In the early days, the Japanese Navy Ministry and the Military Command Department did not attach much importance to the allocation of land forces of various ships and even sub-fleets, and they were inferior to the army units in terms of training and equipment. But when they actually built up a standing Marine Corps, the top brass of the Navy unexpectedly put a lot of effort into this force.

In order to increase the firepower of the Marine Corps in close-range street battles, the Navy specially sent people to Germany to purchase MP18 submachine guns, even if it was an expensive Rolls-Royce armored car, the Navy distributed as many as seven units to this unit at a time, you must know that the entire Special Marine Corps at that time had a total of only more than 900 people, almost two infantry brigades.

After the end of the First Battle of Songhu, the Japanese navy regarded Shanghai as an important overseas base and began to rapidly expand the strength of this force, and the strength was finally determined to be 2,000 men. Despite the fact that the number of people is only two-thirds of the army's regular wing, it is equipped with tanks, tracked machine gun vehicles, wheeled armored vehicles, and heavy guns of fifteen and twelve centimeter calibers, and its firepower and equipment are as luxurious as the army's special mixed brigades.

The outbreak of the Second Battle of Songhu originated from the killing of Lieutenant Yuo Oyama of the Shanghai Special Marine Corps. (There are many versions of the so-called truth about the "Dashan Incident" between China and Japan, and there are many contradictions between them, so I will not comment on them in this article.) The Special Marine Corps was quite tenacious in the Battle of Songhu, and thus became the object of the Navy's boasting. Since then, the Shanghai Special Marine Corps has no longer taken ordinary army units seriously, let alone the ad hoc divisions that were formed after the start of the war.

Immediately after receiving a call from the Naval Detachment Fleet Command, the Marine Corps was put into the highest state of combat readiness.

The commander, Major General Takeda Moriji, had a keen sense of politics, and the questions on his mind were much deeper than those of Tanimoto Mataro.

At this sensitive point in time, the sudden outburst of the army without warning is not some special conspiracy? Damn, there are so many convictions for this horse manure, who knows what is going on in their heads. What to do if it is another wicker ditch or Lugou bridge, what their goal is, and what kind of reaction they want to provoke, these must be understood as soon as possible.

Because the public concession involves the interests of a bunch of European and American countries, if it is not handled properly, it will inevitably trigger a series of diplomatic chain reactions, and may even lead to a war.

Which country does the Army want to provoke this time? England or France? It can't be Germany anyway, that's what they adored during this time.

If it were Britain, although it would be difficult to entangle, after all, it was no longer the empire on which the sun never set, and it could no longer pose a threat to the Japanese Navy. France, on the other hand, is a little more troublesome, because it is too close to Germany, and it may take a lot of time for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to solve it.

Although Takeda had a bunch of questions in his stomach, his subordinates did not dare to delay Vice Admiral Tanimoto's order, and a total of three special marine squadrons were stationed at the Hongkou Marine Corps headquarters, and it only took ten minutes for all the personnel to assemble in the compound of the headquarters.

Major General Takeda got into his Ford car, was cleared by two three-wheeled motorcycles from the communications squad, and rushed out of the gate of the Marine Corps headquarters at a rapid pace. The rest of the Marines were in a six-wheeled Nissan truck for the transport team, and six Rolls-Royce armored vehicles directly under the command were at the rear of the line.

The mighty convoy of transports went out for a full two kilometers, which really frightened many Shanghai citizens passing by, and people hurriedly hid in the shops on the side of the road and watched through the windows, wondering what the wind was pumping today, and now the streets of Hongkou were full of Japanese soldiers hurrying with rifles on their shoulders.

Looking at this posture, is there another war? At that time, the imagination of Shanghai citizens was extremely rich, so soon various versions of rumors spread in Hongkou.

Some say that the Japanese and the British have turned their faces, and they are ready to send troops to occupy the public concession, and those who have hidden pounds at home should go to the bank to exchange them for yen as soon as possible, otherwise they will not be able to use it when it is too late. Some say that guerrillas from the state government appeared on the outskirts of Shanghai, killing and wounding many Japanese soldiers, and that President Chiang was really like a god in using his soldiers, and he did not hurry to the concession to donate money to support Chongqing. Some people also say that the Imperial Japanese Army is engaged in a large-scale joint exercise of the army and navy, and everyone must not listen to rumors from the outside world, because everything is under the control of Chairman Wang in Nanjing.

