Gas cylinders fell all over the Lushun fortress, hissing and spewing gas for nearly half an hour before the Japanese troops finally realized the People's Party was using poison gas. It wasn't that the Japanese officers were unaware of chemical warfare, but Japan's backward industrial capabilities made it difficult for them to comprehend how much gas could actually be contained in such small steel cylinders.

The methods of releasing gas during World War I were quite primitive, especially the early use of chlorine. German troops would haul massive canisters to the edge of their trenches facing the enemy, wait for the wind to blow in the right direction, and then open the valves to let the wind carry the gas over. Of course, when the Germans used phosgene later on, they adopted technology similar to rocket artillery. After acquiring gun steel technology, the People's Party not only applied it to high-temperature, high-pressure synthetic ammonia reactors but also to high-pressure gas storage technology.

The gas cylinders landed across the Lushun fortress at a little past three in the morning. It was pitch black outside, and nothing could be seen. The Japanese dared not fire flares over their own positions; illuminating oneself on the battlefield was a suicidal act. In such darkness, steel cylinders over 80 centimeters long and less than 20 centimeters in diameter were not easy to spot.

Many Japanese soldiers saw the metal objects on the ground, but they assumed they were unexploded dud shells and dared not approach them. Not only did they stay away, but they also warned others to keep their distance. It wasn't until a large number of Japanese troops began fainting from the fumes that they vaguely realized what the People's Party had done.

"Poison gas! The Chinese are using poison gas!" Although this was vastly different from the manuals that depicted rows of large cylinders set up on trenches, the low-ranking Japanese officers, facing a life-or-death crisis, threw their habit of respecting superiors to the winds and began screaming hysterically.

Defending against gas required gas masks, equipment the Japanese army simply did not have. The officers knew of gas warfare as a tactic, but facing it for the first time, the Japanese had no idea where the gas was coming from, let alone how to counter it. The firing points of the Lushun fortress were not tall towers but continuous bunkers with firing ports close to the ground. Many Japanese inside felt dizzy, their lungs suffering immensely as breathing became increasingly difficult. The ventilation systems, designed before World War I, had no gas filtration capabilities. Some gas shells landed right near the ventilation intakes, sending phosgene directly into the fortress through the ducts, knocking out even more men. by the time the Japanese realized they were under gas attack, many ventilation operators had already lost combat effectiveness due to pulmonary edema caused by the phosgene. The entire Lushun fortress fell into utter chaos.

The characteristic of phosgene is that it doesn't kill immediately. In environments where the concentration isn't lethally high, it takes some time after inhalation for the effects to manifest. By 4:25 AM, Mi Feng ordered the second artillery bombardment to begin.

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army could confirm that the phosgene had taken effect because the firing of the Japanese fortress artillery groups had clearly gone awry. Both the density of fire and the scatter of impact points displayed the panicked reaction of the gunners, as noted by the observing artillery staff.

So, after the second bombardment began, Mi Feng and Mu Husan simply left the command post to go outside and watch the spectacle of indiscriminate firepower coverage. The command post wasn't located on high ground, so the two commanders could only see a dense net of fire woven by streaks of flame in the distant night sky, thicker than the stars. The explosions of shells in the distance were indistinguishable from one another; the rolling thunder never ceased for a moment, sounding like a landslide or a tsunami.

"War really is a gold-swallowing beast," Mi Feng sighed. Just the three coverage bombardments organized for this Lushun campaign had already fired off over two thousand rocket shells. If calculated at one thousand yuan per shell, that was over two million RMB. Including the research and development for rocket artillery, conventional shells, and chemical shells, two million RMB was just a fraction of the research costs. Mobilizing over 300,000 combat troops from the army, navy, and air force, plus over a million troops from the two major military regions of the Northeast and coastal military regions like Hebei and Jinan. Even calculating for 1.5 million troops at an average monthly wage of 50 yuan, the wages alone came to 75 million a month. Not to mention the massive industrial system of New China behind this army. It was an astronomical sum of money that Mi Feng couldn't even clearly calculate.

These figures weighed heavily on Mi Feng's heart. The responsibility he bore wasn't just for the troops already committed to the battle, but also the pressure of the direct and indirect support from hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Thus, Mi Feng's morale was high; with the support of so many people, he didn't believe the war could be lost.

