On August 12, the entire Shanghai area was shrouded in pre-war gloom. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Before 20 o'clock on the 12th, the Japanese army had sent the elderly, women and children among the Japanese overseas Chinese back to China, and the young and middle-aged people were organized into paramilitary units to fight with the marines.

According to the news that Xu Jian and Wu Ping had returned from reconnaissance, on the night of 12 August, members of the "Association of Overseas Chinese Soldiers in the Township," who had already been organized by the Resident People's Group, began training in Hongkou to prepare to participate in the war of aggression.

At 9:00 a.m. on August 13, Chinese security teams and Japanese plainclothes teams exchanged fire near Baoshan Road in Zhabei, Shanghai.

At 9:15 a.m., the Japanese Marine Corps attacked the station of our security regiment and opened fire first.

On the 13th, sporadic firing continued for a day, until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the Japanese headquarters ordered the Navy's Third Fleet, anchored in the Yangtze and Huangpu rivers, to open fire on Chinese targets in Shanghai.

The Battle of Songhu has officially begun!

On August 14, the 88th Division of the National Revolutionary Army began an attack on the Japanese Marine Corps Headquarters in Hongkou.

The Fourth Air Force Group shot down a number of Japanese planes over Jianqiao, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 100 miles southwest of Shanghai.

In the early morning of August 14, Chinese military planes went to the Huangpu River to bomb the cruiser Izumo, the flagship of the Japanese Third Fleet.

Chinese military aircraft dropped six bombs, five of which fell into the river and one hit the warehouse of Jardine Matheson.

On the afternoon of the 14th, Chinese military planes went to bomb Japanese warships again, and two of the bombs were deliberately dropped by bombardiers in the Public Concession and the French Concession, causing thousands of casualties.

Feng Yuxiang, commander of the Third Theater of the National Revolutionary Army, decided to go to the Nanxiang front to inspect and boost morale, but as soon as he and his entourage drove out of the headquarters in a car, Japanese planes came to attack.

Feng Yuxiang and his entourage had no choice but to disperse and take shelter under the trees for the time being, and then drive forward after the Japanese bombers flew away.

However, as soon as they walked out of the street, the Japanese planes came again, and Feng Yuxiang and his party were forced to hide in a thatched hut, and the Japanese bombers dropped more than 10 bombs nearby, thinking that they had achieved their goal before flying away.

Feng Yuxiang and his entourage took advantage of the smoke of gunpowder to order the driver to drive forward in a ventural drive, but they did not go far before the Japanese bombers "came" to bomb again, and they hurriedly got out of the car and took refuge in the melon field.

On the way back to the Suzhou headquarters in the afternoon, six more Japanese bombers attacked, and they again took refuge under the trees.

However, the Japanese bombers could not hover for a long time, and it seemed that they had accurate information to locate Feng Yuxiang's whereabouts.

In the Nationalist Government, all high-level officials with a resolute anti-Japanese attitude were registered with the Japanese army, and these people were also the targets of assassination by Japanese agents.

In addition, some high-ranking officials who are pro-Japanese have also become targets of Japan's "fishing plan."

As soon as the war began, both the frontal battlefield and the dark battle were already unfolding at the same time!

Bai Chongxi, deputy chief of staff of the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government and director of the Military Training Department, was also a staunch member of the anti-Japanese army, so he also became the target of assassination by the Japanese army.

After the outbreak of the Songhu War, Bai Chongxi was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to go to Shanghai on a business trip, and he secretly lived in the East Asia Hotel on the second floor of the Sincere Company.

At noon on the same day, when the relevant representatives of Shanghai were about to hold a banquet to greet Bai Chongxi, suddenly several Japanese bombers flew over the Sincere Company to strafe and bomb.

All of a sudden, thick smoke rose everywhere, shrenchnel flew sideways, and bombs rang loudly, and the doors and windows of shops in the vicinity were shattered for several miles, and nearly 1,000 pedestrians and shoppers on Nanjing Road and Zhejiang Road were killed or injured.

The Japanese spy plan did not succeed because Bai Chongxi had already received an early warning from the Shanghai Intelligence Group of the Military Command Bureau and knew that someone was going to kill him on the occasion of the banquet, so ten minutes before the banquet, he hurriedly slipped away through the back door of the Xianshi Company.

After Bai Chongxi hurriedly returned to Nanjing, he immediately reported to Chiang Kai-shek and ordered the commanders of all units to strengthen secrecy measures to strictly prevent information leakage.

The war, which lasted until August 22, grew in scale.

The 3rd, 8th, and 11th Divisions of the Japanese Army, with the cooperation of naval shelling, launched amphibious operations and continued to land at Chuansha and Baoshan, but the Chinese troops were unable to carry out an effective counteroffensive under the heavy artillery fire of enemy ships.

