On August 27, 1883, Ding Yuntong formally ordered the Ministry of the Interior to arrest all Japanese spies under surveillance, completely destroy their intelligence network in China, and kill anyone who resisted.

At the end of the command there are two striking words:

It's better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one go!

If you don't live, you can die!

In the days that followed, mass arrests began across the country.

In Shanghai, where spies were dense, hundreds of secret police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, all armed with Colt revolvers, had been prepared for a long time to launch an attack on all the spy agencies at the same time.

On Kunshan Road, the secret police stormed the Oriental Academy established by the Genyosha and asked everyone inside to raise their hands and kneel. There are a few Oriental ronin, mixed in with a dozen real Japanese students, clamoring to rush out. Seeing this, the secret police immediately shot all these people to death;

In Pudong, the Japanese-funded Guangye Foreign Company was broken into by the secret police, and its head Mitsuo Matsuda was arrested on the spot;

On Henan Road, the adjacent Nissin Trade Research Institute and the Shanghai branch of Leshantang were seized at the same time, and Japanese spy merchant Kishida Ginka and Army Captain Nezuichi were shot dead by the secret police on the spot;

In Hankow, the Hankou branch of Leshantang was searched, and Arao Sei committed suicide with a knife before being arrested;

In Tianjin, Songchang Foreign Company and Tianjin Leshantang Branch were also seized, and the persons in charge, Takigawa Guhe and Kawahata Shonosuke, were immediately arrested;

Aoki Xuanchun in Beijing was killed on the way to escape; Kotaro Munakata of Yantai, Shandong Province, resisted and was killed; Saburo Zhongqi of Changsha, Hunan Province, was arrested; Takehiko Fujishima of Hangzhou committed suicide; Pretending to be a monk, Takami Takeo who hid in the Fayu Temple in Putuo Mountain, Zhejiang Province, committed suicide by jumping into the sea, and so on, a large number of spies were swept away almost in one day, and the spy network that Japan had worked so hard to build was almost uprooted in more than ten years.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs immediately conducted a brutal surprise interrogation of the spies who had been captured alive, and after being convinced that all useful information had been squeezed out, they loaded them onto trains and sent them to Beijing overnight.

On the evening of the 27th, dozens of secret police officers poured into the home of He Ruzhang, who was walking in the military aircraft department, and kidnapped and took away the stunned Naraharahara Chen Zheng, and searched a large amount of information from under his bed, as well as a copy of He Ruzhang's diary. Seeing this, He Ruzhang's face was as earthy as color, his lips trembled, and he was kidnapped by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Narahara Chen Zheng burst into tears: "Father-in-law, I hurt you, I can't stand you!" ”

He Ruzhang ignored him, but he beat his chest and paused: "I am stupid, I don't observe the schemes of traitors, I have a negative king, a negative country!" ”

On the 30th, at the Shuangqing Villa in Xiangshan, Beijing, where the Japanese delegation was stationed, the chief representative Inoue Xin was holding a telegram from China and was discussing with Ito Hirobumi.

In the telegram, the Japanese government basically agreed to the consensus reached by the two sides, but there was a new directive: according to the report of the spies, the railway in the north of Korea was making rapid progress and had reached Pyongyang, far exceeding the Japanese estimate. Therefore, the Japanese government demanded that Ito and others attach conditions to the negotiations between the two sides, asking China to suspend the construction of the railway.

In the subsequent Yingtai talks, the Japanese side really put forward this demand, which made Li Hongzhang, who had long been tired of it, even more angry. In his report to the emperor, he bluntly stated that the Japanese were "too cunning and shameless to speak with." ”

Ding Yuntong had a brilliant face, he was not angry, he just felt funny, he first comforted Li Hongzhang a few words, after all, he has been for so long, there is no credit and hard work.

Then, Ding Yuntong calmly told Li Hongzhang that there was no need to entangle with the Japanese anymore, let them get out of here! All previous negotiations are null and void! But before that, show them a good show as a farewell sign-off.

Hearing this, Li Hongzhang's eyes were full of excitement, and he finally understood that the so-called Sino-Japanese talks were purely the emperor "teasing you". He's been holding back the fire in his belly these days, and now he can finally vent.

On August 31, the talks between the two sides were held again, but this time the atmosphere at the venue was very different, with the Chinese representatives all having ambiguous expressions, while Li Hongzhang was so excited that his body trembled slightly. He directly and neatly interrupted the Japanese side's speech and said: "Because the Japanese representative has repeatedly put forward arbitrary and unreasonable demands, it can be seen that the Japanese side has no sincerity in resolving any relevant issues and improving relations between the two countries. Therefore, this Minister officially declares that the negotiations are over! At the same time, the Chinese side solemnly demands that the Japanese side immediately release the Ryukyu King and unconditionally return the Ryukyu Islands that it has stolen and occupied. At the same time, China will, in accordance with its suzerain's obligations, conduct a comprehensive investigation of Japan's illegal economic activities in Korea! ”

Inoue Xin and the others were dumbfounded, completely unable to understand that things could take such a turn, where did the previous harmonious atmosphere go? In a panic, Ito hastened to claim that any clause could be revisited.

However, Li Hongzhang was unmoved, and after enjoying the wonderful expressions of the Japanese personnel, all the Chinese personnel left the venue, leaving only the stunned Japanese.

On September 1, Ding Yuntong ordered that the Japanese mission and Minister Enomoto Takeyang in China be invited to go to the Caishikou outside the Xuanwu Gate to "watch the ceremony".

