On the eve of the fall of Liaodong, he led his troops in a remonstrance against the young marshal.

In the afternoon, the gunfire in Lushun began to gradually subside.

From breaking through the north gate to taking control of the entire city, the Northeast Army only took half a day.

In just half a day, from dawn to noon, this fortified city, which had been managed by the Japanese for thirty years, completely changed hands.

In the central square of Lushun, a dark mass of people are now kneeling.

All the captured Japanese soldiers and civilians, as long as they were still alive, were brought here.

Soldiers stood around, fully armed, their bayonets gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

The area was packed with Chinese people, a sea of ​​people, with even people standing on the rooftops.

There were about 12,000 Japanese soldiers kneeling on the ground, most of whom were overseas Chinese, old and young, and their faces were ashen.

Some people were crying, some were trembling, and some were muttering to themselves with their heads down, whether in prayer or curse, it was hard to tell.

One notable detail about this group is that there were almost no women among them.

But no one asked, and no one investigated.

What those women went through became an answer no one wanted to touch on during this tumultuous day.

Zhang Xueming stood atop a tall building on the north side of the square, looking down at everything.

Behind him stood Wang Yizhe and Liu Duoquan, their military uniforms still stained with the dust and smoke of the city.

Wang Yizhe's boots were covered with a layer of dark red mud.

"Commander-in-Chief."

Wang Yizhe leaned closer and lowered his voice, "According to the numbers reported by the various brigades, we have 217 dead and 436 wounded on our side."

"On the Japanese side... the head is still taking stock, but the garrison should have been completely annihilated, with no survivors. In addition, more than 12,000 civilians have been captured and are all here."

Zhang Xueming nodded, his gaze never leaving the kneeling figures in the square.

"Pass down the order."

His voice was calm, as if he were talking about something trivial: "Continue to wipe out the remaining enemy forces in the city, leave no one alive."

"All troops outside the city shall rest in place. The administrative departments and the Ministry of Public Security shall be ordered to enter the city immediately to maintain order, take inventory of the spoils, and restore the rule of the Northeast Army."

"yes!"

Liu Duoquan stood to the side, looking at the more than two thousand overseas Chinese in the square, and suddenly asked:

"Commander-in-Chief, what should we do with these expatriates?"

Zhang Xueming remained silent for a few seconds.

The wind from Lushun blew across the square, bringing with it the salty smell of the sea and the acrid smell of burning.

Black smoke was still rising from the direction of the port in the distance, and the wreckage of the Japanese merchant ship was still burning on the sea.

Further away, the sea gleamed with a leaden gray light in the afternoon sun, like a cold iron plate.

He remembered something.

I remembered that winter thirty years ago, and the massacre that took place in Lushun.

That year, the Japanese devils killed people in this city for six days and six nights with knives and guns.

More than 20,000 people, regardless of age or gender, whether soldiers or civilians, were slaughtered.

Only thirty-six people remained in the entire city, to be used for collecting the corpses.

But now, the tables have turned.

Zhang Xueming turned around, his back to the square, his voice icy and chilling.

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"

"Everyone, take us to the Tomb of Ten Thousand Loyal Men, and prepare a thousand dulled knives. Today, we will offer our blood as a sacrifice to our ancestors."

.........

The wind in Lushun carried the salty smell of the sea and the acrid smell of burning wafting from the direction of the port, swirling above the square.

After Zhang Xueming's order was given, the entire square fell into an eerie silence.

The overseas Chinese kneeling on the ground couldn't understand Chinese, but they could see the change in the soldiers' eyes—the eyes of looking at dead people.

"The Commander-in-Chief has ordered that all Japanese civilians be escorted to the Tomb of Ten Thousand Loyalists!"

The messenger's voice echoed across the square.

Wang Yizhe was stunned for a moment, then a complex light flashed in his eyes.

He was a veteran of the Northeast Army, so of course he knew what the Wanzhong Tomb was. It was a mass grave where more than 20,000 compatriots who died in the Lushun Massacre thirty years ago were buried.

Thirty years.

Thirty years in total.

"What are you standing there for?"

Zhang Xueming had already come downstairs. "Liu Duoquan, go and arrange the trucks. Load all 20,000-plus animals onto them."

"yes!"

Liu Duoquan saluted, then turned and ran away.

When the news spread, the first to react were the Chinese people who were watching.

The crowd began to stir, and then someone started crying.

An elderly woman with white hair squeezed through the crowd, knelt down in the middle of the road with a thud, and kowtowed in the direction of Zhang Xueming.

"God, you've finally opened your eyes..."

Her voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

"Second Commander, you are truly a living bodhisattva to us Northeasterners! I kowtow to you in gratitude, thank you for avenging my master!"

The surrounding people knelt down, their cries shaking the heavens.

