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

Zhang Xueliang was devastated, and he did nothing but...

At that very moment—

"Young Marshal."

A deep voice came from behind him.

Zhang Xueliang turned around and saw Wang Yizhe standing behind him.

Wang Yizhe's face still bore the marks of yesterday's bloody battle at Beidaying, and his neck was wrapped in bandages with faint traces of blood seeping through them.

He held a cup of hot tea in his hand and handed it to Zhang Xueliang.

"Commander Wang." Zhang Xueliang took the teacup, his fingers still trembling slightly.

Wang Yizhe didn't say anything, but just stood next to Zhang Xueliang, watching the silver fighter jets on the runway with him.

They were only half a step apart, but Zhang Xueliang felt that half a step was wider than the Hun River.

Wang Yizhe was one of the earliest young officers in the Northeast Army to advocate resistance against Japan. When the Wanbaoshan Incident broke out, he was in Beidaying and witnessed Japanese soldiers and police using machine guns to mow down unarmed civilians.

He then requested permission to send troops to counterattack, but Zhang Xueliang rejected his request.

During the Nakamura Incident, he volunteered to fight again, but his request was rejected once more.

On the night of the South Manchurian Railway explosion, if he hadn't received that urgent telegram from Zhang Xueming ordering him to "immediately enter combat readiness," he might still be waiting for the Young Marshal's orders at Beidaying.

Then the Japanese would rush into the barracks without any resistance and wipe him and his eight thousand brothers out in their sleep.

To put it bluntly, his life was saved by Zhang Xueming, not Zhang Xueliang.

"Commander Wang."

Zhang Xueliang's voice was hoarse, each word seeming to be squeezed out from his throat, "Tell me, was I wrong?"

Wang Yizhe remained silent for a moment.

He is a soldier, and a soldier's duty is to obey orders, not to judge the right or wrong of his superiors.

But he witnessed firsthand the old marshal being bombed to death, the Japanese running rampant in Northeast China, and Zhang Xueming executing traitors in the conference room, beheading Japanese soldiers on the city wall, and directing fighter formations at the airport.

He paused for five seconds, then slowly began to speak:

"Young Marshal, I am a soldier and I don't understand politics."

"But I know one thing: when the brothers in Beidaying were lying on the frozen ground with me, ambushing the Japanese, not one of them asked if it was right or wrong."

"Because everyone knows that protecting your home is never wrong."

Zhang Xueliang's hand holding the teacup trembled violently.

The tea spilled onto the back of his hand, scalding him and making him shiver, but he didn't wipe it off.

He suddenly remembered the last words his father said before he died.

When the old marshal was pulled out of the ruins of Huanggutun, he was covered in blood, his abdomen was ripped open by shrapnel, his intestines were spilling out, and he was barely breathing.

He called the young marshal to his side and, with all his might, said:

"Little Liu, the Northeast... cannot be handed over to the Japanese."

Then it stopped breathing.

Over the years, he had been telling his father in his heart, "I am not handing over the Northeast to the Japanese. I am just temporarily making concessions. Once Chiang Kai-shek has unified the country and we have the strength, we will settle accounts with the Japanese."

But as it turned out, he was wrong.

His forbearance was seen as weakness by the Japanese, his concessions were seen as obedience by Chiang Kai-shek, and his waiting was seen as cowardice by his brothers in the Northeast Army.

His brother did not yield, did not back down, and did not wait.

His younger brother gave an order from the city wall, beheading more than a thousand Japanese soldiers and then shooting down more than two hundred Japanese planes in the sky.

The Northeast was not handed over to the Japanese.

The Northeast is still in the hands of the Chinese.

But the one who held the Northeast was not Zhang Xueliang.

Zhang Xueliang slowly put down his teacup, placed it on the cement ground next to the iron stake, straightened up, and looked at the silver fighter jets on the runway, his lips moving slightly.

"Father, maybe I really was wrong."

Just then, a series of rapid footsteps suddenly sounded on the track.

Zhu Wudi and Li Changkong walked side by side from the direction of the helipad. They were still wearing flight jackets, and the marks from their oxygen masks on their faces had not yet faded.

