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In the eighth year of Guangxing, on July 11, 1903, there was a Hailan Pao massacre that shocked China and the world.

The cause of the incident was that a colonel officer sent by the Chinese side to Hailanpao (known as Blagoveshchensk in Russian) to collect intelligence was captured by the Russian army, and under torture confessed the location of the Chinese intelligence agency in Hailanbao, the Russian army immediately sent troops to arrest Chinese intelligence officers, but only a few low-level intelligence officers were arrested, and after interrogation, it was learned that these intelligence officers generally used local Chinese houses as cover to carry out activities.

The head of the local Amur administrative district ordered the army to launch a search and thoroughly investigate every Chinese house in the area, however, under the influence of years of anti-Chinese propaganda, and because some ambiguous words in the order contained tacit elements, the officers on the mission carried out the liquidation into a purge. From the early morning of the 11th, more than 3,000 Chinese in Hailanpao were expelled from their homes, and the Russian army tied them up with wire and escorted them to the Amur River (i.e., Heilongjiang). The Russian army smashed with the butt of a rifle and stabbed it with a bayonet, drove the Chinese to the river, shot them, and then poured fire oil on them, and threw the bodies into the water. Nearly 100 Chinese, perhaps including Chinese intelligence agents hiding in the city, rushed out of the city armed and fled to the Jiangdong 64tun area, which belongs to China. The Russian army sent Cossack cavalry to pursue, burned several Chinese villages along the way, and killed all the villagers, and the Cossack cavalry who rose up after the most disregarded the persuasion of the Chinese border guards, killed five Chinese sentries, rushed into the Jiangdong 64tun area, cut off the telegraph line from Dingyuan City, the township capital of the place, to Aihui County, and then carried out looting, burned nine villages, killed more than 100 Chinese border residents, wounded three Chinese policemen, and caught up with those Chinese who escaped from Hailan Pao near Dingyuan City, just when the defenders of the city fired warning shotsHe hacked all the Chinese to death with a saber, tied their bodies to horses and dragged them back to Russia.

At that time, in the county town of Aihui on the other side, three army generals of the Chinese Empire were inspecting the frontier defenses: Yang Zhengjin, chief of the General Staff, Zhong Xiahuo, commander of the Praetorian Guard, and Deng Jian, commander of the Northeast Military Region.

After learning the general situation of the incident and witnessing the charred corpses floating downstream, the three generals made different statements.

"I'm fucking a god, it's not as good as a fucking beast, blood debt and blood repayment, I must take revenge, revenge! Let's go back, gather troops to kill them, and let Lao Maozi taste our awesomeness! ”

The general who roared with his whole lungs was none other than Zhong Xiahuo, the commander of the Praetorian Guard.

"Be quiet, your ears will tremble."

Chief of the General Staff Yang Zhengjin said unhurriedly, eating pine nuts and drinking tea leisurely.

"Chief of Staff, don't you feel anything at all? Thousands of Chinese on the other side were killed by Lao Maozi! They also stormed into Jiangdong Sixty-four Tun, killed our border guards, and burned our village! Raised by a son of a bitch, Lao Tzu wants to wash Hailan bubbles in blood, Boli in blood, and Vladivostok in blood, so that the Russian devils on the north bank of the Heilongjiang River will be turned into ashes! ”

"Commander Zhong, it's best not to mention the word bloodbath, have you forgotten about Seoul?"

Yang Zhengjin said, drank the last sip of tea, looked at the watch on the wall, picked up the military hat, and stood up.

Deng Jian, commander of the Northeast Military Region, also stood up, Deng Jian, who was two years younger than Yang Zhengjin and Zhong Xiahuo, was not tall, with broad shoulders, square face, neatly trimmed sideburns, and a mustache, and had commanded the First Infantry Division in the Korean War, and was commanded by Zhong Xiahuo in the Battle of Seoul, and later served as the commander of the First Army.

"It's time to go, we're all going back to our respective positions and starting to do the paid work."

Deng Jian said, putting on his hat.

"You two, don't you have feelings?" Zhong Xiahuo still didn't get out of his anger.

