One man's resistance against Japan, I mobilized a million people to aid Shanghai.

At 4:00 AM, the final assault began.

The attack was launched simultaneously from three directions.

On the eastern front, Zhou Zhijun's 2nd Army crossed the lower reaches of the Fraser River, attempting to outflank the enemy from the flank.

On the western front, Chen Dashan's 5th Army Group attacked the direction of Lions Gate Bridge.

In the central line, Li Xiangdong personally led the main force in a frontal assault on the Second Strait Bridge.

The first line to encounter resistance was the central line.

Although the Second Strait Bridge was buried with explosives, the Canadian military did not detonate them immediately.

They wanted to wait until the Chinese army was on the bridge before bombing it to cause maximum casualties. This gave the Chinese army the opportunity.

Under artillery cover, the engineers rushed toward the bridge in an attempt to disarm the explosives.

But machine guns and mortars on the other side of the bridge fired relentlessly, and sappers fell in droves.

"Tanks! Use tanks for cover!" Li Xiangdong ordered.

Ten captured Sherman tanks drove onto the bridge and used their main guns and machine guns to suppress the fire from the opposite bank.

However, the bridge was narrow, making the tanks easy targets.

Anti-tank guns on the opposite bank opened fire continuously, destroying three tanks, and the burning wreckage blocked the bridge.

"Keep going!" Li Xiangdong's eyes reddened.

More tanks drove onto the bridge, and more tanks were destroyed.

By 8 a.m., the bridge was piled with the wreckage of more than 20 tanks, making it completely impassable.

But the engineers took this opportunity to finally get close to the explosives placement point.

Just as the engineers were preparing to dismantle the structure, the commander of the Maple Leaf Country on the other side of the strait gave the order to detonate it.

At the very moment of detonation, the engineer threw the bomb into his personal storage space.

The portable space is as big as the entire Jiangsu province; this little bomb can't cause any trouble at all.

With the bombs gone, Li Xiangdong began to intensify his attack.

"kill!!"

"Brothers, follow me and charge in!!"

The gray tide surged forward, rushing toward the opposite bank of the bridge.

......

Eastern Front.

Zhou Zhijun chose to build a pontoon bridge at a narrower section of the lower Fraser River.

Despite fierce resistance, by 10 a.m., the two pontoon bridges were finally successfully erected.

A regiment of soldiers crossed the river and established a bridgehead on the north bank.

But the Maple Leaf Army immediately launched a counterattack.

Five tanks, leading two companies of infantry, charged toward the bridgehead.

Lacking heavy weapons, the Chinese soldiers resisted with RPGs and explosive charges, causing the Canadians to cry out in despair.

By noon, two divisions on the eastern front had crossed the river and established a foothold on the north bank.

The fighting on the western front was the most brutal.

The Lions Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge with a complex structure. The Canadian military has deployed heavy weapons on the bridge towers, making it extremely difficult to conquer.

Chen Dashan ordered heavy artillery to bombard the bridge towers.

However, the concrete structure of the bridge towers was exceptionally sturdy, limiting the effectiveness of artillery fire.

At 2 p.m., Chen Dashan adopted an extreme tactic: he organized a suicide squad to climb up from under the bridge.

One hundred suicide squad members, carrying explosive packs, climbed up from the maintenance passage under the bridge.

The Maple Leaf Kingdom's army spotted them and opened fire with machine guns.

One by one, the suicide squad members were shot and fell into the sea, but more than 30 of them still managed to climb to the bridge tower on the other side.

"Detonate!"

More than thirty explosive charges detonated simultaneously, destroying one of the towers of the Lions Gate Bridge and causing half of the bridge deck to collapse.

However, the Maple Leaf Nation's army had already set up a second line of defense at the bridgehead.

Even after the bridge collapsed, they continued to block the river with machine guns, preventing the Chinese army from crossing.

The battle lasted from daytime until evening, and the western front finally crossed the river successfully under the cover of bombers.

At this point, Vancouver's outer defenses were almost completely torn apart.

The defenses were breached on the central, western, and eastern lines.

