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

"Click!"

After Chen Cheng was dragged out, the heavy oak doors of the Tiger Hall closed, and the atmosphere in the entire Tiger Hall instantly became heavy.

Zhang Xueming turned around, his face filled with murderous intent.

He walked to the map, picked up the pointer, and slapped it on Dandong's spot with a loud crack.

"Liu Duoquan!" Zhang Xueming called out the first name without turning his head.

Garrison Commander Liu Duoquan stepped out from the crowd, his boot heels snapping together, his back ramrod straight.

"You shall lead all forces of the garrison command into a state of war, effective immediately."

"You are in full charge of the defense of Fengtian City. All the firing points on the city wall will be stationed there. Double guards will be set up at the city gates. All personnel entering and leaving the city will be checked one by one. Double the number of sentries will be assigned to all ammunition depots and granaries."

"Yes!" Liu Duoquan replied firmly.

"Order!"

Zhang Xueming's coaching position was moved from Dandong to Jinzhou:

"Zhang Tingshu of the 12th Brigade of Jinzhou will be immediately incorporated into the city's defense order once he leads his troops back to Fengtian, to assist Liu Duoquan in defending the city."

"Send word to him that he doesn't need to report to the governor's mansion; the troops can go directly to the city wall."

Wang Jiazhen immediately opened the notebook, and the pen tip slid rapidly across the paper.

Without pausing, Zhang Xueming continued to draw his pointer eastward, carving a deep line along the Anfeng Railway from Fengtian straight to Dandong.

"The order is given to Zhishan!"

"Immediately lead the First Provincial Defense Brigade as the left flank, advance southeast along the Anfeng Railway line, and construct blocking positions along the Jiguanshan line west of Fengcheng."

"yes!"

"Wang Yizhe!"

Wang Yizhe, the brigade commander of the 7th Brigade, was still standing at the spot where he had just reported the enemy situation, and he hadn't even had time to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

He was the most capable fighter among the young officers of the Northeast Army, and the 7th Brigade was the best-equipped and best-trained main force among the troops dispatched this time.

"You will lead the 7th Brigade as the vanguard, advancing along the railway line towards Dandong, and establish the main position on the front of Fengcheng."

"Remember, your mission is to hold off the Japanese vanguard head-on, pin them down in Fengcheng, and not retreat an inch."

Wang Yizhe snapped to attention, his voice booming:

"Even if the 7th Brigade is reduced to a single soldier, we will never let the Japanese cross Fengcheng!"

"Sun Dequan!"

Zhang Xueming pointed his pointer at another person, "The 19th Brigade will be on the right flank, covering Wang Yizhe's right rear, forming a pincer movement with Yu Zhishan's left flank."

"Your troops have many new recruits, so I don't expect you to be at the forefront, but you must maintain your formation. No matter how bad the battle is, you must not break your formation."

Sun Dequan was a round-faced, slightly chubby middle-aged man who didn't look like he was suited for fighting, but upon hearing the order, he didn't waste any words and simply nodded vigorously.

"Don't worry, Commander, not a single soldier in the 19th Brigade is a coward."

"Chang Jingwu!"

The commander of the 20th Brigade stepped forward in response.

His troops had just been transferred back from the interior and were exhausted.

"The 20th Brigade is the general reserve force, and it is assembled and ready for orders 10 kilometers north of Fengcheng."

"Fill the gap in whichever front you find, and push forward wherever it's most dangerous."

"clear!"

Zhang Xueming put his pointer on the table, turned around, and looked past the generals who had just received their orders, his gaze landing on the two people standing at the door.

"Yuan Lang".

Yuan Lang stepped out from the doorway.

"You will lead five thousand elite soldiers to the front lines with me!"

Yuan Lang immediately saluted:

"yes!"

Zhang Xueming's gaze finally landed on a figure who remained silent throughout the crowd.

Zhan Lang wore a gray-black combat uniform that was completely different from the other generals, with the cuffs tightly tied and two Mauser pistols imported from Germany hanging on his waist.

"Wolf Warrior, your bodyguards come with me."

"You have only one mission: to protect the central command post and, at critical moments, to carry out special missions."

Zhan Lang nodded slightly, then lightly tapped his left chest twice with his right fist, producing a dull thud.

Zhang Xueming picked up his military cap from the table, put it on, fastened the top button, and looked around at everyone in the hall.

"Gentlemen, we have mobilized all our forces for this battle."

"Except for Liu Duoquan and Zhang Tingshu who remained in Fengtian, the First Brigade of Yu Zhishan, the Seventh Brigade of Wang Yizhe, the Nineteenth Brigade of Sun Dequan, the Twentieth Brigade of Chang Jingwu, plus Yuan Lang's five thousand suicide soldiers and the entire War Wolf Guard, all advanced toward Dandong."

"Furthermore, once Yu Xuezhong leads his troops back to Fengtian, have him immediately go to Dandong to rendezvous with me!"

"Our army will deploy along the Anfeng Railway line and fight the Japanese to the death in Fengcheng."

He paused for a moment, then slammed his pointer on the table.

"This battle is a fight to the death, either he or I!"

The Tiger Hall was quiet for a moment, then erupted into chaos.

"A fight to the death?"

Zhang Zuoxiang suddenly stood up from his chair, not even bothering to grab his cane, and walked a few steps to Zhang Xueming.

His lips trembled as he pointed to Dandong on the map, then to Fengtian, gesturing back and forth several times, as if he didn't know where to begin.

He was the assistant commander, highly respected in the Northeast Army, but at this moment he couldn't care less about formalities.

