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

The other recruits saw that young man, who had only been in the army for less than three months, covered in blood, frantically stabbing and stabbing at the edge of the pit.

Seeing the prisoners leap out of the pit like mad dogs, grabbing guns with ferocious expressions, their survival instincts made them even more savage than wild beasts.

The new recruits finally understood.

These so-called people who kneel on the ground begging for mercy will, once given a chance to live, not hesitate to plunge a bayonet into your heart.

Fear and anger exploded simultaneously in the recruits' veins.

One after another, the new recruits, their eyes reddening, gritted their teeth and charged to the edge of the pit with their bayonets in hand.

They stopped trembling, for anger had burned away all their fear.

They went berserk, stabbing with bayonets, smashing with rifle butts, kicking, and throwing stones, driving back all the prisoners who tried to climb out of the pit.

Screams echoed throughout the room.

The dull thud of the knife piercing flesh and the cracking sound of bones breaking were exceptionally clear in the darkness.

At that very moment, the suicide squad began filling in the soil.

Shovelful after shovelful of frozen soil was shoveled down from the edge of the pit, landing with a clatter on the people at the bottom, on their heads and faces. The soil mixed with gravel stung as it hit them.

The prisoners at the bottom of the pit screamed, cried, cursed, and begged for mercy like madmen. All the sounds mixed together into a cacophony that made one's scalp crawl.

Some people were rolling in the mud, trying to shake off the dirt that was pressing down on them.

Some people desperately tried to climb up, scratching bloody marks on the pit wall with their fingernails, before being pierced through the shoulder by bayonets thrust down from above.

The mud piled up thicker and thicker. First it covered the insteps, then the calves and knees.

The people at the bottom of the pit trudged through the mud, each step becoming heavier and heavier, as if something reached out from underground and gripped their ankles tightly.

Some people gave up struggling and just stood there in the mud, looking up at the flickering torches and figures at the edge of the pit, motionless.

Some people were still desperately trying to climb out, wriggling like loaches in a mud pit, their fingers gripping the edge of the pit. Just as they were about to turn over, a bayonet pierced their palm, and they fell with a scream.

One of the officers who had served in the army was thin but extremely fast. In the chaos, he managed to step on someone's shoulders and flip over the edge of the pit.

After landing, he rushed into the darkness without looking back, his legs moving as if he were flying.

But before he could run ten steps, three bloodthirsty recruits pounced on him at the same time, stabbing him in the body with three bayonets from three directions.

He screamed and fell to the ground, convulsed a few times and then lay still. Blood seeped from beneath him, soaking the frozen ground.

"Buzzing!"

A deep, deafening roar came from the depths of darkness, drowning out all the screams and gunshots.

As the roar grew closer, the ground began to tremble slightly, and soil from the pit walls began to fall down in a soft rustling sound.

The torch flames were violently shaken by the shockwave and the air currents, and the light and shadow danced wildly on everyone's faces, distorting and making each face look eerie.

The prisoners stopped struggling and crying. Like chickens with their necks being choked, they all raised their heads and looked in that direction in the darkness.

Several enormous, pale beams of light pierced the darkness.

Thirty tanks slowly drove out of the darkness.

But that wasn't an ordinary tank.

The prisoners stared wide-eyed; they had never seen such a steel behemoth.

The T-34's chassis remained unchanged, with its wide tracks crunching and cracking as they rolled over the frozen ground. However, the turret had been removed and replaced by a massive bulldozer blade.

It was a full three meters wide and more than half a person tall, with several rows of thick rivets welded to its edges, gleaming with a cold metallic luster in the firelight.

This is a bulldozer that Zhang Xueming had his accompanying engineers modify overnight.

The driver's hatch was pushed open, and a man in a tank crew uniform leaned out and saluted Chang Yuchun.

"Commander Chang, by order of the Commander, the bulldozers are here to report for duty!"

Chang Yuchun stood by the pit, the firelight reflecting off him, illuminating half of his fleshy face in light and half in shadow.

He returned the salute to the tank crew, then slowly raised his right hand toward the steel behemoths.

In the cold wind, his palm was outstretched and paused in mid-air for a moment.

Then, he swung it down suddenly.

"Fill the gap!"

The diesel engines of thirty bulldozers roared deafeningly at the same time.

The instant Chang Yuchun swung his right hand down, all thirty bulldozers simultaneously engaged gears.

The tracks whirred and turned, kicking up large chunks of frozen soil and gravel, which crunched and cracked on the frozen ground.

The bulldozer blades, close to the ground like thirty giant metal hands, pushed the frozen soil, gravel, and even the remains of Japanese soldiers that hadn't been cleared away into the pit.

It took a full three hours to fill the soil.

The screams continued for half the night, only ceasing completely at dawn.

As the first rays of dawn pierced the horizon, only a suffocating silence remained over the northern wilderness of Fengcheng.

The engines of the thirty bulldozers had been shut down, and the residual heat of the diesel fuel emitted a faint white mist in the cold morning air.

The tank crews leaned against the tracks, covered in oil and mud, silently smoking, no one speaking.