"Feelings are not shouted out of mouth, the Russians made mistakes, we have a legitimate excuse, although we are not prepared, but the Russians are even less prepared, and we should be grateful to the Russians for doing this."

Yang Zhengjin put on his military hat and raised his chin slightly to Zhong Xiahuo: "Let's go, Wuwei Justice needs us, and Commander Deng is enough to handle the affairs here." ”

Deng Jian nodded at Yang Zhengjin: "Chief of staff, rest assured, I will handle it properly, as an emergency measure, first send a reinforced battalion to Jiangdong to garrison Dingyuan City, and at the same time let Commander Yi's river defense fleet enter the first-class alert, and then establish a countermeasure headquarters after I return to Jilin, and order the Northeast Military Region to fully enter the second-level alert state, and uniformly deploy intelligence and logistics." ”

"With you, I am naturally relieved, and also, don't walk around casually after you go back, there may be important orders issued at any time."

"Understood."

Yang Zhengjin immediately turned to Zhong Xiahuo: "Let's go first, Commander Deng still has something to explain here." No need to curse any more, let's celebrate, maybe soon you will become the commander of the legion and cross the river with the Praetorian Guard. ”

Zhong Xiahuo stiffened his face and strode out.

The details of the "Hailan Pao Incident" and the "Jiangdong 64 Tun Incident" (referred to as the Hai Case and the Jiang Case) quickly spread throughout the empire through various media, starting with the joint tour organized by students from various universities in Beijing, and demonstrations launched from provincial capitals and then affecting county towns and Hong Kong cities, including excessive violence, such as the Shanghai crowd storming the Russian concession on July 21, triggering a shooting by Russian patrols, and then the imperial police intervened and sheltered more than a dozen Chinese wounded, but did not arrest any Chinese involved in the operation; Another example is that on July 24, the military and civilians in Manzhouli, Heilongjiang Province, burned down the Russian consulate and tied more than 10 consuls to donkeys and expelled them; Another example is that on July 27, the crowd in Beijing stormed the Russian embassy, and the police sent to protect the embassy actually attacked the embassy together with the masses, and the government had no choice but to send the Janissaries to suppress it, in which a total of 19 Chinese civilians and three policemen were killed, more than 100 people were arrested, the Russian embassy was seriously damaged, nine embassy personnel, including Ambassador Asetoyev, were injured, and three embassy guards were killed.

But beneath the surface of the rapids, the central institutions of the empire placed in Guanjie were spinning rapidly for some set goal.

On July 29, in the Nanhai of Beijing, the European-style royal chamber, the imperial meeting nominally to resolve the "Haijiang and Haijiang cases" was underway.

“…… According to the telegram received yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Muravyov intends to visit our country at the end of October to discuss with my Government all matters relating to peace, including the border issue, and hopes that we will refrain from any action to undermine the peace until then. ”

Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Zhigao, who attended in place of the sick Foreign Minister Zeng Jize, reported.

The thirty-two-year-old Emperor Guangxing sat at the top of the large conference table, dressed in the black uniform of the Praetorian Guard, with a ribbon and a treasure star, and under his ass was a throne of European-style Chinese decoration. The emperor was in the prime of life, full of energy, and for more than ten years had been influenced by Western culture, identified with the constitutional monarchy and all aspects of Westernization reform, and was busy all day long with all kinds of trivial activities arranged for him by the Imperial Interior Department of the Ministry of the Interior—attending the award ceremony, meeting with foreign royal personnel, patrolling the coastal defense by boat, visiting the monastery to give alms, reading, riding horses, drinking afternoon tea, dancing Western-style banquets, salons, etc.—and it was rare for him to hold a pre-imperial meeting at the request of the Prime Minister, which disrupted his schedule for afternoon tea.

"Breaking the peace?"

The emperor slapped the table, but it was not loud and not imposing enough.

"Killing my Chinese in Hailan and arsonizing against my Jiangdong 64 Tun is really hateful, it can be seen that he has no heart for peace, so what happened today, as the emperor of the Great Chinese Empire, how can I see the people suffering and do nothing! What is the best way to punish the Russians? ”

"Emperor Qi, the ministers thought that in order to effectively protect the Chinese in Jiangdong, the only way to expel the Russians and recover the land of their ancestors was to make sure that ......"

