At this time, on the other hand, September has become relatively less turbulent.

On September 13, two bombs were thrown inside the gate of the China Import and Export Company on the road to the mansion, injuring two employees. Three days later, two grenades were thrown into the crowd at the southern end of the Sichuan Road and Bridge, injuring more than a dozen people.

On 18 September, the seventh anniversary of the Mukden incident, all administrative authorities took special precautions, such as additional armed patrols, barricades in the streets, searches for hidden weapons, and inspections of hotel occupants.

Thanks to these measures, "the day passed without incident."

In the whole of September, there were only 5 incidents, resulting in 15 injuries and 2 deaths. However, the deceased in the assassination on September 30, 1938 was the famous politician Tang Shaoyi, who was wanted by the commander of the Japanese army to be the head of the puppet government in Nanjing.

In 1938, Prime Minister Konoe's main strategy against China was to urge a prominent Chinese politician to come forward and organize a central government under Japanese control for peaceful colonization. The three most likely candidates are Cao Yin, Wu Beifu and Tang Shaoyi.

Cao Yin died, and Wu had no intention of taking on this position, and his condition was that unless the Japanese were evacuated. Therefore, only Tang Shaoyi was killed. And he expressed his willingness to be the head of the new national government.

When Zhou Weilong, director of the East China Bureau of Military Command, received information that Tang Shaoyi was signing an agreement with the Japanese, he immediately suggested assassination. Daley agreed to his suggestion.

The Military Unification Action Group grasped his whereabouts through Tang Shaoyi's relative Xie Zhipan (who also worked for the Military Unification Bureau).

Zhao Lijun, head of the Military Command Operations Group, learned from Xie Zhipan that Tang Shaoyi was an antique collector. So, together with other members of the assassination team, Xiang Qiangwei and Lin Zhijiang, he put a rare ancient vase in a box with a fake bottom, and a small sharp axe was hidden in the fake bottom. After Xie Zhipan's introduction, they brought the vase into Tang Shaoyi's living room.

When Tang Shaoyi admired the ancient bottle, a person approached the box, drew a sharp axe and slashed at his head, killing him on the sofa. The death of this famous figure has led to a large-scale police search, but Xiang Qiangwei and Xie Zhipan have fled to Chongqing through Hong Kong. Since then, the case has not been solved.

The second wave of terror, which was also greatly weakened, began in late November 1938 with the assassination of Fu Xiao'an, the puppet mayor of Shanghai. In October, there were eight assassinations, three resulting in deaths.

In November, there were several murders and assassination attempts, many of which were politically motivated, but on November 25 Mayor Fu Xiao'an was almost killed, not at the hands of Hankow thieves, but by insiders of the puppet government.

That morning, "Mayor Fu" left his apartment at the New Asia Hotel by car, with a Japanese gendarme sitting beside him and two Chinese bodyguards following him on a motorcycle with a side fight.

At 9:50 a.m., the car arrived at the "Special City Government" building in Jiangwan. When the mayor stepped out of the car, a uniformed policeman stepped forward and shot him, but missed. Fu Xiao'an fell to the ground in fright, and the Japanese bodyguard pulled out a pistol, and the police fired three shots at him instead, knocking him down.

The Assassin then fled to a corner and shot himself. The Japanese soldiers then took out the heart and liver of the assassin and placed them in front of the slain Japanese military police as a sacrifice.

The Assassin's name was Zhou Wenshan, 20 years old, a graduate of the pre-Japanese Police Academy, and a native of Hubei.

He was introduced by Jiang Tongyi, a detective at the puppet government police academy, and participated in the puppet defense regiment under the rule of Su Xiwen, the "mayor of the avenue". The Japanese gendarmerie immediately sent men to arrest Jiang Tongyi, but he had left Shanghai with his family three days earlier.

The next day, the Japanese military arrested Chen Jintao, the head of the defense regiment, and 30 of his subordinates, all of whom were taken to the Hongkou Military Police Headquarters. Other introducers or guarantors among the officials of the puppet police station and the police training camp were also arrested by the Japanese military police.

Because of the close relationship between the Nationalist Government's Military Command Bureau and the Shanghai police, it would be natural for the Japanese to suspect that the Military Command had instigated this bold assassination.

However, after extensive interrogation, the Japanese gendarmerie seemed to believe that this was an attack on Fu Xiao'an by the officials of the defense regiment on behalf of the ousted head of the Dadao government, Su Xiwen.

This result was not enough to soothe Fu Xiao'an, who was so traumatized by the shooting that he spent 10 days in Fumin Hospital.

