The news of the Chengdu riots and the burning of the city spread throughout the country overnight.

Not long ago, Yuan Shikai, who had just succeeded in forcing the Manchu court to compromise and ascended to the premiership of the cabinet in one fell swoop, was the first to send a telegram of inquiry, followed by urgent telegrams from European and American ambassadors to China and consulates in various places, asking whether their nationals and consular offices were safe.

In the case of the chaos of the whole country and their own affairs, all the eyeballs are staring at their own one-third of an acre of land, staring at the group of leaders of the League in Nanjing, who are likely to change the fate of China, staring at the imperial court in Yanjing and the new prime minister Yuan Shikai, where can they take care of the remote areas in the southwest far away from the political center?

What is intriguing is that the newspapers of the League throughout the provinces of the country did not react to the Chengdu riots, and three days later suddenly set off a violent wave of public opinion, unequivocally supported the revolutionary actions of the Sichuan League, and successively put the responsibility on Pu Dianjun and Zhu Qinglan, solemnly announced that the Nanjing Provisional Political Axe had appointed Luo Lun and Yin Changheng, leaders of the Sichuan League, as the chief and deputy governors of Sichuan Province, appointed Xiong Kewu, who had fled from Sichuan after the failure of the Guang'an Uprising, as the commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Army, and ordered all parties to work together to reorganize the new Sichuan Provincial Political Axe.

The major newspapers in Chongqing published statements and critical articles one after another, refusing to recognize the Sichuan New Deal Axe reorganized by Luo Lun and Yin Changheng, criticizing the favoritism and bureaucratic style of the Nanjing Provisional Political Axe, and saying that the people of Chongqing had every right to decide their own destiny.

Since then, the two camps in Sichuan, both under the leadership of the League, have entered a state of confrontation, attacking and attacking each other without compromise.

After three days of all-out disaster relief, the fire was finally completely extinguished, and more than 100,000 homeless citizens did not have time to heal the pain in their hearts, so they began to clean up the wreckage and rebuild their homes with tears in their eyes, otherwise they would not be able to survive this cold winter.

In this sudden riot, more than 3,400 innocent citizens were killed, more than 800 wives were separated, families were destroyed, and more than 14,000 people were injured.

The patrol of more than 3,000 men died, those who fled, disappeared without a trace, and the new army of 12,000 men was regrouped and only 7,000 remained.

In the chaos, more than 10 leaders of the volunteer army died mysteriously, and more than 100,000 terrified rabble people hurriedly fled from Chengdu, a place of right and wrong, lest if they took a slow step, they would be treated as scapegoats for this chaos; Dozens of officers of the New Army, police chiefs, and sub-bureau chiefs resigned one after another, took the blame and returned to their hometowns with their wives and children.

Pu Dianjun, who had only been the governor for a few days, disguised himself and fled Sichuan alone and ran to Yanjing; Zhu Qinglan, the deputy governor, was ashamed, and had no shame to see Zhao Erfeng and his colleagues in the army, and fled to Shanghai by boat with the four hundred oceans that Yin Changheng secretly sent.

Most of the dozens of officials who had sworn to follow the two chief and deputy governors retired, and those who should have done business continued to do business, and those who should have left Sichuan and returned to their hometowns did not continue to stay. In troubled times, everyone has the frightened consciousness of "settling accounts after the autumn", not to mention that the two former masters have been identified as the "culprits" by the Nanjing Provisional Political Axe.

At noon the day after the riot, the heads of the various departments of the League and the remaining group of capitalists of the Baolu Association hurriedly appeared, one by one frightened, dodging and dodging, and gathered to the Mingyuan Building in the imperial city, which had not been burned, to hold an emergency meeting.

Xiao Yimin, who was leading troops to inspect various streets and directing the military and civilians to work together to relieve the disaster, was hurriedly dragged away by Luo Lun and others to attend the aftermath meeting together to discuss how to rebuild the political axe as soon as possible and restore order.

