Embassy of the British Empire in Nanjing.

Originally the British Consulate General in Nanjing, this three-storey Western-style building in downtown Nanjing became the seat of the British Empire's highest diplomatic mission in China after the collapse of the Beiyang government. Soldiers of the British Royal Marines in blue dresses stood guard at the entrance of the embassy, the servants and gardeners in the embassy were all red-headed Ah San from India, and even the flowers and plants around the house were pure British varieties. All of the qiē here still exudes the bearing and majesty of the British Empire, the world's leading power, but not the same as when it was in Beijing. The current British ambassador to China, Lord Eston, is no longer the leader of the legation, and this organization, which could influence the direction of Chinese politics after the Gengzi Revolution, has long been forgotten in the dust of history.

Mr. Ambassador, with a gloomy face, stepped out of the car and strode towards the inside of the embassy. Marines at the door saluted him. But the ambassador, who had always been polite, was in no mood to return the favor to them. He just kept walking towards the living room. These British soldiers, as well as the Indian Asans in the garden, knew that the diplomatic mediation of the ambassador must have hit the nail on the nail again.

In the living room, there was already the French ambassador to China, Fu Leyou, and a middle-aged man in a blue admiral's uniform waiting for him. This admiral was Kolchak, the supreme governor of the Russian Provisional Government in exile in China. Ever since his exile in China, he has been busy housing the one or more hundred thousand followers he has brought with him. Fortunately, after completing reunification, China began to enter a period of rapid development. Those Russians who have a certain amount of cultural knowledge and work skills. Most have found jobs to support their families, and even some of the clergy have found jobs as teachers or doctors - although they are not yet officially employed. Instead, he received Chinese training sponsored by the Ministry of Education of the National Government.

In addition, Kolchak was looking around for suitable projects to invest in, and now the Provisional Government still had about 100 tons of gold and a large amount of jewelry and art, as well as business-minded former capitalists...... This was the origin of what would become the world's most influential White Russian consortium. However, Kolchak's purpose in coming to Nanjing now was not to invest in White Russia, but to bring tens of thousands of Soviet Russian prisoners who were held in prisoner-of-war camps in the northeast.

Seeing Eston Tieqing walk in with a blue face, Fu Leyou smiled with a cup of coffee: "Mr. Lord, are our Chinese friends saying no again?" It seems that we will not be able to find any way to prevent China and Japan from signing a non-aggression pact. However, the non-aggression pact between China and Soviet Russia. There are still some obstacles to the existence of zài. ”

Eston smiled wryly at Fu Leyou - this Frenchman must be an optimist, no matter how many setbacks he encounters in his work, he will not lose faith in the future. He nodded politely to Kolchak again: "Mr. Ruling Lord, it is a pleasure to meet you in Nanjing, the purpose of your visit to Nanjing this time is ......"

"To save my countrymen." Kolchak smiled bitterly: "Mr. Lord, there are now nearly 60,000 Russians imprisoned in the prisoner of war camp in Fushun, and they need the help of the Provisional Government, Britain and France. ”

Eston sighed: "That's the captured personnel of the Russian Red Army, right?" Did the Chinese abuse them? There seems to be no report from the International Committee of the Red Cross in this regard. ”

"I haven't been reported on that either." Kolchak said: "But I have received information that the Bolsheviks are preparing to put these prisoners of war in labor camps!" ”

"Is there such a thing?" Aiston was stunned for a moment. Shaking his head in disbelief, he promised, "Well, I can propose to Whitehall and ask the Russian government to guarantee that these prisoners of war will be treated fairly when they return home." Is that okay? ”

Hearing Eston's promise, Kolchak could only smile bitterly, and he sighed and said: "If the guarantee of the Bolsheviks can work. I wouldn't be sitting here anymore...... Mr. Lord, I think that these captured Red Army soldiers should be given the freedom to choose whether or not they will return home. ”

Eston was stunned and did not answer. However, the French ambassador Fu Leyou said: "I think this is a good solution, and the issue of prisoners of war is likely to become the biggest obstacle to the improvement of relations between China and Soviet Russia -- because not only China has Russian prisoners of war in its hands, but also a large number of soldiers of China's Northeast Army have also been captured by Soviet Russia." There is also intelligence that the Russian GCD forced part of them to join their Far Eastern People's Revolutionary Army. ”

Eston grinned with some suspicion. "I don't think China and Soviet Russia will be entangled in such a small issue," he said. But you might as well give it a try, by the way, Mr. Fu Leyou, do you have any ready-made plans? Are we going to join forces with the U.S. ambassador to put pressure on China? ”

Fu Leyou waved his hand: "No, no, I don't think it's a good way for the diplomats of our great powers to exert pressure, we should do this............

"Brother Yaoru, this is the report of the war dead, seriously wounded, and missing people submitted by the Northeast Front, which already includes the casualties and missing figures of the former Northeast Frontier Army. Please take a look...... The losses of the Northeast Frontier Army in this war were very large, and almost every household in several counties around Shenyang mourned! And this one is a report of losses submitted by the Mongol Front and the king of Darkhan......"

