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

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The earth shook violently, and the entire Lushun seemed to be experiencing an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

One after another, cannonballs as thick as a man fell and crashed around the walls of Lushun, and all the Japanese soldiers were dancing on the walls.

One of them hit the city gate squarely.

The city gate is the thickest part of the entire city wall, but it is also the most vulnerable part, because the gate opening is an arched structure, and the load-bearing capacity of the arch depends entirely on the stone walls on both sides.

The shell landed right in the center of the arch, its weight of over two tons combined with supersonic kinetic energy making it feel like a giant stepping on an egg.

"Splash!"

The arch collapsed instantly, and the wall above lost its support, causing the entire section to cave in.

The city gate, along with the two iron and wooden doors inside the gate opening, was buried under tens of tons of rubble.

More than two hundred civilian soldiers who were waiting for reinforcements were hiding in the doorway. They were buried in the collapsed rubble before they could even scream.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"

"Boom!"

Two cannonballs landed on the two flanks of the city wall, on the left and right sides respectively, blasting open two huge gaps.

The gap on the right is more than ten meters wide. The wall collapsed completely from top to bottom, and the rubble piled up at the base of the city wall, forming a natural slope.

The opening on the left is slightly smaller, but it's still big enough for two tanks to pass side by side.

The defenders' firing positions on the city wall were all silenced by the two shells, and the heavy machine gun and tripod in the bunker were buried in the ruins.

After everything was over, a suffocating silence descended upon the world.

Smoke billowed above the city walls, and dust obscured the sun, shrouding the entire North Gate in a dim, yellowish halo.

Gravel continued to crumble from the wall, making a sparse, rattling sound.

Occasionally, a piece of shattered concrete would fall from a height, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Miyamoto Shin climbed up from the base of the breastwork.

His ears were still bleeding, with two thin streaks of blood flowing from his ear canals and dripping down his chin onto his military uniform.

He couldn't hear any sound. Everyone around him was talking, but he could only hear a chaotic buzzing.

His knees were trembling violently, and when he stood up by bracing himself against the chest wall, his kneecaps made a cracking sound, clearly broken.

He looked ahead.

Then his mind went blank.

The city gate is gone.

The North Gate of Lushun, a city gate built by the Russians and reinforced by the Japanese, which withstood hundreds of artillery shells during the Russo-Japanese War, no longer exists.

The entire section of the city wall where the city gate is located has become a huge gap, at least thirty meters wide.

Gravel and concrete blocks piled up at the bottom of the breach, forming a messy slope that stretched from the base of the city wall all the way to the open field.

The broken walls on both sides of the gap stood jaggedly, the fractured surfaces revealing the steel bars and broken bricks inside the walls. The steel bars trembled slightly in the air, emitting a buzzing sound.

The city gate tower is gone too.

The North Gate Tower was originally a two-story brick and wood structure with a hip roof and upturned eaves, which stood on the skyline of Lushun for thirty years.

Now it has become a pile of rubble, stacked at the highest point of the ruins.

Half of a flagpole, blown apart, protruded from the rubble, with a charred fragment of the flag hanging from it, fluttering helplessly in the smoke.

Kojiro also stood up from behind the breastwork.

His left eyeball was blown out, leaving a hole that looked incredibly horrifying.

But looking at the scene before him, he felt nothing but despair.

The anti-tank ditch has been filled with rubble. Tens of thousands of tons of rubble from the collapse of the city wall poured down, completely filling the five-meter-deep and five-meter-wide anti-tank ditch.

Although the surface of the gravel was uneven, it was still large enough for tracked vehicles to pass through.

The three layers of barbed wire were torn to pieces by the blast wave, leaving only a few crooked wooden stakes standing there alone.

His defenses, his proudest defenses, were torn to shreds by ten shells in less than three minutes.

Miyamoto Shin turned his head to look at Kojiro, his lips trembling.

His eyes reflected Kojiro's blood-covered face and the approaching torrent of steel behind him.

Outside the city, the engines of the T-34 tanks began to roar.

More than four hundred tanks started up at the same time, the roar of their diesel engines merging into a deep and powerful rumble that made the rubble on the ruins tremble slightly.

The wedge-shaped assault formation was already in place, and the tank at the very front still had mud from the Liao River still clinging to its hull.

