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

The sky gradually brightened.

At 5:30 a.m., a faint, fish-belly white light began to appear in the eastern sky.

On the city wall, Yu Zhishan's soldiers had already entered their positions.

Every three steps behind the battlements, a figure wrapped in a gray-blue cotton overcoat crouched down, a rifle propped on the edge of the battlements, the barrel pointing towards the sea of ​​bonfires below.

The soldiers' breath condensed into wisps of mist in front of their faces, frost formed on their eyelashes, and their fingers were red with cold.

The Japanese soldiers below the city also began their operation, extinguishing campfires one by one, and rhythmic drumbeats began to sound.

Accompanying the drumbeats were a chorus of commands.

The Japanese officers were issuing orders in short, crisp Japanese. Their voices carried exceptionally clearly through the cold air; even from hundreds of meters away, the syllables, torn apart by the biting wind, could be heard.

Six o'clock sharp.

The daylight was just enough to make out the outline of a person 500 meters away when the Japanese began their first round of artillery fire without warning.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"

A sharp whistling sound came from the sky, and the sound grew closer and closer, turning from a thin whistle into a heart-wrenching scream in just two or three seconds.

Before Zhang Xueliang could even shout the word "bombard," the first volley of shells had already struck the city walls.

"Boom! Boom boom! Boom boom boom!"

At least forty cannons fired at the same time.

This is the independent mountain artillery battalion attached to the 37th Brigade, plus a portion of the Type 92 infantry guns from the 25th Artillery Regiment of the 19th Division.

These cannons simultaneously spewed fire from behind a mound three kilometers south of Fengcheng.

Shells rained down on the southern city wall of Fengcheng and its surrounding area like hailstones, and the explosions burst into orange-red fireballs in the morning light.

Around each fireball, countless fragments of rock, frozen soil, and human remains were scattered.

The explosions continued incessantly, one after another, causing the blue bricks on the city wall to fall in a rustling sound, and the stone beasts crouching on the eaves of the city tower to tremble slightly.

Yu Zhishan lay prone behind the battlements, his hands covering his head. Broken bricks and dirt rained down on his back, making him grimace.

He peeked out through the gaps between the battlements and saw flames and thick smoke everywhere on the city walls.

A shell landed on the machine gun emplacement to his left, blasting the entire sandbag fortification into the air. The sand from the sandbags mixed with the machine gunner's blood, exploding into a dark red mist in the air.

Yu Zhishan wiped the sand off his face and shouted at the top of his lungs to the messenger beside him:

"Brothers, lie down! All of you lie down! Don't stick your heads out!"

But his voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz amidst the continuous explosions. The messenger couldn't hear him at all and could only guess what he was saying from his lip movements before running along the city wall to relay the order.

The shelling lasted for a full twenty minutes.

In twenty minutes, at least seven or eight breaches were blasted into the south wall of Fengcheng, the largest of which was about two hundred paces east of the south gate.

It was that gap that collapsed halfway last summer.

A Type 92 infantry gun shell struck the breach precisely, and the blast wave ripped off the outer layer of the blue brick walls on both sides, revealing the rammed earth core inside.

After the smoke and dust cleared, the gap had become a nearly five-meter-wide opening.

Bricks were still falling from the brick walls on both sides of the gap, and the rammed earth core was cratered and pitted, like a bone that had been gnawed by a dog.

"Yoshi!"

Behind the Japanese attack position, on a makeshift observation post, Major General Inoue, commander of the 37th Infantry Brigade, lowered his binoculars and a satisfied smile spread across his face.

In his view, the Northeast Army's city defense fortifications were always in this state.

The city walls were in disrepair for years, the firing positions were poorly configured, and the artillery's counterattack capability was almost zero. As long as a breach was blasted open in the city walls with artillery, all that was left was to charge and reap the spoils.

Through the telescope, the gap in the city wall was clearly visible in the morning light.

The soldiers guarding both sides of the breach were frantically trying to plug it back up with sandbags, but the sandbags they dragged out of the rubble were simply not enough.

"Pass on the order!"

Inoue lowered his binoculars and said to his chief of staff in a resolute tone, "First wave of attack, Korean troops, charge from the front! Target: the breach in the city wall!"

He paused, then added:

"Tell them that the officers of the first troops to storm into Fengcheng were promoted three ranks."

Inoue's orders reached Bokujōgun's position within minutes via messengers and telephone lines.

The 39th Brigade of the Korean Servants was a unit composed of Korean soldiers and some junior Japanese officers. Its combat effectiveness was third-rate in the Kwantung Army, but it had the advantage of having a large number of soldiers.

At this moment, two regiments of the 39th Brigade, about five thousand men, were deployed in the first wave of attacks.

They formed six skirmish lines, each about fifty meters apart, advancing towards the city wall of Fengcheng from the open ground to the south.

Five thousand pairs of leather boots trod on the frozen black earth, like a giant millstone slowly grinding the ground.

The soldiers, carrying Type 38 rifles, had bayonets that reflected a dense, cold glint in the morning light, making them look like a moving forest of knives from a distance.

On the city wall, Yu Zhishan's soldiers recovered from the shock of the explosion.

The officers shouted hoarsely through the smoke:

"Ready to fire! Ready to fire!"

The soldiers shivered as they rested their gun barrels on the battlements, their fingers so frozen they could barely pull the triggers.

The quality of the soldiers in the First Brigade was laid bare at this moment.

Some soldiers were so nervous that they pulled the trigger without even disengaging the safety. After pulling it several times without it firing, they became so anxious that they smashed the city wall with the butt of their rifles.

Some soldiers fired with their eyes closed, and the bullets flew off somewhere unknown.

