PS: Update it first, proofread it tomorrow morning, I'm a little sleepy, let's sleep first. There will be another update tomorrow, but after daylight

The one-minute artillery battle that took place at Wusongkou was later called "a minute of fate". The process of destroying the Anglo-Japanese Yangtze River Fleet is often compared with the destruction of the Fujian Navy Division during the Sino-French War. The reason was that the Anglo-Japanese Combined Fleet, which was staying on the Yangtze River, originally had a great chance of victory, but because of the constraints of the internal affairs of the rear, it did not dare to take the initiative to fire artillery and fight first, so that it lost its last chance.

Except for the three ships that were sunk by Li Huamei, the remaining eight battleships, in that minute of battle, fired a total of only seven shells, an average of less than one shell per ship. And most of the shells fired flew towards the camouflaged artillery positions exposed in advance on the shore, and no results were obtained.

After the news of the annihilation of the Anglo-Japanese Yangtze River Fleet came, the British Labour Party government, which was already facing the crisis of collapse, collapsed under tremendous pressure, and a huge storm was unleashed within the Japanese military department, which was already full of contradictions.

When the heavy artillery group opened fire, the troops of the Red Army and the International Regiment who were facing each other at the Zhabei railway station also exchanged fire at the first moment.

The first to fire were the sharpshooter snipers lurking everywhere, the 13mm caliber anti-tank sniper rifle, definitely the most ferocious infantry weapon of this era. Forty-five snipers in ambush opened fire at the same time, all targeting officers in the International Business Order. Depending on the target, this German-made 13mm anti-tank sniper snatch has a variety of bullets with different characteristics, including tungsten carbide core armor-piercing bullets that pursue penetration. There were armor-piercing incendiary bombs for depopulating fuel tanks, but the snipers in the Red Army in this battle used soft bullets that sought to "smash" the opponent.

Forty-five dull gunshots were fired, and dozens of officers or small leaders of the International Chamber of Commerce in the railway station were splattered with blood droplets, and their bodies were like watermelons smashed by a hammer, and large pieces of body tissue turned into minced flesh and splattered.

Before the defenders could react, the rifles on the Red Army's side rang out like beans, and the Zhabei Railway Station was one of the most important facilities in Shanghai, and the Red Army was reluctant to use destructive weapons such as heavy artillery here. After the gunfire rang out, the twelve Vickers tanks surrounding the train station took the lead, followed by a group of rifles armed with MP18s. Rush into the train station.

The defenders of the Merchant of All Nations were nothing more than mercenaries. Pampered for many years, its combat effectiveness and will to fight are not much better than the strongest tax police division of the artillery party, and in the face of the Red Army surrounded on all sides and lacking sufficient anti-tank heavy weapons. It's already a miracle that they've been able to hold out until now without surrendering. Plus the officers were sniped in large numbers. The Red Army just charged. Surrendered with little decent resistance.

By three o'clock in the afternoon, the territory of the foreign garrisons in Shanghai, led by the British, Japanese, and international merchant groups, was still in the hands of a few concessions.

After clearing the "troubles" on the periphery. The Red Army concentrated all its artillery and aimed it at the Japanese concession in the Hongkou area.

In fact, the Shanghai Japanese Concession is just a customary name for the Japanese settlement in Hongkou, Shanghai.

From the very beginning, the Red Army, having abandoned the illusion of a peaceful settlement of the concession issue, decided to settle the concession issue with a boulder crushing the egg.

However, the problem contradiction is also divided into major contradiction and secondary contradiction.

The United States wants to do business with China and play the game of neo-colonial economic aggression, the British do not want to maintain their existing interests, but they are suffering from the decline of national strength and the threat of the rising Germany, and they have the heart but are powerless, France has long been broken and can ignore it, only Japan, they not only want to eat Chinese meat and drink Chinese blood and want China's life, the contradiction between Japan and China is a life-and-death contradiction between us and the enemy, and it is an irreconcilable contradiction that cannot have any illusions.

Under such circumstances, the Red Army's biggest enemy in the battle in the Shanghai Concession was the Japanese Marines in the concession area of more than 1,000 men and the so-called armed expatriates in close numbers.

As for the British colonial army and the mercenaries of the International Merchant Group, as long as they are left with a way to survive and do not fight into a "trapped beast" with no way out, there is still a chance to solve the problem in a "relatively gentle" way that does not "smash" the public concession.

Therefore, shortly after the "fateful one-minute artillery battle", when the fighting between Zhabei and Baoshan was not over, the Red Army besieging the concession issued an ultimatum to the consuls and directors of various countries in the public concession.

The contents of the ultimatum are mainly as follows.

"First: the Red Army will settle the concession issue by force at four o'clock on the same day."

"Second: Since the Red Army had already declared war on Japan during the Northeast Incident in 1931, the Japanese concession in Hongkou District would be the first target of attack!"