The 76mm main gun on the turret has been lowered, with its muzzle pointing directly at the gap.

Huo Quji stood in the turret of the command tank, one hand holding the hatch and the other holding up binoculars.

After receiving heavy artillery support from Zhang Xueming, he prepared to charge, knowing that no city wall could survive a 600mm cannon.

Sure enough, under the frenzied roar of the cannons, the walls of Lushun collapsed, blasting open one breach after another.

The largest gap, thirty meters wide, has a scree slope with an angle of less than twenty degrees, which the Christie suspension of a T-34 tank could easily climb.

Huo Qubing could even see behind the breach, where panicked Japanese soldiers were crawling out of the ruins, some holding rifles and looking around blankly, and some running away.

He put down his binoculars, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"All troops charge, tanks in front, infantry behind."

His voice was transmitted via shortwave radio to the earpieces of the commanders of every tank.

"Break into the city through the gap. The Commander-in-Chief has ordered that no one be left alive."

"Buzzing!"

More than 400 tanks were engaged in gear at the same time.

The tracks began to turn, and the steel spikes bit into the soil loosened by the artillery fire, plowing deep trenches into the ground.

The tank formation began to accelerate, from 10 kilometers per hour to 20 kilometers per hour, and from 20 kilometers per hour to 30 kilometers per hour.

The roar of the engines grew louder and louder, the vibrations of the tracks rolling over the ground became more and more intense, and the whole earth trembled as this steel torrent advanced.

Behind the tanks, more than 10,000 Northeast Army infantrymen spread out in an attack formation, following 200 meters behind the armored group.

They carried rifles, bayonets already fixed, the blades reflecting a cold, sharp light in the sunlight.

Their footsteps mingled with the roar of the tanks, creating a continuous rumble, like a giant wall advancing forward.

Kojiro peeked out from behind the breastwork, watching the torrent of steel surging toward the breach.

His pupils contracted sharply, and his lips turned grayish-white.

Faced with the onslaught of steel, his whole body began to tremble, a physiological reaction caused by an overproduction of adrenaline.

He opened his mouth, wanting to issue a retreat order, wanting the remaining soldiers on the city wall to retreat towards the south gate, towards the port, or towards any place where they were still alive.

But his voice was drowned out by the roar of the tanks.

The first T-34 tank rolled over the gravel filling the anti-tank ditch, its tracks slipped on the gravel, and then gripped the ground again.

The tank's front end rose slightly, rolled over the gravel slope, and crushed its way into Lushun City through the gap.

The moment the vehicle emerged from the breach, sunlight shone on the tank's gray-green body, casting a long, dark shadow on the ruins.

The shadow swept across Miyamoto Shin's face, causing him to involuntarily squint.

"Give me a duck!!"

Miyamoto Shin went mad, drew his sword, and was determined to fight the tanks to the death.

This is madness born of despair, a suicidal charge.

"boom!"

The tank fires.

Miyamoto Shin disappeared amidst the gunfire, his body fragmented and dismembered, no longer a complete unit.

The steel torrent, unimpeded, surged through the breach and launched relentless attacks.

"Boom boom boom! Boom boom boom!"

The 76mm main gun spewed a burst of orange-red flame as the shell flew over the ruins and struck a two-story brick building inside the city wall. The high-explosive shell exploded inside the building, blasting the entire structure apart from the middle.

Bricks and wooden beams flew into the air, the roof collapsed, and a huge cloud of dust rose up.

The entire wedge-shaped assault formation resembled the blade of a giant axe cutting into Lushun City.

The turret was rotating, the main gun was firing, and the coaxial machine gun and the roof-mounted machine gun were simultaneously spitting fire.

Bullets rained down on every street, every window, and every corner where something was still moving in the city.

The infantry followed closely behind.

The Northeast Army's infantry poured into the city from both sides of the tanks. They charged into the buildings on both sides of the street with bayonets in hand, kicked open the doors, and fired into every dark corner.

A grenade was thrown in through the window, the flash of the explosion illuminating the dim room, and shards of glass and sawdust sprayed out of the window.

The survivors were driven from their hiding places by bayonets and then mowed down by submachine guns in the street.

The defenses at the north gate of Lushun have been breached!