The big river goes east, and the river fog is confused. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

A wooden boat left the dock and headed down the river towards Hangzhou, at the end of the Qiantang River.

This timber ship belongs to the Taihe Xing foreign company in Hangzhou, often going back and forth between the upper reaches of the Qiantang River and Hangzhou, specializing in transporting timber, but in recent years this business seems to be getting worse day by day - since last year, Taiwan's governor Yamen founded the Taiwan Timber Bureau, and the giant wood cut down from the mountains of Taiwan is transported by iron ships to Shanghai, Xiamen and other places for sale, and the Hangzhou market is gradually monopolized by it.

Originally, wooden boats did not carry passengers, but now the business is not getting worse day by day, and every time they return from the upstream, they always carry some passengers and quietly bring their smuggled goods onto the ship. In the past, this kind of "piggybacking" -- the fact that the crew secretly carried passengers to catch some extra money was an open secret on board, but now, this is a semi-public matter, and even foreign companies are preparing to use it to try whether they can drive through the Qiantang River.

But today the ship is full of thigh-thick wood, it seems that this time the business is good, and there are more than a dozen passengers on board, these passengers who do not go to the passenger ship but come to squeeze in the dark and stuffy cargo hold, from the dress of the businessman's pretense, but most of them are polite, and there is always a fierce air that is difficult to hide in their temperament. However, most of these passengers carry large bags of goods with them, but they also seem to be running business.

However, these "businessmen" seemed to have made an appointment, and without exception, they all went to Hangzhou, as if there was something special worth doing there - in the past some time. More than a dozen ships like this have already come.

At the piers along the way. Occasionally, officers and soldiers patrol back and forth. They are guilty of smoking and yawning, but their eyes are like eagles scanning the passengers on the docks, in order to find the murderer arrested by the government and ask for a reward, but most of the time, it is just swept away.

The ship of Taihexing is a wooden ship, and the goods on board are clear at a glance. Naturally, no one will be interested in it. In short, they didn't think to go on board to search. Even the sampans of the water defense battalions that cruised the river from time to time were hurried past it. At most, it was to stop the boat and extort a few taels of money in the name of Chali. Therefore, the timber ship of Taihe Xingyang Bank passed all the way to Hangzhou without hindrance.

It's just that they never expected that the bandits they tried so hard to search Pupu would hide in this wooden ship and pass through their noses safely. And there were guns and ammunition hidden on this cargo ship, which were packed in the "goods" carried by these "businessmen".

When the ship approached Hangzhou, the wooden ship stopped not far from the shore at night, and then the passengers on board went ashore through several small sampans and disappeared into the night.

Outside Hangzhou, the curtains of a house along the street temporarily separate the outside of the house from the outside of the house for night. The room was filled with the choking smell of smoke. More than a dozen people sat around a table. Everyone speaks as low as possible in their voices. Over the past few days, meetings have been going on and on.

Near the room where the meeting was held. Squatting were a few fruit and grocery vendors, who on the surface seemed to be no different from ordinary vendors, but their humble eyes were a little wary, and they watched the street from time to time, and under their stalls were hidden two six-shot revolvers full of bullets.

From time to time, hawkers carrying mixed tofu brains on their shoulders shouted past the front of the meeting room, which were armed guards and mobile sentinels responsible for guarding the meeting. As soon as the soldiers of the patrol battalion appeared at the corner of the street, they would draw their guns to resist while covering the comrades in the room and quickly evacuate the venue.

The presiding officer of the meeting was Tan Sitong, who was only twenty-seven or eighteen years old, his skin was slightly dark, and he looked like a weak scholar, but in fact he was also a scholar, and in the past two years, he had been traveling in the north and south of the river, contacting colleagues with lofty ideals, in order to prepare for the great cause of opposing the Qing Dynasty in the future, and the central topic of this conference was to launch an uprising in Hangzhou, which would then create a situation that shook the center, thus stirring up the situation in the whole country.

For Tan Sitong, all this is just the beginning, but sometimes, the beginning is a little rough - just a few days ago, a merchant ship carrying weapons and ammunition was seized by customs, and although it was eventually smuggled as ordinary arms, the loss of as many as 3,000 rifles and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition was a serious loss for the insurgents.

And more importantly, after the seizure of this batch of weapons, it will not be possible for the North Korean side to ship new weapons to Hangzhou for at least half a month, in other words, except for the 1,500 rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition that they initially obtained, they will not receive any support before the uprising - because the date of the uprising has already been set, and hundreds of Hui parties and "people's troops" have already begun to assemble in Hangzhou, the uprising cannot be postponed until half a month later.