Lu Yixuan respectfully handed the report to Chang Ruiqing, who was sitting behind his desk. The war with Soviet Russia is now a formal ceasefire, and it is time to calculate the losses. In this war, the troops of the central lineage did not lose too much, and there were basically no prisoners. However, it turned out that the losses of the Northeast Frontier Army of Jiang Jshi's system were a bit too much! In particular, the four armies sent by Lao Chiang to Chita originally had 1230,000 officers and soldiers, but in the end only more than 30,000 people ran back, and almost 100,000 people remained on the land of the Far Eastern Republic, either killed or missing.

In addition, the Mongols in northern Mongolia and the Hulunbuir steppe also suffered heavy losses, according to preliminary statistics after the war. The Mongol tribes there lost almost 15 to 200,000 people! About 100,000 of them were taken captive by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army supported by Soviet Russia, and their whereabouts are unknown...... Although the Standing Chairman did not care much about the life and death of the Mongols. However, the national government, as the central government of all Chinese, always has to behave. As a result, the two estimates of casualties and missing persons, both of which seemed a bit sensational, were now sent to Chang Ruiqing by Lu Yixuan, deputy chief of the General Staff.

Chang Ruiqing took the report with a heavy face. Nodding his head, he said, "The loss is indeed a bit big!" It seems that this war can only be regarded as a miserable result, but it is finally victorious...... So it's worth it! Zixiu, send a copy of this report to the Military Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of the Army, and take care that they must be given preferential pensions, whether it is the original Central Army system or the Northeast Army system, it is a pension standard. You can't favor one over the other. ”

"Yaoru, there are still many missing people, what should they do? We have no way of determining which ones were captured and which ones were sacrificed...... The list of captured persons submitted by the Soviet and Russian sides has only more than 8,000 names on it! There are also a thousand or hundreds of Japanese among them. ”

"What's the matter?" Chang Ruiqing smacked his lips, of course he knew that some of the missing people on the Chinese side had been incorporated into the Eastern Army (now the Far Eastern People's Revolutionary Army). But the Russian side is now only coming up with a list of a few thousand prisoners, which is really excessive! You must know that the list of captured Red officers and soldiers submitted by the Chinese side is full of more than 58,000 people (including Soviet personnel captured by the Japanese army)!

"That's right, and everyone on the list is missing arms and legs!" The deputy chief of the General Staff added: "It is clear that all the able-bodied prisoners of our side have been seized by the Soviet and Russian sides. Now there are rumors outside that all our captives have been escorted to work as coolies. ”

"Really? Do you know who is passing it on? ”

This was the case in the Western newspapers of Hong Kong, and the spokesman of the White Russian Provisional Government declared that the Russians had always had a habit of using prisoners as hard labor. They also said that the Soviet Russian prisoners in our hands would also be arrested after returning home, and there are also rumors of this in the Soviet Russian prisoner of war camp in Fushun, which is estimated to have been spread by the White Russian volunteers there......"

"Is there such a thing? It's incredible. Chang Ruiqing asked knowingly. Then he said seriously: "Let the Northeast Front first estimate the number of people detained by the Soviet and Russian sides, and then report to me, we must do our best to rescue our captured personnel!" ”

When Lu Yixuan heard this, he saluted and turned to leave. As soon as he walked to the door of the office, he suddenly turned back and asked: "Li Mingyang, the commander of the Fushun prisoner of war camp, reported that the situation of the Russian prisoners of war seems to be somewhat unstable, and he hopes to increase the number of guards and allow severe repressive measures." Yaoru, how do you look at this? ”……

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" The order was given by a Defence Force Gendarmerie Lieutenant Officer. Under his command, a group of gendarmes in black uniforms was in the middle of the dawn. Running forward quickly. Each soldier was heavily armed, and his rifle was topped with a shiny bayonet, which shone brightly in the morning glow. Their destination was one of the Fushun prisoner-of-war camps where clashes were about to take place - not to suppress them, of course, but to stop them. The two sides of the conflict were captured officers and soldiers of the Soviet Russian Red Army, but their positions were somewhat different.

Natasha, a Belarusian aristocratic lady who worked as an interpreter for the Fushun prisoner of war camp. Makarova panted and followed the Chinese military police lieutenant, asking in somewhat stiff Chinese as she ran: "Aren't they all separated from the two sides, why are they still making trouble?" ”

The lieutenant shook his head with a wry smile: "God knows what you Russians think?" It's all come to this point, and they are still fighting in the nest, let's use a wall to separate the two factions, and they will tear down the wall and pick up the bucket! Alas! The war is over, they're all going home, what's the point of fighting? ”

Makarova smiled bitterly and sighed: "Some people are fighting to go home, and some people are like me, they can't go back to home!" ”

Looking at the deep sadness on the face of this doll-like Russian girl, the lieutenant didn't know what to say. There are some things that can only be truly understood by experiencing them personally, and people like him who have been living in dire straits cannot imagine the horrors of heaven on earth.

