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

"Buzzing!"

The sound of an engine I'd never heard before came from the horizon.

The sound was deep and resonant, like a flock of enormous iron birds flapping their wings simultaneously above the clouds.

It doesn't have the thin, sharp whine of the Blackgay 27, nor the dull, slow roar of the Junkers K-47.

Its sound waves are deeper, more powerful, and more intense.

That was the deep roar of a twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled engine running at full power, like a tsunami surging up from the deep sea, layer upon layer, wave upon wave, pouring down from the gaps in the clouds, making one's chest tremble.

Li Changkong was the first to react.

His ears twitched, and the confusion on his face was instantly replaced by unbelievable shock.

He suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction from which the sound came, his mouth involuntarily opening and his pupils contracting violently.

"That sound... a fighter jet!"

He murmured, his voice trembling so much he could barely speak, "This isn't a Blaghettos... nor is it a Junkers... what... what kind of fighter jet is this?"

He had been flying for eight years and had heard no fewer than twenty different engine sounds—French, British, German, Japanese—he could distinguish them all with his eyes closed.

But he had never heard this voice before.

"Whoosh!"

The clouds were torn apart.

The first P-51 Mustang swooped down from the leaden clouds, its silver aluminum skin reflecting a blinding light in the morning sun, like a sharp dagger thrown down from the sky.

Its nose is long and sharp, its wings are wide and smooth, and its wingtips leave two thin, white congealed trails as it dives at high speed.

Its fuselage lines are as elegant as a work of art, but the muzzles of the six 12.7 mm machine guns on the wings make it look like a ferocious beast ready to devour its prey.

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

One after another, Mustangs emerged from the clouds and formed a neat three-by-three formation over Fengtian Airport.

The roar of engines blended into a deafening symphony as they circled over the airport, adjusting their course in preparation for landing.

Everyone at the airport was stunned.

Li Changkong stood rooted to the spot, his legs seemingly nailed to the concrete floor, unable to move an inch.

His eyes were fixed on the silver planes in the sky, and his mouth was agape, big enough to fit a fist.

He saw every detail of the planes: the huge air intake below the nose, the six frighteningly thick gun barrels on the wings, and the unfamiliar star-shaped insignia on the tail.

They were faster than any aircraft he had ever seen, larger than any fighter jet he had ever seen, and more beautiful in line than any aircraft he had ever seen.

They were breathtakingly beautiful, like a group of steel angels who had traveled from the future.

Zhang Zuoxiang's cane fell to the ground with a thud.

He stood there, head tilted back, his cloudy old eyes reflecting the silver airplanes in the sky. His lips trembled slightly, and after a long while, he managed to squeeze out a hoarse sentence:

"This...this is our plane?"

No one answered him. Because no one knew how to answer.

Wan Fulin's pipe fell onto the cement floor without him noticing.

He simply looked up at the silver planes descending lower and lower in the sky, muttering to himself:

"This is fucking...this is fucking..."

He read it for a long time but couldn't utter a single complete sentence.

He was the chairman of the Heilongjiang Provincial Government and one of the most senior veterans in the Northeast Army.

He had followed the old commander since the days of bandits, and had seen all kinds of weapons, from Hanyang rifles to Krupp cannons, but he had never seen anything like this before.

Just the sight of those planes flying in the sky made the hairs on the back of his head stand on end.

Wang Yizhe remained silent.

He just stood there, clenching his fists, his eyes red-rimmed, his lips pressed into a thin line, trembling like a new recruit seeing an airplane for the first time.

Zhang Xueliang also raised his head, his eyes still showing the fear and timidity of someone who had been terrified.

"Where did all these planes come from...?"

"Chirp chirp chirp!"

The first P-51 Mustang landed on the runway.

The moment the landing gear touched the concrete ground, the tires emitted a sharp screeching sound and kicked up a small cloud of white smoke.

After taxiing for several hundred meters on the runway, the plane came to a smooth stop.

The hatch slid open, and a pilot stood up from the cockpit.

He was wearing a flight suit that Zhang Xueming had never seen before.

He wore a dark gray leather flight jacket with a thick sheepskin lining at the collar, and a dark gray flight helmet with goggles pushed up to his forehead, revealing a pair of cold and composed eyes.

His face was angular, with two sharp eyebrows that slanted upwards towards his temples below his brow bone, a high nose bridge, and tightly pursed lips.

He braced himself against the edge of the cockpit with one hand, and with clean and swift movements, he flipped and jumped down, his flight boots making a dull thud on the concrete floor.

He stood beside the plane, glanced at his surroundings without any change in expression, and then strode straight toward Zhang Xueming.