"Comrades, this little setback in front of you is nothing!"

There was not the slightest look of frustration on Tan Sitong's face, and his slightly dark face was slightly flushed with excitement. He waved a powerful gesture:

"Our comrades have gathered in Hangzhou, and we are bound to ignite this anti-Manchurian flame in Hangzhou! We must firmly believe that the Manchu Tatars will definitely be expelled from China, and China will definitely be able to win the liberation of the nation! ”

As the leader of the uprising, Tan Sitong was more of a spiritual inspiration, and after he spoke, Tang Caichang appeared calm and pragmatic in comparison, in contrast to the excitement of most of the attendees. In fact, his calmness is precisely because he got some information from Shiro Fukushima.

Also as one of the leaders of the uprising, and Tan Sitong's close friend, he thought more, even further, including how to deal with "overseas comrades" and how to win their support. Among the dozens of overseas comrades who came this time, half of them were obviously from the army.

Now Tang Caichang is more concerned about a problem that needs to be solved urgently, that is, how to launch this uprising in a move. This was his concern, and it was the simplest of things to say, that if the revolution at home was to gain support from abroad, it had to win it through the victory of the uprising.

Occasionally, he would turn his attention to Shiro Fukushima, the representative sent by the overseas comrades, and the only guarantee he could now be that in the next fifteen days a shipload of ammunition would arrive in Hangzhou, provided that the uprising was successful, otherwise the assistance of the overseas comrades would be extremely limited.

However, it was not easy for Hangzhou, which gathered four battalions of patrol battalions and 4,000 banner soldiers, to launch an uprising and succeed, and according to Fukushima's suggestion, after the uprising began, they would lead 300 men to take charge of the two patrol battalions in the south and north of the city, as well as the telegraph office, the customs office, and the treasury, as for the governor's yamen, Tan Sitong led the student team, and the city was in charge of the people's army under the command of Tang Caichang.

“…… The first priority after the uprising was to take the patrol battalion, encourage the patrol battalion to participate in the uprising, and at the same time, take the customs, and the weapons confiscated by the customs are currently stored in the warehouse......"

While Tang Caichang made his suggestions at the meeting according to Fukushima's suggestion, Fukushima Shiro was silent, according to the request of the Intelligence Department, he only acted as an adviser and made suggestions privately before the meeting, and as for the meeting to avoid confusion in the leadership of the uprising, in other words, he only had the right to make suggestions.

However, as a bystander, he became less and less confident in the uprising - the leaders of the "people's army" from the Hui Party and the cottages had mentioned the silver and the future distribution of benefits at the meetings of the past few days, and in the end it was Tang Caichang and the mud that promised them half of the silver obtained from the treasury.

In Fukushima's view, the more than 600,000 taels of silver in the treasury should be used to recruit troops, not to be distributed among the leaders of the Hui bandits, and for this reason, he had secretly devised a plan to transport some of the taels of silver out and deposit them in the treasury of the Hangzhou branch of the Bank of Korea, after all, the intelligence department would also need silver to support the uprising in the future.

Because it was already in the final stage, there was not much controversy at the meeting, and after the meeting, Tan Sitong deliberately left Shiro Fukushima, who looked at the Japanese in front of him and squeezed out a helpless smile.

"I'm smiling again!"

"Look at what you said, it is not easy for Tan Jun to create such a situation in China, and only Tan Jun can do it if he can twist the people with lofty ideals and heroes of the three mountains and five mountains into a rope!"

At this time, Tan Sitong didn't know that just three days ago, after the first meeting, Fukushima Shiro formulated a corresponding plan, and the core of the plan was to rescue Tan Sitong and other leaders of the uprising from Hangzhou when the uprising failed, which was the request of the Intelligence Department, and it was necessary to ensure that Tan Sitong lived, in other words, the Intelligence Department did not care much about the success of the uprising.

After talking to Shiro Fukushima about intelligence and the uprising, Tan Sitong walked into the backyard, where he stared at the north silently, and a smile appeared on his face when he thought of his friend he hadn't seen for two years.

"Hey, it's a pity I can't congratulate you in person!"

Tan Sitong's heart was full of regret, but he suddenly smiled again.

"That's fine, let this Hangzhou uprising be a wedding gift for you!"

And after this laughter, Tan Sitong fell into silence again, as if he remembered his wife who had been separated for a long time, but a little shame welled up in his heart. (To be continued.) )