Chapter 922: Recovering the Hankou Concession

The battle continued until noon, and the entire *** Concession was a battlefield. On the contrary, the places outside the *** Concession were like paradise. Apart from the rumbling guns and cannons, they were almost unaffected. The engineers of the 7th Brigade sealed all the intersections leading to the *** Concession, and no one was allowed to enter or exit at will. When they found that some *** expatriates attempted to leave the concession to avoid chaos, they decisively stepped forward to detain these people, but did not impose difficulties, and only set up a centralized point on the side of the road for temporary containment.

After twelve o'clock, the Chinese team finally captured the entire territory of the *** Concession and rushed into the *** Consulate in Hankou.

The *** soldiers stationed in the Hankou Concession were extremely injured, and almost no soldiers who survived were not injured.

After incomplete estimates, more than 500 soldiers were killed, but in fact, nearly 1,000 people died in this attack. Such serious casualties were almost comparable to the large-scale night attack during the Qingdao War. After the Chinese team counted it in detail, only nine people died and more than 200 were injured.

Shang Zhen met with the head of the 18th Regiment at the Hankou Consul General Yan Zhizhizhi angrily accused them of strong accusation because Chinese soldiers killed seven guards and killed five diplomats by mistake when forcibly attacking the consulate. This was not only an insult to the Great *** Empire, but also undermined the national diplomatic convention.

"Hmph, your *** government will not explain to us China the act of assassinating our head of state for a day. All your so-called diplomats are suspected of participating in this conspiracy. You should feel glad that if I come a little late, let alone die twelve people, I am afraid that your entire consulate will not have any survivors." Shang Zhen replied coldly with a contemptuous expression.

"You, you are doing robbery. You have seriously violated international diplomatic law. I must complain and make your barbaric behavior public!" After hearing Shang Zhen's words, Yoshinosuke Eda was so angry that he was about to explode and protested loudly.

"Let's talk about it when you have the chance to get out of here. Take him away." Shang Zhen said indifferently.

Two soldiers walked up and pushed Eda Shinnosuke to a room dedicated to imprisoning prisoners.

Commander Li of the 18th Regiment came over and said to Shang Zhen with a little concern: "Captain Shang and Travel, it is a bit inappropriate for us to treat other people's consulates like this. After all, it is indeed a violation of international diplomatic law for us to break into consulates in other countries like this. I am afraid that it will damage the remaining part of our Greater China. Besides, foreigners will also say that we are uncivilized."

Shang Zhen smiled indifferently, reached out to pat Commander Li on the shoulder, and then said, "As long as our country is strong enough, it is civilization. Do you know that when the Russians invaded our China, they killed us Chinese because of lack of military rations? Do you know that when the Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Beijing, they blocked the people in an alley with machine guns to massacre? Let's not talk about other countries, just talk about the Japanese. During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Japanese occupied Lushun. They publicly burned and robbed for four days and three nights, creating the horrifying Lushun massacre. At that time, they killed 20,000 compatriots! Not to mention far, they only talked about the recent Qingdao War and Yantai Massacre, and the Civil Affairs Office arbitrarily torture and kill old officials in their sixties. The robbery was considered good, and they violated women and killed children. Even the twelve or three-year-old girls were not spared!"

The more he spoke, the more angry he looked, and his tone gradually became a state of gritting teeth.

Captain Li was also deeply infected, his fists couldn't help but clenched, and he didn't say a word for a moment.

After taking a deep breath, Shang Zhen continued to say in an angry tone: "He Jingzhi, who is the same period as me, was held in Nanjing last month. He told *** himself the good things he did in Shandong! Even those I didn't see with my own eyes were slapping the tables. It can be imagined how cruel they are. I killed their people today and snatched their things would be considered cheap. If the principal hadn't repeatedly emphasized before, soldiers must not harass women and children. I would really have to slaughter the Japanese concession, and I would not leave any one!"

Captain Li nodded in understanding and said sadly: "I understand. Actually, I am just worried that the incident will have an impact if it spreads... But now it seems that nothing is more important than revenge! Well, I must fully support the decision of the business team leader, and there is no doubt about this."

Shang Zhen said calmly: "If you understand, just say it. You don't have to worry too much. Since this is an order issued by the central government, the central government will naturally have means to deal with public opinion. What else is there to say in the past? When writing the report, it said that the ***er shot first. The reason why we attacked their consulate was that they kidnapped our soldiers as hostages. As long as the assassination of the head of state was not resolved for a day, even if the little *** makes sense, justice, or excuses, it will be bullshit!"

Captain Li agreed and said, "That's right, to put it bluntly, we are avenging the head of state this time!"

After Shang Zhen sighed, he said slowly: "Don't say these nonsense for now. When the teacher comes to the seat, we have to do the aftermath work quickly."

Captain Li answered seriously: "Yes!"

