By contrast, a massive crowd of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians from the south side of Nanking, who were fleeing in panic and disarray from the advance of Japan's 10th Army on the same night, were prevented from reaching the harbor at Xiaguan by Chinese barrier troops who fired on the crowd for retreating without permission and managed to hold it back. At 9:00 pm a fleeing Chinese tank unit, which had also not received Tang's parting message, charged the barrier troops and burst through their blockade, only for the crowd to then find that there were hardly any boats remaining in the harbor. The crowd fought to clamber aboard what few craft were available, but these soon became so overloaded that they sank midway. The rest of the Chinese soldiers took to the Yangtze's rough and frigid waters en masse while clinging to logs and pieces of scrap lumber, though most were quickly swallowed up by the river. Furthermore, by this point the Japanese encirclement of Nanking was virtually complete and many who were attempting to brave the Yangtze soon found themselves being fired upon from both sides of the river. Others who saw this turned back to the city in despair.