The Chinese army began to move from the initial offensive to the defensive.

During this period of time, Feng Chen's intelligence group devoted all its energy to reconnoitering the Japanese army's military deployment and battlefield intelligence, and provided Zhang Zhizhong's Ninth Army with a large amount of battlefield intelligence.

However, the intelligence team ignored one point, relying on Fang Xiaoman alone to investigate and deal with Japanese spies and traitors, which seemed a bit weak.

The traitors and Japanese spies are crazy, they not only want to assassinate military generals, but even Lao Jiang's wife.

On August 22, Mrs. Jiang, accompanied by her foreign adviser Duan Na, took a bus from Nanjing to the front line in Shanghai to comfort the front-line officers and soldiers of the Anti-Japanese War.

When the car was on the outskirts of Suzhou, it was suddenly strafed and shelled by Japanese planes, and the driver increased the speed of the car to 60 miles per hour in order to escape the Japanese artillery fire.

However, due to the fact that the road surface was mostly destroyed, during an emergency turn, a tire blew out, and the car was rushed into a ditch in one fell swoop.

Mrs. Jiang broke several ribs on the spot, and Duan Na was also seriously injured and taken to Suzhou Hospital.

On 24 August, Zhang Zhizhong was sent from the Nanxiang Headquarters to inspect and command the frontline area of Hewan, and as soon as his car drove out of the headquarters, several enemy planes flew in and strafed and bombed the car.

Zhang Zhizhong and his entourage had no choice but to get out of the car and hide, and after the enemy plane left, he ordered the driver to drive at full speed and quickly advance toward Jiangwan, but the car ran more than two miles, and the enemy plane came to "patronize" again.

Zhang Zhizhong thought that the goal of taking the car was too big, so he decided to abandon the car and walk, not to follow, and to go alone.

At that time, Zhang Zhizhong was wearing riding boots, and it was very inconvenient to walk, but fortunately he met a herald on a bicycle on the way, and he didn't have time to say anything to the herald, so he got on his bicycle and left.

After Zhang Zhizhong rushed to the headquarters of the 87th Division in Jiangwan, his subordinates unanimously believed that there were insiders who were constantly providing accurate information to the Japanese army.

Lao Chiang prepared to go to the front line in Shanghai several times to inspect and direct operations, but because the railways and highways between Nanjing and Shanghai were strictly blocked by Japanese planes, they bombed indiscriminately and were extremely unsafe, and he never made the trip.

After the assassination of his wife, the elder Chiang was so anxious that on his way from Nanjing to the Nanxiang front, he stopped by Suzhou to visit his wife, and because of the safety of the leader, his subordinates advised him to take the train instead.

However, when the train was about to arrive at Suzhou Station, it was suddenly bombed by more than a dozen Japanese planes.

On August 25, Lao Chiang convened another high-level military meeting, at which he again proposed to personally go to the front line in Shanghai to supervise the war.

Because British Ambassador to China Cole was going from Nanjing to Shanghai the next day to meet with Japanese Ambassador to China Shigeru Kawa Yue, the new deputy chief of the General Staff, Bai Chongxi, suggested at the meeting that Chiang Lao go to Shanghai the next day in Cole's car.

Britain at this time, a neutral country, with a British flag on the car, could be protected from bombing by Japanese planes, and Chiang Kai-shek agreed.

Huang Jun, confidential secretary of the Executive Yuan of the Nationalist Government, also happened to attend the meeting, and immediately after the meeting, he passed on this important information to Nanzao Yunzi.

However, the next day, Lao Jiang changed his plan to go to Shanghai with Cole due to a sudden emergency, and Cole took a car to Shanghai as planned.

Just as Cole's special car with a British flag was driving near Jiading, it was suddenly chased and bombed by two Japanese military planes.

Cole's car hid left and right, and finally turned upside down, Cole's liver, was shot on the spot, and his spine was also injured, and his life was in danger, and he was sent to the hospital for emergency rescue.

When the British government learned of this, it immediately reacted by lodged a strong protest with Japan and made diplomatic representations.

On the one hand, the Japanese Government apologized to the British Government, and on the other hand, said that the British flag on Kole's car was too small for the Japanese Air Force to recognize, thus injuring the ambassador by mistake.

Actually, the reason that the Japanese are looking for is really not the reason!

Because although the British flag planted on the front of Cole's car at that time was small, it was also covered with a large British flag on the roof of the car, and when the Japanese Air Force strafed the car, it swooped down to the ground, only more than 10 meters above the ground, and it was impossible to see the national flag on the roof of the car.

It can be seen that the Japanese completely deliberately wanted to kill the people in the car.

Cole was not the target of their attack, the main target was Lao Chiang, who should have been in the car, so they did not hesitate to violate public international law to offend the British.