With a loud boom, thick smoke and dust immediately rolled within the fortress, which was already filled with the smell of gunpowder smoke. Several Northeast Army soldiers attacking the upper level of the fortress were blown to bloody bits and tumbled from a passageway to the ground. In the rolling smoke and dust, the attacking troops couldn't see these soldiers at all. Everyone had to squint their eyes into narrow slits; even so, many still had their eyes blinded by the dust.

After destroying this upward passageway, the Japanese army set up machine guns to strafe downwards. Bullets flew wildly between the ground and the walls, and several more officers and soldiers were grazed by ricochets, forcing them to retreat temporarily.

The Japanese troops deployed outside the fortress had already been annihilated, and all surviving Japanese troops had retreated to the upper level of the fortress. The 3rd Battalion surrounded the fortress, but the third assault was repelled again. Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi consulted with the three company commanders over a temporary diagram of the fortress interior.

The 2nd Company Commander asked, "The Japanese only left one passageway and sealed the entrance with machine guns. Should we use ladders to climb up?"

"The Japanese must have defensive troops up there. How many people would die if we went up like that?" The 1st Company Commander immediately objected.

Before the 3rd Company Commander could speak, the telephone nearby suddenly rang. The battalion staff officer looked at the phone and said to Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi, "Battalion Commander, it's the Japanese phone."

At this time, the telephone line from the Japanese Fortress No. 9 to the Japanese headquarters had been cut, and the troops had connected their own telephone to the line coming from outside. The ringtone belonged to this phone.

To defeat the Japanese army, the Northeast Army not only conducted a large amount of training with the Japanese army as the hypothetical enemy but also made learning Japanese mandatory among officers. Ten minutes ago, the troops were preparing to launch an assault. First, they shouted to the desperate Japanese army, demanding their surrender. The Japanese officers on the upper level of the fortress cursed in broken Chinese that the Northeast Army was engaging in a sneak attack and that their 'conscience was greatly bad'. In terms of learning the other side's language, both sides seemed quite serious.

Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi prepared his emotions, then picked up the phone. The other side immediately asked urgently, "What is the situation?"

"The situation is critical, please send reinforcements immediately from Headquarters!" Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi replied in Japanese, trying his best to sound nervous.

There was immediate silence in the receiver. After a moment, the person on the other end asked in broken Chinese, "You are from the Northeast Army, right? Which unit are you from?"

Li Xiaoyi stopped pretending and asked back in Japanese, "Which unit are you from?"

Hearing Li Xiaoyi answer like this, the other party hung up directly. When Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi put down the phone, soldiers dragged several seriously wounded men out from inside. The medics immediately rushed up to treat them. After checking for a moment, a medic shook his head and moved on to the next one.

Seeing the soldiers of the unit dying in battle, Li Xiaoyi made up his mind, "We must be quick. Since the Japanese won't surrender, there's no need to have so many scruples."

Before his voice died away, there was the sound of shells tearing through the air. Li Xiaoyi and the company commanders all changed their expressions and shouted hurriedly, "Get down!"

Fortunately, the troops were not gathered together in a moment of complacency. Hearing the warning, the officers and soldiers immediately took cover. Several shells flew over in succession and landed near the fortress that had not yet been completely captured. The shock of the explosion was not great; it should be Japanese 50mm mountain guns [Note: possibly Type 11 infantry guns or similar light artillery].

Li Xiaoyi suddenly remembered the reaction of the Japanese on the phone just now and realized that the Japanese, knowing the fortress was lost, were using sudden firepower strikes to try to kill and wound the Northeast Army troops near the fortress. It seemed the Japanese had no intention of giving up even now.

The surviving Japanese troops inside the fortress also noticed the shelling from the Japanese direction. At this time, the fortress garrison commander had been killed in action. A sudden expectation arose in the grief-filled heart of the deputy commander: if the Japanese army completely covered the vicinity of the fortress with artillery fire, the Japanese troops inside the fortress might actually survive thanks to the outer walls. Driven by grief and indignation, the Japanese fortress garrison deputy commander felt that as long as he could drag so many Northeast Army soldiers to die with them, it didn't matter even if he couldn't survive.

However, the Japanese shelling soon stopped, and the sound of artillery fire outside became loud. The deputy commander heard it immediately; the Northeast Army artillery was suppressing the Japanese artillery with fierce bombardment.

Just then, a grenade was thrown up from the only undestroyed passageway entrance. The Japanese soldier guarding the entrance was quick-eyed and quick-handed, kicking the grenade that had just landed back into the passageway entrance.

Judging by the time, the kicked-down grenade was about to explode. Just then, a jet of flame carrying thick black smoke rushed straight up from diagonally below the passageway.

Unlike ordinary light and blazing flames, the flame rushing up from below the passageway formed a continuous pillar of fire, which presented a downward-curving arc. 'Droplets' of fire constantly 'dripped' from the pillar of fire or splashed diagonally.

