of the 160th, 159th, 156th, and 154th divisions, and concentrate on Ningguo in Anhui through Tangshan and Jurong." At around 20 o'clock on the 12th, except for the 156th Division, which did not receive an order, the other three divisions passed through Taipingmen one after another. When passing through forks in the road, Xianhemen, Dongliu and other places, they were all blocked by the Japanese army, and Luo Cequn, the acting commander of the 159th Division, led the team to attack and was killed. When they arrived near Tangshan before dawn, they were fiercely attacked by the main force of the Japanese 16th Division. The troops gradually lost their grasp and fought separately, and hundreds or dozens of people moved separately to the designated place. Ye Zhao and Deng Longguang were separated from their respective troops, and they all changed into civilian clothes and broke through the Japanese encirclement. Around the 20th, most of the divisions arrived at Nanling and Shexian. Guo Yongbiao, chief of staff of the 66th Army, sheltered about 1,300 separated officers and soldiers in the Jiuhua Mountain area, and temporarily organized them into three battalions. In early January 1938, they arrived near Ningguo and returned to the team. Li Jiang, commander of the 156th Division, who had not received an order, led his troops to withdraw to Xiaguan together with the Teaching Corps, and some officers and men crossed the Yangtze River and returned to the team.

The other units of the Nanjing garrison flocked to Xiaguan on the afternoon and night of the 12th. The 74th Army was well organized, and had a small steamer, with about 5,000 men crossing the Jiangbei. Only one of the remaining troops was able to cross the river, and most of them remained in Jiangnan and were killed by the Japanese army.