In May, over the North China Plain, flowing clouds are flying, and from time to time a flock of swallows returning north sweeps by, wandering through the turquoise countryside or the bustling and noisy city.

In Tianjin, in a Chinese neighborhood near the Zizhulin Public Concession, a newsboy in a green uniform was holding a large stack of new newspapers and shouting along the street: "Selling newspapers and selling newspapers, the Voice of the People is a big news, the opposition leader of the Republic of China Party has exploded a scandal, and five high-level leaders suspected of collaborating with the enemy have been arrested......

A Western man dressed as a gentleman stopped the newsboy head-on and asked in a skilled Beijing accent, "Today's "Voice of the Nation"? ”

"Yes, sir, just taken out of the newspaper, don't believe me." The newsboy clicked on the date below the masthead—May 4, the ninth year of Guangxing.

"Ask for one." The Western gentleman handed the newsboy a five-cent coin, took the newspaper, and walked towards the Public Concession as he read it. Halfway through, a beautiful young man with blond hair and blue eyes patted him on the shoulder: "Mr. Bernard, you are quite idle, don't you have to take care of business?" ”

"It's Registrar Brand, don't you know that one of my jobs is to wander around the country and find out something interesting?" Slan Bernard, the big boss of Yuansheng Foreign Bank, smiled at the British legation clerk Jossen Brand as he raised his bustling beard.

"And what did you find today?"

"A purge was carried out in which a disobedient opposition party was suppressed, and their party leader, a democrat named Tan Sitong, was put in prison with his accomplices...... In addition, the Chinese National Assembly yesterday passed the National Security Emergency Law, which will be implemented by the government in accordance with the law from today, and during the war, demonstrations, strikes, and other acts that are detrimental to the war will be completely prohibited, and violators will be arrested and tried for crimes endangering national security. Bernard said, handing the newspaper to Brand.

"I'm not like you, I'm not old enough to read Chinese newspapers without looking at a dictionary." Brand shrugged his shoulders and handed the newspaper back.

"Don't you want to be a China expert?"

"It is enough for the British Empire to have a China expert like you." Brand lifted the other party into the sky at once.

"You're really good at talking, by the way, are you still hesitating, Mr. Minister?"

"He never trusts others easily, and he thinks most of what those three Chinese said is a lie."

Two days earlier, Bernard had sent three Chinese generals to the Legation, who had been old clients and personal friends of Bernard and had purchased many Western luxury goods through his Yuansheng Foreign Company, but at this time they did not intend to order from Bernard fine furniture, jewelry, paintings, and clocks with a unit price of hundreds to thousands of pounds, and their demand was political asylum, plus bank certificates sufficient for them to live luxuriously in England, in exchange for revealing to the British crucial information about the highest echelons of the Chinese Empire.

As a result, several Britons, including the two British majors who were about to go to the front line of the Sino-Russian war as military observers, took turns asking questions, but all three answered with reservations. These cunning Chinese will not reveal all their hole cards until they get or see with their own eyes what they want - Bernard has long guessed this, but Dou Nale still hesitates and does not even inform the country of this matter, which makes Bernard extremely unhappy.

"How are the three Chinese now?" Bernard was a little worried that if he dragged on like this, the fugitives would not be able to sit still—he was convinced that these three men were a very valuable asset, and it would be a pity if it were lost to other powers.

"They were restless and asked almost every two hours when they could be sent to the UK."

"I will pay a visit to Mr. Minister again tonight, and until then, Mr. Brand, please help to pacify those Chinese generals, and please tell Mr. Minister that you must strengthen your guard and never let them run away, and if Britain cannot get this wealth, other countries will not want to take advantage of it!" So, see you again, I still have something to do. Bernard smiled darkly and waved goodbye to Brand.

As they passed by, Bernard whispered a sentence in Brand's ear: "I just found out that we were all being followed, be careful." ”

Brand was startled, and when he looked back, the street was full of Chinese.

Everyone can be a stalker, and everyone may not be.

A large flock of swallows with their bright white bellies swept over people's heads, and above the heads of the swallows, the clouds danced.

In the basement of the British Provisional Legation in the Zizhulin Public Concession, three former Chinese Imperial Generals were facing each other in silence, silence, silence and silence.

The deathly silence did not suffocate and fell, and finally someone spoke.

"Damn, don't do it, I shouldn't have believed that Bernard in the first place, the dead profiteer, who played us all!"

Chen Xingyun, the former commander of the Third Field Army, shouted with a red face. He abandoned his wife and children and went to a foreign country regardless of his parents' betrayal of the motherland, with only two purposes, the first was to take revenge on Liu Yun, and the second was to live a good life in a foreign country. However, at this time, he is locked up here, without promise, without news, without hope, like a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, it is better to be killed altogether.