Li Changkong had a shallow cut on his left cheek from shrapnel, which he wiped with his finger and didn't think much of.

Zhu Wudi walked beside him, his steps steady, his face still expressionless.

They walked up to Zhang Xueming and stood at attention to salute.

"Reporting to the commander! Zhu Wudi, commander of the Wild Horse Squadron, and Li Changkong, commander of the Fengtian Air Force, request further operational instructions!"

Zhang Xueming raised his hand in return, his gaze sweeping over the two men's faces.

"Well done! You didn't disgrace the people of Northeast China!"

Li Changkong was very anxious and quickly spoke up:

"Second Master! The Japanese used carrier-based aircraft in this air raid on Fengtian!"

"That means the Japanese aircraft carrier must be somewhere in the nearby sea!"

"If we launch a counterattack immediately, before the remnants of the Japanese air force return to their carriers, and while their decks are still piled high with refueling and ammunition loading equipment, we can catch them off guard..."

He became more and more excited as he spoke, and at the end, he simply drew a circle in the air with his finger and slammed it onto his palm, exclaiming, "That's enough to blow up the Japanese aircraft carrier!"

"Destroying an aircraft carrier is worth more than shooting down two hundred planes!"

"No!"

Zhang Zuoxiang strode over, leaning on his cane, his face still showing signs of shock.

"Captain Li, do you know how strong the air defenses are at Lushun Port?"

"The Japanese had been operating in Lushun for decades, and deployed hundreds of anti-aircraft guns around the port."

"From the Type 88 to the Type 99, as well as the anti-aircraft firepower of ships on the sea, the anti-aircraft guns on those battleships and cruisers were not just for show."

"What you just fought was an air battle, a fight between planes in the sky, and our Mustang fighters certainly had the advantage."

"But bombing the port is another matter. You'd have to fly over the Japanese fleet and drop bombs under the fire of hundreds of anti-aircraft guns. What's the difference between that and jumping into a fire pit? It's too risky!"

"We just won a battle, and it took us a lot of effort to gather these planes and pilots. If they all die over Lushun Port, all our previous victories will be for nothing!"

His words were reasonable and well-founded, and Wan Fulin and Tang Yulin, who were standing next to him, nodded in agreement.

Tang Yulin tapped his pipe on the sole of his shoe and interjected:

"The assistant coach is right."

"The Japanese Combined Fleet has aircraft carriers, and the anti-aircraft firepower on board is even denser than that of anti-aircraft guns on land."

"Our Mustangs are powerful, but they're designed for air combat. If we use them to bomb the fleet and they don't come back, we'll suffer a huge loss."

Zhang Xueming did not answer immediately.

He turned to face south, the setting sun casting a long shadow on the concrete of the track, like a straightened knife.

He was calculating in his mind. Zhang Zuoxiang's concerns were not unfounded.

The air defenses of Lushun Port were indeed very strong. If bombers were to try to break through directly, the losses would certainly be significant.

But Li Changkong was even more right: strike while the iron is hot and kill him.

The Japanese air force has just been decimated, and the Combined Fleet is now at its most vulnerable.

If we don't attack now, and the Japanese recover and bring in the 2nd Air Fleet from the mainland to replenish their losses, it will be much harder to inflict heavy damage on the Combined Fleet.

Zhang Xueming closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the system panel in his mind.

The points balance is fluctuating, two thousand twenty points.

The air battle just now shot down more than 200 Japanese planes and killed several Japanese air force commanders, including Onizuka Ichiro. Combined with the remaining points from yesterday's bloody battle on the city wall and the execution of Zhang Jinghui in the conference room, his points balance has increased significantly.

One Mustang costs 100 points, and he can immediately exchange it for 20 more.

"System, exchange for twenty P-51 Mustang fighter jets, along with pilots," he silently ordered to himself.

[Ding! Redemption confirmed. 20 P-51 Mustang fighter jets, 2000 points required! 20 pilots included as a bonus!]

[Remaining points: 20! Generating... Distributing...]

Zhang Xueming opened his eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

Zhang Zuoxiang was continuing to say things like "Xueming, you need to be careful" when suddenly they heard a low engine roar from the sky again.

He suddenly raised his head, his mouth wide open.