Chapter 397: Acting Quickly (Part I)

The embassy area of Dongjiaomin Lane is located in the southeast corner of Beijing's inner city. Sandwiched between Zhengyang 'Gate' and Chongwen 'Gate', the south side is next to the city wall of the inner city, the north boundary is East Chang'an Street, after the East Chang'an Street is the imperial city, the east side of the embassy area is not far from Chongwen 'Gate' Street, and the west side of the guard line is the royal street that extends south out of the noon 'gate', the total area of the embassy area of the East 'Jiao' Lane is about the same as the Forbidden City, and the embassies of the eleven countries in China are in this area.

According to the strength of each country and the size of its sphere of influence in China, the area and planning of the embassies of these 11 countries in China are also very different.

Britain because of the strongest national strength, the largest sphere of influence in China, so the British Embassy not only covers the largest area, but also the best location, just in the northwest corner of the embassy area, you can see the Forbidden City, the British Embassy's neighbor is the Tsarist Russian Legation in China, located in the south of the British Embassy.

As an ally that Britain has been courting, the Japanese Legation in China is located in the east of the British Embassy, next to East Chang'an Avenue in the north, and only one street away from the British Embassy in the west. The Spanish Embassy occupies the smallest area, and in order to show the great difference in power from Spain, the French Embassy in the same area also occupies a piece of land across the street to the east, so that its total area is comparable to that of the Russian Embassy.

As a hostile country of France, the German Legation in China was next to the French Embassy, and it also crossed a few streets, basically the entire east. The southeasternmost corner of the embassy district occupies the most southeastern corner of the embassy district, and as an ally of Germany, the Austro-Crarian legation in China is located in the northeasternmost corner of the embassy district, only one street away from the Italian embassy in the north, and there is also some distance from the German embassy.

As for the neutral Netherlands, like Spain, it has only a pitiful share of territory, and it is located in the southwest corner of the railway station, which is very close to the Daqian 'Gate' railway station.

The most surprising thing is the U.S. Embassy in China, which is cut into left, center, and right pieces by the Dutch Embassy and a few streets, covering an area similar to that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but in pieces, which is in line with the current international status of the United States, although the industrial strength is very strong, but it is indeed not as influential as Germany on the international balance of power.

There is only one main road in the embassy area of East Jiao Min Lane, that is, Dong Jiao Min Lane, and the embassy area is also named after it. Several secondary streets extend in all directions from the East 'Jiao' Min Lane, which makes the 'traffic' of the entire embassy district very convenient, and there will always be exotic hotels and restaurants at the intersection, and the famous Six Nations Hotel is at one of the intersections.

Since the signing of the "Xinchou Treaty", Dong'jiaominxiang has become a country within a country, where China's sovereignty has been completely ignored, and the embassies of various countries have not only formulated their own laws to manage this area, but also organized the embassy guards of various countries, and are fully responsible for the security of the area, and the entry and exit management of the embassy area in ordinary times is also controlled by the countries.

Perhaps having learned the lessons of 1900, the embassy district in Dong'jiaomin Lane rarely allows Chinese to enter and leave freely in normal times, and even if delegations from various parties to the North-South peace talks enter the Six Nations Hotel for a meeting, they need to issue passports.

However, some Chinese can still enter and exit the embassy area of Dong'jiao' Lane relatively freely, and most of these people are people who work here, and now, a group of Chinese driving a four-wheeled carriage from Zhengyang 'Gate', entered Dong' 'Jiao' Lane from the west intersection, and were inspected by American soldiers at the intersection.

Judging from the passports of several people in the car, these people should be miscellaneous servants of the Six Nations Hotel, and it seems that this is a freight carriage. The list of goods indicated that it was carrying barley for brewing beer, apparently for the Six Nations Hotel, but because the "door" of the car was covered with canvas, it was impossible to see the goods on the car, and out of caution, the American soldier lifted the canvas, poked the cart full of barley with the bayonet on his gun, and then waved his hand and let it go.

Several Chinese handymen hurriedly put the canvas back on them, and then got into the carriage, and the coachman shouted and drove the carriage on its way eastward.

