The Lantern Festival is fleeting, and the upcoming national conference in Yanjing is approaching, and the political forces and people of all parts of China are covered by overwhelming and noisy public opinion, and the eyes of all countries in the world have also turned to Yanjing.

For unknown reasons, part of the contents of the "Press and Publication Law," the "Financial Investment Law (Draft)," and the "Reform Plan for the Nationalization of the Army," which were to be promulgated by the Central Political Axe and the Government Affairs Yuan, were leaked, and Tianjin's "Ta Kung Pao" and the "Dongya Yuebao," which was controlled by the political axe of the People's Republic of China, took the lead in exposing them and attaching fierce comments, and the major Chinese and foreign newspapers immediately reprinted them one after another, and in just three days they spread throughout China and abroad, arousing strong concern from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and other countries.

The great powers almost unanimously claimed that China's upcoming bill would likely change China's history and the political landscape of Asia as a whole.

On Tuesday, February 18, 1919, there were three days left before the opening ceremony of the National Congress.

At five o'clock in the morning, the passenger train from Pukou in Nanjing to Tianjin left Zaozhuang Station in Shandong Province with a long whistle and headed north at a steady speed of 25 kilometers per hour.

Most of the more than 100 diplomats and Chinese and foreign journalists in the two first-class carriages were still asleep, and only Woodgate, a young and handsome reporter of the British "Times" in Nanjing, and Li Yufen, a reporter from the "China Times" affiliated to the Nanjing camp, got up early, washed up, and sat in the aisle rest area and chatted in a low voice.

"Mr. Woodgate, I didn't expect you to take this train, I thought that your newspaper would rush to Yanjing after covering today's Nanjing Xingying Agricultural Development Conference."

Li Yufen, who has short ear-length hair, is only twenty-three years old, not pretty, but her complexion is white and red, her clothes are very coordinated, and her whole body exudes youthful vitality.

Woodgate noticed this young Chinese female colleague as early as when she was in Nanjing, and also knew that behind her was the powerful Nanjing camp, and the rapidly growing and innovative "China Times" had come from behind, and had become a strong position of China's No. 1 newspaper, Woodgate liked to communicate with Li Yufen very much:

"Beautiful Miss Li, although we have deep admiration for the achievements of agricultural development in the southern provinces of China, the upcoming conference in Yanjing is much more important than the agricultural conference in Nanjing, isn't it?"

"That's right, the conference in Yanjing is too important to affect the future fate of our entire country, and it seems that you also attach great importance to it." Li Yufen smiled and seemed to subconsciously look at the table.

The attentive Woodgate glanced out of the closed window, and he couldn't see anything except the darkness, but he had been in China for more than a year, and he often took the Tianjin-Pudong Railway, frequently traveling between the Beijing-Tianjin area and Nanjing, so he was very familiar with the train operation, and when he saw Li Yufen's appearance, he knew that she rarely took the train:

"Miss Li doesn't seem to be used to life on the train, you slept in my lower bunk last night, and you felt like you couldn't sleep all the time, don't you feel very uncomfortable?"

Li Yufen smiled apologetically: "I'm sorry, I didn't expect to bother you, this is my first time taking the train, it feels weird, hehe!" ”

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, I remember the first time I was on a steamer when I was a child, I vomited so much that I got off the boat and had a high fever, and it took me a week to recover, and even my sister laughed at me." ”

Li Yufen smiled gratefully, feeling that Woodgate, who was five big and three thick, was far more delicate than he looked on the outside, so he chatted with Woodgate very happily about each other's childhood past.

This chat is half an hour, and the more they talk, the more speculative it becomes, if it weren't for the fear of waking up others, I'm afraid the two would have laughed a long time ago.

Suddenly, the smoothly running train crashed, followed by a series of metal crashes and piercing braking sounds, and the passengers on the entire train were awakened by the successive sudden braking vibrations, screams and inquiries one after another.

Woodgate held the dumped Li Yufen tightly, and waited for the train to slow down and was about to stop, before letting go of his hand: "Don't be afraid, maybe something happened in front of the railway, I have experienced this kind of thing a few times, and in the end it was fine." ”

Li Yufen glanced at the various boxes that had been opened and the passengers who ran out of them in a panic, and patted her full chest very scared:

"I'm scared to death, thank you, Matt, if you hadn't held me up, I might have fallen."

"It's my pleasure, dear Fen, and I'll be fine in a moment."

Woodgate smiled and turned to open the closed window to see what was going on in front of him, but only halfway open he heard a dense burst of gunfire outside.

Woodgate was so frightened that he immediately closed the car window, grabbed Li Yufen, who was frightened and faceless beside him, hurried back to the box, and eagerly reported to the two French diplomats who were getting dressed:

"Don't go out, there's gunfire, it's very dense! I remembered that this place is called Guanqiao Town, and there is a big mountain in the east full of countless bandits, and it is in this place that the entire train of disaster relief materials was robbed four months ago! ”

The two French diplomats turned blue with fright.