Liu Yun, the 49-year-old Duke of Wuwei, the Minister of National Defense, immediately put forward the established policy set a few years ago, and he knew that it was up to him to put forward the Tao, and he was the number one person of course, the emperor's close minister, the emperor's confidant, and the emperor's master.

The Hailan Pao incident is of an ethnic cleansing and anti-human nature, and the Jiangdong 64tun incident is an armed invasion of nature, and the sum of the two, combined with the background of the deadlock in the Sino-Russian border issue negotiations, cannot help but make people think of war, and it can even be considered that it is precisely in order for the tide of history to break through that deadlock that these two events were created by God. On the other hand, Liu Yun also knew that even without these two events, before the best time passed, the Chinese Empire would always find a better event as the fuse of the war, which was inevitable because neither side had the motive or possibility of concession.

"Your Majesty, the ministers think that peace should be the most important thing in this matter, and it is better to wait for the arrival of the Russian Minister Mu before making plans, and the things that should be considered now should be the conditions put forward when negotiating with the Russian Minister at the end of October, which is not only a condition, but also a punishment, an apology, and a claim, and everything can ......be done in accordance with public international law."

As the representative of the Royalist Party in the Cabinet, Liang Qichao of the Royalist Party has always taken a steady stance on major politics and opposes any rash behavior, but after all, he is a low-key speaker and does not have too close ties with the powerful figures in the Cabinet, so any opposition from him can actually be regarded as nonsense.

"Your Majesty, the ministers think that it is okay to make peace with people, but what is there to talk about with beasts? What the Russians do is what they do, and those who do it are beasts, and what the beasts say, how can they be heard, how can they be trusted, and how can they be accepted......"

In fact, the Liberal Party's nationalist stance is even more radical than that of the Chinese People's Party, and its party spirit not only basically agrees with the Chinese nation's proposal, but also demands that overseas Chinese be included in the category of the Chinese nation, and that the interests of the entire Chinese nation be protected by a powerful imperial army.

After listening to Sun Wen's generous statement, the emperor had already trampled Liang Qichao's words to smash: "Although what Liang Aiqing said is reasonable, if the Russians sincerely seek peace, they should immediately send a special envoy to apologize, and then it is not too late to discuss, but now I have to sit and wait for three months, in order to wait for him as a minister, which shows the difference in his heart, I must give an explanation to the people of the empire and the whole world as soon as possible, Liu Aiqing, how about the imperial army?" Can you fight? ”

Liu Yun respectfully agreed: "Your Majesty, the Imperial Army now has 100,000 standing Janissaries, 600,000 standing Wehrmacht, and the navy is equipped with eight first-class armored ships, eight first-class armored cruisers, 26 fleet cruisers, and 36 fleet destroyers, all of which are cutting-edge warships comparable to the first-class naval powers in Europe. In contrast, Russia has only 150,000 standing army troops deployed east of Lake Baikal, and the Russian Pacific Fleet is equipped with seven fleet armored ships, four fleet armored cruisers, seven fleet cruisers, and 37 large and small destroyers. ”

"Your Excellency Minister of Defense, how can you make such a comparison, Russia does not only have an army east of Lake Baikal, Russia has a standing army of more than one million, and reserve and non-reserve soldiers of more than 3 million, the Russian army can be expanded and mobilized at any time, the Russian fleet on the European side can sail from afar, and the victory or defeat is difficult to determine once the war begins.

Liang Qichao's speech was immediately ridiculed by Sun Wen: "Your Excellency the Minister of Justice, where did you leave the Constitution?" Only the National Assembly has the right to declare war, it is not up to us to decide, the emperor is concerned about state affairs, so he convenes a meeting at the request of the prime minister, but to pool his wisdom and efforts to discuss ways to solve the problem, and finally it must be submitted to the National Assembly for approval. ”

Liang Qichao was about to refute, but the emperor opened his mouth and continued to ask Liu Yun: "Liu Aiqing, how is my country's reserve army?" ”

"The first-class reservists can be mobilized within a week, with 800,000 people, the second-class reservists, which can be mobilized within three months, with 1.5 million, and the third-class reservists, who need six months of mobilization and training, have 5 million people."

