On Christmas Eve on December 24, 1934, Fang Zhimin and Su Yu's old acquaintance, Zeng Hongyi, the former political commissar of Fujian Province who left the team on the expedition, was huddled outside the gate of the Bund Park on the bank of the Huangpu River, hunched in the cold wind, holding his arms, trembling like a cold bird.

It's not that he doesn't want to find a house to settle down, but everyone knows that Shanghai is about to turn into a battlefield, and the common people in the Chinese and Japanese concessions are dragging their children and running away, desperately trying to squeeze into the public concession and the French concession, which are regarded as safe havens. As a result, the hotels and rental houses in the public concession were full of people, and for a time the prices of houses skyrocketed, and even the cheapest cheap hotels, Datong shops, increased their prices by at least five or six times.

For Comrade Zeng Hongyi, who has no long belongings and no coppers in his pocket, such a level of consumption is obviously unbearable for him. As for the underground party organization in Shanghai, he couldn't get in touch with it for a while......

Therefore, after stumbling on the streets of Shanghai like a headless fly for most of the day, Zeng Hongyi had to find a roof to live with like those homeless war refugees. Anyway, I am young and in good health, so I should be able to bear it...... But the question is...... It's really cold!

Looking at the snowflakes falling slowly in the sky, feeling the bone-chilling wind, Zeng Hongyi couldn't help but continue to shrink into the corner, feeling as if he had become the little match girl in "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales", and was about to freeze to death with a longing for the stove and roast goose!

At the thought of the stove, he couldn't help but turn his head and look envious over the iron fence of the Bund Park. Looking at the blazing bonfire inside, it seems that you can feel the warmth of the flames from a distance of more than ten meters - this is the border of the British troops stationed in Shanghai who are ordered to garrison the public concession. Set up fortifications in the Bund Park and camp on the spot...... However, although the British pulled up barbed wire and piled up sandbags, they did not intend to treat their stomachs badly, but prepared a large amount of bread, barbecue, and wine in advance, and ate and drank around the campfire. This is how Christmas is celebrated.

However, for Zeng Hongyi at this moment, although the warmth of the bonfire and the fragrance of the food. It was so tempting on this cold night with a light snow, but he didn't dare to approach it at all, but dared to look at it from a long distance with envious eyes—because he had just seen it with his own eyes. There was an old man who couldn't stand the cold. I wanted to go in to bake the fire, but before I could get over, I was stopped by an Indian patrol with a turban, and then without saying anything, he lifted the stick fiercely, beating the old man to the point that his head was bleeding, and now he is still lying on the side of the road dying, and it is estimated that he will not survive tomorrow morning......

- This is the arrogance of imperialism, this is the humiliation of semi-colonies. This is the lowliness of the people of a weak country.

No way, in the Shanghai concession of the "country within a country". Chinese people can not only often encounter embarrassing things such as "Chinese and dogs are not allowed to enter", but also can see the cane of proud foreign adults everywhere, flying on the bodies of rickshaw drivers and coolies; Everywhere you can see drunken sailors, looking for people and beating them along the streets; Everywhere you can see the mourning sticks in the hands of the patrolmen, and from time to time they beat the unfortunate people...... Unless you hide in the pavilion as soon as you arrive in Shanghai, you can feel the ubiquitous discrimination and contempt of foreign adults wherever you go.

Just as Zeng Hongyi recalled the descriptions of the Shanghai concession by the central comrades, and felt more and more sad and helpless about the sinking of the motherland, the clock had unconsciously struck past twelve o'clock, entered the second half of the night, and the surroundings became more and more silent. But the British soldiers in the park refused to stop, and instead drunkenly sang the iconic song of the imperialists in the heyday of the British Empire, "Rule! Britannia! 》：

“…… When Britain was placed on the blue sea by the Creator at the beginning of Shijie's birth,

He has sworn to the gods of this land and sworn to protect this continent forever with the gods.

Rule! Britannia! Rule this raging ocean!

The Britons will never be enslaved!

There is no holier nation in the world than ours!

Therefore, it is necessary to overthrow the tyrants and make our country prosperous and free.

Let other countries only look at us with jealousy and fear!

Rule! Britannia! Rule this raging ocean!

The Britons will never be enslaved! ”

In the heroic singing of these British soldiers, Zeng Hongyi, who was cold and hungry, woke up in a daze, recognized their lyrics for a while, and couldn't help but have mixed feelings for a while, and then looked at so many wanderers who were sleeping around him, he finally couldn't help but bow his head and sigh and spit out a cloud of white gas.

“…… The Britons will never be enslaved...... Are we Chinese going to be enslaved forever? ”

He muttered to himself with chattering teeth, "...... The Britons rule the seas of Shijie, and we Chinese even the land left by our ancestors is about to be taken away by the Japanese invaders...... Speaking of which, tomorrow is Christmas for foreigners, I wonder if this Santa Claus will give us a gift Chinese too......"

