Spy Wars: I am the Captain of the Military Police

Chapter 933 Memories Cannot Be Lost

"Quick! Soak those fabrics in kerosene!" Sun Mingxin's voice was hoarse as he pointed to the Central Department Store across the street, which had been completely looted.

Several soldiers rushed in, tore down expensive silks and brocades from the shelves, and soaked them in oil drums they had found.

These luxury items, which were once coveted by wealthy young ladies and wives, have now been roughly dragged out and given a new, cruel mission.

The soaked cloth was piled up at key locations on the barricades. When lit, it did not produce a blazing flame, but instead emitted thick, acrid black smoke.

The smoke effectively obscured the Japanese troops' vision, creating opportunities for snipers on high ground behind the barricades.

"Bang!" A crisp gunshot rang out from the second-floor window of the Yong'an Shopping Mall diagonally opposite.

A Japanese sergeant who had just peeked out from the street corner to observe the situation fell to the ground with a bloody hole in his forehead.

Sniper Li Shuisheng, a descendant of hunters from Jiangbei, calmly pulled back the bolt, and the brass cartridge case bounced out crisply.

He peered through the gaps in the smoke, searching for his next target. Dozens of gleaming shell casings lay scattered at his feet.

The Japanese troops quickly realized the threat posed by the snipers and began to suppress the windows with heavy machine gun fire, while sending out small groups of troops to try to approach covertly along the shops on both sides of the street.

Their actions were cautious and their tactics skillful, demonstrating the qualities of an elite force.

At this point, Sun Mingxin's pre-planned "feint" began to take effect.

In the windows adjacent to the sniper's position, several mannequins brought from a department store were dressed in military uniforms by soldiers, making them appear from a distance as if they were lying in ambush. The Japanese detachment, eager to eliminate the sniper's position, indeed concentrated its fire on these decoys.

"Now!" Sun Mingxin saw a small squad of Japanese soldiers being lured to the designated explosion area and suddenly waved his hand.

The sapper in charge of detonating the explosives slammed down the detonator.

"Boom! Boom!!" A series of violent explosions rang out.

Explosives and cluster grenades, which had been pre-planted under the load-bearing columns of the shop and in the street drainage ditch, were detonated simultaneously.

The shockwave, carrying rubble, glass, and broken wood, swept across the street, and thick smoke and dust instantly engulfed the Japanese troops.

Screams were drowned out by the explosion, and severed limbs and broken weapons flew everywhere.

The brief victory brought a burst of cheers, but the cheers quickly subsided.

Because more Japanese footsteps and gunshots came from other directions.

Sun Mingxin knew that this could only delay, not stop.

He counted the few soldiers and ammunition left around him, looked up at the gloomy sky, and knew that the night would be their only possible cover.

Unlike the modern barricades in the new urban area, the battle in Confucius Temple in the south of the city carried an absurd and tragic color.

This thousand-year-old cultural and educational center, which enshrines Confucius, is now riddled with bullet holes and its walls are in ruins.

The water in the Pan Pond was stained dark red, and most of the stone carvings on the Lingxing Gate were chipped away by bullets.

The Dacheng Hall, the main hall where the memorial tablets of Confucius and his disciples were enshrined, became the last core fortification of the defending army.

The soldiers blocked the doors and windows with heavy incense burners and offering tables, leaving only firing ports.

Some soldiers even removed the wooden memorial tablets of Confucius, the "Great Sage and King of Literature," and his disciples, and placed them behind sandbags as additional cover.

A young, scholarly soldier, his face still bearing traces of childishness, trembled slightly as he inserted a memorial tablet inscribed with "Mencius, the Second Sage" into the notch, muttering under his breath, "Forgive me, forgive me, Mencius, it was truly a last resort..."

Outside the temple, a small Japanese squad used the square in front of the Confucian temple and the stone railings of the Pan Pond to exchange fire with the guards inside the temple.

The Japanese commander, a captain with a mustache, had clearly lost patience with the house-to-house struggle, or perhaps he harbored a deep hatred for this building that symbolized the cultural heritage of China.

He brandished his saber and roared out orders.

Soon, the Japanese mortars were set up.

The shells fell with a sharp whistling sound.

The first shell missed the main hall but exploded precisely in the Pan Pool.

With a deafening roar, the pool water, carrying silt, blood, and several floating corpses, shot into the sky, turning the sacred place where "Confucian students collected water" into a slaughterhouse.

Immediately afterwards, more shells rained down on the roof and pillars of the Dacheng Hall, glazed tiles flew everywhere, the wooden structure caught fire, dust filled the hall, and soldiers were constantly injured or buried under the bricks and stones.

. . . . . . . . . .

While the battle at Confucius Temple was raging, a special group of people were busy on the campus of Jinling University not far away.

They were not a regular army, but a volunteer force spontaneously formed by students and some teachers.

Chen Huaimin, a history professor, a thin scholar nearing fifty years old wearing worn-out round-framed glasses, was working with several physics students to find bottles of concentrated sulfuric acid and alcohol stored in the laboratory, plugging the bottle openings with strips of cloth to make rudimentary Molotov cocktails and other throwing weapons.

"Be careful! Sulfuric acid is highly corrosive!" Professor Chen warned the young students as he skillfully operated the equipment.

His movements were not like those of a scholar, but rather showed a certain composure.

Before the war, he buried himself in old papers and studied the stone carvings of the Six Dynasties and the city walls of the Ming Dynasty.

Now, however, he is going to make the weapons to kill the enemy himself.

This transformation was filled with helplessness, but he was determined to protect this city that carries history.

"Professor, we're running out of ammunition! We need to send some to the front!" a messenger, reeking of gunpowder, shouted as he rushed into the laboratory.

Chen Huaimin immediately put down the bottle in his hand: "I'll go! I know a shortcut." Without hesitation, he picked up a box of grenades and had the students carry several boxes of rifle bullets.

This small transport team, using the ruins as cover, crept towards the Confucius Temple, where the gunfire was most intense.

However, just as they were crossing an open area and about to enter a narrow alley, a burst of machine gun fire swept in from their flank.

The students panicked and lay down. Chen Huaimin's body jolted, and the heavy ammunition box slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.

A bullet struck his abdomen, and blood quickly soaked through his gray long shirt.

The students crawled over and tried to bandage him.

Chen Huaimin's face was deathly pale, and his breathing was rapid. He knew he was going to die.

He did not cry out in pain, but with all his might, he pulled out a thread-bound, blue-covered book from the cloth bag he carried with him, which was already soaked with blood—"Nanjing Local Chronicles." This was a part of his life's work, a manuscript that recorded the landscape and historical evolution of this ancient capital.

With trembling hands, he pointed to a crack in a nearby crumbling wall and said haltingly to a student beside him, "Stuff...stuff it in...Nanjing...cannot lose its memory..." The student, with tears in his eyes, took the blood-stained manuscript and forcefully stuffed it deep into the crack.

As Professor Chen Huaimin watched all this, his gaze gradually became unfocused, his head tilted to one side, and he collapsed on this land that he deeply loved and studied.

What he protects is not only the present of this city, but also its thousand-year-old soul.