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

"Kill the chicken!"

"Kill the chicken!"

Kenji Suzuki pushed forward the 3rd Battalion of the reserve force.

This time, instead of attacking only the east gate, he ordered the 2nd Battalion to flank from the right and simultaneously attack the corner tower at the southeast corner of the city wall.

The artillery fire was even more intense than the first time.

The twelve infantry guns and the four mountain guns directly under the battalion opened fire together. Shells rained down on the city wall, and a large section of the outer wall of the corner tower collapsed. Broken bricks and the corpses of the defenders rolled down the wall.

"Block it! Block the breach!"

Liu Duoquan roared loudly, and had no choice but to call up the reserve team to defend the east of the city.

However, his reserve force consisted mostly of police officers and students from the military academy, whose combat effectiveness was incomparable to that of the Japanese.

The front line was in grave danger under the onslaught of the Japanese invaders.

......

Beidaying.

"Travel seat!"

Adjutant Zhao Zhenfan stumbled towards Wang Yizhe, his uniform covered in dust and blood. "The east gate and corner tower of Fengtian are both under attack! Commander Liu's side is about to collapse!"

Wang Yizhe's gaze was gloomy. At this moment, Fengtian could not afford to fail.

He immediately ordered the 3rd Regiment to assemble, and within moments, three thousand officers and soldiers were already lined up behind him.

Wang Yizhe drew his pistol, muzzle pointing skyward. "All personnel, target: Fengtian East Gate, advance at full speed!"

"Zhao Zhenfan, you lead the troops to support Fengtian, I will stay behind to guard Beidaying!"

"yes!"

Three thousand men turned around in unison, rifles slung over their shoulders, bayonets reflecting a gleaming, cold light in the morning sun.

The column, like a long, gray-blue dragon, burst out of the Beidaying camp gate and raced towards Fengtian City.

At this moment, the east gate of Fengtian City had reached its most critical juncture.

The Japanese soldiers of the 2nd Battalion had already climbed onto the ruins of the corner tower, their bayonets clashing against the bayonets of the defending soldiers on the collapsed rubble with a piercing metallic sound.

A Japanese sergeant, brandishing his sword, leaped down from the rubble and cleaved open the chest of a Northeast Army soldier. Before he could even pull out his sword, another Northeast Army soldier pounced from the side and knocked him off the city wall.

The two men fell together onto the stone pavement below the city wall and died simultaneously.

On the stone steps inside the city wall, dozens of lightly wounded soldiers pulled bayonets from their bandages, gritted their teeth, climbed up the wall, and joined the hand-to-hand combat.

Some were missing an arm, and some had lost an eye to shrapnel, but no one was willing to lie in the back.

Liu Duoquan had run out of bullets. He picked up a rifle with a fixed bayonet from the ground and was about to charge forward...

"kill!!"

The deafening shouts of battle came from inside the city walls.

Zhao Zhenfan's three thousand men rushed into the east gate and surged up the stone steps inside the city wall to the top of the city.

The gray-blue military uniforms merged into a torrent, clashing with the tan-colored Japanese soldiers.

Zhao Zhenfan charged ahead, firing his pistol in rapid succession, taking down three Japanese soldiers who were climbing the city wall with a single burst.

He threw his Mauser pistol, now empty, on the ground, grabbed a bayonet-fixed rifle from a fallen soldier, and plunged the bayonet into the chest of the fourth Japanese soldier.

A Japanese soldier lunged at him from the side, the bayonet whistling sharply as it sliced ​​through the air, about to pierce his ribs...

A wounded Northeast Army soldier with one arm rushed over from the side and used his body to block the knife for him.

The bayonet pierced the wounded soldier's back and emerged from his chest, its tip dripping his blood.

He stared wide-eyed, gripping the gun barrel that pierced his chest tightly, preventing the Japanese soldier from drawing his sword.

Zhao Zhenfan swung his bayonet and sliced ​​off half of the Japanese soldier's face, then kicked him off the city wall.

The reinforcements from the 7th Independent Brigade arrived just in time, but the Japanese soldiers were far more powerful than they had imagined.

The 4th Regiment was a veteran elite unit of the Kwantung Army, with all its soldiers coming from Kumamoto, Kyushu, and was known for its ferocity.

These Japanese soldiers underwent the most rigorous training from the moment they enlisted. They were accurate shooters, fierce in bayonet fighting, and their grenade launchers were more accurate than their rifles.

Corpses were everywhere on the city wall, their gray-blue and khaki uniforms mixed together, making it impossible to tell them apart.

Blood flowed down the cracks in the city wall bricks, forming a small red waterfall on the stone steps.

Zhao Zhenfan was in a bloodthirsty frenzy. He had already changed his rifle three times. When his bayonet became dull, he used the butt of the rifle to smash it, punched it, and bit it with his teeth.

His uniform was soaked in blood, so much so that it was impossible to tell whether it was his own or that of the Japanese soldiers.

Just as the two sides were locked in a fierce battle on the city wall, a sudden burst of bugle calls came from outside the city.

"Drip-drop! Drip-drop!"

That was the bugle call of the Kwantung Army.

The 29th Regiment arrived.

