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

The conference room was deathly silent.

The faces of the veteran officials grew even uglier, but no one echoed Zhang Jinghui's sentiments.

Zhang Zuoxiang crossed his arms in front of his chest, closed his eyes and remained motionless, as if he were dozing off.

Wan Fulin stared at the teacup on the table, his expression unreadable.

Wang Shuhan tapped the table unconsciously with his fingers, then stopped after a few taps.

Zhang Xueming stood there, smiling, listening to every word Zhang Jinghui said.

He didn't interrupt, didn't refute, and didn't even frown.

After Zhang Jinghui finished shouting the last sentence and stood there panting, Zhang Xueming slowly nodded.

"Are you done talking?"

He asked softly, his tone calm.

Zhang Jinghui was stunned for a moment, then became even angrier and opened her mouth to shout again.

"I'm too lazy to talk to you, you're not worthy to listen. Let the young marshal speak..."

But with a look of disdain on his face, he opened his mouth, but before he could finish speaking, a crisp and cold metallic clang was heard.

Click.

Zhang Xueming drew a pistol from his waist with his right hand.

It was a Mauser pistol, its body polished to a shine, the muzzle reflecting a faint blue gleam under the light.

His movement of drawing his gun was so fast that no one could see it clearly. By the time they could see it, the muzzle was already pressed against the center of Zhang Jinghui's forehead.

The moment the cold steel touched her skin, Zhang Jinghui froze.

His mouth was still open, and the syllable that hadn't yet been uttered was frozen in his throat.

"What...what are you doing? I'm your father's sworn brother..."

"Zhang Jinghui".

Zhang Xueming's voice was like ice that had stood for millennia, sending chills down one's spine.

"You ask me what I am? I'll tell you."

His finger was on the trigger.

"I am Chinese!"

"Bang!"

Gunshots rang out in the closed conference room, making everyone's eardrums buzz simultaneously.

The tea in the teacup was shaken, causing ripples to spread. The grandfather clock in the corner hummed loudly.

Zhang Jinghui's body suddenly leaned back, as if he had been punched in the face.

A large, dark bullet hole appeared right in the center of his forehead, and the skin around the hole was instantly scorched black by the high temperature.

His head exploded, and brain matter and bone fragments mixed with blood gushed out, splattering onto the wall behind him and obscuring half of the couplet "Loyalty and Filial Piety are Passed Down Through Generations" on the central wall.

His body swayed twice in place, his eyes were still open, but his pupils had already dilated.

Then, like a felled log, he fell backward onto the blue brick floor with a dull thud.

Blood gushed out from the large hole in the back of his head, quickly spreading across the blue brick floor and forming a dark red pool of blood.

The entire conference room froze in that instant.

Wan Fulin sprang up from his chair, the movement so forceful that it knocked over the teacup on the table, spilling tea all over the table and soaking the document in front of him that he hadn't yet opened.

His eyes were fixed on the still convulsing corpse on the ground, then he suddenly looked up at Zhang Xueming, his facial muscles twitching violently. His lips moved for a long time before finally bursting out a roar from his throat:

"Second brother! What are you doing?!"

The roar was like a thunderclap, waking up everyone in the conference room who had been stunned by the gunshot.

Wang Shuhan's fingers tightened suddenly, and he snapped one of the temples of his reading glasses in half.

Zang Shiyi's back was pressed tightly against the chair back, and cold sweat poured out of his forehead, trickling down the sides of his nose.

Rong Zhen's right hand instinctively pressed on the leather buckle of the gun holster at his waist, but his fingers were shaking so badly that he couldn't open the buckle after two attempts.

Even Zhang Zuoxiang, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.

"You're insane!"

Wan Fulin pointed his finger at Zhang Xueming's nose, his finger trembling violently. "He's the old marshal's sworn brother! He's your father's brother!"

"Our Northeast Army's rule is that even the most important matters must be discussed openly!"

"And you, without saying a word, just pulled out a gun! What are you doing? Do you have no respect for rules? No respect for the law?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a series of dense and orderly footsteps suddenly came from outside the window.

The footsteps were extremely heavy, steady, and fast. The military boots pounded on the bluestone pavement of the general's mansion courtyard, producing a dull and rhythmic echo, like the beating of a giant war drum.

Then came the clicking sound of the bolt being pulled back, and the clanging of metal echoed incessantly, so densely packed that it was impossible to count them.

Then came a deep command:

"Control all entrances and exits; no one is allowed to enter or leave!"

Wan Fulin suddenly turned his head to look out the window.

Countless gray-blue figures surged into the Marshal's Mansion compound. The bayonets of all the Liao Thirteen rifles were already fixed, their blades gleaming coldly in the dim light.

Yuan Lang pushed open the door from outside the meeting room and entered, a Mauser pistol tucked into his waistband, his face expressionless.

He was followed by a dozen guards who scattered and occupied every corner of the conference room as soon as they entered. Their guns were pointed downwards, their fingers were all on the trigger guards, and their eyes were as cold as ice.

Two guards walked to Zhang Jinghui's body and quickly dragged it to the wall, leaving a shocking trail of blood.