A large ball of fire landed on a nearby Japanese soldier. Not only did it not go out, but it also ignited the Japanese soldier's uniform. The Japanese troops had never seen such an attack and were forced to retreat repeatedly by the high heat of the flames and the thick smoke generated.

The machine gunner responsible for defending the entrance pulled the trigger in fright, firing fiercely at the burning passageway. The bullets hit the fire and thick smoke but had absolutely no effect.

The machine gunner strafed for a while and felt that doing so was meaningless. Not long after he stopped firing, a new jet of flame suddenly sprayed out from the thick smoke, spraying entirely onto the machine gunner, instantly igniting both the machine gunner and the machine gun.

The machine gunner screamed in pain. His burning hands slapped hard on his equally burning body and face, but it was useless; it only made the fire burn more fiercely where he slapped. The struggling machine gunner ran around while struggling, stumbling straight towards the nearby Japanese troops.

The nearby Japanese troops were shocked. Although they wanted to help their comrade, they didn't know how to help.

Just then, another jet of flame shot into the floor guarded by the Japanese army from the burning passageway. And this time, the flame was no longer shot up from below the passageway, but from halfway up. The flame swept left and right like a fire dragon, causing the area about ten meters around the passageway entrance to burn, forcing the Japanese troops back more than ten meters.

Immediately afterwards, several more jets of flame shot out from the entrance. This time, the flames directly swept across the floor occupied by the Japanese army, igniting everything inside, whether people or objects. Even the wooden buckets holding water began to burn furiously.

The Japanese army fell into chaos completely. Every Japanese soldier wanted to find a way out of this fiery hell, but there was nothing they could do.

Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi on the floor below heard the screams from upstairs and sighed softly.

Before long, several dark figures came down from the passageway. They wore bloated clothing and strange helmets. The helmet was integrated with the outer garment and presented a triangular shape. There was a tube at the front of the triangle, like an elephant's trunk.

The men didn't stop after coming down and went straight to the door. Several pits had already been dug at the door. With the help of their comrades, these men took off the burning flamethrowers and threw them into the pits. Comrades immediately shoveled soil onto the flamethrowers to extinguish the flames on them, preventing the fuel tanks of the flamethrowers from exploding due to overheating.

The flamethrower soldiers wore heat-insulating suits made of asbestos. Although they had gone back and forth in the fire, the inside of the heat-insulating suits was not affected by the intense heat. They pointed to the position of their eyes, and their comrades immediately used prepared cloths to help them wipe clean the heat-insulating glass in those positions.

Just as the flamethrower soldiers were preparing to put on new flamethrowers and go up for another round of spraying, a roar came from inside the passageway entrance. Immediately, several Japanese soldiers actually rushed down from above with weapons.

The uniforms on these Japanese soldiers were set on fire as they passed through the flaming passageway, yet they still showed no fear.

The officers and soldiers of the Northeast Army hadn't expected the Japanese army to be this fierce and brave, and their actions were inevitably a bit sluggish. Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi had already drawn his pistol and began to shoot. Immediately, the squad leaders with submachine guns also recovered from their shock, pulled their bolts, and began to shoot.

He Rui set the Northeast Army's weapon design philosophy, which was 'gun families'. Various weapons unified calibers as much as possible, and parts were standardized as much as possible to achieve interchangeability of parts between different firearms.

Close-combat weapons like pistols and submachine guns all used 9*20mm bullets. This kind of bullet didn't have a long range, with an actual effective range within 50 meters. But when a 9mm warhead hit an enemy, it could stop the enemy's movement very effectively.

The moment the Japanese soldiers rushing down were hit, it was as if they had been immobilized, and they finally fell swaying in the volley of bullets.

In order to break through the Japanese fortresses, the Northeast Army conducted a lot of research. Everyone found that poison gas might be a relatively good weapon. But after World War I, countries were very apprehensive about the use of poison gas on the battlefield. The issue of banning poison gas was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference. At the subsequent Washington Naval Conference, countries reached a verbal agreement not to use poison gas.

After all, the Northeast Government was nominally a local government of the Republic of China, so He Rui ultimately chose flamethrowers.

For He Rui, another reason for not wanting to give foreign countries an excuse was that the current chemical industry in the Northeast was far inferior to that of Europe and America in terms of level and production capacity. If it really came to a chemical war, they would be at a disadvantage.

Even so, flamethrowers had very good effects in fortress warfare. While the interior of Japanese Fortress No. 9 was burned into a sea of fire, other brick-and-cement fortresses were also breached. Some units did not send infantry directly into the fortresses but used flamethrower soldiers wearing heat-insulating suits to clear the way from the beginning, burning their way up. They completed the task of annihilating the Japanese troops inside the fortress earlier than Battalion Commander Li Xiaoyi.