"Wait a little longer, if it really doesn't work, let's find another way, there is no one here, there is a place to keep people." Wu Dingguotie, the former director of the logistics department of the General Staff, said with a blue face. On the way to Tianjin, he overheard something from the guards that made him completely desperate - it turned out that Liu Yun had been playing tricks on him, and after receiving his money, he still had to take his life in the final analysis! After getting out of the broken carriage, he ran all the way through the fields, smashed the handcuffs in a secluded place, stole a set of clothes from a farmer's house, disguised himself as a migrant worker looking for work in the city and infiltrated Tianjin, and happened to meet Chen Xingyun on the street......

"I said we should go to Germany." Ma Chengwu, the former head of the General Staff Training Division, looked at the other two with sluggish and nervous eyes. He hated Liu Yun, he only knew this, he didn't want to find a reason, and he forgot whether he should reflect on himself, but there was one thing, he couldn't kill Liu Yun himself, because he was afraid, he couldn't face that superman with an iron will, and in front of Liu Yun, his will was too small to mention. Originally, he and Chen Xingyun agreed to escape together in chaos, but due to Liu Yun's urgent call, he had to let Chen Xingyun escape first, and then find another time to act, and the two agreed to meet at the Tianjin branch of Yuansheng Foreign Bank. After some twists and turns, the two succeeded, but now, he clearly heard the merciless mockery of fate, which made him even more gloomy and irritable, and his hand, which had just been stained with blood only two days earlier, was ready to move again.

"But we don't have a way! We'll just know that Bernard is in the same line, damn, if I want to know that he's really playing tricks on us, I'll kill him first! Chen Xingyun paced around the cramped basement in a frenzied manner, looking like he was stepping into a pit in the hard stone floor with every step.

"Calm down, killing people with words alone won't change anything, and we need to be sure of one thing now: what are we here for?" Wu Dingguo, who has only climbed the line of life and death once, is like a big Buddha in a certain cave at this time.

"Needless to say, it's all because of Liu Yun! We must destroy him and let him die a good death! Chen Xingyun clenched his fists and shouted at the innocent ceiling.

"This stuff might be useful." Ma Chengwu stiffly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of folded papers.

"What is this?" Wu Dingguo took it and looked at it, and nodded thoughtfully.

"Where did you get it?" Wu Dingguo is the leader of the three.

"I stumbled upon it in a ruin, and I looked at some other documents, all of which were marked with the words 'Unit H Top Secret', and this 'Unit H' is probably the legendary Haw Par Battalion." Although Ma Chengwu's expression was stupid, his speech was quite organized, so the other two didn't take his strangeness seriously.

"This is a document related to the Guangxing Ding case, it should have been destroyed a few years ago, I don't know why it will be left until now......" Wu Dingguo browsed the document again, and then gritted his teeth and said: "I see, Zhu Tao and Wu Beinian were not murdered by Ding Jieyun's remnants at all, but Liu Yun personally ordered the Tiger and Leopard Battalion to do it!" ”

Eight years ago, in the Guangxing Ding Rebellion, less than a week after the execution of Ding Jieyun's betrayal party, Lieutenant General Zhu Tao, then director of the Operations Division of the General Staff, and Wu Beinian, commander of the South China Military Region, died mysteriously one after another. (For details on the Guangxingding case, see Chapter 42)

It seems that Liu Yun could not find conclusive evidence that Zhu and Wu were involved in the coup plot of Ding Jieyun's group, but he had lost his basic trust in these two people...... It's so vicious, it's like we're all about living like a mustard! Wu Dingguo said indignantly, and at the same time proud of his perfect reasoning.

"It's been so long, what's the use of these documents?" Chen Xingyun was puzzled.

"Something is better than nothing...... Maybe it's out of guilt after the fact, I heard that Liu Yun has been taking care of Zhu Tao's widow since then, Zhu Tao's two children and Liu Yun's children study in the same school, and often play together, if Zhu Tao's widow and children know that Zhu Tao was killed by Liu Yun's order, hum, and then we plan it a little, there should be a good show. Wu Dingguo laughed so hard that his belly trembled.

"But before that, we must settle ourselves first, I think so, if there is no news in two days, we will rely on our own ability to kill the Lu, find another way, whether it is Germany, the United States, we must believe in ourselves, it is gold that will always shine!" Wu Dingguo raised his arms and shouted a slogan, as if his huge belly was full of gold instead of fat, if that was the case, he should weigh more than 0.12 tons.