Mu Husan had gone through that emotional phase long ago. Due to his personality, he made a slight misjudgment of Mi Feng's mood. Mu Husan replied, "Japan can't afford a long war, although I really hope Japan gets desperate enough to send the Chosen Army to attack the Northeast."

Both commanders were soldiers. Even knowing the cruelty of war, they still deeply loved their profession, perhaps even craving war on a larger scale. Mu Husan watched the orderly trails of the rockets, his voice containing barely suppressed passion. "If the Japanese dare to cross the border line, we can attack Korea immediately. After liberating all of Korea, Japan is destined to never have a day of peace!"

"Japan has no money anyway. This battle is just to deal with the Japanese Navy and these sixty thousand Japanese Army troops." Mi Feng didn't care much about attacking Korea; that was a campaign within Mu Husan's scope of responsibility. By then, Mi Feng feared he wouldn't even be a deputy commander. Not to mention the Military Commission didn't think Japan would smash the pot to that extent.

Mu Husan quickly pulled back his thoughts and asked, "Will this round of shelling burn off the poison gas?"

Mi Feng's shelling plan was ingenious. He fully considered the Japanese unfamiliarity with gas warfare and the characteristics of the night. The first round of indiscriminate coverage shelling was to stun the Japanese, followed by gas shells to cause maximum casualties. The final round of indiscriminate coverage shelling was for final destruction, not only to destroy the Japanese positions as much as possible but also to burn off and disperse the gas lingering over the positions to the greatest extent. Not only did the Japanese lack anti-gas equipment, but the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army also lacked anti-gas gear suitable for war. If they had such equipment and had undergone sufficient military training, the special shells wouldn't have been loaded with phosgene, but directly with Sarin gas, which had a strange name.

The third round of shelling lasted from 4:25 AM to 5:10 AM. Eighteen rocket artillery positions fired in rotation. Frontline observers sent back intelligence: "The entire Japanese defensive position in the Lushun area has been plowed over once!"

"Where are the advance troops?" Mi Feng asked the staff officer.

The staff officer immediately replied, "The advance troops have already seized the Japanese frontline defensive positions and are clearing roads and establishing communication lines. Once the artillery fire pauses, they can continue the attack."

At this moment, the artillery fire had just ceased. Based on the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's live-fire experience, the ground temperature at the explosion points could exceed a thousand degrees. Not to mention all the combustibles outside the Lushun fortress were already burning fiercely; even blocks of iron would have been melted.

By now, the bright figure of the Morning Star had appeared on the horizon. It wouldn't be long before the first rays of dawn revealed a beautiful silhouette under the rising sun. The attack of the advance troops would also launch when the ground temperature dropped rapidly from a thousand degrees to a temperature humans could withstand. The battlefield was about to enter the cruel stage of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The advance troops of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army encountered no resistance. Russia had provided all the blueprints they possessed of the Lushun fortress, and the Russian officers who built the fortress also provided detailed internal information. Even the Chinese laborers who participated in the construction of the Lushun fortress were interviewed and provided the intelligence they possessed.

coupled with a large number of aerial photos, a "simplified Lushun fortress" was even simulated before the attack as a training ground for the assault troops. The only issue was that the density and power of the shelling were so great that the "Lushun fortress" everyone was familiar with had become unrecognizable.

The attack route had long been ravaged by artillery into a desert-like state, full of rubble and earth clods. One crater followed another, and it took great effort to identify the defensive positions the Japanese had once built. Small units opened up roads and established communication lines like mercury spilling over the ground. There were no enemy defenses at all on the entire outer perimeter. Progress was extremely smooth.

However, this did not make the troops feel relaxed. Even two bombardments that destroyed the surface defense system could not completely destroy all Japanese firing points, especially those gun emplacements built of thick concrete and brick. These emplacements were the most dangerous. Small units were fine, but during a large-scale attack, Japanese artillery could bombard the areas they wanted to hit according to preset data.

However, as the sun revealed its first trace of fiery red from the horizon, rows of small dots appeared in the sky. Then, a sharp whistling sound approached from afar, diving straight from the sky toward the ground.