Anyway, the public concession is not doing much, and the Japanese Hongkou occupation area is already in chaos. For a time, countless telephone inquiries were made to various Japanese offices and garrison headquarters in Shanghai, and even caused a sudden communication blockade by the telephone company.

Because of the suddenness of the incident, the Japanese civilians living in Hongkou did not know what was going on, and the inexplicable movement of troops caused panic in the community to spread rapidly, and many timid Japanese expatriates had begun to pack up their gold and silver and prepare to go out for refuge.

There are only a few roads leading from Hongkou to the Bund, and Sichuan Road is one of the most important thoroughfares. Most of the army barracks were located in the Jiangwan area, and when the convoy of the Navy Special Marine Corps left the Marine Corps headquarters, the main force of the 120th Infantry Wing also rushed out of the Jiangwan Road barracks in full armor.

However, compared with the Special Marine Corps, the army side is much shabby, and the 120th Infantry Wing of the Japanese Army, not to mention armored vehicles, is not even equipped with a truck.

The Japanese army's baggage units are directly subordinate to the headquarters of the divisional and regimental military stations, and usually carry out large-scale baggage transportation, such as transporting ammunition and food to the front line, and the Japanese army relies on the transportation teams of the divisions and regiments' military stations. These transport squadrons were trucked and muled and horse-fed, and the key depended on the terrain of the combat area at that time.

Originally, the Japanese Army was equipped with a small number of trucks, and at this time even the main divisions were not enough, so where did they get to be equipped with special divisions and regiments.

The 116th Division of the Japanese Army is a standard horse-pulling division, and the baggage wagons of the 116th Wing are subordinate to the baggage wagons of the 116th Wing, and the only one equipped with a truck is the unlucky 116th Engineer Wing, which was taken to the Bund by Houdong to die.

Fortunately, there was an infantry squadron of the 120th Infantry Wing that happened to be stationed on the side of the Suzhou Creek, and finally arrived at the Sichuan Road Bridge in advance to set up a position, and set up a forward station for the wing, so that he could give an explanation to the commander of the Sawada Army.

The headquarters of the 13th Army was already in complete chaos, and the wing commander Watanabe Osa was so anxious that he was about to get into the house, so he only transferred a team of transport trucks from Jiangwan Military Station, with a total of only nine trucks, two of which were still flatbed trucks, and there were no guardrails around them.

Even so, Watanabe had no room to pick and choose at this time, and the infantry Osa was determined that after the incident was over, he must talk to the animal in charge of dispatching.

Because of the urgency of the order, the wing commander ordered to fill as many nine trucks as possible, and personally set off with the truck troops.

The remaining officers of all ranks finally had the horses they were allotted, while the ordinary infantry could only run forward on two legs, and the barracks were almost seven or eight kilometers away from the destination, which was regarded as an armed forced march training.

Watanabe Osa sat in the cab of the truck, holding the 94-style saber in both hands, staring murderously at the road ahead. The original driver was driven into the back compartment by the wing commander, and now it was his adjutant Ensign Fujiwara who was driving.

"Can't it be any faster? Yoshikawa. The Wing Captain said the first thing he said after departure.

"Oh, it's barely enough, sir, the road situation here is complicated. Where to go! You red deer! ”

A pedestrian crossed the road in front of the car, Fujiwara honked his horn hard, poked his head out of the window and scolded, just now the person was wearing a Japanese kimono, otherwise the end would be absolutely miserable.

"I'm going to bump into this bastard again, and we've got to get to the Bund before those navies." Watanabe impatiently tapped his fingers on the hilt.

Before leaving, he had just received news that the navy was gathering troops, apparently preparing to intervene in the incident. As long as the Army still breathes a sigh of relief, it will never sit idly by and watch this happen.

"Look at my lord, it looks like an armored vehicle of the Special Marine Corps in front." Fujiwara shouted with his finger pointing straight ahead.

"Kunoya deer, this group of octopuses is moving so fast, accelerating, Fujiwara, you must surpass them!" Watanabe slapped the truck panel and ordered.

"Huh! Leave it to me, sir. Second Lieutenant Fujiwara replied aloud as he reached out his left hand and grasped the lever on his leg.

"It's going to speed up, sir." The second lieutenant of the army switched gears neatly, and then stepped on the accelerator hard, and the Type 94 truck, full of army soldiers, began to roar forward.

PS: There are a lot of things today, and I finally caught up, thank you for your support.