Chapter 88, The Earth Under the Mushroom Cloud (Part 2)
China, Shanghai, late at night
The prosperous scene of the former "city that never sleeps in the Far East" has now been burned away by the fierce flames of war. The red and green neon lights can no longer be seen in the city, nor can the sounds of drunkenness and dissipation be heard. Only the smoke of gunpowder remains. , sporadic firelight and fallen corpses.
Loud bugles, rumbling cannons and machine gunfire like fried beans echoed continuously in the streets of China's largest metropolis.
——As the blue sky and white sun flags, Union Jack flags and Stars and Stripes flags gradually withered, and the sickle and hammer red flags continued to advance towards the center of Shanghai, the battle of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army to liberate Shanghai finally entered the final and most brutal stage of street fighting. .
After about two months of fierce fighting and back-and-forth, the "Shanghai Iron Wall" originally garrisoned by 200,000 "Party-State Tigers" and more than 30,000 American and British intervention troops has been under an overwhelming offensive by the 500,000-strong Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. Falling apart. At the same time, various underground parties lurking in Shanghai in advance also called on progressive people from all walks of life in Shanghai to raise flags to launch an armed uprising and launch a fatal blow to the Shanghai defenders from the rear. In addition, the underground party in Shanghai also organized a group of armed factory protection teams to protect Shanghai's waterworks, power plants and gas stations from being destroyed to prevent enemies from jumping over the wall.
Faced with such a desperate situation, General Tang Enbo, who was appointed as the commander of Shanghai city defense by Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, had already fled to Taiwan two weeks ago, and the American General Stilwell, who led the American and British reinforcements to assist in the defense of Shanghai, also He left Shanghai and fled to a warship anchored in Hangzhou Bay.
At this moment, in the besieged city of Shanghai, there are only less than 10,000 members of Chairman Chiang's direct "Youth Army" still resisting - this army was led by "Prince" Chiang Ching-kuo. It is extremely political, and its officers and soldiers are basically the children of local tyrants and evil gentry who have a hatred of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants for destroying their families, or they are executioners who have massacred the revolutionary masses in the base area and have blood debts on their hands. This "youth army" may not necessarily have the strongest combat effectiveness, but its stance and fighting spirit are definitely the firmest. Basically, it can be said that it is sworn in with the Red Army. According to the propaganda of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, these stubborn enemies are basically the most hardcore reactionaries and class enemies in the country, or the Black Five Categories.
Therefore, despite the utter despair of the war situation, they were determined to fight to the end. Facing the workers' and peasants' Red Army that had poured into the city in large numbers, these stubborn enemies retreated to the Bund area, relying on the high-rise buildings on the Puxi Bund and the bunker barricades repaired before the war to continue fighting with the Red Army soldiers.
However, what the red-eyed youth army "martyrs of the party and state" don't know is that behind them, in the closed Shanghai HSBC Bank building, somewhere in a heavily-organized underground vault, there is a super killer weapon. The fuse is ticking and counting down...
That was an atomic bomb produced at the Oak Ridge Factory in the United States! ! !
——In order to guard against the all-pervasive lurking underground party, the US military did not tell any Chinese people when they planted the nuclear bomb at HSBC Bank.
Right now, Lieutenant General Stilwell, the top commander of the U.S. military in China who planted the timed nuclear bomb, is staying on the light cruiser USS St. Louis outside Jinshanwei Port in the waters of Hangzhou Bay south of Shanghai, staring at the clock on the bulkhead. The hands are anxiously waiting for the moment of nuclear explosion to arrive.
——According to the original nuclear strike plan formulated by the Pentagon, it was planned to use Shanghai Hongqiao Airport as a front-line base, where a formation of B-29 "Super Flying Fortress" bombers would take off, carrying atomic bombs to bomb the city of Beijing, which had just been selected as the capital of New China. .
Unexpectedly, plans always failed to keep up with changes. As soon as the atomic bombs and B-29 bombers arrived in Shanghai, Hongqiao Airport was attacked by the Soviet Air Force to aid China. All aircraft and aviation fuel warehouses were blown up, and even the airport runway was severely damaged. The damage cannot be repaired in a short period of time. As for the Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport as an alternative base, because of the active uprising of the Hangzhou defenders, a red flag had already been planted before the fall of Shanghai.
In desperation, General Stilwell could only arrange ships to transport the atomic bomb away again. Unexpectedly, the defenders of the Wusongkou Fort rebelled at this time and blocked the Huangpu River channel... The American fleet stranded near the Yangtze River Estuary once wanted to destroy the Wusong Fort and forcibly broke into the Huangpu River to transport the atomic bomb, but failed. Encountered in Wusongkou After a fierce battle, a light cruiser and two destroyers were destroyed and sunk on the tidal flats of the Yangtze River Estuary. It was no longer possible to transport heavy atomic bombs out of Shanghai. Possible tasks.
General Stilwell, who had no idea at all, had no choice but to send a secret telegram to Washington for instructions. The immediate reply he received was: detonate on the spot!
