Chapter 116: Northeast Defense 2

The darkness before dawn shrouded Jinzhou, and the City wall's outline revealed countless scars in the gradually brightening sky. When Song Xilian was carried on a stretcher into the city, the roar of Brickstone collapsing filled his ears along with refugees' desperate cries. The stretcher‑bearers stepped on scattered broken tiles and bricks, carefully threading through a mixed flow of routed soldiers and civilians.

Commander, I'm awake!

The medic's excited shout fully roused Song Xilian. He struggled to sit up, and the bandage wrapped around his waist seeped dark red blood.

What's the situation now, has Du Zhangguan arrived?

The Japanese Vanguard Unit is less than a mile from the city, and their tanks are bombarding the West Gate. Du Zhangguan has arrived, but after dispatching troops he left again.

Song Xilian pushed aside his supporters, staggered onto the city tower. As far as he could see, he inhaled a cold breath—within the morning mist, the Japanese Sun Flag fluttered like a specter, and at least one th Regiment's forces were deployed outside the city. Four Type 89 Medium Tanks advanced in a wedge formation, the mm Short Barrel Cannon sporadically spitting flames, and the embrasures on the City wall shattered and splintered in the explosions.

Even more shocking was the scene beneath the City wall: tens of thousands of refugees and routed soldiers crowded at the city gate, their cries, pleas, and curses interweaving. A mother cradling a baby knelt amid the ruins, digging by hand through a bomb‑collapsed house; several old men pushed a unicycle laden with their meager belongings, yet could not move a step through the throng.

Commander, the explosives have already been placed in the city gate opening! the Engineer Battalion Commander, his face covered in smoke, rasped, "but there are too many refugees; once detonated…"

Song Xilian's telescope slowly shifted, finally fixing on the Shanhaiguan direction. In the faint morning light, the Vanguard Unit of the refugee tide crawled toward the interior like ants. He set the telescope down, his fingertips blanching from the strain.

Ignite.

Those two words seemed to drain all his strength.

The Engineer Battalion Commander froze for a moment, then straightened his posture: "Yes!"

The massive blast shook the entire city. The explosives piled inside the city gate opening blew the heavy wooden door to fragments, and splintered wood flew like a rain of arrows toward the incoming Japanese. Almost simultaneously, a cotton blanket soaked in kerosene ignited, and a three‑meter‑high wall of fire erupted from the breach in the City wall, temporarily blocking the Japanese advance.

Song Xilian was flipped onto the ground by the blast wave, shattered Brickstone raining down like raindrops. In the instant before he lost consciousness, he truly heard—a real train whistle, not an illusion—coming from the Southwest direction, carrying people seeking survival toward Shanhaiguan.

At the same time, within the Japanese th Regiment's command post, Colonel Murakami Matsujiro was holding a telescope, observing the flames.

"Foolish Chinese, thinking this could stop the Imperial Army?" he sneered, lowering the telescope, "Engineer Battalion, extinguish the fire! Tank squadron, maneuver to the South Gate!"

"Marine!" the staff officer quickly relayed the order.

Well‑trained Japanese engineers advanced through the thick smoke, using sand and earth to suppress the fire. Simultaneously, four Tanks turned toward the South Gate, their tracks crushing the wreckage of civilian houses and dragging refugees who couldn't escape beneath the hulls.

In the southern part of the city, an even more brutal attack‑defense battle was unfolding.

The remnants of the Northeast Army clung to street barricades, resisting inch by inch. A soldier with a youthful face crouched behind a pile of rubble, firing the captured Type 11 Light Machine Gun until a tank shell struck him directly. Several veterans strapped explosives to their bodies, shouting "Disobedient child" as they lunged at the tank tracks.

In the western city, a group of spontaneously organized civilians fought Japanese infantry with hunting rifles, machetes, and even kitchen knives. The grocery store owner Wang Laowu brandished his ancestral Green Dragon Crescent Blade, cutting down two Japanese soldiers in succession, before being riddled by a Type 38 rifle into a sieve.

