Just when Yuan Shikai set off from Jinan, Xia Bohai and Xiao Jianjun also came to Qingdao. Of course, they are not here to welcome Yuan Shikai, although Yuan Shikai is a generation of heroes in the history of the old time and space, and once called for the wind in the Chinese political arena, once reached the peak of power, but now he is only a governor of Shandong, and due to the arrival of the traverser, on the future historical stage, the space left for Yuan Shikai's performance will be greatly reduced, although Yuan Shikai must still have room to rise, but it will definitely not reach the height of the old time and space. Therefore, it is not worth Xia Bohai and Xiao Jianjun to rush from Tianjin to Qingdao to see him in person.

Xia Bohai and Xiao Jianjun came to Qingdao is another important task, on the one hand, it is to examine the construction of all aspects of Qingdao's infrastructure projects, and now the traverser has been in this era for almost a year, and has initially established its own forces, and with the signing of the [Qing Russian Treaty on the Settlement of the Three Eastern Provinces], the war of aggression against China by the Eight-Nation Alliance has basically ended, and the next step of the crossing group will also enter a period of development. Moreover, the political, economic, and military center of gravity will also be transferred from Tianjin to Qingdao, and the two of them will naturally have to examine the current construction situation in Qingdao to provide a basis for formulating the next work plan.

Although within this year, the term of office of the current temporary leadership of the crossing group will end, and a new leadership group and administrative system will be re-generated, but although the system of how to produce a new leadership group has not yet been determined, Xia Bohai, Xiao Jianjun and others are still full of confidence in the current five-member executive committee as a new leadership team, on the one hand, the work results of the executive committee have been clear, and the military aspect has completely defeated the eight-nation coalition and changed the [Xinchou Treaty] As a result, it thwarted Russia's attempt to move south, recovered Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Weihai, and other places one after another, and basically built the backbone of the People's Army's navy and army; politically, it has established a relatively stable ruling foundation in Tianjin and Qingdao, carried out land reform experiments in some areas, and determined a relatively stable source of financial revenue.

It can be said that with the current strength of the crossing group, it is quite difficult to achieve such an achievement, after all, this is not sitting in front of the monitor to point out the country, exalting words on the keyboard, and must require the crossing group to drive out all the invaders, recover all the lost territory, overthrow the rule of the Qing court, and establish a republic, which is an impossible task to accomplish in this year.

On the other hand, the new leadership group will definitely be elected by election, which is nothing more than the three ways of all sea elections, regional elections, and substitute elections, but now the number of people in the army accounts for nearly 40 percent of the total number of people in the group, and this group of people will certainly be the iron vote warehouse of the current executive committee, and in addition, there are at least about 1,000 beneficiaries in the current leadership, so no matter how it is chosen, the current executive committee has absolute certainty of victory.

And although there are indeed some voices in the crossing group who question the current executive committee, after all, they are only a very small number and cannot affect the overall situation, and these people are okay in private, but it is too high to ask them to come out to participate in the election.

It is precisely for these reasons that the current executive committee is not worried about the emergence of a new leadership group at all, so at this time Xia Bohai and Xiao Jianjun came to Qingdao to inspect the construction and land reform work here and prepare for the future.

At the same time, the two had another important matter to negotiate with Qin Zheng and Wang Yunpeng, that is, the incident of the landlord group's attack on Menbu Village.

Although this incident did not cause much damage to the crossing group, but with the participation of the Beiyang New Army, and then arrested the main initiator of the landlord group, the organizer Wan Yufu, and most of the members, in the interrogation found that in the landlord alliance, Jingran also had the participation of Wang Kexing, Wang Kefu, the brothers who had escaped the net in Wangjiazhai. Therefore, Shang Qisong, the minister of the Ministry of Security, immediately rushed to Qingdao to take charge of a comprehensive investigation into the incident.

After a month of investigation, interrogating all the members, and doing some investigations, Shang Qisong has a relatively complete understanding of the whole incident, of course, now the power of the crossing group in Shandong is limited after all, so there is still a part of the truth that cannot be investigated, but it can basically make a report. Xia Bohai and Xiao Jianjun also came to Qingdao to listen to this report.

Xia Bohai, Qin Zheng, Xiao Jianjun, and Wang Yunpeng gathered to listen to Shang Qisong's report.

Shang Qisong said: " According to the results of our investigation, the establishment of the landlords' alliance was ostensibly initiated and organized by Wan Yufu, but the leading people behind it were actually the Wang brothers, including Wan Yufu's many methods, as well as the words to persuade other landlords, were also taught to him by the Wang brothers, it can be said that without the participation of the Wang brothers, this landlords' alliance would probably not be organized, even if it was organized, it would not have been on such a large scale; and the battle to attack Menbu Village was also promoted by the Wang brothers; including the participation of the Beiyang New Army, the Wang brothers also played a decisive role in this, according to Wan Yufu's confessionAlthough his brother-in-law Sun Zhongkui and his son Wankun both served in the Beiyang New Army, it was the Wang brothers who went to Jinan to carry out activities, which prompted Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun to send troops to support the landlord's army in their private names, and according to the Wang brothers, Yuan Shikai acquiesced to Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun's actions, of course, this is also in line with the practice of Qing court officialdom. ”

Qin Zheng said: "Do you suspect that the Wang brothers and Yuan Shikai have colluded?"