One of the older was slumped in the bunk, and then remembered something, and hurriedly took out the suitcase from below, put it on the bed and opened it, stuffed the wad of pound bills contained in it into his boots, and then quickly closed the suitcase, grabbed his companion by the hand, and asked him to find a place to hide the silver dollars in his bag at once.

Li Yufen was dumbfounded, Woodgate wanted to laugh but didn't dare to laugh, he despised these two timid Frenchmen very much, but before Woodgate showed his composure, there were already screams and dense footsteps in the corridor, a gunshot and a wail of being shot came from next door, and then the screams and cries of the two women suddenly sounded, and the whole carriage was full of deafening roars and footsteps.

"Bang-"

The huge sound of kicking the door frightened Woodgate and the other four people to desperately hide backwards, and two masked bandits armed with German C96 Mauser pistols rushed into the box, and the short and stout masked bandits flew up, kicking Woodgate, who wanted to stand up and step forward to reason, and flew out upside down, hitting Li Yufen hard.

Li Yufen, who was dizzy from being hit by the pain in her body and her head touching the carriage, reacted quickly and hugged Woodgate's neck tightly to prevent him from resisting.

In less than two minutes, the luggage and money of Li Yufen and Woodgate were looted, the pounds and silver dollars hidden in the shoes of the two French diplomats were all searched, and one of the bandits grabbed the Frenchman who was trying to regain his property, beat him, and finally pointed a gun at the Frenchman's head and was about to pull the trigger.

"No!"

Li Yufen didn't know where the strength came from, pushed Woodgate away, pounced on the already desperate Frenchman, and pleaded with tears in her eyes at the muzzle of the black hole:

"Big brother, I beg you, don't shoot! If the foreigner is really dead, the political axe will never let you go, I beg you, you are merciful, there are a lot of adults! ”

"Slut-smack-"

The masked bandit knocked Li Yufen to the ground with a palm, thought about it, and reluctantly put away the gun, just as there was a whistle outside, followed by the neighing of horses, and several other bandits hurriedly pulled away the unrelenting bandit, and fled without a trace in a blink of an eye.

The carriage was terrifyingly quiet, only the sad crying next door kept coming, Woodgate, who had severe abdominal pain and cold sweat, gratefully picked up Li Yufen, who had fainted, and two Frenchmen hurriedly came up to help.

After a while, the sound of chaotic footsteps came again, and Michael, the second secretary of the British Consulate in Nanjing, whose face was bloodied, appeared at the door of Woodgate's box, glanced at Woodgate, and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"Michael, are you alright?"

Woodgate's abdomen was as painful as if he had been hit by a truck, but he still struggled forward, asked with concern, and pulled out a handkerchief for Michael to wipe the blood off his face, only to see a large crack in Michael's left cheekbone.

Michael wiped his face and told what he had learned:

"One Swede and one Dutch died in the seventh carriage in front, one of our carriages died and more than a dozen were wounded, Simmons, the head of the Jardine Matheson Company next door to you, also died, all of them tried to raise their guns to resist and were killed, four policemen on the car also died, the condition of the other carriages is unknown, but most of the window glass was shattered by bullets, and our three first-class carriages were also looted, alas...... Who is this injured woman? ”

"China Times reporter Li Yufen, if she hadn't begged the bandits, maybe we would have been killed."

Woodgate looked gratefully at the unconscious Li Yufen, and then briefly informed him of what had just happened, and the two Frenchmen gratefully recounted Li Yufen's bravery, and finally went so far as to babble and angrily scold the evil bandits and the incompetent Chinese political axe.

Michael was also very annoyed: "Matt, you often take this railway, do you know whose sphere of influence this is?" ”

Woodgate shook his head: "I don't know, the entire southern part of Shandong and the northern part of Jiangsu are full of bandits, they fight each other and cooperate with each other, no one knows which gang of bandits did it...... Last year, a train of relief materials from Nanjing to the disaster area in Shandong was also robbed on this section of the railway!

At that time, General Xiao Yimin was very angry and demanded that the Shandong political axe and the army be held accountable for this, and issued a threat that if the relief materials looted by the bandits were not returned immediately, the two armies stationed in Jiangsu would march into Shandong and make every effort to exterminate the bandits.

"In the end, it is estimated that the bandits who got the news were scared and sent most of the looted relief materials back to the railway line, and then they didn't hear anything big about this section of the railway."

Michael sighed: "It seems that General Xiao Yimin, who is still in the camp in Nanjing, has courage, just think about the stability and peace of the provinces south of the Yangtze River under his leadership, you can know his powerful role and prestige, but now many people have died, and all the property has been robbed by the bandits who are all evil, and among the dead are the managers of our European consortium and diplomatic officials, I don't know how Yanjing Zheng Axe will explain this time?" A major diplomatic dispute seems inevitable! ”

Woodgate and the two French diplomats were annoyed by the fact that they could not expect to receive reasonable compensation from the Yanjing political axe, and the only way was to use the prestige of their own political axe to exert strong diplomatic pressure on the Yanjing political axe.

(To be continued)