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

"Order: The 37th Infantry Brigade, with the support of the 39th and 42nd Korean Servants' Brigades and the Independent Mountain Artillery Battalion, totaling 40,000 men, shall depart immediately and capture Fengcheng within three days."

Mori Hisashi gave the order, but Mikawa had some reservations.

"Your Excellency, the 37th Brigade, including its comrades, has a total strength of nearly 40,000 men."

"With 40,000 troops attacking Fengcheng, we have a numerical advantage, but our artillery ammunition reserves are only 70% full. If we encounter fierce resistance from the Northeast Army, our ammunition may run out."

"and......"

He hesitated for a moment, but still said the most crucial sentence: "Moreover, the Northeast Army has an air force."

"In the Battle of Lushun, the Northeast Army's air force was able to sink an aircraft carrier and bomb our infantry."

"Without air cover, 40,000 men marching along the railway line would suffer heavy casualties if they were attacked by air."

Mori Hisashi suddenly turned around, glaring at Mikawa, his eyes blazing with barely suppressed rage.

"Sanchuan! What kind of talk is that! Speed ​​is of the essence in war!"

"Fengcheng's defenses are weak and negligible. What are you afraid of? Afraid of those few beat-up planes from the Northeast Army?"

"That bunch of idiots in the navy can't even beat the Northeast Army's planes; they're naval trash! The Empire's army isn't a bunch of cowards like the navy!"

"No matter how powerful the Northeast Army's planes are, can they kill all 40,000 of my troops? Do they have that capability?"

"It's just a few planes, what are you afraid of?"

"In war, people always die. If we lose a few thousand men and take Fengcheng, that would be a tremendous achievement."

"You, as a chief of staff, can't even handle this much casualty? What kind of war are you going to fight? You might as well be transferred back to the Army Ministry as a clerk!"

San Chuan's facial muscles twitched as he was scolded, his lips moved, but he couldn't utter a single word.

"Hai!"

"This humble officer is foolish and begs for forgiveness, Division Commander. The order is to be issued immediately: the 37th Infantry Brigade shall depart within one hour!"

"That's more like it."

Mori Hisashi's expression softened somewhat.

"Mikawa-kun, remember my words."

"What the navy lost at Port Arthur was air superiority."

"But our army fought a ground war in Manchuria. Ground warfare relied not on airplanes, but on bayonets, cannons, the feet of imperial soldiers, and the will of imperial officers."

"No matter how powerful the Northeast Army's aircraft are, can they plug gaps for the infantry? No."

"Once our infantry reach the city walls, their planes will be nothing but a pile of scrap metal circling in the sky, completely useless."

He walked to the window, pushed aside the makeshift wooden board, and the cold night wind rushed in.

Outside the window, the night in Baoshan Town is deepening.

From the direction of the 37th Infantry Brigade's camp, the sounds of commands and the neighing of mules and horses could be heard, as the troops made their final preparations before setting off.

Mori Hisashi looked out the window at the troops gathering, and a smile returned to his lips.

"Order that the 37th Brigade depart on time, march tonight without stopping, and arrive south of Fengcheng before dawn tomorrow."

"If anyone delays the time and allows the Northeast Army to set up its defenses for an extra day, I will take back their regimental flag and hang it at the entrance of Baoshan Railway Station so that the entire division can line up to see it."

Sanchuan snapped to attention again, turned around, and strode out of the station building.

Less than ten minutes later, the bugle call sounded over the camp of the 37th Infantry Brigade. The short and sharp sound carried far on the night wind.

Then came the sound of a large contingent setting off, the voices of thousands of people mingling together to form a deep roar, like a giant war machine starting to turn its gears.

In less than an hour, the four infantry regiments of the 37th Infantry Brigade, along with the three attached North Korean auxiliary brigades and the Independent Mountain Artillery Battalion, a force of nearly 40,000 men, began to move north along the Anfeng Railway line.

Looking down from a high point in Baoshan Town, this long black dragon, composed of people, horses, and artillery, meanders through the night, stretching as far as the eye can see.

Every fifty paces along both sides of the column, a soldier held a torch, the orange flames flickering in the cold wind, outlining the entire column as a flowing fire dragon.

..........

Fengcheng.

Night had fallen, but the city walls were brightly lit.

Hundreds of torches and dozens of kerosene lamps illuminated the city walls as if it were daytime, and the light reflected off the frozen surface of the moat, creating a cold glow.