The other two guards walked behind Zhang Xueming and stood on his left and right, their eyes silent, like two stone statues.

The meeting room fell silent once again.

Wan Fulin was still standing, but the hand that was pointing at Zhang Xueming's nose had unconsciously been lowered.

Only then did Zhang Xueming slowly place the pistol on the table.

The gun barrel struck the mahogany table with a crisp metallic sound, which was particularly jarring in the deathly silent conference room.

"Gentlemen."

He spoke calmly, as if chatting casually, "Uncle Wan just asked me if I still have any respect for rules."

"Then I'd like to ask you all a question: Is secretly colluding with the Japanese and betraying one's country considered breaking the rules?"

He pointed to the corpse covered with a white sheet in the corner, his voice suddenly rising a half octave, filled with murderous intent:

"Zhang Jinghui had already been flirting with the Kwantung Army while the old marshal was still alive."

"Why did the old marshal consolidate military power back then? Why did he build railways, open mines, and establish arsenals?"

"It's all about gradually squeezing the Japanese out of Northeast China! What the old marshal wanted was our own Northeast, not the Japanese's Manchuria!"

"But what was Zhang Jinghui doing? The Japanese gave him several women and several boxes of silver dollars, and he betrayed the old marshal's entire secret!"

"How much intelligence has he secretly passed on to the Japanese over the years? How many favors has he made?"

"Everyone knows this in their hearts, but no one is willing to admit it."

"I am not executing him today as the Second Master of the Northeast Army, but as a Chinese citizen, executing a traitor."

Is this reason proper enough?

No one answered.

Wan Fulin's face turned from ashen to pale, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

He slowly sat back in his chair, crossed his hands on the table, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

Zhang Xueming didn't look at him. He placed his hands on the conference table, leaned slightly forward, his gaze sharp as lightning, and his voice as firm as iron.

"Gentlemen, the Japanese bombed the South Manchurian Railway and blamed it on us. Then they sent troops to attack Beidaying and Fengtian City."

"Just this morning, two regiments of Japanese soldiers charged up our city walls with cannons and siege ladders, and the city gate tower was almost lost."

"Zhao Zhenfan's bayonet was chipped, Liu Duoquan almost pulled a grenade and died together with the Japanese soldiers, and Wang Yizhe of Beidaying led his brothers to block the Japanese cavalry charge with their own flesh and blood."

"There are still thousands of corpses piled up under the city wall, some of them Japanese soldiers, and some of our Northeast Army brothers. The Hun River is still red."

"The Japanese devils have their knives to our throats, and you're still sitting here talking to me about rules? Do you think the Japanese will listen to you about rules?!"

"I'll make things clear today."

"Personally, the Japanese bombed and killed the old marshal, and I haven't avenged that yet. The bomb at Huanggutun shredded his body beyond recognition. When my father was laid to rest in the marshal's mansion, his body wasn't even intact!"

"The hatred for the murderer of my father is irreconcilable. If I, Zhang Xueming, do not avenge this, I will be unworthy of being a son!"

"For the public good..."

He turned around, his gaze fixed on Wan Fulin's face, then swept over Zhang Zuoxiang, Wang Shuhan, Zang Shiyi, and Rong Zhen. "The Japanese devils orchestrated the Wanbaoshan Incident, sending their military police to shoot and massacre our farmers."

"They orchestrated the Nakamura Incident, slandered our soldiers, and now they've blown up the South Manchurian Railway themselves, framing us for it, using this as a pretext to send troops to attack Fengtian."

"Their wolfish ambitions are already on the table; they want to swallow up the entire Northeast! Are we going to cower and pretend we don't see it?"

His voice suddenly turned low, filled with a gnashing hatred:

"A battle between the Northeast Army and the Japanese is inevitable; it's fate, and there's no escaping it."

"The Japanese devils have their knives to our throats now; we have nowhere to retreat."

"If we take a step back, Fengtian will be gone, Changchun will be gone, and Harbin will be gone."

"By the time we retreat to Shanhaiguan, our 30 million fellow countrymen in Northeast China will all be slaves of a conquered nation!"

"At that time, what face will our 300,000 brothers in the Northeast Army have left to live in this world? What face will we have to face our elders and fellow countrymen in the Northeast?"

He took a deep breath, slowly raised his right hand, and patted it on his chest, making a loud thud.

"I, Zhang Xueming, am making this clear today: I advocate resistance against Japan not because I want to fight, but because we have no choice but to fight."

"If we don't fight, it means the destruction of our country and the extinction of our race. If we don't fight, we will be letting down our ancestors in Northeast China."

"Now that I've finished speaking, who agrees? Who disagrees?"

The meeting room remained quiet for a long time.

Wan Fulin lowered his head, his two hands clasped together on the table, his thumb rubbing back and forth on the back of his other hand for a long time.

Zang Shiyi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his fingers, the sweat on his fingertips reflecting a subtle luster under the light.

Wang Yizhe sat in the corner, his fists clenched, his eyes red.

His face was full of excitement. If he weren't so low in status, he would have been the first to jump out and support Second Master.

Suddenly, the sound of a chair being moved broke the silence.

The most influential person stepped forward!