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

"We can't fire! My niece is still up there; she's only six years old!"

Kenji Suzuki was stunned.

He looked at Hirata Yukihiro's already reddened eyes, his Adam's apple bobbed, but then his expression hardened again.

He pried Hirata Yukihiro's hands off his shoulders and said, word by word:

"Hirata-kun, I understand how you feel."

"But please understand, the person standing in front of you now is the commander of the 4th Regiment of the Kwantung Army, not your relative."

"Our mission is to take Fengtian City, not to rescue a few overseas Chinese."

He turned around, raised his saber again, the tip pointing at the artillery position, his voice hoarse but resolute:

"Artillery battalion! Target: Fengtian city wall! Three rapid-fire rounds! Fire!"

Hirata Yukihiro's eyes widened, his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't say anything.

His hand was still in the same position as when he grabbed Suzuki Kenji's shoulder, suspended in mid-air, trembling slightly.

On the artillery positions below the hill, the gunners of the twelve infantry guns looked at each other in bewilderment.

They heard Kenji Suzuki's orders, Yukihiro Hirata's obstruction, and the heart-wrenching cries of the expatriates on the city walls.

A young gunner squatted on the ground, his hands covering his face, his shoulders heaving violently, whether he was crying or gagging was unclear.

But the gunner gritted his teeth and finally waved the command flag.

Military orders are absolute; no matter who is killed by the falling shells, they must obey.

"boom!"

The first shell roared out of the cannon barrel and hurtled toward the city wall of Fengtian.

Then came the second shot, the third shot, the fourth shot...

Twelve infantry guns and four mountain guns opened fire simultaneously, the shells trailing sharp whistles through the air, like a horde of demons howling in the clouds.

Zhang Xueming reacted the instant the flashes of fire appeared on the Japanese artillery position.

He grabbed Liu Duoquan beside him and lunged towards the side of the fortified position behind the cover, shouting at the same time:

"hidden!"

Yuan Lang and the guards reacted even faster than he did.

Almost at the same time the cannonball left the barrel, Yuan Lang had already blown the whistle hanging on his chest.

A piercing whistle blew across the city wall, and a hundred Marines simultaneously dropped to the ground, their movements as synchronized as a machine.

But those prisoners had not received any training; they did not understand the Chinese word for "concealment," nor did they know what the sound of shells whistling meant.

They were still crying out, still waving for help to their loved ones below the city wall, and still struggling desperately to break free from the restraints behind them.

"boom!"

The first shell landed on the eastern section of the city wall.

The explosion sent sparks flying through the crowd, and the shockwave lifted more than a dozen people into the air.

An elderly woman in a kimono was torn apart at the center of the explosion, her limbs and tattered pieces of cloth flying more than ten meters away.

A young woman's neck was severed by shrapnel, her head rolled down below the edge of the wall, and her body remained kneeling for a couple of moments before collapsing.

The children's cries were instantly swallowed by the deafening explosion, replaced by a bloody silence.

Immediately afterwards, the second, third, and fourth shells slammed into the city wall.

The flames from the explosion stretched out in a continuous line, and billowing black smoke completely obscured the morning light.

The blue bricks on the city wall were blown to pieces, the crenellations collapsed one after another, and the bodies of the prisoners were thrown into the air by the shockwave before falling down like puppets with broken strings.

After the first volley of fire ended, the city wall had become a living hell.

More than a hundred people lay sprawled in pools of blood. Some had their legs blown off and were still convulsing, some had their stomachs ripped open by shrapnel and their intestines spilled out, and some had their internal organs shattered by the shockwave and were bleeding from all seven orifices.

Severed limbs hung from the gaps in the crenellations, and blood flowed down the cracks in the city wall bricks, forming a small red waterfall on the stone steps before gushing into the drainage ditch at the base of the city wall.

The air was filled with a strong, nauseating smell of blood, mixed with the acrid stench of gunpowder and the distinctive fishy odor of ruptured entrails, making one's eyes water.

The surviving prisoners completely broke down.

Some people embraced their deceased loved ones and wept bitterly; some collapsed to the ground, convulsing; some clung to the crenellations and shouted down the city wall:

"Stop fighting! Please stop fighting! We are all citizens of the Empire!"

A young man in a suit watched as his wife and daughter were blown to pieces by artillery shells. Suddenly, he broke free from the soldiers' control behind him and jumped off the ramparts like a madman.

His body tumbled twice in the air before crashing onto the stone pavement below the city wall with a thud, his brains splattering everywhere.

Below the city wall, the Japanese positions were also in an uproar.

The private first class from Kumamoto watched helplessly as his mother disappeared in the explosion.

He saw it clearly: the shell hit the spot where his mother was kneeling, and after the flash of the explosion, all that remained was a pool of bloody, mangled remains.

He let out a roar that sounded inhuman, his eyes turning blood red in an instant, and charged toward the city wall like a mad beast.

This time, the sergeant behind him didn't pull him back.

Because the sergeant also saw his fellow countryman, whose head had been half blown off by shrapnel.

"Ogasan! Ogasan!"

The private ran and shouted, his voice completely hoarse, his face covered in tears and snot, his boots crunching on the frozen ground, each step a staggering stunt.

