Tianjin has risen since ancient times because of the luck of Cao, and the city was officially built on November 21 in the second year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, and it is the only city in ancient Chinese history that has an exact record of the time of its construction. In fact, long before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Japan, which had the right to garrison troops in Tianjin, used Tianjin as a "military station base" and frantically carried out economic control and plunder. They used various means to smuggle goods and drugs into Tianjin and other parts of North China through the eastern Hebei region and the ports of Tanggu and Qinhuangdao, resulting in a large outflow of domestic silver.

By the beginning of 1936, Tianjin Yuyuan, Huaxin, Baocheng and other yarn factories were successively annexed by the Japanese, and the Beiyang and Hengyuan yarn factories were also on the verge of bankruptcy. After the Japanese occupation of Tianjin in 1937, the Japanese controlled Tianjin's finance, taxation and customs, and forced the use of the "Union Bank Bills" issued by the puppet regime "United Reserve Bank" as the main currency in Tianjin, so as to control Tianjin's financial lifeline and plunder a large amount of gold and silver.

At the same time, Japan also exercised "control" over grain and other materials in Tianjin and its surrounding areas, and wantonly plundered Tianjin's rice, cotton, and other materials by means of high-pressure rule and low-price purchases through the North China Reclamation Company, the Rice Grain Control Association, and the Cotton Industry Association. The Japanese army even used bayonets in their hands to impose "substitute food" such as "mixed noodles" on the citizens of Tianjin, and forcibly requisitioned cotton from the peasants at a price 30 to 40 percent lower than the market price and shipped it back to Japan. The Japanese also plundered land in the rural areas of Tianjin's suburbs by means of entrapment and low-price requisition, and set up more than 120 farms and plundered more than 920,000 mu of land.

Lu Yuan agreed to take the merchant ship provided by Hansen to go north to Tianjin at this time, and it was precisely for the above many reasons that if he could destroy or stop the Japanese army's continued transfer of various materials from Tianjin to the Japanese mainland, in Lu Yuan's view, this was far more important than shooting a few Japanese soldiers. In the few days after the meeting with Xu Huanshan, Lu Yuan did not go out, but stayed in the residence all day looking for information and maps, and the moment he received a call from Hansen, Lu Yuan already had a thick booklet in hand.

This is not the first time Lu Yuan has gone far away, and he went to Germany for several months last time, so before leaving, Fauber and Aunt Fu only told Lu Yuan a few words, and then Lu Yuan and Hogg and Schuchmann walked with him. When Lu Yuan and the three of them actually entered Tianjin City, it was already noon two days later, and the streets of the city were full of bustling crowds, and from time to time you could see a team of more than a dozen Japanese patrols appearing.

Although Tianjin had been occupied by the Japanese for almost a year, most of the people were reluctant to leave their homes, except for a small number of people who had fled to the countryside. Although Japan stationed a large number of troops in Tianjin, there are about nine countries in the city of Tianjin that have concessions in Tianjin. Perhaps because of the existence of these foreign concessions in Tianjin, there are still many Chinese who stay in Tianjin in order to eat together, and most of the shops are still open as usual. What Lu Yuan and the three of them saw at this moment was that there were all kinds of shops on both sides of the street, and looking at the prosperity of Tianjin, it was no less than Shanghai.

The area of the US concession in Tianjin is not small, and Lu Yuan and the three of them settled in the US concession not only because they fancy this, but most importantly, because the address provided by Xu Huanshan is in this US concession. Lu Yuan didn't understand how the Tianjin underground party could put a secret stronghold in the Tianjin concession, and in his opinion, once there was an emergency, the underground party active in the urban area might not be able to smoothly enter the secret stronghold in the concession and hide. casually found a fairly eye-catching hostel to live in, Hogg and Schuchmann were driven out by Lu Yuan to find a suitable apartment or a single-family house, while Lu Yuan himself slowly left the hostel and went straight to the secret contact point provided by Xu Huanshan.

According to the address given by Xu Huanshan, it didn't take much effort and time, and Lu Yuan found the tea shop called Hutchison in the American concession. Standing at the corner of the street, Lu Yuanyuan looked at the wooden signboard outside the Hutchison door, and the flow of people coming in and out from time to time showed that the business of this tea shop was very good.

Lu Yuan is wearing a dark suit at the moment, but the dark suit on his body was customized by a professional tailor in Shanghai, and the customized suit with many elements of later generations is obviously different from those suits on the street outside. Therefore, as soon as Lu Yuan entered the Hutchison tea shop, he attracted a lot of attention. Lu Yuanzhi didn't care about these glances at him, but looked at the furnishings and layout of the Hutchison tea shop with a leisurely expression, and it could be seen that this tea shop, which was not very large, had been carefully arranged.

Looking at the Hutchison Tea Shop, which is only forty or fifty square meters in size, it is actually a large chase room, and in front of the wall facing the door of the store is a whole row of wooden cabinets, and the cabinets are full of glass jars containing all kinds of tea. In front of the lattice cabinet is a wooden counter, outside the counter are a few wooden seats, two handsome young men are walking back and forth to greet the guests who come into the store, and the shopkeeper with a long beard is secretly looking at Lu Yuan according to the counter at this moment.