"Third: For humanitarian reasons, the Huangpu River will be open to civilians and soldiers in the concession from the beginning of the war, and as long as the foreigners in the concession are willing to lay down their arms and end the hostilities with the Red Army, they will be able to leave China freely by boat through the Huangpu River, and the Red Army will not stop them. This was to continue until the Red Army took the Japanese concession. ”

"Fourth: The Red Army guaranteed the security of the lawful property of American expatriates in the concession. The U.S. forces and the fleet stationed in China in the concession area, the Red Army promised not to take the initiative to attack, but at the same time reserved the right to counterattack at any time. ”

……

The ultimatum was sprinkled with more than a dozen words, and to sum it up, it was nothing more than a few sentences: We will definitely beat you, but now you are going to run away, and we will not stop you. We will fight the Japanese first, and when we fight the Japanese, you will leave, and we will not stop. Americans, as long as you don't show hostile behavior, you can leave at any time, and we won't beat you.

As for the British, the entire Yangtze River fleet was completely wiped out, in fact, the two sides were already in a state of war at this time. The Red Army's explanation was that since you had opened fire on us first, we had counterattacked with all our might, and we had already wiped them out.

This reason is somewhat reversed, but British warships have been running amok on Chinese soil for many years, and less than ten years have passed since the two tragedies in Xiaguan and Wanxian.

When they learned that the Anglo-Japanese Yangtze River Fleet had been completely destroyed, the forces in the concession could not believe it at all. Later, when they crossed the Huangpu River by guò and saw the tragic situation of the "Kanpur" running aground in front of Changxing Island in Wusongkou and still flying the white flag, the news was transmitted back to the concession, and the arrogant British finally believed it.

When it was learned that the Chinese would launch an all-out attack on the Japanese concession at four points, the entire Hongkou Japanese concession area was in chaos. The Red Army representatives who came to negotiate brought a map clearly indicating the areas where the Red Army was going to attack by any means. In the course of the negotiations, another plane flew over the upper part of the concession and sprinkled this leaflet on the entire concession.

Arnold, the British general director, said angrily and tremblingly to the representatives of the Red Army: "Aren't you afraid of arousing the wrath of the British Empire by doing this?" ”

After learning the news of the total destruction of the Yangtze River Fleet of the British Empire, Brigadier General Chai Keley, the commander of the British Army stationed in Shanghai, also angrily shouted that the defenders of the concession would fight with all their might to defend the honor of the British Empire.

The representatives of the Red Army who came to negotiate were also tired of acting with these foreign bandits, and directly stabbed: "Aren't your intervention troops already on the way to China?" We've known for a long time, and you've been stalling for time since the beginning! In any case, we will not leave you with the opportunity to meet the inside and outside! ”

The ultimatum, naturally, ended in a rupture. The original purpose of the ultimatum was to give the British garrison a "way out" and "hope" to dissipate their desire to fight to the death. Coming from later generations, Lin Han knew the birdish character of the colonial armies of the British Empire, and it is very telling to look at their clumsy performance in the battle of the Malay Peninsula in their history. Give them a hope of life, the difference between the combat effectiveness of these colonial troops and the artillery party army is the level of 50 steps and 100 steps, which is not much higher.

After learning that the Japanese Concession would be the next key target of attack and that the British and American Public Concession would not become a battlefield for the time being, there was a huge commotion in the Japanese Concession. A large number of residents in the Japanese Concession began to run to the PR Concession. This kind of scenario is also what the Red Army wants to see, which is conducive to reducing the morale of the defenders, and at the same time can also avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. In response to the Red Army's ultimatum, the Japanese idealized themselves to resist to the end. Thankfully, the garrison here is a relatively sane Marine, not the militarists of the Army. Knowing that it would become a battlefield of blood and fire, they also took the initiative to release a large number of expatriates to take refuge in the public concession.

Although Lin Han advocated that only dead Japanese were good Japanese, the Red Army was not as extreme as he was in this regard.

When there was a great chaos in the concession, the cruiser Pinghai had sailed to the center of the Huangpu River, and after the threat of the combined British and Japanese fleets was lifted, the Pinghai replenished the crew, the boiler heated up, the whistle sounded, and slowly sailed out of the Jiangnan shipyard and began cruising in the Huangpu River. In order to shell the concession, several Soviet-made 76.2 mm field guns were temporarily installed on the string side of the ship.

At this time, the Hawker group that had finished bombing the Baoshan Pier also landed at Hongqiao Airport to replenish fuel and plant bombs in preparation for the next wave of sorties. The planes were all taken from Nanjing and Hangzhou to Shanghai. The success of the Hongqiao airfield gave the Red Army an excellent front-line airfield.

After the artillery battle on the Yangtze River ended, the artillery positions scattered throughout Shanghai turned around one after another, all pointing to the Hongkou Concession area, and as soon as the time came, hundreds of artillery pieces would roar together, razing the Hongkou Concession to the ground.

In order to resolve the concession issue as soon as possible, and at the same time not to cause too much damage to the concession, the best way is to kill the chickens and monkeys and use the bloody corpse of the Japanese "chicken" to crush the fighting spirit of the British colonial troops in the public concession. (To be continued......)