He had run less than a hundred meters when a bullet shot down from the city wall pierced his chest, causing him to fall backward onto the ground, his eyes still staring at the sky and his lips still moving.

On the high ground on the north bank of the Hun River, Hirata Yukihiro watched helplessly as his wife, his elder brother, and their family of three were reduced to ashes in the explosion.

The three people he saw with his binoculars earlier are nowhere to be found now.

He put down his binoculars, turned to look at Kenji Suzuki, and looked at him as if he were a stranger.

"Suzuki-kun".

His voice was unusually calm, so calm it was chilling. "After this battle, I will submit a report to the military court, accusing you of massacring Imperial citizens."

Kenji Suzuki's face paled for a moment, then returned to its cold, hard expression.

He sheathed his sword, turned away, and refused to look Hirata Yukihiro in the eye.

"Do as you please, but before that, Fengtian City must be taken."

On the city wall, Zhang Xueming stood up from behind the bunker.

He patted the dust and brick fragments off his Zhongshan suit, walked to the crenellations, glanced down at the tragic scene below the city wall, then looked up and gazed at the living prisoners still crying out on the city wall.

His expression remained unchanged, his eyes as calm as a stagnant pool.

"Yuan Lang".

"arrive!"

"Execute them all."

Zhang Xueming spoke each word with utter indifference:

"Chop them down one by one, right in front of the Japanese soldiers."

"yes!"

Yuan Lang turned around and made a gesture to the ninety marines behind him.

The gesture was simple yet ruthless: the palm was outstretched, drawn horizontally in an arc, and then pointed at the group of prisoners.

Ninety soldiers simultaneously drew their tactical knives from their waists, the blades reflecting a cold, sharp light in the morning light.

They marched in orderly steps toward the prisoners, their military boots splashing up dark red droplets of blood as they stepped into the blood-soaked brick pavement.

The prisoners realized what was about to happen.

Fear poured over them like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing their last shred of reason.

Someone tried desperately to climb over the rampart, but a soldier pulled him back and pressed him to the ground.

Someone knelt on the ground and kowtowed, their forehead hitting the blue bricks with a dull thud.

Some people huddled together, crying their hearts out, shouting various syllables in Japanese.

The son of that high-ranking official was personally dragged by the back of his collar to the edge of the battlements by Yuan Lang.

He was still struggling, calling out his father's name and saying that his father was an important official.

Yuan Lang stepped on his back, pressing him against the gap in the crenellation, so that half of his body could stick out of the city wall and be clearly seen by the Japanese soldiers below.

Then Yuan Lang raised his tactical knife, the blade drawing an arc in the morning light, and slashed down fiercely.

A flash of light appeared.

"Pfft!"

A head flew out from outside the crenellation, tumbled several times in the air, and crashed onto the gravel ground below the city wall, rolling twice before coming to a stop.

The expression on that face was still frozen with the fear and resentment of dying, and blood gushed from the headless neck, splattering crimson inside and outside the battlements.

Yuan Lang straightened up and walked expressionlessly toward the next prisoner.

The massacre began.

Ninety marines lined up on the city wall and dragged the prisoners one by one to the crenellations. In front of thousands of Japanese soldiers below, they beheaded them with tactical knives.

One, two, three, ten, fifty, one hundred...

Heads rolled down the ramparts like sweet potatoes, piling up into a shocking little mountain at the foot of the city wall.

The headless corpse was pushed off the city wall, landing on the stone pavement with a dull thud, and the blood filled the drainage ditch at the base of the city wall, turning it into a real river of blood.

Below the city wall, the Japanese soldiers went completely mad.

A Japanese soldier watched as his mother and cousin were beheaded one by one.

He recognized his cousin's pink furisode, which was a coming-of-age gift he had given her last year when he returned to China for vacation.

The furisode on that shirt is now stained with blood so much that its original color is unrecognizable.

He let out a heart-wrenching howl, picked up his Type 38 rifle, and fired wildly at the city wall. The bullets hit the brick seams of the crenellations, sending sparks flying, but he was quickly shot through the head by bullets coming down from the city wall.

On the entire 29th Regiment's position, hundreds of Japanese soldiers simultaneously turned red-eyed.

Some of them had relatives on the city wall, some had friends on the city wall, and some had fellow villagers on the city wall.

Even without knowing the person directly, witnessing one's own country's civilians being beheaded in public is enough to humiliate and enrage one to the last shred of reason.

Some charged toward the city wall with bayonets, some lay on the ridges of the fields firing wildly, and some knelt on the ground, pounding their fists on the frozen earth and wailing.

But the Japanese attack had lost its rhythm.

They weren't fighting a war; they were venting their anger, using their flesh and blood to ram against that damned city wall.

No one organized the formation, no one provided alternating cover, and no one calculated the trajectory.

The machine gunner pulled the trigger all the way down, and bullets sprayed out like water, not letting go even when the barrel turned red-hot.

The grenadiers loaded grenades into their grenade launchers one after another, firing them towards the city wall regardless of the target's location.

The siege ladders were re-erected, but those climbing them were shot down before they even reached halfway up, and those behind them continued to climb by stepping on the corpses of those in front.