To be honest, Lieutenant General Stilwell was very resistant to Washington's inhumane order. But soldiers had no choice but to obey orders as their bounden duty... So he had no choice but to put the atomic bomb into the underground vault of the HSBC Bank building on the Bund in Shanghai, install a timed detonation device, then lock the vault, and block the door of the HSBC Bank with bricks and sandbags. Finally, he led the remaining American and British allied forces and expatriates to withdraw from Shanghai from Jinshanwei in the south.
At this time, all the Liberty Ships carrying expatriates and soldiers had left Jinshanwei and fled to Zhoushan and Taiwan in the south. Only General Stilwell and the USS St. Louis light cruiser he was aboard were still at risk of being bombed by Red Army aircraft. Wandering in the waters south of Shanghai.
Because Lieutenant General Stilwell had to confirm the detonation of the atomic bomb with his own eyes before he could relieve his heavy burden: If this nuclear weapon of final battle, which embodies the hope of mankind in the United States, had anything go wrong when it was detonated, it would have been The U.S. troops evacuating Shanghai really had no choice but to stare blankly - what if the timing on the atomic bomb The detonator failed, or the abandoned "Chinese allies" on the Bund failed to resist the moment of the nuclear explosion, but allowed the Red Army soldiers to rush into the HSBC Bank before that and deactivated the time fuse on the atomic bomb, thus allowing An intact American atomic bomb fell into the hands of the Chinese Bolsheviks... The consequences were simply unimaginable!
At least Lieutenant General Stilwell believed that he was unable to shoulder this responsibility, and he would definitely be court-martialed and imprisoned by then!
What made him even more upset was the U.S. Ambassador to China Leighton Stuart who was sitting in the same boat... When he learned that the U.S. military was going to use an atomic bomb on the Bund in Shanghai, this man who was born and raised in China and like a Chinese More descendants of Presbyterian missionaries than Americans were immediately outraged. Waving his fists to fight Stilwell, he shouted, "This is the biggest mistake the White House has made in China this century. This treacherous nuclear strike will not scare any enemies, but will only destroy those who originally had interests in the United States." All Chinese people who like it rush to the Bolsheviks!”
——From the heart and logic, Stilwell actually agreed with Ambassador Stuart, but out of his duty as a soldier, he could only order his subordinates to drag the overly excited ambassador out and throw him into the sailors. Let's calm down in the small dark room... Well, listening to the faint roaring and banging sounds coming from the other side of the bulkhead, Ambassador Stuart probably couldn't calm down for a while.
So, should we go a little further and give him an injection of anesthetic or some sleeping pills?
Lieutenant General Stilwell was thinking so wildly that before he knew it, the moment was scheduled to detonate the atomic bomb... Then, he saw a violent flash of light, lighting up from behind the northern horizon, illuminating the dark sky in an instant. Sky!
Then, after a while, the light cruiser USS St. Louis, anchored on the north shore of Hangzhou Bay, heard a dull explosion.
At this point, Lieutenant General Stilwell, who had been worrying about gains and losses for a while, finally sighed with relief, but then his face was full of bitterness.
——The Shanghai nuclear explosion should have been successful, but the image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people should have been almost completely destroyed.
Especially the murderer who personally planned the nuclear explosion in Shanghai. In the eyes of the Chinese people, I am afraid he can be compared to the devil, right?
Alas, it seems that as we get older, we become sentimental... Actually, if you think about it carefully, what is there to sigh about? No matter how many layers of justice and morality we put on, isn't the essence of war just killing and being killed? Those who can cut people are strong, and don’t complain if you are slaughtered. The truth in this world is the social Darwinism of the weak and the strong. From ancient times to the present, which hero has not become famous by stepping on mountains of corpses?
Looking at the sky red with fire in the distance, Lieutenant General Stilwell let out a long sigh for the last time, then turned around and called the captain, and ordered in a deep voice: "...Okay, everything is over! Let’s weigh anchor and set off now! We have nothing to do here!”
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On the other side, when the light cruiser USS St. Louis slowly weighs anchor and sails away from Jinshanwei, gradually disappearing into the night-shrouded horizon, behind it lies China's largest metropolis, the city that never sleeps in the Far East, the paradise of adventurers, and the glamorous Shanghai Beach. , but fell into an unprecedented tragic catastrophe.
——Because the nuclear bomb in Shanghai exploded underground instead of being detonated in the conventional air, a considerable part of the energy of the explosion was suppressed underground, and the resulting sound and light effects were not as good as those of the previous ones. At least the mushroom cloud was much smaller. , but the damage caused was equally terrifying: the energy of the nuclear bomb caused more than half of Shanghai to fall into a violent earthquake. The ground in the urban area was shaking like a wild horse, "throwing" citizens, vehicles, trees and even houses on the ground. Up in the air! As for the exquisite and gorgeous reinforced concrete Western buildings on the Bund, they are like soap bubbles swept by the strong wind. They are either wiped out in an instant, or only a pile of twisted and ugly remains are left... As for the heart-breaking HSBC Bank Building in Shanghai, it has never been seen since. The world was completely evaporated, leaving only a hot hole on the ground like a crater, emitting high temperature and red light like a crucible in a metallurgical factory.
