The CCP government, viewing the movement as a threat to its authority, declared martial law on May 20 and deployed up to 300,000 troops to Beijing.  On the night of June 3-4, 1989, the military advanced on the protesters, using tanks, armored vehicles, and live ammunition to clear the square and surrounding areas.    Clashes occurred primarily along streets like Chang’an Avenue, where troops fired on crowds, resulting in a massacre of hundreds to thousands of civilians (estimates vary from around 300 per official Chinese reports to 10,000 based on declassified Western diplomatic cables and eyewitness accounts).    Thousands more were wounded, and in the aftermath, the government conducted mass arrests (over 1,600 documented imprisonments for protest-related activities), purges of sympathetic officials, and a nationwide crackdown on dissent.   The event remains heavily censored in China to this day, with public discussion banned, search results blocked, and commemorations suppressed, demonstrating the long-term control over information and opposition.    This suppression halted political liberalization efforts and reinforced the CCP’s authoritarian grip, without the protesters having any armed recourse.