Zhang Xueming stopped and looked at the old woman, his Adam's apple bobbing.

He bent down and helped the old lady up with both hands.

"Grandpa, please get up."

The old woman gripped his arm, her cloudy old eyes flashing with an almost frenzied light:

"Second Commander, let me go too! Let me see how those beasts die! I've been waiting for this day for thirty years, I've been dreaming about it!"

Zhang Xueming was silent for a moment, then nodded:

"Wang Yizhe, help the old man into the car."

"yes!"

The army set out, and the entire city of Lushun was in an uproar.

The streets were packed with people, including young people, elderly people, and women holding children.

They threw eggs, stones, and anything else they could throw along the road the prison van passed by.

Someone held up photos taken after the Lushun Massacre, crying out:

"Father, Mother, did you see that? The Second Commander led his troops to avenge you! Your souls can rest in peace now!"

Those photos showed mountains of corpses piled up thirty years ago, severed heads, pregnant women's bellies ripped open with bayonets, and children burned to a crisp.

The photos rustled as the wind blew.

The overseas Chinese in the prison van began to panic.

They couldn't understand what these Chinese people were shouting, but those hateful eyes made them tremble with fear.

"We are just ordinary people! We are ordinary people!"

A middle-aged man shouted in broken Chinese, his voice trembling:

"Let us go! This has nothing to do with us!"

Nobody paid him any attention.

A stone hit his face, leaving a bloody gash.

The convoy drove out of Lushun City in a grand procession, heading towards Baiyushan.

Wan Zhong's tomb is located there.

That place where more than 20,000 skeletons were buried.

Zhang Xueming sat in the car with his eyes closed, not saying a word.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Wang Yizhe looked at Zhang Xueming and Zhang Xueliang through the rearview mirror, his heart filled with indescribable emotions.

He used to follow Zhang Xueliang, but he was timid and hesitant in battle, daring not to fight or offend anyone. Except when he launched a heavy attack on domestic warlords, he always acted like a grandson.

However, after following Zhang Xueming, he not only won every battle but also dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese. This feeling caused his dopamine to be released wildly, like an orgasm, wave after wave.

Before he knew it, he felt he had become addicted, addicted to following Zhang Xueming.

He would fight at the slightest provocation, determined to kill the Japanese devils, even prisoners, and that was the kind of commander he admired.

As for Zhang Xueliang?

Sorry! That's irrelevant!

Liu Duoquan has already made arrangements for Wan Zhong's tomb.

In his telegram, he said that he had already ordered the engineers to dig a pit next to the original mass grave, and that, in accordance with Zhang Xueming's orders, he had prepared more than a thousand dulled knives.

When Wang Yizhe saw the telegram, his hand trembled slightly.

It cost over a thousand, for a knife with a chipped blade.

The Commander-in-Chief intends to make those beasts die ten times more painfully than their compatriots did back then.

But he didn't say anything.

He simply put the telegram away and continued to carry out the orders.

The convoy drove for about forty minutes on the winding mountain road before finally arriving at the foot of Baiyu Mountain.

Wan Zhong's tomb is just ahead.

It was a large tomb, surrounded by pine and cypress trees, with a huge stone tablet in front of it inscribed with the three characters "Tomb of Ten Thousand Loyal Men".

More than 20,000 names are engraved at the bottom of the stone tablet.

Some names have become blurred, weathered by wind and rain over the past thirty years, but traces of the original carvings can still be seen.

Zhang Xueming got out of the car, straightened his military uniform, and walked to the tombstone.

He took off his military cap and bowed three times respectfully.

"Our ancestors are above us."

His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear: "Zhang Xueming, a descendant of the Northeast Army, has come today to avenge you."

After saying this, he turned around and looked at the overseas Chinese who were being led off the prison van.

More than 22,000 heads.

They knelt densely on the hillside, a dark mass.

The cries were deafening.

Zhang Xueming remained expressionless, merely raising his hand slightly.

"Let's begin."

The soldiers began driving the expatriates toward the mass grave.

The mass grave is located to the east of Wan Zhong's tomb. It is a huge pit, about three meters deep, about one hundred meters long, and about fifty meters wide.

The engineers had already set up machine guns at the edge of the pit.

When the expatriates saw the huge pit, they finally understood what was about to happen.

The crying grew louder.

Some people began to struggle desperately, but were knocked back by the soldiers with the butts of their rifles.

Some began to pray, some began to curse, and some collapsed to the ground, unable to get up again.

Just then, a figure rushed out from the crowd.

It was an old man with white hair and beard, holding a seven or eight-year-old boy in his arms.

He stumbled to Zhang Xueming and knelt down with a thud.

"My lord! My lord!"

The old man spoke Chinese with a heavy accent, and screamed in terror:

"Please! Spare the child! The child is innocent!"