The fleet that went out to the Atlantic was named the Second Expeditionary Fleet, and Shen Shoukun led the First Expeditionary Fleet, which is currently active in the Mediterranean, supporting the operations of the Expeditionary Force, and is based in Cyprus. Cheng Biguang was appointed commander-in-chief of the expeditionary fleet and concurrently served as commander of the expeditionary second fleet, and the expeditionary first fleet led by Shen Shoukun was restrained by Cheng Biguang, but Cheng Biguang's entire expeditionary fleet was restrained by Cai Guodong, the supreme commander of the Western Theater.

On 19 September, the Second Expeditionary Fleet assembled at the Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base in Vietnam and immediately set sail for the port of Yasse in southwestern France. This fleet is a task force, with both battleships and light aircraft carriers, and this fleet is extremely large, and the overall strength of the navies of most countries in the world is not as strong as it is based on the size of its composition.

The Second Expeditionary Fleet consisted of four battleships, four light aircraft carriers, eight heavy cruisers, 12 light cruisers, 24 destroyers, 24 torpedo ships, 24 submarines, and 12 supply ships.

When this fleet passed through the Strait of Malacca, the people on both sides of the strait watched frantically, such a large fleet had never been seen before, and the entire fleet almost filled the Strait of Malacca, which was extremely spectacular.

The capital, the presidential palace.

Xiao Zhenlei remembered the expedition to the Second Fleet, put down the pen in his hand, rang the electric bell, and after a while, the secretary Xiao Gao walked in, "President!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei said: "Where has the Second Fleet of the expedition arrived?" ”

"President, this morning the fleet sent a telegram. said that the Strait of Malacca had been crossed".

Xiao Zhenlei thought for a while and waved his hand: "Forget it, you go out!" ”

Xiao Gao didn't go out right away. He said: "President, just now Lu Zhengxiang sent a telegram from Tokyo, Japan, saying that all the trials of Japanese war criminals have been completed, and he will return to China with all the verdicts in the near future to present to the President for his reading."

Xiao Zhenlei nodded and said, "Okay, after he comes back, let him come over to see me immediately!" ”

"Yes, President!"

September 21. Lu Zhengxiang flew back to Beijing by special plane from Tokyo, and as soon as he got off the plane, he received a call from the presidential palace, informing him to go to the presidential palace immediately.

Lu Zhengxiang knew that Xiao Zhenlei would definitely ask him to report on the trial of war criminals. He didn't even have time to drink his saliva before he came to the presidential palace with the verdict.

"Come on, come on, Lao Lu, come and sit!" Xiao Zhenlei sat on the sofa in the lounge area of the office and greeted Lu Zhengxiang, who had just walked in.

"Yes!" Lu Zhengxiang agreed, came to Xiao Zhenlei and sat down.

Xiao Zhenlei made two cups of tea and handed a cup to Lu Zhengxiang: "Come." Drink tea! ”

"Thank you, President!" Lu Zhengxiang carefully took the teacup and thanked him.

The two took a few sips. After tasting the taste of this tea, Lu Zhengxiang put down the teacup, took out a stack of documents from his briefcase, and said: "President, this is the result of the trial of all Japanese war criminals, please take a look!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei nodded, took the document and read it, and the first piece of paper was written on the verdict of the Japanese militarist war criminal Terauchi Masatsuki. Terauchi Masashi was sentenced to death and turned another page. On this page, it is written that the sentence was pronounced against Togo Heihachiro, who was also sentenced to death, followed by more than a dozen Japanese generals such as Shigeo Sameshima, Mitsutomi Kamio, and Yoshiko Akiyama, in addition to more than 20 lieutenant generals of the Japanese Navy and Army sentenced to death and life imprisonment, and more than a dozen major generals sentenced to life imprisonment.

After reading all the verdicts, Xiao Zhenlei asked: "For these war criminals, since the verdict has been announced, when is the International Military Tribunal for the Far East going to execute them?" In addition, for those war criminals who are to be executed, what methods are you going to use to carry out the execution? ”

Lu Zhengxiang replied: "President, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East has not yet decided on the specific time of execution, and some of these war criminals have completed their trials for half a year, and some have just announced the verdict. Before I came, Qin Liankui asked me to consult the president when I came back. In addition, the judges of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East have different opinions on the question of what method to use to carry out the death penalty, and there are roughly four methods in general: First, some people believe that the execution is carried out by direct shooting, because this is the most popular method of death punishment at present. Second, it has been argued that hanging should be used on the grounds that it would preserve the integrity of the body and be a sign of respect for the deceased. Third, some people think that the head should be cut off on the grounds that it is safer and no one will survive after the head is cut off. Fourth, give each of them a glass of poisoned wine, on the grounds that this is the easiest and the cost of poison is not high. Each of these four methods has supporters and opponents, and it is precisely because of the disagreement that it has not yet been decided! ”