The north wind blew from the direction of the Liaodong Hills, stirring up the snow and soot on the city walls. The soldiers wrapped their cotton-padded coats tighter, but they still couldn't keep out the bone-chilling cold.

Zhang Xueming has already flown to Fengcheng.

The transport plane from Fengtian Airport took him, Zhang Xueliang, Yuan Lang, and the Wolf Warriors into the sky. They flew above the clouds for an hour and a half before landing on a temporarily leveled open space in the northern suburbs of Fengcheng.

Instead of going to the command post in the city first, he went straight up the city wall.

At this moment, he was standing on the south gate tower of Fengcheng.

The city gate tower is an old building from the Ming Dynasty. It is a two-story wooden structure with a hip roof, upturned eaves, and five stone beasts crouching on the eaves.

Zhang Xueming stood in the middle of the city gate tower, his hands resting on the battlements, his body leaning slightly forward, his gaze looking down over the battlements.

The blue bricks of the battlements have been eroded by decades of wind and rain, leaving them pitted and uneven, with dried moss growing in the cracks, and they feel cold and rough to the touch.

Zhang Xueliang stood to his left, Yuan Lang to his right, and Yu Zhishan and Zhan Lang were slightly behind. The five of them stood in a line, and no one spoke.

Yu Zhishan and the soldiers of the First Brigade only arrived in Fengcheng today.

The fortifications here are very rudimentary, or rather, there are no fortifications at all. The military equipment has been abandoned for many years, making Fengcheng look like a dilapidated thatched hut.

With just a gentle push, it will vanish into thin air.

Zhang Xueming urgently convened a meeting to discuss how to defend Fengcheng, hoping to hold out until the main force, such as the 7th Brigade, arrived in Fengcheng.

They worked all night, and Zhang Xueming made proper arrangements, but before they could even catch their breath, cries of alarm rang out from the city wall.

Zhang Xueming and the others quickly went out of the city gate tower to check the situation.

As a result, the scene before them made everyone feel heavy-hearted.

To the south of Fengcheng lies a large open area, which was originally farmland and wasteland, but has now been transformed into an offensive position by the Japanese.

Looking down from the city wall, the open ground was densely packed with people.

Their tan military uniforms were not conspicuous in the early morning darkness, but the campfire they lit gave them away.

Every few dozen meters in the open area there was a bonfire, and groups of three to five Japanese soldiers surrounded the bonfires.

Some were warming themselves by the fire, some were cleaning their guns, and some were eating rice balls. The cans and lunchboxes reflected the flickering light in the firelight.

There were so many bonfires that they were impossible to count, stretching from the foot of the city wall to the horizon, as if someone had torn down an entire starry sky and laid it on the ground.

Further behind the campfires, in the distance, more firelight could be faintly seen moving, indicating that reinforcements were continuously arriving.

Squads of Japanese infantry advanced from south to north along the railway line.

The torches on both sides of the procession formed flowing ribbons of light, like countless fire dragons emerging from the depths of the night and converging on Fengcheng.

The people on the south gate tower each had their own thoughts.

Zhang Xueliang stood to Zhang Xueming's left, his hands tucked into the pockets of his military overcoat, his fingers clenched into fists inside.

His gaze was fixed on the endless cluster of bonfires below the city, and the lines at the corners of his mouth were taut like a fully drawn bowstring.

He is only in his early thirties this year, and has been the deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast Army for several years. He has seen countless battles, both big and small.

During the Zhili-Fengtian War, he followed the old marshal and fought a protracted war with Wu Peifu's troops along the Great Wall for several months. At that time, he felt that he had seen real war.

But standing atop the city tower of Fengcheng and looking down at the bonfires and countless figures covering the mountains and fields, he still felt a chill run from his tailbone to the back of his head, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Forty thousand people.

There were at least 40,000 people outside the city, and the number was likely higher.

How many people are in Fengcheng? Yu Zhishan's First Brigade has a total of seven thousand people.

Yuan Lang's vanguard of the suicide squad consisted of only one thousand men. Adding Zhan Lang's hundred guards and the few staff officers he brought, the total number was just over eight thousand.

Eight thousand versus forty thousand.

A troop ratio of one to five.

Zhang Xueliang's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, his throat feeling as dry as if he had a mouthful of sand.

He glanced at Zhang Xueming beside him out of the corner of his eye, a feeling he couldn't quite describe welling up inside him.