Behind him, the second Mustang began to land, then the third, the fourth, the fifth...

One Mustang after another formed a long silver dragon on the runway, their engines shutting off one by one, and their propellers slowly coming to a stop.

The pilots emerged from their cockpits and automatically lined up in three neat rows along the runway. Each of them wore the same dark gray flight jacket, and their postures were exactly the same.

With hands behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart, and eyes looking straight ahead, he quietly awaited orders.

The lead pilot walked up to Zhang Xueming.

He stopped, stood still, raised his right hand with the five fingers together to his forehead, and gave a standard military salute.

His gaze was fixed straight ahead, and his voice was loud and steady:

"Reporting, Commander! Squadron Leader Zhu Wudi of the Mustang Flying Squadron, leading all eighty-two pilots and eighty-two P-51 Mustang fighters, are in position! Requesting instructions!"

Zhang Xueming sized him up.

Zhu Wudi.

The name, combined with the man and the eighty-two gleaming silver Mustangs behind him, made Zhang Xueming's lips involuntarily curve into a smile.

He slowly raised his right hand, fingers together, to his forehead, returning the same standard military salute.

"Return to your units! Heed my orders."

"yes!"

Zhu Wudi decisively lowered his arm, turned around and ran to the front of the pilots' formation, standing at attention.

Li Changkong was still standing there, staring blankly at the row of silver fighter jets.

His eyes traveled from the air intake at the nose of the plane to the gun barrels on the wings, and from the gun barrels to the insignia on the tail. His gaze swept over every detail as if he were looking at an incredible, divine object.

He reached out and touched the wing skin of the Mustang next to him. It was more delicate than the skin of any other aircraft he had ever touched. The rivets were arranged neatly, and the distance between each one looked as if it had been measured with a ruler.

He stretched his fingers to the leading edge of the wing, feeling the streamlined curve, his fingers trembling slightly.

"Captain Li." Zhang Xueming's voice came from behind him.

Li Changkong suddenly turned around and snapped to attention:

"arrive!"

Zhang Xueming walked up to him, pointed to the eighty-two Mustangs behind him, and a faint smile appeared on his lips:

"These new aircraft are at least twice as powerful as your existing Bragg 27s."

"Its maximum speed at high altitude exceeds 700 kilometers per hour, its range covers the entire Northeast and the Korean Peninsula, it has six heavy machine guns, and it can carry rockets and bombs."

"From now on, you have one more teaching device."

"In the future, Captain Zhu will lead you through adaptive training."

"Time is of the essence; the Japanese air force could fly to Fengtian and bomb it at any moment."

"After training is complete, you and Captain Zhu will take your Braggai Brigade and his Wild Horse Brigade to Lushun."

He paused for a moment, then his voice suddenly turned cold, as cold as a blade slicing through ice.

"Blow up the Japanese docks!"

Finally, tears welled up in Li Changkong's eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

He excitedly raised his right hand to his forehead, his fingers pressed tightly together more than ever before, his voice hoarse and loud, as if roaring from the deepest part of his chest.

"yes!"

Zhang Zuoxiang bent down to pick up his cane, held it in his hand, and slowly walked to Zhang Xueming's side.

He looked up at the row of neatly arranged silver planes on the runway, remained silent for a long time, and then spoke in a hoarse voice:

"Xueming, I take back what I said before."

Zhang Xueming turned his head to look at him.

"You previously mentioned importing new fighter jets from abroad,"

Zhang Zuoxiang shook his head and gave a wry smile. "I thought you were just boasting back then. Now..."

He pointed to the eighty-two Mustangs on the track, his finger still trembling slightly.

"Now I realize that even I couldn't see through your tricks."

Wan Fulin walked up to Zhang Xueming and gave him a thumbs up.

He only said five words:

"Second Master, you're amazing."

Zhang Xueming remained silent.

He turned to face south, where the Japanese air force and the Japanese combined fleet were located.

As dawn broke in the east, golden rays pierced through the clouds and spilled onto the track, turning the silver Mustangs into a long, shimmering golden dragon.

The residual heat from the engine still radiated heat into the air, and the concrete surface of the runway was marked with fresh tracks from the aircraft's landing gear. The air was filled with the smell of aviation gasoline and the metallic odor of heat.

Today, Zhang Xueming has 82 Mustangs and 82 ace pilots at his disposal. Combined with the 262 aircraft already in the Northeast Air Force, he now possesses an air force capable of changing the entire battlefield landscape.

Just as Zhang Xueming was about to arrange the next steps, a deadly message suddenly came from the spies in Lushun, in the south.

"The Japanese air force has been deployed, heading due north, target: Fengtian!"