Shang Qisong said: "We can't confirm this, we can only know by asking the brothers of the Wang family or Yuan Shikai, but Yuan Shikai's acquiescence to Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun's actions should be basically credible." ”

Wang Yunpeng said: "If Yuan Shikai acquiesced in Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun's actions, then his telegram to us said that he had already shot Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others, is it false?"

Xia Bohai said: "This is not fake, it is estimated that Yuan Datou has planned it from the beginning, and when necessary, Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others can be thrown out as scapegoats." ”

Xiao Jianjun nodded and said, "With Lao Yuan's bird nature, he will definitely do this kind of thing." ”

Qin Zheng said: "I just want to know what is the relationship between the Wang brothers and Yuan Shikai, and what kind of role the Wang brothers play in this battle with the participation of the Beiyang New Army." ”

Shang Qisong said: "We really can't do anything about this, because we can't go to Jinan to investigate and collect evidence now, but what can be determined is that the Wang brothers and Yuan Shikai must have some kind of relationship." ”

Xia Bohai said: "This is not to blame the Ministry of Security, it is indeed our strength is not enough, maybe the Wang family and Yuan Datou have some friendship." ”

Shang Qisong shook his head and said: "According to the existing situation, I'm afraid the relationship between this will not be so simple, first of all, Wangjiazhai in the past was a local tyrant, and Wang Zhanyuan, the old boss, was originally a bandit, so it is impossible to have any friendship with Yuan Shikai, and we have asked the residents of Wangjiazhai, as well as other members of the Wang family, and this has been confirmed." In addition, the two brothers of the Wang family did not show anything outstanding in the past, but their actions this time were obviously trained in some professional training, whether it was to encourage other landlords to join such an alliance, as well as the organization and plan, including the operational arrangements for attacking Menbu Village, they were all very professional, and they did not look like the children of local tyrants at all. Therefore, we believe that during this time, something must have happened to the Wang brothers that taught them a lot of skills, and it is very likely that they joined a certain organization to obtain such support. ”

Xiao Jianjun said: "This organization was created by Lao Yuan to deal with us?"

Qin Zheng said: "This is very likely, I speculate like this, the Wang brothers fled to Jinan and threw themselves under Yuan Shikai, and Yuan Shikai has become wary of us, and the Wang brothers have an enmity with us, so Yuan Shikai took in their brothers, and taught them some intelligence knowledge, and then put them back to fight against us, and even secretly acquiesced to the Beiyang New Army to help the landlord's army." ”

Shang Qisong said: " Political Commissar Qin's speculation is basically logical, but we don't think this possibility is very likely, because if it is this military operation planned by Yuan Shikai, first of all, the Beiyang New Army troops involved will not be so small, only more than 400 people, since we want to deal with us, it is better to simply do it thoroughly, and secondly, we should take some official channels, such as asking Gaomi County to give support, and there is no need for Yuan Shikai to give a formal order, as long as a password is enough, just a county magistrate, will never dare to disobey the governor's order, not to mention that it is reasonable in reason to defend the interests of the squire, but we have asked the officials of Gaomi County, but they have not received any instructions from Yuan Shikai, and after the failure of the attack on Menbu Village, Wan Yufu fled to Gaomi County, and asked Zheng Daiyuan to mobilize the people of the city to defend the city, but Zheng Daiyuan did not do so, if there was Yuan Shikai's order, Zheng Daiyuan would never dare to disobey. Therefore, we suspect that there is a more likely alternative force. ”

"So what kind of force will it be?"

Shang Qisong said: "We guess that it is very likely to be Japanese. ”

Everyone was also a little surprised, Qin Zheng said, "How can you think it's Japanese?"

Shang Qisong said: "In this era, only Japan has done the most meticulous work of intelligence collection against China, and it has penetrated the deepest, on the one hand, Japan is the closest to China, and has great ambitions for China's territory, on the other hand, the appearance of the Japanese is very close to Chinese, and they also have a considerable understanding of China's customs and culture, which also provides convenient conditions for their intelligence collection work, so we guess that the Wang brothers may be absorbed by Japan's intelligence agencies and used against us." ”

Wang Yunpeng said: "If the Japanese want to collect information on us, I can understand it, but why did the Japanese launch a battle to enter the village of Gaimen and sabotage our land reform work? Aren't we joining forces with Japan to fight against Russia?"