The news reached the Army Headquarters and was then forwarded to the Group Army Headquarters. Group Army Commander Zheng Silang looked at his watch; the hands showed it was 12:30 PM.

Starting from 9:00 AM, after 3 hours and 30 minutes of fierce fighting, the Northeast Army had destroyed 8 of the 12 Japanese fortresses. The destruction of the remaining four was only a matter of time. Now the road to Port Arthur was open, and the Japanese defense line on the border of the Kwantung Leased Territory had lost its function of stopping the Northeast Army's advance.

Should I send a telegram to the Military Commission? Zheng Silang thought about it and decided to wait until all Japanese fortresses were completely destroyed.

However, Zheng Silang sent an order to the 14th Army, which was waiting to set off, asking the 14th Army to be prepared to advance towards the Jinzhou Isthmus, and emphasized to the 14th Army that they would likely encounter Japanese reinforcements on the way to the attack and must not be careless.

While the Northeast Army was fully focused on the battle, the branches of the "Northeast Daily" across China had already issued extras.

Newsboys had been notified long ago to come to the newspaper office to pick up newspapers before 12:00 noon. at 12:30 PM, in Beijing, in Tianjin, in Tangshan, in Shanghai, in Nanjing, the crisp voices of newsboys rang out in the streets.

"Extra! Northeast Daily! Extra! Northeast Daily! The Northeast Army has launched an attack on the Kwantung Army! The Northeast Army has launched an attack on the Kwantung Army!"

Pedestrians hearing this news were startled. Immediately, some took out money to buy the extra.

Peking University lecturer Zhou Shuren was just preparing to go home. Hearing this news, he hurriedly stepped forward and managed to buy a copy from the surrounded newsboy with difficulty.

Extras are newspapers published at irregular times, so they are small in size, often consisting of only a single sheet. This time was the same. The front of the Northeast Daily extra had a huge headline: 'Northeast Army Launches Attack on Kwantung Army'. Below, it simply introduced the reason for this military operation.

Zhou Shuren had studied at Sendai Medical College and was an alumnus of the current Tohoku University of the Empire of Japan. After reading the introduction to this military operation, Zhou Shuren immediately understood that He Rui, Chairman of the Northeast Local Government—the warlord boss with the largest territory and perhaps the strongest power in China today—had launched a deliberately planned war.

Zhou Shuren taught the history of Chinese fiction at Peking University and knew Chinese history very well. He Rui's reason for war was completely different from various declarations of war in Chinese history.

On October 6th, a Northeast Army soldier went missing in front of the Japanese Kwantung Army Headquarters. The Northeast Army demanded that the Japanese Kwantung Army lay down their weapons at 9:00 AM on October 7th and accept the Northeast Army's entry into the Kwantung Army Headquarters for a search. This was rejected by the Japanese Kwantung Army. Therefore, the Northeast Army launched an attack on the Japanese Kwantung Army starting at 9:01 AM on October 7th.

How could this be something Chinese rulers in history would say? This was clearly the reason given by the current world powers when starting a war.

Zhou Shuren was very disgusted with such an arrogant and domineering declaration of war. However, the one issuing such a declaration was He Rui, so Zhou Shuren had to put aside this feeling and try to consider it from a broader perspective.

In recent years, the Fengtian clique warlord He Rui had risen to fame in China. Zhou Shuren didn't like any warlords, and the same went for He Rui. However, Zhou Shuren didn't particularly hate He Rui because he could see that He Rui's strength had increased greatly over the years, and he had created so many international incidents and made a big name for himself.

However, He Rui never took a step out of Shanhai Pass, nor did he participate in any warlord struggles, maintaining nominal obedience to the Beiyang Central Government. This cautious style actually suppressed the various warlords, preventing war from breaking out between the Anhui clique and the Zhili clique, which were like fire and water. Regardless of He Rui's purpose, China had avoided many wars because of He Rui's choices.

For such a cautious person to do such a thing, it could absolutely not be a hasty action born of a rush of blood to the head. Based on Zhou Shuren's understanding of Japan from his studies there, Japan would definitely use its entire military power to fight the Northeast after suffering such a surprise attack.

Thinking of Japan's national strength, although Zhou Shuren was very unhappy with He Rui's arrogance and domineering attitude in his heart, he couldn't help but sweat for He Rui.

...Does He Rui think he can beat Japan? Such a thought popped up, then was denied by Zhou Shuren himself.

At this time, the people around him were already stimulated to excitement by this news, which could simply be described as bizarre. Whether they knew each other or not, people around the newsboys ran around telling each other and talking to each other.

Passing through these excited crowds, Zhou Shuren walked towards his home. Although Zhou Shuren thought He Rui had probably really gone mad, deep down, he couldn't help but have a little expectation. Perhaps, He Rui could win...?