"Seven million soldiers can be mobilized in a year, so what's there to fear!"

The emperor did fall into the realm of talking on paper, he didn't know that having so many people in Lu Dao was not the same thing as arming and organizing so many people into an army that could fight, Liu Yun knew what Emperor Lu Dao liked to hear, because the thinking structure of Emperor Guangxing was built by him and Wen Yi.

In the past few years, Liu Yun and Wen Yi have been instilling in the emperor the concept of recovering the land of their ancestors, the emperor has always wanted war, the emperor is waiting for war, the emperor knows that the war will definitely come, and now, he has waited, he will not allow this thing that has become a fact to be taken away by others.

This is the reason why the Imperial Chancellor wants to use the Emperor's power to silence all potential opponents—the royalists and the former courtiers—and now, the Imperial Chancellor can be happy that he has succeeded in the first step, and the next step is the Congress.

After the pre-imperial meeting, Liu Yun found Wen Yi.

"Your Excellency, you are doing a great job."

Liu Yun handed over a precious Xiangshan brand paper cigarette and lit it for Wenyi with his own hands.

"This is nothing, what I am worried about is that on the side of the Congress, the opposition parties are getting stronger and stronger, Tan Sitong has been opposing us since he quit the party, it seems that he is advocating a liberal line, and there are more and more well-known people following him, and now he and some parties under his influence have integrated their forces to oppose us, demanding that we reduce government spending, especially military spending, and at the same time reduce taxes accordingly to protect people's livelihood......"

"If you don't have a strong army, you really can't protect the people's livelihood, they can't understand such a simple thing......"

"Tan Sitong's Republic of China Party has recently been analyzing the strength of the armed forces and comparing them with the military strength of the surrounding areas, and has come to the conclusion that the existing army far exceeds the needs of self-defense, and then uses this to criticize the government for looting the people's wealth and supporting the useless army, or attacking the government for being reckless in military force, regardless of the lives of the people, which is contrary to the trend of peace in the world......

"Fart, how can there be any trend of peace, the world is about to make great strides towards the war, if it does not start from Europe, then it starts from Asia, either by being beaten, or by being beaten by others!"

Liu Yun looked around and saw that there was no one else, so he leaned into Wen Yi's ear: "If that person surnamed Tan is really too much of a problem, just before the congressional decision, make some evidence and prosecute him on the grounds of endangering national security—isn't he analyzing the strength of the imperial army?" Then let the Ministry of the Interior arrest him first in accordance with the special security law, and by the way, clean up the guys who supported him, and wait until the war resolution is passed, and then release those who should be convicted and those who are really not guilty, so that it is legal and will not cause too strong a shock. ”

Wen Yi smoked a cigarette, listened quietly, and suddenly remembered that he had already quit smoking, so he used his thumb to snuff out the half-burned cigarette roll and put it in his pocket - there was no trash bin nearby.

"I'll see if I can try to get a compromise, but if I can't do it, I will take extraordinary measures."

"If you can't do it, I can make the Haw Par Camp ......"

"It's been three years since it's been used, it's better not to use that, it's getting harder and harder to keep things airtight now."

"Whatever you want, anyway, the army is going to start moving, it will take about a month to start the war, and I need to get the congressional decision to go to war within a month."

"I'll do my best."

Liu Yun smiled, patted Wen Yi on the shoulder, and left.

Wen Yi looked at his back, and two faces faintly appeared in his heart, one was the appearance of Liu Yun when he was a teenager, full of adventurous spirit and curiosity, and the other was something that did not exist in reality and was made up by Wen Yi to resemble a human face, for Wen Yi, that thing is not alive, that thing represents death and destruction, and it will surely drag everything, including Wen Yi himself, into the darkness and tear it to pieces.

"That's not true, it doesn't exist."

Wen Yi comforted himself like this, he looked at the skin on the back of his hand that began to wrinkle, and suddenly thought that he was already fifty years old this year.

He saw the plane tree beside the avenue of the annex, which had been presented to the emperor by the President of France four years earlier and was now just beginning to take shape.

"War, why do you want war? What is the purpose? Is it really for ......"