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

Just when the Japanese troops were about to be cut off and surrounded and completely annihilated, Huo Quji issued an unexpected order.

He put down his binoculars and said into the shortwave radio:

"Cease the attack."

"He Chenguang, cease attacking."

More than 400 machine guns simultaneously went silent.

The battlefield suddenly fell silent, a silence that was unsettling.

Only the crackling of the flames and the low groans of the Japanese soldiers drifted through the air.

"Broadcast announcement! Surrender your weapons and you will not be killed. Our Northeast Army treats prisoners of war well."

Soon, several command tanks equipped with external loudspeakers began broadcasting surrender appeals in Japanese.

The sound carried far on the night wind, drowning out the crackling of the flames:

"Japanese soldiers, you are surrounded."

"Your reinforcements are not coming. Lay down your weapons, put your hands behind your heads, and get out of the position. We guarantee your safety."

"Repeat, put down your weapons, put your hands behind your head, and walk out of the position."

"Our Northeast Army treats prisoners of war well; those who surrender their weapons will not be killed."

One after another, calls to surrender began to echo across the battlefield.

The Japanese soldiers were already on the verge of collapse. Although they had been brainwashed by Bushido, their beliefs would crumble when faced with uncontrollable factors.

Just like in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, nearly 9 Japanese soldiers surrendered and were captured.

Upon hearing the Northeast Army's call, the Japanese soldiers' hope for survival was rekindled.

The first disturbance occurred within the encirclement beneath the water tower.

A young soldier stood up shakily, raising his Type 38 rifle high.

He stepped out of the water tower's shadow and into the beam of light from the tank's headlights, his face covered in tears and snot, his lips trembling so much he couldn't utter a single complete word.

He threw the gun on the ground as if it were a piece of red-hot iron.

"I surrender... I surrender..."

Once there's a first, there's a second, and then a third...

One by one, the Japanese soldiers under the water tower stood up, threw down their weapons, raised their hands, and walked into the beam of light.

Their eyes were empty and blank, as if their souls had been ripped out, leaving only empty shells like walking corpses. They were mechanically carrying out the act of surrender.

Some people were crying, some were trembling, and some knelt down and kowtowed to the tank, their foreheads hitting the gravel and bleeding but they kept going.

The other two encirclements also began to surrender.

Mitsuji Miyake stood beside the ruins of the water tower and witnessed it all.

He is still alive.

The shockwave threw him twice, and shrapnel left a gash several centimeters long on his left arm.

He stood there, his military uniform torn to shreds, blood dripping from his left arm down his wrist to the ground, his face covered in soot and burns.

At this moment, his triangular eyes were wide open, and the blood vessels on the whites of his eyes were as dense as a spider web.

He watched as his soldiers laid down their weapons, raised their hands, and marched toward the enemy tanks like a flock of lambs to the slaughter.

His lips began to tremble violently, and a humiliation he had never experienced before welled up inside him.

"Baka yarou!"

The imperial warriors and the emperor's soldiers actually surrendered to these lowly Chinese.

This was even more unacceptable to him than death.

"Baka!"

"Those who lay down their weapons! Court-martial! Stop right there! Stop right there!"

Mitsuharu Miyake burst out of the ruins, waving his still-functioning right hand, his voice completely hoarse.

"Where is your Bushido spirit? Where is your honor? The time has come to serve His Majesty the Emperor!"

"No surrender! No surrendering..."

The turret of a T-34 tank, number 156, is turning toward the water tower for a routine search.

Wu Liuyi, the machine gunner on the roof, saw through the scope a Japanese officer waving his arms and shouting loudly.

He didn't hear what the Japanese soldier was shouting, but from his face, he could tell that he was trying to stop the surrender.

For Wu Liuyi, this action meant that the Japanese soldier still wanted to continue fighting.

"Incorrigible! You're asking for it!"

Wu Liu pressed the sights right in the center of the Japanese officer's chest and pulled the trigger.

"Da da da da!"

The 12.7mm bullet traveled 300 meters at a speed of 840 meters per second.

Three fist-sized holes suddenly appeared in Miyake Mitsuharu's chest, arranged in a triangular shape, on his left chest, right chest, and abdomen.

The bullet exited through his back, taking away most of his liver, a piece of his stomach wall, and a third of his spine.

Chunks of meat were scattered all over the ground, here and there.

The bullet's kinetic energy sent his body flying more than two meters backward, crashing into the brick wall of the water tower before sliding down, leaving a dark red trail of blood on the ground.

His eyes were still open.

Those triangular eyes were now facing the night sky, their pupils slowly dilating.

His lips were still moving, like the last struggle of a fish thrown ashore.

Mitsuharu Miyake, the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, was now a pile of minced meat.