The group of gendarmes quickly arrived at the camp, a prisoner of war camp where some 2,000 people were being held. It is one of the twenty-four prisoner of war camps in Fushun. The prisoners of war held here are relatively modest, and there has been no trouble in the past few months. However, after the news came out that China and Russia had officially started peace talks. Gone is the calm here. Ten days ago, some of the prisoners of war suddenly petitioned the management authorities of the prisoner of war camps, asking to stay in China as refugees and were unwilling to be repatriated! The other part regarded them as traitors, and the two sides engaged in a series of bloody struggles, in which people were killed for several nights in a row, and finally the prisoner of war camp had to separate the two sides and split the prisoner of war camp, codenamed Sixteen, in two! I didn't expect that it had just been peaceful for a few days, and something happened again.

"Comrades. How can you do this! The Soviet Fatherland is calling you...... Your relatives are waiting for you to return in the warmth of the house. How can you listen to the rumors spread by the Kolchaks? Those are the enemies of the Motherland, how can you believe the words of the enemy! ”

The group fighting in Prisoner of War Camp No. 16 had already ended, and the Chinese military police, who had arrived earlier, had isolated the two sides of the fight. However, the two groups of Russians did not disperse and return to the barracks, but began to fight. A blonde young man of about twenty years of age, holding up a homemade GCD flag, was trying to persuade the Red Army prisoners of war gathered under a tricolor flag opposite.

"Comrade Kochakin, you don't have to perform here, it's useless. When you return to Russia, you will still be expelled from the party and the army! The only thing that awaits you is hard labor, which you and I both know! ”

An elderly prisoner of war loudly retorted to the words of the young prisoner of war named Kochagin under a tricolor flag.

"Djohle! You traitor! It's a shame that you're still the deputy director of the division's political department! Are you so worthy of the party, of Comrade Lenin, of the Russian people? ”

The former deputy director of the divisional government department named Zhu Helai gritted his teeth and said hatefully: "Of course I am worthy of the party!" Worthy of Lenin! The party and Lenin's position of power all have my share of the credit! If I'm sorry for someone, Djohelai. Then there is only the Russian people! I should have joined Denikin's army early, instead of helping the Bolsheviks to plunder the peasants' rations with machine guns......"

"Nonsense! You're full of nonsense! It was all the grain of the rich peasants, not the poor peasants! You slandered the party and Lenin like this, and waited for Russia to return. Let's see if the organization will let you go! ”

"Haha, the organization won't let me go. I won't let you go! Everyone in this prisoner of war camp, including Comrade Zhukov, has to go to the labor camp, and no one wants to get out alive! The only way to survive now is to stay in China, don't go back, never go back! ”

As soon as Zhu Helai's prophecy came out, the scene was as if it was boiling. The prisoners of war on both sides began to shout.

"Organizationally, you can distinguish between good and bad!"

"That's right, we are all good people, all good people who fight for the Motherland!"

"But it's good people like you in the organization!"

"You just wait for the labor camps in Siberia to rot!"

"You're going to rot in the labor camps in Siberia! Even if you hide in revisionist China for the time being, you will not be able to escape the punishment of justice, because the world revolution will surely be victorious! You'll all be arrested when the time comes! ”

The two groups quarreled for a while, and when they saw that more and more Chinese gendarmes were coming, they stopped arguing and began to sing, the tunes on one side sounded a little impassioned, and on the other hand, they were a little slow and melodious, but they were singing in Russian, and the Chinese officers and soldiers present heard them differently.

The young lieutenant smiled at Makarova beside him: "Natasha, it seems that you are singing the Internationale, right?" I've heard that tune before. What is singing on the other side? ”

"It's the Prayer of the Russians." This somewhat reactionary doll heard the original national anthem of the Russian Empire, and was already moved to tears, and sang along with it in Russian: "Tsar God bless!" It has been brilliant, and the earth is long and the sky is long......"

The Russians were holding a concert over there, and in the Fushun Prisoner of War Camp Headquarters, the commander, Lieutenant General Li Mingyang, pointed angrily in the direction where the song came from, and complained loudly to a figure sitting opposite him: "Stationmaster Hu, listen to it, these Russians are the masters of some trouble!" There isn't a day of rest in these two months! Where do they have the slightest sense of being captives? I really don't know who is the prisoner now, me or those Russians! ”

The man sitting there was dressed in a dark blue uniform, the color of which was reserved for the Military Intelligence Directorate, and carried the rank of colonel on his shoulder. It was Hu Roller, the head of the Northeast Station of the Military Intelligence Bureau. Today, he was directly ordered by Chang Ruiqing to inspect the Fushun prisoner of war camp. Listening to Li Mingyang's words, he smiled slightly: "Commander Li, you know a little about your difficulties, but fortunately, the negotiations have begun, and it is estimated that it will not be long before the prisoners will be exchanged." As he spoke, his brows furrowed: "But this time is very critical, and the commission doesn't want any accidents in the prisoner of war camp." Therefore, the request for an increase in the number of troops has been approved by the Military Commission, and two infantry regiments will soon be assigned to the Fushun prisoner of war camp, but the matter of killing people should still be cautious. You also know that there are a lot of Belarusian specialists working for us right now. By the way, the commissioner also ordered me to come and meet the highest-ranking prisoner in your prisoner of war camp, named Zhukov. I heard he's a little crazy, isn't he? ”