The carriage drove east for a short time, and then came to a 'crossing' fork, southeast is the German Embassy, northeast is the Spanish Embassy, and further north is the Japanese Embassy, and in the east of the 'Jiao' Min Lane, you can see the back 'door' of the Japanese Embassy, and in the northwest direction of the intersection, from south to north are the Russian Embassy and the British Embassy.

Although the Chinese handymen in the carriage turned their heads to carefully observe the situation at this intersection, the carriage did not stop, but continued to move slowly until another intersection, and then stopped near the Liuguo Hotel.

The coachman of the carriage removed the straw hat from his head and placed it on the haystack behind him. As a result, Tian Jinfu's angular face shone in the sun.

There were both hot sweat and cold sweat on his face, and when he was inspected by the American soldiers just now, Tian Jinfu's cold sweat still oozed out involuntarily.

It was so dangerous, fortunately, the 'strong' machine gun at the bottom of the carriage was dismantled and laid flat, otherwise, those American soldiers would have stabbed the body of the gun when they stabbed it with bayonets, and in that case, the operation would have been half a failure.

It was not an ordinary machine gun, it was the 'Ting' Hatch Kais machine gun that Tian Jinfu deliberately moved from the General Headquarters before he left Zhengzhou, and it was also the only 'Ting' Hatch Kais machine gun in the General Headquarters, which was the 'Ting' Hatch Kais machine gun that Zhao Bei captured from the Japanese Nishizawa Gongo at the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant!

Why don't you tune another machine gun, just this 'strong' Hatch Chase machine gun? The reason is also very simple, because when Tian Jinfu was the commander-in-chief of the guard, he often 'fiddled' with this 'Ting' machine gun, and he was very familiar with the 'sex' of this 'Ting' machine gun, and he was even more familiar with its 'manipulation' and 'shooting' shots.

This 'Ting' machine gun is also the only heavy firepower that Tian Jinfu brought to the Beijing-Tianjin area, and the rest are bombs and pistols, as well as a few submachine guns.

As for the passports used by several people to enter the embassy area, they were all prepared by Gong Qingxiu a long time ago. The passport is real, but the content is fake, and there is no photo, in order to act foolproof, Tian Jinfu also deliberately took a secret message to the commander-in-chief of Zhengzhou before rushing to Beijing, and the commander-in-chief acted very quickly, and then, with the help of several German embassy staff, these passports were not only pasted with photos of several of them, but also really stamped with a steel seal, the steel seal of the British Legation. Of course, the steel seal must be fake, and it must be admitted that the Germans made a lot of small moves against the British, and this was just a simple 'hair' trick.

Of course, the Germans were also very cautious, and in addition to assisting in the forgery of these documents, the Germans obviously did not want to get too involved in this 'shady' conspiracy of the United Front.

"Yihai, we have to find a place to put the guy up, are you familiar with this place?" Tian Jinfu jumped out of the carriage and whispered to Gong Yihai, who was sitting on the barley pile.

Gong Yihai shook his head, but he 'touched' a piece of paper from his pocket, and a map was drawn on it, which was the floor plan of the embassy area in Dong'jiao' Minxiang.

"Lao Tian, this is the day before yesterday Tieqiao hired someone to paint, it's quite detailed, let's see if we can find a hidden place on this, pretending to be a guy is on the one hand, on the other hand, we also have to find a place to look, otherwise, we don't know where those flag people came from, this East 'Jiao' people are full of intersections, if their group of flag people enter the embassy, then we can't do it."

"Yihai, you have a point. I think this Six Nations Hotel is good, 'quite high', stand up and hold a telescope, you should be able to look down on the entire embassy area, you choose two people to go up, one lookout, the other cover, don't let people find the telescope in your hand. In addition, how to contact this is also a particular matter, so it is better to follow the rules of the Green Gang. Use gestures to indicate directions, let's mark the number on this map, and this Jianghu rule can also come in handy. ”

Tian Jinfu and Gong Yihai discussed a few words, and then they divided their labor, Tian Jinfu drove the carriage to continue to circle around the neighborhood and observe the terrain, while Gong Yihai took another person to a secluded place to change clothes, and the two pretended to be compradors of foreign companies, and then carried the briefcase with binoculars and swaggered into the Liuguo Hotel.

