There would be a further twenty five thousand dollar bonus if the communist leaders, or their heads, were delivered to him.
Von Luck listened to this then shook his head in amazement. I can’t wait to tell Rommel this one!
Sato bid him goodbye after informing him that the next morning the Japanese forces would be retiring back into Manchuria.
Von Luck went in search of General Cheng.
The Chinese Nationalist army was twenty kilometres south of the city. The Japanese General had just received orders to hold the city at all costs. Reinforcements would be sent to the city, but these should not be expected for three days.
The reports he had received from Wuhan and Canton indicated that the Chinese, with help of the foreign barbarians, had forged a formidable fighting force. He expected them to attack the next day. He had precious few tanks and his ammunition reserves had been depleted over previous months and never replaced. His troops only numbered thirty five thousand. How was he hold Nanking when he was outnumbered more than fifteen to one!
Chiang caught the Japanese off guard. He did not wait until the next day. Using their now familiar blitzkrieg tactics, units of his army penetrated the city’s defence perimeter at several points before the evening drew to a close. This was the signal for a general uprising of the population in the city. With all their pent up hatred the people of Nanking fell upon the outward facing Japanese from behind. Ordinary Chinese citizens took great risks just for the chance of killing one Japanese soldier. Consequently their casualties were high. But this did not deter them. One man, saw his chance of revenge for the killing of his entire family during the Nanking incident. He strapped explosives to his chest and threw himself under a Japanese tank. The tank was blown to pieces. Suicide bombers were everywhere. They became known as the ‘Dare to Die Corps’.
The Japanese were now facing the Nationalist army in front, and a huge mob of insurgents behind. With grim determination they fought on.
The Chinese forces had the city surrounded. In view of the significance of Nanking as the site of unparalleled atrocities, Chiang had no option but to crush the enemy. The would be no offer of surrender terms. No allowing of a strategic retreat. Complete and unconditional surrender was all he would accept.
It took another eight days before resistance ceased, except for few isolated pockets. Of the total of thirty five thousand Japanese troops that had defended Nanking, fewer than five thousand were taken prisoner. The majority of these prisoners were wounded. No reinforcements had been sent. Neither had any air support been received.
It had been a savage battle. The cost in Chinese lives was high. But the ‘Rape of Nanking’ had been avenged.
The world took note.
They had left canton nine days ago. General Yue’s army now surrounded the port of Shantou. If intelligence was to be believed they were probably facing fewer than ten thousand Japanese troops.
Yue had fallen behind schedule. His army was still over twelve hundred kilometres from Shanghai. He decided to speed things up. He would leave Sieckenius with forty thousand troops and twenty tanks, to deal with Shantou. Yue would hurry on to the next sizeable town, Xiamen, a further two hundred and fifty kilometres away.
A reconnaissance in force was despatched towards Xiamen. Yue followed behind with the larger portion of his army. Three days later his forward reconnaissance troops reported to him that the town was free of enemy troops. The Japanese, now aware of the potency of their Chinese enemy, had evacuated their forces, assessed at twenty thousand or less, to the offshore island of Kinmen.
That same day Sieckenius arrived from Shantou. There, the Japanese had done the same. They had transported their entire force to Nanao Island, about eight kilometres offshore. Sieckenius had left ten thousand of his troops as garrison of Shantou, and hurried to join Yue.
Yue and Sieckenius pondered on the enemy tactics. The enemy withdrawals were a positive development for the southern Nationalist army in that their advance towards Shanghai had not been held up, and losses of troops and equipment were minimal. On the other hand sizeable numbers of Japanese troops were left on islands close to the coast and, in effect, behind the Nationalist line of advance.
In the end they both agreed that there was little they could do other than leave some of their own troops behind to guard against the enemy attempting to land and recapture territories.
That same day they heard of the liberation of Nanking, and the decimation of the Japanese defenders. Everywhere there were smiles on the faces of the Chinese troops. Their morale soared!
The southern army had covered a distance of more than one thousand kilometres since launching their coastal campaign. However they were still almost another one thousand kilometres from Shanghai. Generalissimo Chiang’s army was only three hundred kilometres from Shanghai. There was no way they could join forces in time for the battle for the city.
General Cheng’s force, now that their primary mission of eliminating the communists was accomplished, had made their way south into central China. The scattered Japanese strongholds they encountered were subdued one by one as they continued at an almost leisurely advance. Their main purpose was to tie up the Japanese forces in the north and central China by posing a threat across a wide area.
Requests from local Japanese commanders for reinforcements from Manchukuo were turned down by the army Commander-in-Chief of that state, General Umezu, the same general who had helped Chiang crush the communists. Umezu had concluded a second secret deal with Chiang. The Chinese would leave Manchukuo alone if Umezu kept his troops there at home.
Von Luck thought that all things considered, the northern army was having a rather enjoyable war!
Everything was proceeding according to plan in China. Now that the Nationalist forces were threatening the important city of Shanghai, the Governing Council had activated the second part of their plan. This was to induce the Americans to coerce the Japanese into entering peace negotiations.
Japan imported eighty percent of its oil from the United States. Germany, backed by Britain and France, had been quietly canvassing the Americans to threaten Japan with comprehensive sanctions, including oil, unless they entered into serious peace negotiations with the Chinese. This was something the United States had already looked at, so it was no great leap for them to actually implement it.
Now that the Chinese had demonstrated their newfound strength, and ended their long civil war with the defeat of the communist insurgents, it was hoped the Japanese would face reality.
The Americans had agreed! President Roosevelt publicly called for China and Japan to stop fighting and start talking. Behind the scenes he let the Japanese know in no uncertain terms, that he was ready to act decisively with sanctions against them unless they came to the negotiating table. He was also willing to offer them favourable trading and other concessions if they curtailed their expansionist policies. Roosevelt, like the Germans, was anxious to maintain friendly relations with Japan, as they were a bastion of anti-communism in the Far East.