A third wave of attacks did not follow. In December and January, Shanghai was quite quiet. The next major event was not a bomb drop or a dramatic public assassination, but a secret and professional murder of a Japanese spy planned by secret agents of the Kuomintang.

At 7 p.m. on January 29, 1939, the servants of the Xinxin Hotel heard gunfire coming from room 605, and they knew that a man named Ma Yihang lived there.

When they entered room 605, they found Mr. Ma shot in the right temple, lying on his back in a pool of blood. He appears to have been shot while sitting at his desk reading a biography of Mussolini.

At 7:06 a.m., an employee of the Xinxin Hotel, located upstairs from the Xinxin Department Store on Guizhou Road, called the Laozha Patrol Room, and Ma Yihang was immediately taken to Renji Hospital, where he never recovered his senses and died at 9:45 a.m.

When the police inspected his belongings, they found a pass with a photo of him, signed Ma Yihang, who was originally from Fujian. He was 42 years old and held the position of Senator of the Executive Yuan of the Restoration Government.

This pass was issued by the Japanese and signed by the Legislative Yuan of the Restoration Government, and the holder of the pass can travel through Nanjing, Hong□ and Jiangwan.

Upon returning to Room 605, the Detective Unit found an empty magazine. Ballistic analysis revealed that the Assassins were using a 32-caliber "Devil" pistol, number 1306.

The gun was found at the scene of a 1930 weapons robbery by the Police Department of the Ministry of Industry and confiscated by the Shanghai SAR Court.

Since court records indicate that the firearm was handed over to the Songhu Garrison Command in 1934, the Investigation Unit has good reason to believe that Ma Yihang was murdered by a military command special operations group on the orders of Daley

The bizarre background of the assassination led to dramatic headlines in the newspapers: "Mysterious Man Killed in Hotel in Main Port", "Shooting in the Fog", and so on.

However, the secret investigation into the case yielded far more shocking evidence than the press had speculated.

The newspaper correctly reported that Ma Yihang had served for the Japanese occupation forces in Guangzhou and had served as director of the Finance Department of the Guangdong Provincial Government.

Shortly after the shooting, the police learned from the hotel attendant that during Ma Yihang's stay at the hotel, five or six people came to visit him every day, all dressed and speaking Chinese.

After carefully examining Ma Yihang's belongings, the detectives found his address book, which contained hundreds of names, ranging from policemen and compradors to businessmen and politicians. In addition, three extremely interesting documents were found

The "affairs to be implemented in South China" are the timetable and specific arrangements for the overthrow of the "real power faction" in Guangdong and the establishment of intelligence agencies in Shanghai and Nanjing. The budget for its publication and publicity amounted to 150,000 yuan.

The "Organization of the Press Agency" is a plan to form a newspaper to influence the newspapers in Hong Kong and to guide the propaganda efforts of the Chinese residents of the United States and the Nanyang Islands, acting under the directives of the new secret service to be established.

"Organize a denunciation group" and plan to form a special team for Wang Weiwei's supporters in Guangdong. The group will operate under the direction of the Secret Service and will pursue an iron-clad policy of "using force against reactionaries", with branches in Hong Kong and Kowloon, and a mobile unit to gather intelligence and direct special operations, including assassinations.

Obviously, Ma Yihang was not just a political adviser to the new government.

These circumstances were secretly confirmed on the morning of 30 January. Just before the interrogation at the funeral home, the Secret Service Unit received a phone call from the American Shanghai Telephone Company. The phone said one of their staff members was willing to provide anonymous information about the Ma Yihang case.

In a face-to-face conversation with a Tanmu, "a Chinese man from Taiwan" claimed that Ma Yihang was his friend since 1918.

At the time, the intelligence provider worked for the Guangdong provincial government, while Ma Yihang was the head of the provincial finance department, working under the direct supervision of Chen Qiongming.

Ma Yihang has an excellent relationship with a Japanese-Chinese half-breed named Cai Xiangsheng, who speaks fluent Japanese. He has a close connection with Wang Weiwei.

After Chen Qiongming was overthrown, Ma Yihang and Cai Xiangsheng fled to Japan without being arrested. After that, Cai Xiangsheng entered the University of Tokyo and stayed in Japan ever since. Ma Yihang, on the other hand, returned to China and joined Wang Wei's faction as a member of the Military Commission of the Nanjing government.