The suicide bombers sat on ammunition boxes, their shovels stuck in the ground at their feet, covered in mud and dark red stains. They looked down at their boots, and no one spoke.

The new recruits of the First Brigade huddled together in twos and threes by the edge of the pit, bayonets tucked away, Liao Shisan on his back. Some were sobbing quietly, while others were dry heaving.

But most people just stared blankly ahead, at the wasteland that had been completely transformed.

The crater is gone! The prisoners are gone! Even the mountain of corpses from yesterday is gone.

Only those smooth, level plots of land lay quietly in the morning light.

The bulldozer's blades leveled the ground, making it look like a new layer of soil had been laid on the wasteland.

The soil was still damp, with a dark, oily sheen.

Following Zhang Xueming's orders, the assassins evenly sprinkled a thin layer of wheat seeds on top.

The morning breeze blew down from the distant mountains, sweeping across this newly cleared land, stirring up a fine layer of dust that shimmered with a golden light in the sunlight.

Next spring, after the ice and snow melt, the wheat roots will penetrate the soil and grow strong.

Next year, there will definitely be a good harvest here.

...........

Fengcheng, headquarters.

Zhang Xueming sat alone in the room.

The system panel floated in front of him.

On the pale blue, semi-transparent screen, the numbers in the points column were jumping.

His points, which had originally been zero, were now jumping wildly until they became a string of numbers he had never seen before.

Eighty-three thousand five hundred.

The system provides a detailed breakdown of the sources of the points.

In the Battle of Fengcheng, four full-strength infantry regiments of the Japanese 37th Brigade were annihilated, along with the brigade's artillery, engineers, supply troops, communications troops, medical corps, and guard units, totaling more than 11,000 men.

The actual amount of Japanese points credited to the account was approximately 45,000.

The remaining 30,000-plus soldiers were each awarded one point by the system.

80,000 points.

Zhang Xueming's fingers tapped the table unconsciously.

What does 80,000 points mean?

This means he can now summon 80,000 fully armed elite soldiers from the system at any time.

Alternatively, he could pull out another eight hundred T-34s to form a real armored division.

Alternatively, he could call in a squadron of long-range bombers to turn the Japanese naval port in Korea into a sea of ​​fire.

But Zhang Xueming didn't do that; he had his own plans.

Fengcheng is the bait.

It was the bait he used to lure the 19th and 20th Divisions of the Japanese Kwantung Army.

These two divisions were the entire main force of the Japanese army stationed in northern Korea.

The 19th Division was stationed in the Baoshan Town area, only a hundred kilometers from Fengcheng. It was the spearhead force of the Kwantung Army's advance towards Manchuria.

The 20th Division was stationed further back, in the Ronam area of ​​northern Korea, responsible for protecting the flanks and supply lines of the 19th Division.

The two divisions together numbered nearly 100,000 troops, equipped with artillery regiments, cavalry regiments, and air squadrons; this represented the entirety of the Japanese forces in northern Korea.

According to the intelligence he possessed, the 19th Division had already completed its assembly in Baoshan Town, but the 20th Division was still lingering in the Dandong area.

If he were to act now, gathering 80,000 troops and 100 T-34 tanks, he would be absolutely confident that he could annihilate the 19th Division in Baoshan Town within three days.

Three days, at most three days.

With the T-34's mobility and firepower advantage, coupled with the encirclement and penetration of 80,000 elite infantry, the 19th Division had no chance to escape.

But he can't do that.

Because the 20th Division was still behind.

If he wipes out the 19th Division in Baoshan Town, the news will spread and the 20th Division will immediately change its deployment.

They won't be foolish enough to continue advancing towards Fengcheng; they will retreat, retreating into the mountains of northern Korea.

The Gaima Plateau, the Changbai Mountains, are characterized by their layered peaks and dense forests.

In that kind of terrain, the mobility advantage of tanks would be completely negated, and the speed of infantry advance would be slowed to an appalling degree by the rugged mountain roads.

By then, the cost of eliminating the 20th Division would be at least three times higher, and the process would take at least a month longer.

What he lacks most is time.

Therefore, he had to be patient and wait until the 20th Division arrived in Fengcheng, which was the best burial ground he had chosen for the two divisions.

Fengcheng is located on the edge of the Liaodong Plain, which is open and flat with excellent visibility, making it an ideal battlefield for armored forces.

Besides that, Zhang Xueming is also waiting for someone.

Seishiro Itagaki.

He is the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, and he will definitely come to this battle in person.

This man was the biggest war criminal of the September 18 Incident and one of the war criminals of the North China Incident. Zhang Xueming must not let him go.

Taking advantage of Fengcheng's excellent location for the decisive battle, Zhang Xueming intends to seize the opportunity to capture this man alive and, in front of all the men of Northeast China, cut him into a thousand pieces.

Just as Zhang Xueming's mind was racing, he heard hurried footsteps outside the window.

dong dong dong.

The knocking was urgent, three short, muffled knocks.

"commander!"

A panting voice came from outside the door. It was his intelligence officer, his voice filled with barely suppressed anxiety, "Urgent telegram! Something's happened!"