However, the cost of such an attack was extremely high.

On the first day, nearly 8,000 people were killed or injured in Canada, while Li Xiangdong's side also suffered nearly 5,000 casualties.

Based on this casualty ratio, even if Vancouver is captured in the future, it will likely cost at least 50,000 lives.

Li Xiangdong's expression was not good. Is it appropriate for so many people to die or be injured when attacking a city in Canada?

Just as Li Xiangdong was pondering, Jia Gu sent him a message:

"Vancouver must fall, at all costs."

"That's an order."

Li Xiangdong slowly closed his eyes and fell into deep thought.

When he opened his eyes again, all that remained was coldness.

"Order: Tomorrow, use special ammunition."

The so-called "special munitions" were chemical weapons captured from the Japanese, including mustard gas shells and phosgene bombs.

Li Xiangdong originally didn't want to use these, not out of humanitarian considerations, but because the poison gas bombs would pollute Vancouver and affect Chinese immigrants.

But now, time is of the essence, and we can't worry about that anymore.

the next day.

At 5 a.m., 1,000 mustard gas shells and 500 phosgene bombs were loaded into the artillery.

At 5:30, the shelling began.

This time the explosion was more muffled, and it produced yellowish-green smoke that drifted towards downtown Vancouver in the morning breeze.

The Canadian army did not have gas masks, and they had no idea that the Chinese army would use chemical weapons.

The first batch of poison gas bombs landed on the front lines on the north bank.

After inhaling the poison gas, the soldiers began to cough violently, their eyes stung, and their skin blistered.

Mustard gas can cause severe chemical burns, while phosgene can cause pulmonary edema, causing victims to suffocate and die in extreme pain.

"Poison gas! Poison gas!" A piercing alarm sounded on the front lines.

But it was too late.

The toxic gas traveled with the wind into the city.

Residential areas, hospitals, schools... Wherever the yellow-green smoke reached, people fled in terror, but the poisonous gas was faster than people.

The soldier scratched his festering skin, letting out horrifying screams.

Vancouver turned into hell in just a few hours.

Lieutenant General Curry listened to reports coming from all directions in the command post, his face ashen.

"General! The East District Hospital reports that they have admitted over three thousand victims of the gas attack, but lack an antidote, and the mortality rate exceeds eighty percent!"

"General! The Third Militia Regiment's defenses have collapsed! The soldiers... their bodies are covered in sores, they're incapacitated..."

"General! The civilians are storming the docks, trying to escape by boat, but we have a limited number of vessels..."

Curry slumped into his chair.

He knew it was all over.

Chemical weapons have broken all the rules of war and all will to resist.

Faced with weapons capable of wiping out an entire city, all tactics and courage become meaningless.

At 10 a.m., Curry made the final decision.

"Send a telegram to Ottawa: Vancouver can't hold out."

"I request... permission to surrender conditionally."

"at the same time,"

He paused, then ordered the remaining troops to cover the evacuation of civilians. Send as many as possible.

After the surrender telegram was sent, Curry put on his most formal military uniform, put on all his medals, and then drew his sword.

"I will live and die with Vancouver."

He walked to the command post window, looked at the dying city, and then plunged his sword into his abdomen.

Seppuku, the way Japanese samurai died, was his final mockery of the invaders.

The commander-in-chief committed suicide, the defense line collapsed, and poison gas filled the air...

Vancouver's resistance completely collapsed by noon.

The remaining Maple Leaf soldiers laid down their weapons, and the citizens rushed in terror toward the port and the border, trying to escape this land of death.

Li Xiangdong's troops crossed the river and entered the city at 2 p.m.

There was no resistance, only streets filled with corpses, suffering wounded, and empty ruins.

According to later records, the Maple Leaf Kingdom's defending army fought extremely bravely in this battle, with all 150,000 soldiers dying in battle and not a single one surrendering.

As for the lives and deaths of the 600,000 civilians, no one cared, and there was no record of it in history books. All that is known is that Vancouver later became a famous tourist attraction called Cemetery Hill.