The sound of gunfire still echoed.

The Japanese soldiers who were still hesitating under the water tower saw their chief of staff turn from a living person into a pile of rotten flesh in three seconds, and their last bit of psychological defense collapsed completely.

They threw down their weapons like madmen, some even taking off their uniforms, kneeling on the ground shirtless, hands covering their heads, afraid that any movement would be mistaken for an attempt to resist.

Honjo Shigeru watched as he crawled out of a cellar and saw the scene before him, realizing that all was lost.

After the shelling began, his guards dragged him out of the carriage and stuffed him into a cellar under the platform used to store coal ash.

He squatted in that cellar for a full thirty-five minutes, with continuous explosions overhead and liquid that was hard to tell was either water or blood seeping down the walls at his feet.

When the gunfire outside finally stopped and was replaced by announcements over the loudspeaker, he crawled out of the cellar.

His uniform was still relatively neat, except that he was missing only one epaulette compared to Mitsuharu Miyake.

He straightened up, adjusted his collar, even wiped the coal dust off his face with a handkerchief, then raised his hands and walked toward the nearest tank.

"Don't shoot!"

His Chinese was heavily accented. "My goodness... I am Lieutenant General Honjo Shigeru, Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army!"

"According to international law, I have the right to demand treatment commensurate with my military rank!"

"I demand to see your commander! I demand..."

A Northeast Army infantryman stepped forward, smashed his rifle butt directly into the back of his knee, and then stomped on his back with his boot, pressing his face into the mud.

A man who looked like the class monitor squatted down, grabbed his hair, lifted his face up, looked him over, and then turned to shout to the people behind him:

"Gotcha! Honjo Shigeru's been caught!"

The news quickly reached Huo Quji's command tanks.

"The Japanese soldiers have all surrendered."

A report came over the radio from the forward command post: "Including Honjo Shigeru, captured alive."

Huo Quji nodded slowly.

"Drag the prisoners to the open space over there in the cargo yard."

He said, "Let Honjo Shigeru watch from the side."

The order was quickly relayed.

More than a thousand Japanese prisoners were lined up in four columns and escorted by tanks to an open space on the north side of the freight yard.

The area, originally used for storing coal, has been cleared out and is about half the size of a football field.

The prisoners were ordered to squat down in the center of the open space, put their hands behind their heads, and not to look up or speak.

Honjo was taken to the edge of the open space by himself.

Two soldiers held his arms and made him face the center of the open space, directly in front of the dark mass of prisoners squatting on the ground.

His body began to tremble as he began to realize what was about to happen.

He turned his head and looked at the Northeast Army soldiers beside him, his eyes filled with endless fear.

"You can't do this! We've already surrendered! I'm a lieutenant general! I'm the commander of the Kwantung Army."

"In accordance with the Geneva Convention..."

No one answered him. The soldier holding him didn't even look at him; he just pressed him to the spot and made him stare wide-eyed.

Four 12.7mm vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns were slowly set up.

The machine gunners were in position, and the ammunition belts were loaded. The gunners sat behind their gun racks, fingers on the triggers, waiting quietly.

Huo Quji's voice came through the radio, containing only two words.

"start."

"Da da da da!"

"Da da da da!"

Four heavy machine guns opened fire simultaneously.

Flames shot out from the muzzle, stretching over a meter in length, resembling four dancing fire dragons in the night.

Bullets rained down on the crowd at a rate of over eighty rounds per second, the spent cartridges flying out of the ejection port and landing on the ground with a clattering sound, like some kind of bloody music.

The chests of the prisoners in the first row were riddled with bullet holes, and before their bodies could even fall, they were torn apart by bullets flying from behind.

Blood and flesh splattered in the air, and fragments of bone and internal organs were swirled up by the bullet's tail, forming a pinkish mist in the light.

The screams lasted for less than ten seconds before disappearing completely, because no one could scream for more than ten seconds under such a density of firepower.

The machine gunners did not release the trigger until all the ammunition belts were emptied.

The gun barrel was so red it was almost translucent, and the night wind hissed as it was being quenched.

In the center of the open space, there were no longer any intact human-shaped objects.

Honjo Shigeru stood there, trembling all over.

He tried to close his eyes, but the soldiers holding him down pried his eyelids open with their fingers.

The crimson light rushed into his pupils, and the stench of blood filled his nostrils. His pupils dilated, and his lips moved.

He recalled the massacre in Lushun and the massacre in Jinan.

"Karma...karma..."

Everything he once firmly believed in—the glory of the empire, the superiority of the Yamato people, the myth of the invincibility of the Kwantung Army—vanished in those five minutes of slaughter.

And all of this is just the beginning.