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the *** concession basically returned to peace. Except for some buildings that were bombed and blasted and smoked, which could confirm the fierce battles that had occurred before, everything else gradually became orderly. Shang Zhen cleaned up a large vacant warehouse in the concession, and then sent everyone's prisoners here to settle. Later, even the *** expatriates were sent in, and the huge warehouse suddenly seemed a little crowded.

Chinese soldiers still set up barricade checkpoints on the streets outside the concession, refused to disclose any news to the outside world, and did not allow anyone to enter and exit these places. It was not until the senior officer of the Group Army Command came in a car and the reporters who had been around outside the *** line got a news that Wei Rucon will hold a press conference at the Hankou Civil Affairs Office at 6 o'clock this evening. After hearing the news, the reporters rushed to the door of the Hankou Civil Affairs Office to seize the position, waiting for the official announcement of the news that happened in the *** Concession today.

Wei Rucon led the commanders of the Army Command to gather in the *** Consulate and listened to Shang Zhen’s detailed report on the attack on the *** Concession. Of course, there are two versions of this report, one is the real situation, and the other is the explanation to the outside world. Later, Wei Rucon led the commanders of each division to inspect the *** Concession after the war. It has to be said that this strong attack was too great, and more than half of the houses in the entire concession were destroyed to varying degrees.

Before leaving the *** Concession, Wei Rucon made several explanations. One was to send someone to take over three trading companies and two factories in the Japanese Concession. Not only that, he also had to check the business information of the consulate, mark all the industries of the *** in Wuhan, and hand them over to the local Civil Affairs Office for temporary supervision. As for the Sino-Japanese joint venture industries, the joint venture Chinese companies were allowed to invest and acquire them at the lowest price, becoming a sole proprietorship of China. Of course, all the funds issued by the Chinese company were classified as the Provincial Ministry of Finance.

In this series of searches, the biggest gain was not the occupying of several ** factories, but the search for a lot of finished goods in more than a dozen commercial warehouses. According to the data recorded on the warehouse entry form, the total value of these goods combined exceeded 10 million yen, which has to be called a great harvest. In dealing with these finished goods, Wei Rucon personally gave instructions that materials useful to the army could be transferred to strategic materials for storage and resettlement, and other civilian materials were distributed to local distributors at half price, and then sold by local distributors at lower prices, which was considered to contribute to the control of market prices.

The second is about the disposal of prisoners of war detained in the warehouse of the *** Concession. Although Wei Rucong had not been to the warehouse in person, he knew very well that the people detained were basically not "prisoners of war". Almost most of the regular soldiers in the *** Concession Guards died during the attack, and even if some soldiers survived, there would never be more than 200 people. Currently, the people detained here are basically all *** expatriates and consulate staff. In Shang Zhen's report, it said that about 3,000 people were contained here.

These more than 3,000 people are not all residents of the *** Concession, but they also account for a majority of the share, including diplomats. Wei Rucon initially planned to release some people, but considering that these people would definitely spread the truth about China's attack on the Japanese concession after leaving. Moreover, the *** government has not yet explained the assassination of the head of state of Wu Shaoting, so it is necessary to control these hostages to create pressure. In the end, he gave up his previous idea and asked the 18th Regiment to monitor these hostages according to the treatment of prisoners of war and not be released until further orders were received.

That night, Wei Rucon led the generals to the Hankou Civil Affairs Office, and the press conference prepared by the headquarters secretariat officially began. Wei Rucon personally introduced to the reporters present that what happened in the *** Concession this morning, emphasizing that the *** Concession Guard would carry out military martial law outside the Japanese Concession without permission and any notice. There were many military strongholds with martial law crossing the territorial line, which means that the *** people arranged military facilities on Chinese territory first. In addition, he was ordered by the central government to recover the Hankou Concession, but instead sent military teams to the Japanese Concession to negotiate, but was stopped by the concession guards, and the Japanese even fired fire at the negotiators.

When talking about this, Wei Rucon listed the certification and physical evidence. The Chinese military team was Shang Zhen, the commander of the 7th Brigade. In the morning, when he led his troops to the intersection of the main street to talk to the people, he was seen by many Chinese people on the street next door. These ordinary people did see the soldiers aiming guns at Shang Zhen and not allowing Chinese personnel to enter the concession. As for the Japanese side's shooting, it was on the road facing the main street of the Japanese concession, where there were many heavy machine guns and bullet marks left by the rifles. Although these bullet marks were actually left after the war between China and Japan, Wei Rucon still emphasized that this was the cold gun fired from the rear by Shang Zhen when he led his men to retreat here.

The statement of attacking the consulate in *** was almost in accordance with Shang Zhen's proposal. However, Wei Rutong still made some adjustments, saying that the *** guards threatened the Chinese people working in the Japanese concession and refused to negotiate with the *** team. When the *** guards threatened to kill the Chinese hostages several times, the *** team was forced to launch a strong attack to rescue the hostages.
Chapter completed!