More than 4,000 fresh troops marched rapidly from the direction of Liaoyang and met up with the remnants of the 4th Regiment on the north bank of the Hun River.

Kenji Suzuki and Colonel Yukihiro Hirata, the commander of the 29th Regiment, stood side by side on the high ground, both of their binoculars pointed at Fengtian City.

"Suzuki-kun, thank you for your hard work."

Hirata Yukihiro put down his binoculars, his tone carrying a hint of arrogance, "Leave the rest to us."

Kenji Suzuki did not refute. His 4th Regiment had already suffered more than 600 casualties, with two battalion commanders killed in action and three company commanders seriously wounded, reducing its combat effectiveness by nearly half.

"29th Regiment, all troops, charge!"

Hirata Yukihiro drew his military sword, pointing the tip at Fengtian City. "Extended artillery fire!"

The artillery of the two regiments joined together, and nearly thirty cannons fired at Fengtian City at the same time.

Shells rained down relentlessly, blasting the blue bricks on the city wall into the air, causing the crenellations to collapse one after another, and throwing the bodies of the defenders into the air by the shockwave.

After the artillery barrage, the 4,000 soldiers of the 29th Regiment launched a simultaneous attack from three directions, and the earthen-yellow uniforms covering the mountains and fields surged toward Fengtian City like a torrent.

On the city wall, Zhao Zhenfan looked at the overwhelming yellow tide outside the city and his heart skipped a beat.

His three thousand reinforcements, plus the two thousand men Liu Duoquan had left, totaled less than six thousand men.

The Japanese side had two full-strength regiments. Even though the 4th Regiment suffered more than 600 casualties, it still had nearly 7,000 men in total.

"commander!"

Zhao Zhenfan clutched the still-bleeding wound on his arm, his voice trembling, "Can...can we hold on?"

Liu Duoquan glanced at the wounded soldiers lying on the ground below the city wall, some with bandages and missing limbs, and then at the Japanese soldiers charging towards them outside the city. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"We can hold on."

His voice was firm and resolute: "We have to hold on, even if we can't."

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the blood-stained faces of the soldiers on the city wall, and suddenly smiled:

"Brothers, Beidaying took down 180 Japanese soldiers last night. If we can hold off two regiments today, wouldn't we be even tougher than Beidaying?"

The soldiers looked at each other, some grinned, some spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and then picked up their rifles again.

"Give me a duck!"

"Give me a duck!"

The Japanese soldiers, like a surging tide, formed battle formations and launched an attack on the city walls.

One siege ladder after another was erected on the city wall. Japanese soldiers climbed up with bayonets in their mouths, while grenades were thrown up from below the wall and exploded behind the crenellations.

The defenders on the city wall plunged their bayonets into the faces of the Japanese soldiers climbing the wall and pushed the rolling logs and stones down.

The sounds of explosions, gunshots, screams, and the clash of bayonets blended into a massive roar, like a thousand hammers striking a giant iron drum simultaneously.

Time passed by, second by second.

The corpses piled higher and higher on the city wall, and fewer and fewer people were alive.

The barrel of the rifle in Zhao Zhenfan's hand was already hot from firing, and blisters had formed on his hands from the handguard, but he was completely unaware of it.

But he knew that if the fighting continued like this, Fengtian City would eventually be breached.

One regiment of Japanese soldiers was already exhausted from fighting, and now another regiment has arrived, while they have no reinforcements.

Zhang Tingshu from Jinzhou, Sun Dequan from Panshan, and Chang Jingwu from Changtu are all on their way.

Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.

Just then, a huge roar suddenly came from above.

Zhao Zhenfan suddenly raised his head.

The soldiers on the city wall also raised their heads.

The Japanese soldiers stopped their charge and looked up at the sky.

In the sky, ten planes are breaking through the clouds and flying towards Fengtian City.

The morning light shone on the wings, turning them into ten golden spots.

The plane descended lower and closer, and the blue sky and white sun emblem on its wings became increasingly clear.

Zhao Zhenfan's expression shifted from astonishment to ecstatic joy. He slammed his fist on the battlement, sending bricks raining down.

"The Young Marshal's plane! It's the Young Marshal's plane!"

Ten aircraft began to descend and fly towards the military airfield in Fengtian City.

Behind the window of one of the planes, Zhang Xueming was looking down at Fengtian City.

The smoke from the battle on the city walls had not yet dissipated, the open ground outside the city was covered with corpses, many parts of the city walls had collapsed, and black smoke was still billowing from the gate of the east gate.

The entire city of Fengtian resembled a wounded beast, scarred and battered, yet still standing.

"Big brother."

Zhang Xueming turned his head, looked at Zhang Xueliang sitting opposite him, and suddenly laughed.

"Guess how long you could hold out if you were standing on that city wall today?"

Zhang Xueliang did not answer.

He stared at the still-burning city wall outside the porthole, his lips moved, but he said nothing.

Zhang Xueming's smile gradually faded.

"Be careful not to fall and die."

As the plane began its descent, the fuselage shook violently the instant the landing gear touched the runway.

We have arrived in Fengtian.

The great battle is about to officially begin.