"What kind of tea do guests want to buy? If you don't have a decision, why don't you sit down and try the new tea that has just arrived in our store? Lu Yuan, who was looking left and right, was eagerly greeted and sat down by a young man, and in the blink of an eye, a cup of hot tea was placed in Lu Yuan's hand. There were a lot of customers in the store at the moment, so Lu Yuan quietly picked up the teacup, and after secretly smelling the fragrance of tea, Lu Yuan took a sip of the brown tea in the cup.

After a few sips of hot tea, Lu Yuan suddenly took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but Lu Yuan took out the cigarettes but did not smoke them, but took out two cigarettes from the cigarette case, one left and one right, and placed them on both sides of his teacup. Lu Yuan, who attracted a lot of attention as soon as he entered the door, naturally couldn't escape the eyes of people with a heart when he made such a move, especially the shopkeeper of the tea shop who had been secretly observing Lu Yuan, and his heart jumped even more when he saw Lu Yuan's move.

The tea customers who were given up their seats by the tea shop guys generally don't sit and drink tea all the time, most of them just taste it, and then decide whether to sell the tea or leave, so Lu Yuan's side hasn't finished drinking a cup of tea, and the tea customers who came in before Lu Yuan have basically left. There were no tea customers who came in before Lu Yuan, and the long-bearded shopkeeper who had been staying behind the counter slowly walked to Lu Yuan's side, and after personally storing water in Lu Yuan's teacup, the long-bearded shopkeeper asked Lu Yuan with a twinkle in his eyes, "What kind of tea does Mr. want to buy?" ”

Lu Yuan just raised his eyes and glanced at the other party, and then replied softly, "Pu'er, but I only need 20-year-old tea, and you don't want to coax me with new tea that is only 3 years old." Lu Yuan's answer made the eyes of the long-bearded shopkeeper light up instantly, and then he sat down opposite Lu Yuan and continued to ask Lu Yuan in a low voice.

"Sir, there are only 17 years of Pu'er in the shop, if you have to be more than 20 years old Chen Pu'er, then you can only go to Yunnan to buy it in person, in this Tianjin city, there is no other Pu'er can beat us Hutchison." When the long-bearded shopkeeper said this, his eyes were firmly fixed on Lu Yuan, as if he wanted to keep all of Lu Yuan's reactions at the moment firmly in his mind. Listening to the words of the long-bearded shopkeeper, Lu Yuan smiled and picked up the cigarette by the teacup and put it in his pocket, then divided the remaining cigarette in two and handed half of it to the long-bearded shopkeeper.

"Trouble the shopkeeper, you have to rummage through the warehouse, maybe you can find a pack or two of more than 20 years old tea, maybe you can find a bag or two of old tea that is more than 20 years old, before your store proofs, I will come again, I hope there will be good news then." Lu Yuan put the half of the cigarette horizontally in the hand of the long-bearded shopkeeper according to the joint, and got up to leave. After walking out of the Hutchison tea shop, Lu Yuan had time to secretly scold the guy who formulated such a joint method, couldn't he use a banknote joint that was divided into two?

After Lu Yuan left, the long-bearded shopkeeper also hurried to Hutchison's backyard, moved a few bags of tea in the warehouse, and the long-bearded shopkeeper went down from the open floor to the secret passage. Walking out of the secret passage not far away, the long-bearded shopkeeper soon appeared in the courtyard next door, "Lao Wang, the connector has appeared, and the secret language is not wrong, but I can't see through this connector, he is too young." "Called Lao Wang by the long-bearded shopkeeper is Wang Qingnian, the shopkeeper of the pharmacy next door to Hutchison, who is over 50 years old and has been lurking in the American Concession in Tianjin for more than 5 years.

After listening to the report of the long-bearded shopkeeper, Wang Qingnian muttered secretly for a while, and then raised his head and said, "It should be fine, our secret contact point does not have direct contact with the local underground party organization in Tianjin, once someone uses secret language to connect, we must immediately activate the contact code with Shanghai." You stabilize the other party first, and after I contact the Shanghai side, I can figure out what the other party is here to do. ”

As the person in charge of the secret liaison point, Wang Qingnian was absolutely cautious, and after using the radio to contact the underground party in Shanghai, Wang Qingnian repeatedly asked to check Lu Yuan's identity. The address and secret message to Lu Yuan's secret contact point in Tianjin was a decision made by the Shanghai underground party organization after deliberation, so after Wang Qingnian contacted the Shanghai underground party, he quickly received a reply from the Shanghai side.

Wang Qingnian was still a little surprised when he received the reply from the underground party organization in Shanghai, because the Shanghai side replied very quickly this time, and in the reply, it also emphasized the need to ensure the safety of the connectors, and at the same time asked the contact point to unconditionally provide the connectors with the information of the Japanese army that the other party wanted, which surprised Wang Qingnian.