Colonel Namasaki was taken by surprise to learn that 30,000 guns had opened up in the small town of Wupeng, about twenty miles east of Beijing at six o’clock this morning. By then the snowstorm was finally tapering off, but not before it had dumped eight to twelve inches of snow across the city, knocking out power to many households and grounding two-thirds of the Japanese forces.
“Our two infantry divisions in Wupeng were totally outnumbered and they had to make a hasty retreat, sir,” reported Captain Kenji, a diminutive man with a gap in his two upper front teeth. His face stiff with tension, he stood before the colonel, who was seated at the table having his breakfast inside his tent. “We lost around 5,000 men and equipment.”
“I thought we had four tanks up there,” the colonel said,