The Japanese clearly had not anticipated such tenacious resistance. According to the Kwantung Army Headquarters' projections, Jinzhou should have collapsed at the first touch, just like Shenyang. Yet at this moment, every street and every building was ablaze, and every window could fire a bullet.

Colonel Murakami was forced to adjust tactics: "Request air support! Artillery regiment, conduct covering fire on the city area!"

At nine in the morning, a swarm of Japanese bombers appeared over Jinzhou. The Type 92 Bomber dropped incendiary bombs, turning the entire block into a sea of fire, with thick smoke blotting out the sky. The mm Field Gun shells rained down like raindrops, and the ancient City wall collapsed segment by segment under the bombardment.

When Song Xilian awoke again, he was being carried by soldiers to an underground shelter. Through the shaking gaps of the stretcher, he saw a youth crouched amid the ruins, carving characters onto the wall with a bayonet. It was a line from "Full River Red": "Jingkang Shame, still unsnowed; the minister's hatred, when will it be extinguished!"

"Lay me down." Song Xilian struggled to the ground, taking the rifle handed by the guard, "Order all units to fragment, resist street by street, house by house!"

This order pushed the Jinzhou siege into its most brutal phase. The Fifth Army and the remnants of the Northeast Army engaged the Japanese in street fighting, often sacrificing dozens of lives just to capture a two‑story building. Each step the Japanese advanced cost them dearly, forcing them to call in additional troops.

At the Flour Mill in the northern city, a heart‑pounding sniper battle was unfolding.

"These Chinese soldiers are different," Colonel Murakami wrote in his battle report, "they seem no longer to fear death."

By the afternoon, the Japanese finally broke through to the city center. At Drum Tower Square, the last three hundred plus defenders engaged the Japanese in close‑quarters combat. The clash of bayonets, the dying's wails, and the explosions of grenades rose and fell. A soldier whose legs had been blown off crawled forward, pulling the detonator, and perished together with the charging Japanese engineers.

As the setting sun slipped westward, gunfire in Jinzhou gradually thinned. Though the Japanese controlled most of the city, scattered resistance persisted. In a narrow alley, a surviving youth emerged from a pile of corpses, picking up a broken rifle and stamping a discarded Sun Flag into the mud.

The sixteen‑year‑old boy named Li Yu, a Jinzhou Middle School student who had only taken up a gun yesterday, had flames burning in his eyes that belied his age—flames of hatred for his destroyed home and of awakening after witnessing sacrifice.

"I will return," he whispered to the burning city, then turned and vanished into the shadows of the ruins.

At the same time, at Shanhaiguan Station, the last refugee train was slowly starting up. The carriages were packed with people who had escaped death, and they looked northward through the windows, where the thick smoke over Jinzhou etched a massive bloodstain across the sky.

Escorted by more than twenty soldiers, Song Xilian finally reached the rendezvous point on the city outskirts. He looked back, seeing Jinzhou ablaze in fierce flames, like a massive torch.

Commander, where are we heading next?

"Enter the Pass." Song Xilian's voice was unusually calm, "This battle has only just begun."

During the Japanese entry ceremony, Colonel Murakami noted that despite the victory, no joy appeared on the soldiers' faces. Amid the ruins lining both sides of the streets, countless eyes silently watched them. In those gazes there was neither fear nor surrender, only cold hatred.

Duomen Erlang wrote in the night's battle report: "Although the Jinzhou campaign was victorious, the Chinese resistance will far exceed expectations. If the entire populace is thus, the holy war will be prolonged."

It was late at night, and in a small village outside Jinzhou, Li Yu and a dozen survivors sat around a kerosene lamp. Among them were soldiers, students, and farmers, but now they all shared one identity—resisters.

"We will rebuild the troops," Li Yu unfurled a carefully preserved Flag, embroidered with the seven characters "Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army".

Outside the window, the Big Dipper hung in the sky, its starlight cold and steadfast. The smoke in the Liaoxi corridor had not yet cleared, but the seed of resistance had already taken root silently on this scorched earth, and the war had only just begun.