Tian Jinfu drove the carriage around a few times, found a secluded alley and drove the carriage in, then stopped the car, unloaded a wheel, several people pretended to squat on the side of the car to repair the wheels, one stood at the mouth of the alley to sentry, and then, Tian Jinfu led people to quickly dig out the 'Ting' Hatch Chase machine gun from the pile of barley, and assembled the gun body and gun carriage on the barley pile, and carried out a moment of mechanical maintenance, the twenty plates of ammunition supply plates were also carefully wiped, and loaded with bullets, and then wrapped in a tarpaulin roll, and that' The machine guns, also wrapped in tarpaulin, were buried back in the barley pile.

As soon as Tian Jinfu loaded the wheels, he heard gunshots coming from the west.

"Don't be stunned, those flag men have already started, let's hurry back to the Six Nations Hotel, now that the gunshots are ringing, the embassy area 'figure' can't figure out what happened, we will definitely strengthen vigilance, we have to be more cautious." Now, check your weapons and never get into a conflict with people unless you have to. ”

Several people quickly drove the carriage out of this alley and drove towards the Six Nations Hotel, on the way, they saw many soldiers lined up in front of the 'door' of the embassy, and drove towards the outer perimeter of the embassy, several people had a cold sweat in their palms, as long as any soldier stopped the carriage now, and then checked the goods on the car, then even if the operation was half a failure, and it was difficult to guess what kind of treatment they would receive.

People who do this business, prudence is a must, courage is indispensable, this, these people in the carriage are good, nervous and nervous, but the expression on the face is calm, or in other words, the expression on the face is numb, most Chinese in this era are this expression, especially in front of foreigners, a look of not caring about themselves, so, on this road, the carriage went very smoothly without encountering any trouble.

When he arrived at the Liuguo Hotel, Tian Jinfu wiped the cold sweat on his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, but he didn't dare to park the carriage in front of the hotel, but drove the carriage to the back of the hotel, and found a place to park near the 'flower' garden.

Tian Jinfu stood on the side of the carriage, pretending to arrange the reins, but his eyes were always on the roof of the hotel, and Gong Yihai on the roof also poked his head out from time to time and looked downstairs.

The gunfire outside the embassy area became more and more intense, and more and more people appeared on the roof of the Six Nations Hotel, both Chinese and foreigners, who wanted to see what was going on in the capital. Tian Jinfu was worried that Gong Yihai would 'expose' his target, so he had to take the risk of going upstairs, but when he got to the top of the building, he saw that almost all the people standing on the roof of the building were looking at it with binoculars, and the monocular in Gong Yihai's hand was not eye-catching at all.

But waiting left and right, just don't see Gong Yihai gesticulating, Tian Jinfu was in a hurry, he was a little worried about Gong Qingxiu's side, if the action over there did not go well, then, this "autumn harvest operation" may end hastily, and it will not kill two birds with one stone as he planned.

However, when one of his subordinates brought a phone message to Tian Jinfu from the Liuguo Hotel, Tian Jinfu was not worried about Gong Qingxiu's actions there, but then, he began to worry about the actions here again, after all, this was a very risky operation, and the slightest mistake would be wasted.

The anxious mood made Tian Jinfu sweat, but he didn't dare to wipe the sweat, and his eyes were blurred by the sunlight because he had been staring at the roof, so that when Gong Yihai made a gesture, he couldn't see what kind of gesture it was for a while.

Fortunately, Gong Yihai continued to gesticulate, and Tian Jinfu saw it clearly.

"Northeast direction! Tianzi intersection! ”

Tian Jinfu hurriedly took out the hand-drawn map and quickly found the intersection marked with the word "Tian".

It was a crossroads between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian embassies.

The target must have approached that intersection, otherwise Gong Yihai would not have pointed to it in such detail.

Tian Jinfu looked at the map and quickly pondered for a while, and finally decided to take a shortcut, rushing directly from the northbound street in front of the 'door' of the Six Nations Hotel to the intersection, even if he couldn't intercept the target, at least he could be pushed up from behind, the six Yanmares that pulled this carriage were all good horses, speed is not a problem, the key is to act quickly!