"Xueming, those brigades you mentioned earlier, there seem to be several of them, but have you actually counted them carefully?"

Zhang Zuoxiang counted them one by one on his fingers.

"Yu Zhishan's First Provincial Defense Brigade had a strength of less than 6,000 people, outdated weapons, less than 40 light and heavy machine guns in total, and no artillery at all."

"Wang Yizhe's 7th Brigade is considered elite, but it only has a little over 8,000 men. Chang Jingwu's 20th Brigade was just transferred back from inside the Great Wall and is not fully staffed, with less than 7,000 men at most."

"Sun Dequan's 19th Brigade was reorganized from a local garrison force, and its combat strength is no match for the 7th Brigade. Add to that Yuan Lang's 5,000 elite soldiers and Zhan Lang's personal guard, and the total is 30,000 men!"

He held up three fingers in front of Zhang Xueming, his voice trembling:

"Thirty thousand men against one hundred thousand, and that's a regular Japanese division!"

"The 19th and 20th Divisions were the Japanese's Class A divisions, each with a full strength of 28,000 men."

"Including the attached artillery regiment, cavalry regiment, and engineer regiment, plus the Korean conscripts, the total strength is no less than 100,000."

"Thirty thousand men going head-to-head with one hundred thousand—you're not fighting a war, you're pushing the Northeast Army's resources into a fire pit!"

"Xueming, you can't be a spendthrift!"

Tang Yulin, who had been unable to hold back any longer, slammed his hand on the table and stood up. His loud voice made the windowpanes vibrate.

This old bandit leader was never afraid of fighting. Back when he was a bandit leader in western Liaoning, he and a dozen men dared to fight against an entire battalion of government troops. But now even he couldn't sit still.

"Second brother!"

Tang Yulin called out Zhang Xueming's nickname, and in his haste, he didn't care about official titles anymore, saying, "I've never admired anyone in my life, but I truly admire your fighting spirit against the Japanese!"

"But you can't fight a losing battle with an egg! I've already sent people to mobilize the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Brigades. The two cavalry brigades will set off from Rehe and travel day and night. They should be able to reach Fengtian in three days at most."

"Wait three more days. Once my cavalry arrives, our forces will be at least a bit stronger..."

"I can't wait," Zhang Xueming interrupted him.

He walked to the map, picked up his pointer, and slapped it down on Dandong's spot, the sound causing dust to fall from the map.

"The vanguard of the Japanese army has already approached Fengcheng, and the villages along the Anfeng Railway line have probably already been ravaged by the Japanese army."

"Three days? Three days later, the vanguard of the Japanese army will already be able to set up artillery outside Fengtian City."

He slammed his pointer on the ground, turned around, and glanced at everyone in the room, a smile on his lips that no one could decipher.

"You all think that 30,000 men fighting 100,000 is suicide, right?"

No one answered, but the expression on every face seemed to say: Yes, it's suicide.

Zhang Xueming smiled, a smile that seemed very strange to others.

Like a gambler at a casino who has thrown all his chips into the table, when everyone thinks he's gone mad, he's hiding a card in his sleeve that no one has ever seen before.

"Don't worry, I have reinforcements."

Reinforcements?

Zhang Zuoxiang and Tang Yulin looked at each other in bewilderment.

The main force of the Northeast Army was right under their noses. The troops in Jinzhou would take at least five days to arrive, and the cavalry from Rehe, which Tang Yulin had transferred, would take three days to arrive. Where would the reinforcements come from?

It fell from the sky?

Suddenly, Zhang Zuoxiang thought of Yuan Lang's assassins who had appeared out of nowhere.

The second brother is good at raising assassins. Does he have tens of thousands of such assassins under his command?

"Xue Ming, is he still a suicide squad member...?"

Zhang Xueming smiled and offered no further explanation.

He picked up the telephone receiver on the table, turned the handle a few times, and said something into the microphone that made everyone present afraid to offer any further advice.

"Pass down the order: all bombers and transport planes at Fengtian Airport shall be loaded with bombs and cargo overnight and be ready to take off at any time."

"Target: Dandong!"

Dandong.

The rear of the Japanese army, the starting point of the Anfeng Railway, and the logistical lifeline of the 19th and 20th Divisions.

Now that Zhang Xueming has seized air superiority, his methods will be diverse.

This time, he's going to give the US military tactics from the Korean War a good try.

Zhang Xueming hung up the phone, picked up his military cap from the table, put it on, and walked towards the door.

He paused at the door and looked at Zhang Xueliang.

"Commander-in-Chief, you can just wait for news in Fengtian."

"But brother, you have to come to Fengcheng with me."

"Brothers fight tigers together. This time, let's work together to make the Japanese devils utterly fear our Northeast Army."

"After this battle, I'll make sure that every Japanese soldier who sees our Northeast Army will kneel down and call us 'Grandpa,' or we'll kill them every time we see them!"

The door closed behind him, leaving a group of people in the Tiger Hall looking at each other in bewilderment.

Zhang Zuoxiang slowly sat back in his chair, picked up the now-cold tea on the table, took a sip, and then turned to look at Zhang Xueliang, who had remained silent throughout the entire process, in the corner.

Zhang Xueliang's gaze fell on the window, but the lines at the corners of his mouth tightened even more than before.

My younger brother always takes me with him whenever he goes to dangerous places. What a bastard!

Zhang Xueming had already gone to the master bedroom and slowly opened the system.

This time, he's going to exchange for something that will change the course of history!