Xiao Yimin, who was covered in dirt and dust on his face, just sat down, and I don't know which hall director diligently handed over a wet towel, Xiao Yimin took it and wiped a few handfuls of his face, and returned the towel to say thank you, and found that the hall director who was over forty years old in front of him was still bending down and waiting for something, only then did he remember that his voice was hoarse, and people couldn't hear what he said clearly.

During the three-hour meeting, Xiao Yimin looked calm, listened attentively, and did not express any opinion on anything to be held accountable.

When talking about the raising of disaster relief funds and the distribution of disaster relief food, Xiao Yimin immediately stood up, clapped his hands, pointed to his throat, and squeezed out a few words with difficulty:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the biggest difficulty now is not the problem of money, but the supply of firewood, rice, oil and salt, we should immediately gather representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, work together, and try our best to solve the problem of eating, as long as the political axe is still there, we are not afraid that there will be no money to return to the business in the future, especially at this time, no one should care about what face, what responsibility to pursue, face and responsibility can be talked about later.

"Let me make a statement here, there are still more than 20,000 homeless people in the north of the city, and there are nearly 10,000 brothers in the Northern Sichuan Baolu Army outside the north gate, and I have taken care of the aftermath of these people! I'm sorry, everyone, there are still a lot of robbers in the city, and it's useless to say anything when you settle down, so I'll go first. ”

As soon as Xiao Yimin finished speaking, nearly 100 participants were full of shame, and few dared to look at Xiao Yimin who was striding away.

Yin Changheng laughed, discussed with Luo Lun slightly, and then put aside other topics and began to discuss how to raise food and how to distribute it.

In just two days, 1,000 officers and men under his command were divided into groups of 10 to conduct a carpet search, and quickly suppressed groups of gangsters who took advantage of the fire to rob, seized and searched more than 500 rifles and pistols, thousands of long knives and short swords, and homemade muskets, and more than 400 gangsters were uniformly shaved and escorted to the cemetery in the western suburbs to dig up graves.

On the evening of the third day, Xiao Yimin ordered the heads of the steel mills, power plants, and foundries and workers to slaughter pigs and sheep, and to give a banquet to the brothers of the North Road Baolu Army, who were well-disciplined and never participated in the riots.

Xiao Yimin personally came to the scene, picked up the wine bowl and apologized to everyone, sincerely saying that he did not take good care of himself, and he did not expect such a big mess to happen, please Haihan!

More than 7,000 brothers from Mianyang, Guangyuan, Zitong, and Langzhong were moved, and more than 10 heroes, including Zhang Yuan, the leader of the Guangyuan Baolu Army, Xie Zhijie, the leader of the Mianyang Baolu Army, and Guan Chengyuan, the leader of the Langzhong Baolu Army, admired Xiao Yimin's profound righteousness.

Everyone knows what happened in the past three days and two nights, and they all know that if it weren't for Xiao Yimin and his Zhenzi battalion, I don't know how many innocent people would have died.

The next morning, after the heroes of northern Sichuan finished breakfast, the assembled team was about to return to their hometowns, Xiao Yimin's adjutant Zheng Changze and the general manager of Huaxi Company Luo Fa hurriedly arrived, followed by seven carriages.

Luo Fa, a business tycoon who had already been famous in Bashu, met Zhang Yuan and others with the gift of his juniors, and respectfully sent 5,000 ocean travel fees, 200 semi-new and old Hanyang rifles and 20,000 round-headed rifle cartridges, and politely said that it was not easy for the seniors to come here, and if we went back empty-handed, I am afraid that the Hongmen brothers in Sichuan would poke our backbone.

Before the excited Zhang Yuan and the others had time to thank them, Zheng Changze led a team of soldiers to step forward and presented twelve brand-new "Leopard" 20-shot barge guns with both hands:

"We can't come to see off our seniors because we have to attend the military reorganization meeting, so I have entrusted you to apologize to your seniors. This is a small gift from the adults to the seniors, the adults said, the nearly 200,000 Baolu rebels in Sichuan, only the disciplined, dare to take responsibility of the 7,000 brothers in northern Sichuan, is the real hero, is the real person who does great things!