At this moment, as if I felt something, in the originally quiet night sky, there was a sudden scream of something cutting through the air:

“…… Whew~~~~~~"

When he raised his head, he saw a string of orange-red "shooting stars" piercing the night sky and crashing into the Japanese concession on the north bank of Suzhou Creek!

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“…… Whew~~~~~~"

“…… My God! What the hell is this? ”

On a British cargo ship anchored on the east bank of the Huangpu River, several sailors on duty who were playing cards boringly were suddenly stunned to see one huge fireball after another accompanied by a piercing scream, passing through the dark and deep night, looking as dazzling as a meteor.

This incredible discovery immediately stopped them all, and they all opened their mouths wide, but they couldn't make a sound.

So, with their minds blank, they could only watch as an unidentified object with tongues of fire ejected from its tail swept across the surface of the Huangpu River at an astonishing high speed. Then he blew up the walls of the Japanese consulate in Shanghai on the banks of the Huangpu River and plunged headlong into the building.

And the next scene that happens is like a slow motion in a movie. It makes them unforgettable.

- First, all the glass in the building of the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai was shattered in an instant, splashing out in all directions. Under the reflection of the explosion fire, these broken glass seemed to turn into brilliant colorful gems, reflecting countless brilliant and brilliant blurred brilliance.

The next moment, the entire reinforced concrete building of the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai jumped violently as if it had come to life. The sturdy cement façade expands outwards at this moment. It's like a balloon that has been blown up...... Immediately afterward, countless messy debris and debris sputtered rapidly in the shock wave created by the explosion. It was thrown in all directions like bullets.

After that, countless clusters of scorching flames tumbling forward quietly appeared behind these debris that were swept away by the air waves, expanding outward along the corridors, rooms, and ventilation pipes. Rushing out through the various holes of the building. With an incomparably bright light, it exposes its hideous and bloodthirsty nature...... Such a ferocious and rapid destructive force made many spectators on both sides of the Huangpu River feel their throats tighten, and they could barely breathe.

Just as the Japanese consulate was reduced to a pile of burning ruins, the flagship of the Japanese Third Fleet, the Izumo, anchored at Huishan Pier, also suffered bad luck - as an armored cruiser with a displacement of nearly 10,000 tons, the armor plates of the "Izumo" were enough to mock the weak firepower of the Kuomintang army and make Wang Yaqiao's water ghost feather. But for precision-guided modern weapons. It's still just a slightly tougher walnut.

Under the precise guidance of a laser designator, a cruise missile drilled directly into the chimney of the "Izumo". The bombing caused the whole ship to burst into flames; Another cruise missile "scuttled" into its bridge, and the 500-kilogram high-explosive warhead almost bulldozed the front half of the Izumo's superstructure. The third cruise missile plunged headlong into the depths of the hull along the gap "chiseled" by the second cruise missile, and lived up to expectations by detonating the ammunition depot of the "Izumo......

And so, with an earth-shattering bang and a flash of snow piercing the night sky, the antique-class armored cruiser, completed in 1900, and the sailors who were on duty on the battleship, were almost completely torn to pieces.

- Before the alarm could even be sounded, the flagship of the Japanese Third Fleet, the Izumo, was blown up on its berth!

Immediately afterwards, all the military and political offices and garrison locations in the Hongkou Japanese Concession, as well as the Japanese Third Fleet anchored on the Huangpu River, were all bathed in the sound of fire and explosions one after another, although cruise missiles were not designed to be used against warships, but the warships moored were actually fixed targets like fortresses, and the panicked Japanese sailors did not know how to intercept cruise missiles at all...... Well, strictly speaking, they don't even know what they were attacking......

What's more, it was very difficult for warships in this era to start their engines, often requiring an hour or two of warm-up, so the ships of the Third Fleet could not maneuver at all to avoid missile attacks - although it was not an easy task to maneuver at night in the dark in the narrow Huangpu River, and if you were not careful, it would run aground or collide, but at least it was much better than stopping in place and being hit as a target.

All in all, from the beginning to the end of the missile attack, the Japanese Third Fleet anchored in the Huangpu River has been passively beaten - first the flagship "Izumo", then the cruisers "Tenryu" and "Tatsuda"; Destroyers "Kiku", "Aoi", "Hagi...... One by one, they all caught fire and exploded in the berths, broke masts, overturned in water, and eventually turned into piles of twisted and broken metal garbage......

By the time the missile bombardment was over, the ships and sailors of the Japanese Third Fleet stationed in Shanghai had been largely wiped out, leaving only the 150-ton Fushimi, the 105-ton Sumida, and the 250-ton Toba...... These are three antique gunboats built before the First World War, using outdated coal-fired boilers with a shallow draft of less than a meter, and the layman may think that these are three old river liners at first glance.

And the Japanese army really disliked them as dilapidated and outdated, and now they had abandoned these ships at the dock of the shipbreaking yard, just waiting for the order of the Ministry of the Navy to abolish the ship registration. It's going to be dismantled into scrap metal...... Instead, he escaped a missile attack.