This second brother is really going to get himself killed this time.

They were supposed to be "brothers fighting tigers together," but they ended up facing 40,000 Japanese soldiers right from the start.

That bastard.

Yu Zhishan stood half a step to the right and slightly behind Zhang Xueming, his palms sweating profusely.

This round-faced, slightly chubby middle-aged man doesn't look like the type to fight.

With broad shoulders, a stout build, a short, thick neck, and two rosy cheeks perpetually etched on his round face, he looked more like a restaurant owner than a brigade commander.

But he was indeed a soldier. He had fought alongside the old marshal since the Zhang Zuolin era, rising from cavalry company commander to brigade commander. He did not rely on outstanding military achievements, but on seniority, good interpersonal relationships, and never disobeying orders.

His First Brigade was the Provincial Defense First Brigade, a designation that sounded quite impressive. The "First Brigade" might have been mistaken for the top main force of the Northeast Army.

But he knew the true nature of his unit better than anyone else.

Most of the soldiers in the First Brigade were recruited from rural families, and their training time was generally less than six months. When it came to target practice, the pass rate of the entire brigade was less than 60%.

The equipment was even more shabby; the rifles were old-fashioned replicas made by the Fengtian Arsenal in its early years, and the paint on the stock had been worn away, revealing the blackened wood underneath.

The total number of light and heavy machine guns was less than forty, of which more than a dozen were spoils of war from the Zhili-Fengtian War.

The models are all over the place, from the Japanese Type 3 to the Russian Maxim to domestically made imitations. The parts are not interchangeable, and the ordnance technicians are so anxious when they have to repair them that they can pull their hair out.

With such troops, how could they possibly withstand 40,000 heavily armed Japanese soldiers below the city?

Isn't that just courting death?

He estimated that the First Brigade could only hold out for half a day at most, after which the city walls would inevitably fall, and then it would be street fighting.

In urban warfare, his first brigade of raw recruits were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter in front of the Japanese veterans who had received rigorous bayonet training.

He gritted his teeth, took half a step forward, and lowered his voice to say:

"Commander, if I may be so bold as to say something... shouldn't we consider withdrawing from Fengcheng first?"

Zhang Xueming did not turn around, but continued to look at the bonfire below the city.

Yu Zhishan mustered her courage and continued:

"Commander, you are now the backbone of the Northeast Army. Fengtian is waiting for you to return and take charge of the overall situation."

"A wise man does not stand under a crumbling wall. If something happens to you in Fengcheng, the entire Northeast Army will collapse."

"While the First Brigade's designation sounds impressive, to be honest..."

He swallowed hard, a hint of self-mockery in his voice.

"These little bastards can't even march in step properly in the barracks, and less than half of them can hit the target in target practice."

"Let them hold out against the Japanese Class A divisions here. They'll be lucky if they can last until evening."

"I'm not afraid of dying, I'm just afraid of... betraying the commander's trust."

After he finished speaking, a thin layer of sweat had already seeped out of his forehead.

In the Northeast Army, advising the commander-in-chief to retreat was, at best, considered undermining morale, and at worst, could be treated as desertion.

But he had to say it.

Yu Zhishan wasn't particularly capable in his life, but he knew a very simple truth: if Zhang Xueming and Zhang Xueliang died here, the Northeast Army would be finished.

If the Northeast Army is finished, then the whole of Manchuria is finished.

If Manchuria falls, then China can also be wiped out.

Zhang Xueming finally turned around and looked at Yu Zhishan.

The torchlight reflected in his eyes, which were dark brown, with pupils slightly contracted in the firelight. There was no panic or much emotion in them.

Yu Zhishan was stunned, feeling as if he were hallucinating, because he actually saw a look of confidence in Zhang Xueming's eyes.

It was as if all of this was within his expectations.

Zhang Xueming smiled slightly and said:

"Since I dared to come, it's impossible that I came without any preparation."

"Rest assured, our army will surely win this battle."

"A mere 40,000 people, not worth mentioning."

"Commander Yu, have your men immediately climb the city walls and prepare for battle. Reinforcements will arrive soon."

Yu Zhishan was a little confused. He didn't know where Zhang Xueming got his courage, nor did he know where his reinforcements came from.

But since Zhang Xueming had already given the order, he had no choice but to risk his life to comply.

Unbeknownst to him, Zhang Xueming was preparing to pull out his trump card from the system space.