Some soldiers' hands trembled so badly that when they pulled the bolt, the spent cartridge cases got stuck in the ejection port, and they were sweating profusely but still couldn't pull them out.

"Stay calm! All of you, stay fucking calm!"

Yu Zhishan ran back and forth on the city wall, carrying a rifle in one hand and patting the soldiers on the back with the other.

"Aim carefully before you fire! Don't waste bullets! Get close enough to fire! Get within 100 meters before you fire!"

But when the distance was increased by 100 meters, the problem became even more serious.

Because the soldiers of the First Brigade were really bad at marksmanship.

At a distance of 100 meters, a crouching skirmisher should not be difficult to hit.

However, the raw recruits of the First Brigade, who had been training for less than six months, suffered from a decline in marksmanship compared to their usual training due to the combined effects of the shock of artillery fire and the numbness of the severe cold.

The sound of ping-pong balls echoed from the city walls, and the muzzle flashes of guns rose and fell in the dim morning light, but the charging formation of the five thousand servants below the city was hardly affected.

Most of the bullets flew over their heads or hit the ground several meters away, splashing up small dust particles; very few actually hit their targets.

The skirmish line of Pu Congjun continued to advance, from 500 meters to 300 meters, and from 300 meters to 200 meters, like an unstoppable tide.

"Hold your ground! Get closer and fire! Close to fifty meters!"

Yu Zhishan's voice was hoarse from shouting, and each word he uttered was painful.

Standing motionless atop the city gate tower, Zhang Xueming braced himself on the battlements, his gaze sweeping past the ever-approaching yellowish-brown skirmishers and landing on something further away.

That was behind the main Japanese position, on the back of that hill.

He knew that the Japanese artillery positions were there, and the shelling just now for twenty minutes had already revealed their location.

Zhang Xueliang lay prone behind the battlements, clutching a Browning pistol in his hand, his palms sweaty.

Through the gaps in the crenellations, he watched the increasingly dense, yellowish-brown crowd below the city walls. His heart pounded like a drum, and the veins in his temples throbbed.

He turned to look at Zhang Xueming, his second brother, who was standing at the top of the barricade, completely disregarding the Japanese machine gunners who could turn him into a sieve at any moment.

Zhang Xueliang shouted:

"Second brother, get down, you idiot!"

Zhang Xueming looked at Zhang Xueliang, and for the first time, a hint of a smile appeared in his eyes.

But he still didn't move, instead watching the Japanese soldiers getting closer and closer with a fanatical gaze.

Zhang Xueliang suddenly realized that his understanding of his second brother might not be as deep as he thought.

Below the city, the skirmish line of Pu Congjun had advanced to within eighty meters.

The soldiers at the forefront began firing as they charged, bullets from their Type 38 rifles whizzing past the city walls. Several bullets struck the blue bricks of the battlements, sending fragments of brick flying into Yu Zhishan's face.

Yu Zhishan wiped the blood from his face, then raised his machine gun and fired a burst of bullets down towards the city.

"Da da da da!"

"Da da da da!"

Gunfire erupted on the city wall, prompting the surrounding soldiers to open fire as well.

This time the distance was close enough, and the accuracy of the First Brigade soldiers finally improved, resulting in significant casualties among the front-line skirmishers of the Pu Congjun Army.

A dozen soldiers fell at the same time, their yellowish-brown figures convulsing on the frozen black earth, their blood seeping into the black soil and turning into dark brown mud.

But the supervising troops at the rear immediately used bayonets to force the soldiers in the back ranks to fill the gaps, and the momentum of the charge hardly diminished.

"Grenade!" Yu Zhishan roared.

The soldiers on the city wall pulled out grenades from their waists, pulled the pins, and threw them down from the city.

"Boom boom boom!"

The grenades exploded at the foot of the city wall, kicking up clouds of black smoke and dirt, and the soldiers of the Pu Cong Army fell like wheat being harvested.

But the number of soldiers was simply too great. Twenty fell, and fifty more rushed up. The corpses at the foot of the city wall piled higher and higher, and the soldiers behind them continued to charge up, stepping on the bodies of their comrades.

In the blink of an eye, they reached the gap, and one more step forward would lead into the city.

The first group of soldiers rushed to the breach in the city wall. They climbed up the pile of broken bricks and sandbags, and the soldiers behind them swarmed over like ants, pushing those in front of them into the breach.

The Northeast Army soldiers on both sides of the gap frantically threw grenades down, but the grenade stockpile was already small, only three per person, and once they were gone, they were gone.

Several daring Northeast Army soldiers, bayonets in hand, rushed down to block the breach, colliding with the servant soldiers climbing up.

The bayonet plunged into the other man's stomach, but he was also pierced by the other man's bayonet. The two of them tumbled down the pile of broken bricks, entangled in the struggle.

The battle at the breach turned into a bloody tug-of-war within just three minutes, with both sides repeatedly fighting for control of the gap, which was less than five meters wide.

The corpses were piled up layer by layer, and the blood that flowed out soaked through the broken bricks and sandbags.

Inoue put down his binoculars at the observation post, his smile widening.

The breach has already been half breached; with just a little more effort, Fengcheng will fall.

He turned to the chief of staff and said:

"Second wave of attack, North Korean 42nd Servants Brigade, follow up and break through the breach!"

"The main force of the 37th Brigade is ready. Once the breach is completely opened, launch a full-scale assault and capture Fengcheng!"

"Hai!"

Inoue was feeling quite pleased with himself when, just then, the sound of a phoenix's cry suddenly rang out from the sky.

"Chirp chirp chirp!"

"Chirp chirp chirp!"