As the last rays of the setting sun faded into the sky, the harbor finally returned to calm, even if it was only a moment of rest, which is very rare for the people here. There was not a single cloud in the darkening sky, and the fresh sea breeze came one after another, but the momentum of the storm made everyone here tremble uneasily.

This is the southernmost port of Busan on the Korean Peninsula, a natural harbor surrounded by mountains on three sides and with an estuary facing southeast. The two peninsulas, which stretch from the land to the sea, are not steep, but they are strong enough to protect the harbor behind them in the event of a storm, but the passage between the two peninsulas is four or five thousand meters, which is not militarily defensible, so the Japanese occupiers did not build it into a real military port or fortress.

So, when the German-led coalition fleet approached the port, the port of Busan was guarded by a group of people who had nothing to do with the elite. Some of them were conscripted into the army after the outbreak of war, some had been transferred to the reserve for many years before coming here, and some were non-combatants of the logistics forces, and as for the officers who commanded them, some were so old that they seemed to have problems eating, and some were transferred from various military academies before completing all their courses.

However, in the face of a strong enemy, these old and weak soldiers who were not even looked down upon by the Japanese military department did not intend to give up, and the surface ships in their hands were those offshore patrol boats that were only equipped with Maxim machine guns and could barely bully and bully Korean fishermen, but they had some other weapons that could threaten the German landing force - fortress guns, but these cannons deployed on the north and south peninsulas were older than most of them.

"Think about the time when Marshal Ito was alive, the Imperial Navy attacked the strong with weakness, and in one fell swoop, it annihilated the Qing Navy, which had suppressed us for many years! I was only 6 years old at the time, and when the news of the big win came back home, everyone had a smile of pride and pride on their faces! At that time, the navy sailors walking on the street were the big heroes in the eyes of the girls, and they were so tall in the eyes of us children! At that time.

I aspired to join the Navy, and more than 30 years have passed, but I can only look at my hometown here! ”

Under the dim oil lamp reflected a face full of hatred, this is a Japanese Navy commander Cao Chang, who is more than 1.6 meters tall and about 40 years old, with short hair less than an inch long, and a blue navy captain's windbreaker that does not wear epaulettes but is very clean, his outfit gives people a capable feeling, but. Years of exposure have left indelible vicissitudes on his face.

At this moment, his right hand was next to a cold side object, the cast-iron base of a cannon, and above it, the black barrel pointed straight to the sea in the distance. In 1888, when it was built, it was famous for its 320 mm caliber, and soon after it was installed on one of the famous Sankei ships, the cruiser Itsukushima of the Japanese Navy, and participated in the famous Sino-Japanese War, but it was rarely seen after that. After entering the 10s of the 20th century, with the accidental explosion and sinking of the "Matsushima", "Itsukushima" and "Hashidate" were decommissioned one after another. These large-caliber naval guns have found no place for themselves in the Japanese Navy. In the end, it can only be "sent to the frontier" - to become one of the lone guardians of the long coastline, and at this time it is accompanied by a group of equally lonely gunners.

"When I was 5 years old. Marshal Togo led the navy to a great victory over the Russians! The speaker was a second-class haicao sitting on a wooden empty ammunition box, and according to the age and time of his words, he was 30 years old this year.

"At that time, the prestige of the Imperial Navy was in full swing, and it was almost every young man's dream to enter the navy to serve, even if it was only to be a lowly-ranking gunner! Fourteen years later, I did, and for eleven years! ”

The junior sergeant was full of frustration, and if it hadn't been for the naval battle 12 months ago, he would still be on that mighty heavy cruiser with an enviable allowance for going to sea. Instead of eating coarse grains, sleeping in cold bunks, and looking at the unchanging harbor waterways.

"I hate Germans, I always have!"

The young warrant officer standing behind them suddenly spoke, although he was not very old, he was the only officer here, not because of his outstanding military exploits or background, but because he had recently graduated from the Imperial Naval Academy, which was a senior academy known as the cradle of marshals in the Japanese Navy, from which he usually served on the Navy's capital ships, but the declining Japanese Navy did not have enough ships for these cadets. So those who were more fortunate were temporarily assigned to serve on light ships such as torpedo boats and patrol boats, and those who were unlucky were to stay in this cold and damp fortress "temporarily".

"But the people around me, the blind guys, thought that the Germans were really kind enough to help us! Worship their techniques, delve into their theories, imitate their tactics, and in the end, what will happen? It's not like you've lost a lot! ”

The young warrant officer slammed his fist into the thick concrete wall, which was much newer than the cannon behind him, but in the eyes of the locals, these fortifications were all made by their relatives with blood, sweat and even their lives. Over the past 10 hours, the Germans have repeatedly bombarded the fortifications using carrier-based aircraft, and these artillery forts were naturally the primary targets, but hundreds of kilograms of aerial bombs did not inflict fatal damage on the top and frontage of the forts up to 3 to a meter thick.

In addition to the three men who had just spoken, there were more than a dozen other people in the large concrete bunker-like battery, most of them sailors who had lost their ships, some had served as gunners, some had worked in the bilge of the battleship before, and although their past experiences were different, their faces were all lifeless at this time.

No one was glad to have survived the previous 10 hours, on the contrary, these Navy veterans knew that the next test was the most important thing.

"Discover the German battleship! Watchtower spotting German battleships! ”

The gunner, who had been observing the situation through the firing hole, suddenly shouted, there was a permanent lighthouse on the causeway a few hundred meters away, which had become the forward watchtower of the Japanese defenders, and it was clear that the German aviation units had not spent too much of their limited bombs on it, and the two Junkers Ju-iif tried to destroy it without success. (Full Text)