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July-August 1937, Cai Xiangsheng successfully held positions in several pseudo-organizations, and a year later became the head of the political section of the Japanese special service unit under General Tanaka. In December, when Wang Wei broke with Chang Kaishen, Cai Xiangsheng came to Hong Kong and recruited Ma Yihang.

They returned to Shanghai together on January 1, 1939, and Ma Yihang served as the assistant to the chief of the political section of the Japanese secret service at Unit 4, No. 483 on the Bund.

From then on, Ma Yihang relied on Cai Xiangsheng's funds to live in Shanghai, moving from one hotel to another until he died in room 605 of the Xinxin Hotel.

If there were any doubts about the basic facts in the Taiwanese narrative, then when Ma Yihang's son, Cai Xiangsheng, and representatives of the Japanese secret service appeared at the funeral home and claimed Ma Yihang's relics, the detective unit dispelled all suspicions.

The Assassin was never caught again. Thus, the death of Ma Yihang, the imprisonment of Colonel Yang, and the death of "Two Tons Chang" were all signs of setbacks for the Japanese spies and their Chinese accomplices.

When life on the "isolated island" of Shanghai became increasingly difficult, the initiative of the assassination was in the hands of Kuomintang agents, who staged a number of active assassinations against senior puppet officials who encouraged cooperation with enemy invasion through negotiations.

By the autumn of 1939, the economic boom of 1937-1938, driven by the influx of refugees, was beginning to wane. The situation at that time made it clear that the Japanese were going to blockade the commercial and passenger traffic on the Yangtze River, thus cutting off Shanghai from most of the interior.

From then on, prices are like a kite that has blown off its string, and it is like becoming an immortal and soaring on the ground.

Utility workers have repeatedly gone on strike, and trams and cars have just been overloaded like theaters and hotels. The silver and copper coins were all covered, and the stamps had a new use, temporarily used as auxiliary coins.

It's a pity that people can't send letters, otherwise the difficulty of crowding the car can be avoided. The competition for survival gradually sheds its ornaments and masks, revealing the original wolf venom. Shame is not cheap, and many people cannot afford to maintain it.

In 1939, Shanghai's stock market was out of control. Speculators have speculated war stocks to unbelievably high prices, and currency exchange rates "jump up and down with every rumor."

At the beginning of February 1939, hoarders bought a large amount of cotton at a price of 1,000 yuan per large bag and stored it in the warehouse. As a result, the domestic market was blocked, and foreign trading companies that wanted to ship cotton through French Indochina to Europe.

At the end of the month, the price rose to $2,000. On June 25, Japan quickly forced the authorities to close its ports to Chinese ships. The artificially rising cotton market collapsed. More than 50 import and export companies went bankrupt as a result; With such a tight monetary policy, it was impossible to make the required profits, so the stock market plummeted.

Swindle! Big scams, small scams, and big scams, like the cotton yarn incident, deprived people of their necessities and endangered the lives of the entire city.

This was preceded by a peculiar prosperity in Shanghai, as opposed to the polarized prosperity of 1937-1938, shortly after the Sino-Japanese war. It's almost impossible to book a room (except at the Chinachem Hotel), and even a weekend movie has to be booked in advance. Nightclubs are lined up.

The lives of Americans and Britons seem to be exactly the same as they were before 1937, except that they eat, dance, and drink more often than before.

Most people are employed by large corporations whose salaries are denominated in dollars or pounds, and with the depreciation of China's currency, their happy lives returned, at least then.

Secretly, however, Shanghai is already suffering from the spread of poisonous gases, just as the illness of one person in a family is a sign of chaos in the whole family.

Inflation is one such disease, hitting both white-collar workers and blue-collar workers. If in 1936 the cost of living index of Shanghainese was 100, then by May 1939 the price of food was 774, rent was 385, clothing was 503, fuel was 636, and daily necessities were 599. (This increase, just ask if you are afraid!) ）

After the Japanese military occupation of southern Shanghai in November 1937, Nanshi became quite prosperous, but now it is also in full swing. In 1937, the downtown where you could buy jade, goldfish and tropical birds became deserted in 1939, with only a small number of poor people begging for flour and rice.

In the once-crowded temple of the City God, beggars lie at the foot of dusty idols.

At the beginning of 1940, the traveler Vanya? Vanya Oakes left Shanghai at a time when the Japanese puppets were carefully screening between the right and the left, and she reported on the determination of the Shanghainese to fight to the death against the invaders.

But when she returned to Shanghai a few months later, she felt a breakdown in China's spirit. She asked her Chinese friends why they had become so passive and accepted the Japanese occupation. Their answer was simple: "Rice."

。