The Japanese people did not know what they meant, and came to the entrance of the vegetable market at noon.

I saw that this place was already full of colorful flags and flowers, making it look like a New Year's holiday. The teahouses on both sides are crowded with people, and in the open space in the middle, dozens of guillotines are generally arranged in a phalanx, and there is a prisoner lying on each guillotine, whose hands and feet are tied to the wooden stakes in front and back, unable to move, and the waist is facing the snowy sharp knife edge.

Only then did the Japanese understand that the so-called "viewing ceremony" was originally to ask them to watch the beheading of the prisoners.

The so-called waist beheading is a knife and axe that divides the prisoner from the waist in two, "hands and feet are different". It sounds cruel, but in fact, it was a kind of civilization progress at the beginning, and the death penalty in the early Yin Shang era was like eating human flesh, such as "醢" is to chop people into meat sauce, "preserved meat" is to make people into jerky, "cannon" is to roast people into mature meat, and "wok cooking" is to cook people into meat soup.

It was not until the Zhou Dynasty that it gradually became civilized that "chopping" was used instead of "cooking", chopping is to cut in the waist, and killing is to cut off the head. At first, it was a knife and axe, jishu was more difficult, and gradually switched to a guillotine, which was fast and easy, and Bao Gong's three-mouth guillotine was used for waist chopping, not a guillotine.

Previously, in Chinese history, one of the people who was beheaded was Yu Hongtu, the chief examiner of Hubei University during the Yongzheng period, who was sentenced to death for leaking exam questions.

Today, Ding Yuntong moved out this capital punishment again, and was ready to give a good blood sacrifice to the soldiers who went out in front of him.

Suddenly, Takehiro Enomoto exclaimed, he was a soldier, he had served as a secretary of the navy, and he was a vice admiral, and he was familiar with the senior generals of the Meiji government.

In the binoculars, he found that the prisoner lying in the middle turned out to be the army major general Kawakami Caoroku, who disappeared some time ago. He immediately told the others, and the entire Japanese mission was in an uproar, and was about to send someone to negotiate, but the execution had already begun in the open space.

I saw an order, dozens of guillotines cut down together, the executioner grabbed the prisoner's feet and pulled, the crowd of onlookers roared, and the tortured person had been divided into two.

Blood gushed like a spring, gurgling out, most of the prisoners were not yet dead, Kawakami Caoliu's eyes rolled twice, his upper body was still squirming, and his hands were scratching back and forth on the ground aimlessly.

Narahara Chen Zheng was on the ground with his elbows, trembling, and he could still crawl forward slowly, and the blood under his body kept gushing out, as if he was brushing paint, leaving a large mark on the open space. At this time, what can come to mind in his mind? Regretting coming to China as a spy? Or miss the cherry blossoms of your hometown?

The blood of the prisoners soon pooled into a puddle, and under the scorching midday sun, the entire entrance of the vegetable market was covered with a hazy bloody gas. Seeing such a tragic situation, some of the timid people in the Japanese mission fainted on the spot.

In the past few days, all the Japanese spies who had been escorted into Beijing from all over the country were beheaded in public in front of the Japanese.

This is not a demonstration, this is Ding Yuntong's political hint: the showdown between China and Japan will be life and death, naked bloodshed and brutality, no mercy, no forgiveness, no room, no retreat, only killing and extermination.

On the same day, Enomoto lodged a solemn protest with the Chinese government, accusing China of using torture to kill innocent Japanese citizens for no reason. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that it was a group of spies who had been executed, without any so-called "innocent Japanese citizens," and refuted the Japanese minister's interference in China's judicial and internal affairs.

At this point, Ito and the others could no longer stay. On September 2, the Japanese side hurriedly departed for China, and on the docks, Ito and Inoue vowed never to set foot in China again unless they occupied China by force.

After several days of sailing, the Japanese mission had just arrived at Shimonoseki on 5 September when it received an order from the Emperor to rush to Tokyo immediately for an emergency meeting.

It turned out that just after the mission left China, on September 3, the Japanese minister to the DPRK, Shinichiro Takezoe, sent an urgent telegram to China: The DPRK government suddenly promulgated three prohibitions on September 2.

The first is the grain prevention order, which prohibits the export of any grain to Japan, including rice, rape, sugar beet, millet, sorghum, soybeans, etc., especially rice, and it is strictly forbidden to export, and anyone who violates it will be beheaded.

The second is the gold restriction rule, which prohibits the export of gold to Japan, and anyone who violates it will be beheaded.

Zuihou is a ban on the import of any textiles from Japan, and anyone who violates it will be beheaded.

On September 7, Japan convened an emergency imperial council, and in just a few days, the pot has exploded in Japan. The news of the severance of economic ties between the DPRK spread throughout Japan soon after it was published in major newspapers. Rice prices have skyrocketed in response to the alarm, and rice dealers have taken the opportunity to hoard Juqi in order to make huge profits. In major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kobe, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, etc., the price of rice is rising at a rate of one to two percent every day, and the price has doubled in a few days. The prices of barley, wheat, buckwheat, beans, vegetables, seafood, miso, etc., and all other foods also soared rapidly, and then the prices of all commodities skyrocketed in panic.

As soon as these three orders were promulgated, Japan's economic bloodline was single-handedly cut off, and the situation that the Japanese were most concerned about arose, and there was no other way out of the situation in East Asia except for war.