Xiao Zhenlei listened to Lu Zhengxiang's words, lit a cigarette and smoked, the fireworks flickered on and off, after Lu Zhengxiang finished speaking, he said after a minute: "Old Lu, what do you think is the purpose of our trial of those war criminals?" Is it just punishment? ”

Lu Zhengxiang was stunned when he heard this, but he quickly reacted, and he said: "I think in addition to punishing what they did, there is also a purpose to warn future generations, right?" ”

Xiao Zhenlei spit out a cloud of smoke and nodded: "Yes, killing people is not our ultimate goal, how simple is it to kill someone?" Now that tens of thousands of people are dying every day on the battlefields of Europe, aren't the lives of those soldiers lives? They deserve to be used as cannon fodder? And those guys who used to be high-ranking Japanese officials and high-ranking generals, how prominent were they once be? Is it true that their lives are more noble than the lives of those soldiers? Some people may think that a certain method of execution is cruel and that we need to respect life, so we should be respectful even for those who are executed, and try to keep their bodies as intact as possible, but I don't think so. Is it cruel, it's just our own ideology doing tricks, isn't it cruel if we slaughter so many cattle and sheep every day? Is it not cruel for their country to send tens of thousands of recruits who have not yet completed their training to the battlefield every day to die? Why should these people be sentenced to death, and it would be cruel to carry them out? If you want me to say, they are pretending, this is what they want to be, and they want to set up the archway, which is full of hypocrisy! Convey my meaning to Qin Liankui, since the opinions within the International Military Tribunal for the Far East do not agree, then this matter is up to me, whoever has an opinion, let him come to me!

The time for the execution of the death penalty is set at 9 o'clock in the morning on October 1st, find a large enough open space in Tokyo to build the execution ground and guillotine, the third method of execution is adopted, all beheadings, executioners and guillotines are found from our country, the Qing Dynasty has only been destroyed for a few years, I believe that enough executioners and guillotines can be found from all over the country, after the execution is completed, I will pile up all the heads of those war criminals into the Jingguan Tower, fix them with cement concrete, no one is allowed to destroy them, and all the headless corpses will be burned! So do it! You can ask Qin Liankui to tell the judges and media reporters of various countries that this is my decision, and if they are dissatisfied, let them question me, and the media can announce my decision to the world, and even if something happens in the future, I can take full responsibility! In this world, any adult who does something wrong has to be responsible, and those Japanese war criminals, what they did caused so much damage to the world, shouldn't they be punished? If we don't do justice for the innocent civilians who died unjustly, then they will die in vain! The beheading of those war criminals is to warn others that civilians are innocent, that war should be kept away from them, that countries can go to war against other countries for their own interests, but don't impose the cruelty of war on civilians, they have their own lives, they pay taxes, they deserve peace, it's as simple as that".

Lu Zhengxiang stood up and said, "Yes, I understand!" ”

Lu Zhengxiang sent Xiao Zhenlei's opinion to Qin Liankui by telegram, Qin Liankui immediately sent people back to China to find the executioner after receiving the telegram, at this time it was only seven years before the Manchu Qing Dynasty was overthrown, it was still easy to find dozens of executioners, and it took only a few days to find a sufficient number of executioners, and these executioners quickly rushed to Shanghai to meet after receiving the invitation and sufficient travel expenses, and then took a unified ship to Tokyo, Japan under the leadership of relevant personnel.

Lao Ding is an executioner from the Northeast, he has a body of horizontal meat, others are afraid to stay with him as long as they look at his appearance and figure, in fact, all the executioners are his virtue, and only people like him have the murderous spirit to suppress those unjust souls on the execution ground.

Lao Ding was carrying a cloth bag, wearing cloth shoes, and a very old sleeveless cardigan, a pair of pants that were almost knee-high, and his scalp was shiny. His image looked very old-fashioned, but no one laughed at him, and no one dared to laugh at him, because the executioners who sat on this deck used to kill people without blinking.

"My name is Chen Dazhuang, and I'm from Anhui!" A short man said to Lao Ding.

Lao Ding touched his shiny scalp and said honestly: "Call me Lao Ding, I'm from the Northeast!" ”

Chen Dazhuang said: "Brother Ding, how can you be willing to go to Japan? ”

Lao Ding said: "Why don't you want to? I'm so willing, even if I don't give money, just take care of food, I'm willing to run, those damn Oriental dwarfs killed too many people in our mess back then, so many years, this revenge has not been avenged, I can't imagine that this time I have the opportunity to cut off the heads of those Oriental dwarf officials, don't cut white, don't cut white, this time we can take revenge, we are happy! By the way, why would you like to go to the East? So far! ”

Chen Dazhuang smirked: "For the money, if it weren't for the hundreds of yuan, I wouldn't have run so far, and I would have to cross the ocean and suffer crimes!" ”

Lao Ding couldn't help but shake his head when he heard Chen Dazhuang's reason. (To be continued......)