"My lord also asked me to tell my seniors that as long as I come to Chengdu in the future, I will come to the North Campus to find him, they are all my own family, and we don't need to be polite, if we can help Brother Shangchuanbei, it will be our blessing."

A real seat made Zhang Yuan and the other twelve leaders of the Northern Sichuan Righteous Army move their eyes red.

Zhang Yuan and the others happily took the shell gun with the delicate holster, leather magazine sleeve and belt on their backs, and saluted Zheng Changze and Luo Desa with their fists, except for "brothers will have a period later", there was no polite word, and led the seven thousand brothers to turn around and leave.

Luo Fat and Zheng Changze stood in place, watching the long procession quietly and slowly move north, with an indescribable loneliness and emotion in their hearts.

Zhang Yuan and others led their hometown disciples to actively respond to the call of the League at all levels, and rushed to Chengdu with enthusiasm, but when they arrived in Chengdu, no one paid attention to them, they didn't have guns, no place to live, and no rice to fill their hunger, but Xiao Yimin, who had never had any contact with him, gave them great help, and treated them with sincerity and righteousness.

The heroes of northern Sichuan left with mixed feelings, but they also learned lessons from this chaos, saw their status and identity clearly, and saw everything clearly, knowing who are the real friends and brothers, many people in the team were secretly glad that they were stationed outside the north gate, otherwise they would not have met Xiao Yimin.

More than 7,000 people outside the north gate left, and more than 20,000 Manchu and Mongolian civilians of all nationalities gathered in the camp in the north school field bid tears goodbye to each other, and more than 14,000 people who were willing to return to their hometowns in the north will go to the East Wharf in batches, take a small passenger ship to Yucheng, and then transfer to two foreign cargo ships carrying steel and materials to Shanghai.

More than 8,000 people who have lived in Chengdu for several generations have chosen to stay, and they will work together to rebuild their homes with the help of Huaxi Group.

Xiao Yimin inspected the disaster relief situation in the city at the end of the meeting in the morning, and when he rushed back to the north school field, it was already dusk, and when he saw that there were still more than 1,000 young and strong men in Mongolia who had not left, he argued with the guards with emotion one by one, and hurriedly stepped forward to ask the reason, and then beat the horse over.

More than 1,000 men immediately quieted down when they saw Xiao Yimin, and no one dared to be presumptuous in front of this decisive young leader, not to mention that they all remembered Xiao Yimin's life-saving grace in their hearts.

Xiao Yimin slowly glanced around, raised his horsewhip, and pointed at everyone:

"If you really want to defect to me Xiao Yimin, you can cut the braid on my head now, don't shout here if you are reluctant, take advantage of your strength to leave here and go home, be with your relatives, protect them, and build a new home."

More than 1,000 men were stunned, and several young people covered in blood ran out of the crowd, knelt in front of Xiao Yimin with a "poof", pulled out his waist knife and resolutely cut off his braids, threw his head to the ground casually, and remained motionless for a long time.

Xiao Yimin sighed, jumped off the horse, and stepped forward to help him up one by one:

"You five, follow me from today onwards! Listen, don't kneel anymore in the future, kneel only your parents and ancestors, other than that, no one can make you lower your head, no one can make your knees bend, don't let Lao Tzu look down on you! ”

The five Manchu men could no longer control the rushing emotions in their hearts, hugged each other and cried bitterly, hundreds of officers and soldiers on the side and more than a thousand Manchu men in front of them burst into tears, and in the blink of an eye, the crying sounded.

After crying enough, more than 700 people were reluctant to leave the braids left by their ancestors, and left silently, leaving more than 500 young people to cut off their long braids one after another, took off the dirty clothes on their bodies and threw them aside, and lined up neatly with Xiao Yimin shirtless, many people cut their heads and necks under excitement, and the red blood slowly flowed on their necks and shoulders.

The cold wind struck, and more than 500 proudly erect bodies trembled, but a pair of tearful eyes flashed with incomparably determined light.

(To be continued)