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

Onizuka Ichiro suddenly raised his head and looked north through the cockpit windshield.

His pupils suddenly shrank to the size of a pinhead.

On the northern horizon, dozens of silver dots were swooping down at a speed he had never seen before.

Those points of light emerged from the high-altitude clouds, their silver aluminum skin reflecting a dazzling light in the morning sun, as if someone had scattered a handful of silver coins from the sky.

Their speed is frighteningly fast.

Ichiro Onizuka had fought in aerial combat for over a decade and had never seen any aircraft dive at that speed.

That's not flying, that's pouncing.

Like a flock of silver falcons swooping down on their prey from ten thousand meters above the ground, the air so fast that it was compressed into white condensation trails at the edge of the wings, leaving sharp, knife-like white lines in their wake.

"Baka! Enemy attack!!!"

Onizuka Ichiro abruptly pressed the radio transmitter button, his voice shrill, "Attention all formation! Large number of enemy aircraft spotted to the due north!"

"Escort attack squadron, climb immediately to engage! Bomber formation, accelerate! Hurry!"

Eighty Type 89 attack aircraft began an emergency climb, their engines emitting a piercing whine, their noses struggling to tilt upwards in an attempt to gain altitude advantage.

But their ascent speed is too slow.

The Type 89 attack aircraft was originally designed for ground attack and horizontal bombing, so its climb rate was not high to begin with. When facing a Mustang diving down from high altitude, this climb was like a tortoise climbing up a slope.

Zhu Wudi sat in the cockpit of the Mustang, his face half-covered by an oxygen mask, revealing only a pair of cold eyes above the mask.

His fingers rested on the joystick, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force, but every adjustment of the joystick was as precise as if it had been measured with a ruler.

His gaze was fixed on the Japanese attack planes struggling to climb below through the windshield, and a slight smile curved his lips.

"Attention, all Mustangs!"

Zhu Wudi's voice came through the radio to the cockpit of every Mustang: "There are about eighty enemy escort attack aircraft, climbing from the two o'clock position."

"The bomber formation consisted of about 140 aircraft, at the three o'clock position, at an altitude of 3,000 meters."

He paused for a moment, then gave the order.

"First and third squadrons, a total of forty aircraft, follow me to intercept the escort attack aircraft."

"The third squadron of twenty aircraft will circle around to the flank of the bomber formation and cut off their communication with the escorting attack aircraft."

"The fourth squadron will continue to take off. After takeoff, it will be responsible for high-altitude cover to prevent enemy aircraft from attacking from above."

"Remember, leave no survivors, leave no way out, and do not let a single aircraft go back."

"Mustang Squadron, attack!"

Sixty Mustangs simultaneously swooped down from the sky, the roar of their engines reaching its peak in that instant.

The combined roar of sixty twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled engines running at full power was like a thunderbolt crashing down from the heavens, shaking the entire sky.

Zhu Wudi rushed to the front, his plane plunging at maximum speed from an altitude of three thousand meters into the front of the Japanese attack planes.

Two white contrails trailed from the wingtips, drawing two sharp arcs in the air, like the double blades of a silver pair of scissors, cutting straight towards the flagship aircraft of the Japanese formation.

Behind him, sixty Mustangs were divided into three attack echelons, using a three-by-three formation as the basic tactical unit, and simultaneously cut into the Japanese formation from three different directions.

The most asymmetrical massacre in the history of aerial warfare has begun.

Onizuka Ichiro almost instinctively made an evasive maneuver.

He pushed the control stick to its limit, and the plane made a sharp left turn in the air, with the wings almost perpendicular to the ground. The overload force pressed him firmly into the seat, and his vision went black.

But at least they managed to dodge Zhu Wudi's first round of dive-bombing.

He watched helplessly as the silver plane roared past less than a hundred meters above his aircraft.

The six thick gun barrels on the wing flashed in the morning light as bullets grazed the vertical tail, leaving a row of bullet holes in it.

Onizuka Ichiro's forehead was covered in cold sweat, and his flight suit on the back was soaked through.

He had fought in air combat for over a decade and had never encountered an opponent like this before.

Fast, too fast.

He had just seen the plane come into view when it was already right in front of him.

Before you can even react, it has already flown behind you.

But his subordinates weren't as lucky as him.

Zhu Wudi's first echelon, twenty Mustangs, swooped down from directly above, and six M2 heavy machine guns opened fire simultaneously.

One hundred and twenty missiles wove a dense net of fire in the air, raining down on the climbing Japanese attack aircraft.

The first volley of bullets shot down three planes from a Japanese attack squadron on the spot.

The Japanese plane's fuel tank was directly pierced by a .50 caliber armor-piercing incendiary bomb, and a ball of orange-red fire exploded at the root of the wing.

The plane was blown in two in mid-air, and the pilot was engulfed in flames before he even had a chance to parachute.

Zhu Wudi's strafing bullets blasted an attack aircraft from nose to tail, shattering the canopy and tearing the pilot's upper body to shreds. The plane tumbled out of control and crashed toward the ground.

The remaining Japanese attack aircraft pilots tried to break up their formation to evade, but the Mustang's speed far exceeded their reaction limits.

The Japanese pilots, who were used to slow, leisurely exchanges of fire on the East Asian battlefield, were completely bewildered by this lightning-fast attack.

After swooping down from high altitude and firing a volley, the Mustang did not linger in the fight. Instead, it used the enormous speed advantage gained from the dive to quickly create distance.

Then it climbs back up to regain altitude advantage, dives again, and strafes once more.

This hit-and-run tactic, followed by another hit after a run, was brought to its fullest potential by the Mustangs.

The Japanese attack planes couldn't catch up with the Mustangs at all and could only passively take hits. One after another, they were shot down into fireballs and fell into plumes of black smoke.