Next, the heat wave of the nuclear explosion caused another fire. At this time, Zhabei, Shanghai, was still a shantytown full of shacks. It was not only densely populated, but also full of flammable building materials. In the previous street battles between the Kuomintang and the Communist armies, a lot of flames had been ignited sporadically. Now, when the super high-temperature air wave with a speed of 400 meters per second caused by the nuclear explosion was blown, it turned into countless flowing flames flying all over the sky. A gorgeous scene of fiery trees and silver flowers that never sleeps... In this cruel and beautiful night scene, the entire Zhabei area turned into a sea of fire, with various explosions, calls for help, and howls coming one after another.
Because the war destroyed the city's self-rescue mechanism, the fire in Zhabei quickly grew out of control and spread rapidly to other parts of Shanghai. The airwaves of nuclear explosions and the foehn winds of fires picked up countless embers with sparks, spreading these deadly fires into neighborhoods that were not yet on fire. Wherever the hot wind carrying sparks blows, the flames will spread to the sky. Factories are burning, shops are burning, dock warehouses are burning, Shanghai-style Shikumen houses are burning, cars and street trees are burning, soldiers and citizens who have no time to escape are also burning... Many people have just struggled to climb out of the collapsed houses. Ruins, before I could even wrap up my wounds, I desperately found myself surrounded by flames!
By the time the besieging Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army began to order troops to withdraw from the city and try to save citizens, the entire Shanghai had been engulfed in flames. At first glance, it seemed as if the sky was burning and the earth was burning. The burned houses collapsed one after another in the flames, and many people were burned into indistinguishable charcoal along with the beams of their houses. Some Shanghai citizens were lucky enough not to be buried directly in the ruins. Instead, they fled to some open spaces in a chaotic manner in an attempt to escape the fire. Then they were completely wrapped up in dumplings by the rampant fire, and thousands of them were burned to death together. die.
Some people were forced by the fire demon into desperation, so they grabbed a few pieces of wood or buckets and jumped into the Huangpu River, trying to escape the raging fire by relying on the surging water. Unexpectedly, the oil depot at the Jiangpan Terminal soon exploded and leaked. Tens of thousands of tons of heavy oil flowed into the Huangpu River, floating on the water, and then ignited by fire, turning the Huangpu River into a river of burning flames. The citizens who entered the river became meatballs in the hot pot...
In fact, because there was basically no one to organize the fight in the chaos of war, the fire in Shanghai burned for three days and three nights before it was extinguished. More than half of the houses in the city were destroyed, and the number of civilian casualties exceeded three million. Everyone, the streets and alleys were filled with a burning smell, and the thick smoke was said to be smellable all the way to Suzhou. As for the radiation pollution caused by the underground nuclear explosion in the Bund area, it is not known when it will be cleared. Those Shanghai citizens who were lucky enough to escape life came back and saw the tragic situation in their hometown. They all cried and looked up to the sky and lamented: "Shanghai is dead!"
However, although the number of casualties in the nuclear explosion in Shanghai exceeded the record of any previous nuclear explosion and brought unforgettable pain to the Chinese people, General Stilwell's notoriety did not make the Chinese curse them for too long - Because, there is a great teammate taking away the hatred for him.
——After learning about the nuclear explosion in Shanghai and the severe defeat of the Red Bandits, Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, who had taken refuge in Taiwan, was immediately overjoyed. He turned to discuss with his wife Mei Ling, and shamelessly took advantage of God's merits for himself. He gave a speech on the radio station, claiming that the U.S. government dropped the atomic bomb on the "Bolshevik bandit party that brought disaster to the country" at his invitation. Therefore, this was not only a victory for friendly countries, but a victory for the party and the country, and also for him, Chiang Kai-shek. victory.
Then, in order to boost morale and reverse the defeat, after bragging about the nuclear bombing record in Shanghai, Chairman Chiang also lied that more atomic bombs would be dropped on the heads of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, “…no matter what The ferocious thieves and bandits will all be reduced to powder under friendly nuclear bombs..."
Finally, his wife Mei Ling also spoke up and said: "... major cities that are still under the rule of the party-state must take a clear stand and learn from Shanghai's experience. They would rather live in pieces than in ruins. They would rather sacrifice a dead China. Give it to God, nor give a complete China to the Red Party..." In short, it is not yet known how effective this speech is in motivating loyal officials of the party and state. But the reaction aroused on the front line in eastern Zhejiang was immediate - a group of Shanghai-based "party-state veterans" who had just retreated to Ningbo by boat heard Chairman Chiang's speech on the radio and immediately mutinied and coerced They led their regiment leader to rush to the mouth of Fenghua River, dig up the Jiang family's ancestral grave there, and set fire to the Jiang family ancestral hall...