However, given that the Japanese sailors were close to total annihilation, these few antique gunboats could even survive. I guess it's not going to be of much use.

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On the other hand, on the land of the Hongkou Japanese Concession, the Marine Corps Headquarters on the North Sichuan Road, as well as the permanent camps such as the Gongda Yarn Factory and Huishan Wharf, where the Marines have been stationed for a long time, have also become the hardest hit areas by cruise missile bombardments. Countless scorching steel balls and shrapnel flew everywhere. Splashes of blinding blood......

The Marine Corps Command, which was the primary target, was almost plowed. The Marines who had just finished the Christmas banquet and sent off the guests, were busy packing up the dishes, tables and chairs. In the sudden explosion, corpses were strewn all over the field, and heavy casualties were inflicted.

And more than half of the officers who were discussing the next battle plan in the conference room were also sent to Amaterasu by a missile that hit directly from the window - the death list even included His Excellency Major General Okawa Uchisukechi, the commander of the Shanghai Special Marine Corps!

Fortunately in misfortune, Vice Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa, commander of the Third Fleet. I happened to leave the conference room just as the missiles hit. I went out to the bathroom, so I escaped it for the time being...... Of course, Lieutenant General Hasegawa Kiyoshi is in a situation at this time, I am afraid that it is definitely not good, because at the time of the missile attack, his forehead was hit by something that fell, and he immediately bled profusely, and even his vision was blood-red......

“…… cough, cough...... Is anyone there? Who's going to pull me along? ”

Lieutenant General Kiyoshi Hasegawa, who finally regained consciousness. Coughing violently, he struggled to crawl out of the rubble. Seeing this, several surviving Marines in the vicinity hurriedly ran forward. Lift him up. Then someone pulled a strip of cloth and bandaged his head.

“…… Ahem, just ...... What's going on? Lieutenant General Hasegawa Kiyoshi asked weakly. I don't know if it was because of excessive blood loss or concussion, he felt that his head had been a little dizzy, and it still hasn't returned to normal.

“…… It could be shelling, it could be bombing, sir. I'm not sure exactly what's going on. The Marine who bandaged his head replied with some uncertainty. As he spoke, the sound of explosions continued to come from all around.

“…… What did you say? Seiichi Hasegawa grabbed the soldier's hand, "...... Who the hell is firing at us? What about your lords? ”

“…… This one...... Sir, we don't know who the enemy is yet. Major General Okawauchi has already been killed! The soldier replied, somewhat flustered.

Then, as Hasegawa struggled to the small playground of the headquarters surrounded by high walls, with a stick on his hand, he was greeted with a very tragic picture of a place full of intact, incomplete, and fragmented Marines, many dead, but also many still alive, screaming, moaning, or crying in pain. Some of the uninjured or less lightly wounded soldiers are struggling to save the dying wounded. But many more soldiers just stood or sat in a trance, dazed and at a loss.

Half of the headquarters building had collapsed, and the two armored cars that had been parked downstairs had become two piles of burning wreckage. During the 128 Incident a few years ago, they were once one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of the Marines, and once caused the 19th Route Army, which lacked anti-aircraft guns, to shed a lot of blood. But at this point, they were easily destroyed, and even their full shape was not preserved.

And, even now, when the headquarters has been destroyed to ruins, no one can say exactly what happened.

What worries Lieutenant General Hasegawa even more is that he then heard several other shocking explosions coming from the direction of the Huishan Pier on the banks of the Huangpu River...... It made him worry about his own fleet, though there was really nothing to worry about by this point.

“…… You, you, and you! Lieutenant General Hasegawa Kiyoshi picked up a military hat on the ground and put it on his head, then grabbed the three soldiers who did not seem to be injured, and commanded sharply: "...... Now, you guys run to the Huishan Pier as fast as you can and see how the fleet is doing...... Worst! Lie down! ”

Before he could finish his words, another scream piercing his eardrums came overhead...... This was followed by a few muffled pops, but they seemed so powerless that they looked like duds. Just when Lieutenant General Hasegawa Kiyoshi felt some doubts in his heart, a white mist centered on the missile landing site, driven by pressure, quickly spread like a wave in the headquarters of the Japanese Marine Corps in Shanghai

“…… Could it be...... Gas!!?? ”

The next moment, this incomparably terrifying word suddenly flashed in the mind of Lieutenant General Hasegawa Kiyoshi. However, when he trembled and subconsciously wanted to cover his mouth and nose with his hands, he unexpectedly heard a second explosion:

“…… Rumble!!!! ”

- This is the voice of Vice Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa, the supreme commander of the Japanese forces stationed in Shanghai and the commander of the Third Fleet.

At the same time, whether it was a wanderer who was hungry and cold, an ordinary citizen who was panicking, or a gentleman and lady who feasted all night, they all involuntarily walked outside the house, and with incredible eyes, looked up at a bright mushroom cloud, slowly rising from the sky above the Hongkou Japanese Concession...... (To be continued......)