Jihua decided that except for Li Junwu, who remained in Taiyuan City to guide the construction of the new production base, the rest of the brothers returned to Beiping City after the meeting and directed their own departments to start separate actions according to the established Jihua. Among them, the Ministry of Military Affairs began to carry out local mobilization within the territory of the sixteen states; The Ministry of Administration and the Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Commerce and Trade and the Ministry of Logistics, began to prepare money and materials for a possible large-scale operation. On the one hand, the Ministry of Science and Technology has made full use of its existing production capacity to reserve as many weapons and ammunition as possible for the crossing team. On the other hand, it is to step up the construction of the Taiyuan production base and the testing of the steam engine prototype, and strive to complete and put into use these two projects as soon as possible.

Unlike the previous departments, where the preparations were mainly based on the Beiping Army's Shili range, the main location of the intelligence department for the implementation of the "Jianye No. 1 Operation Jihua" this time was in Kaifeng City, which was thousands of miles away. For this reason, after reporting the content of the relevant meeting and the action plan of the department to Zhang Xiaofei, who was unable to come to Taiyuan to attend the meeting because of the need to take care of his young daughter, and was approved by Zhang Xiaofei, Zheng Zhiwei and Liang Ziyue immediately split into two ways. Among them, Liang Ziyue, Wang Kunjun and others returned to Beiping City together, and deployed various departments and bureaus of the Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Intelligence ("Dark Feather" Tangkou) to strengthen the work of eliminating traitors and anti-special forces, cracking down on external Shili infiltration, and ensuring the security of intelligence and information in the 24 prefectures of the Beiping Army. Zheng Zhiwei, on the other hand, took a radio station and led a large number of cadres and spies from the Foreign Affairs Department of the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as a company of the "Flying Dragon Army" and the "Wolf Tooth Battalion" to disguise themselves and go south from Taiyuan in phases and batches, and went straight to Kaifeng City and its surrounding areas. On the one hand, the Foreign Affairs Department of the Ministry of Intelligence was deployed to be responsible for the work of the Later Zhou Dynasty ("Dark Feather" Tangkou) to make every effort to find out the news inside and outside the Later Zhou Dynasty, the government and the opposition, the civil and military affairs, and so on. On the other hand, the "Hidden Garden", which has only undertaken the task of general intelligence transmission since the abolition of the "Kaifeng Detention Office", will be built into the largest and most core intelligence collection, processing, and forwarding center of the Ministry of Intelligence ("Dark Feather") in the territory of the Later Zhou Dynasty, so that when there is any trouble in Kaifeng City, the Beiping Military Jiedu Mansion can obtain relevant information at the first time, so as to make an appropriate response accordingly.

At the same time that Zheng Zhiwei led the brigade south to Kaifeng, the "Feiyan Tang" Tang Yan also bid farewell to his brother, and took more than 40 of his subordinates dressed as businessmen, divided into seven groups, and partnered with a caravan going north, all the way to the direction of Beiping City. However, due to the fiasco suffered in the five-year intelligence war of Xiande and the annihilation of the Youzhou branch of the "Feiyan Hall", when he and Zheng Zhiwei went south, they had their own people along the way, and they could very smoothly insert dozens of experienced cadres into the "Dark Feather" already in each hall, and establish a large-scale intelligence center in Chenqiaoyi, which is only forty or fifty miles away from Kaifeng City. After Zhang Yan led his subordinates north to enter the Shili range of the Beiping Army this time, he could only rely on his own liliang to act, which can be described as being cautious everywhere and always cautious, for fear that if he was not careful, he would reveal some flaws. For the sake of not being discovered by the enemy, the team led by Zhang Yanqin even really started business in the process of following the caravan forward, looking for buyers, sellers, sources of goods, customers, prices, and cooperation, and they were very busy. Fortunately, two of Zhang Yan's subordinates in this team had done business and passed through business before, and not only did they not show any signs in their dealings with other merchants and customers, but they also made a lot of money. It's just that the team led by Zhang Yanqin has not been exposed, but the danger of its situation is also increasing day by day.

But what he saw and heard along the way, as well as the encounters of several other small groups of people, also made Zhang Yan's ambition to restore the Youzhou branch of "Feiyan Hall" a little bit lost and weakened. …,

Although on the surface, the Beiping Army had relatively loose control over the prefectures and counties under its rule, and apart from the so-called "chengguan teams" guarding the city gates and similar to the villagers in other areas, who would conduct routine inquiries and inspections of the people entering the city, there were no other inspectors and officials who quickly carried out interrogations of the people and merchants who had already entered the city -- those government officials who were called "policemen" by the locals were only responsible for maintaining order in the city and investigating ordinary cases, and did not hinder the activities of the common people and merchants in the city.

But along the way, especially after getting closer and closer to Beiping City, Zhang Yan found that this relaxation was only a superficial phenomenon. Beneath this lax appearance, there is an unprecedented control network that has spread to every corner of the Beiping Military Administration. It is not the government officials and inspectors who weave this control network as in other regions, nor the regular soldiers and secret spies, but the ordinary gentry and ordinary people. After careful observation, Zhang Yan found that in every bustling street and residential gathering area of the Beiping Army, there were more or less local gentry, businessmen, men, and ordinary people who were busy with their own affairs and work, and at the same time, they also listened to the conversations of other people around them, especially outsiders, intentionally or unintentionally, and especially listened very carefully when these outsiders asked the locals about some sensitive military and political issues. This situation made Zhang Yan extremely vigilant, and she immediately ordered all the members of the team she led not to inquire about any news from the locals on the way.

Because Zhang Yan led the team of men and horses because she was the chief leader who had always been cautious and cautious, in addition to making accidents along the way, she only paid attention to collecting information about the topography and customs of the city along the way, and did not listen to any information related to the deployment of the local army, the chief officers and guards, and so on. However, the leaders of the other teams were not as cautious as their hall masters, and there was a battle between the teams. Therefore, on the way to the north, except for the Ding team, which was deliberately constrained by the old and important principals, they also only recorded the distribution of mountains, rivers, roads, and towns, and did not involve military and political information, and all of them carried out some exploration and survey activities that were more or less inconsistent with the identity of the merchants. Especially when their caravan traveled to the prefectures and counties close to Beiping City, such abnormal activities became more and more common. Among them, the members of Team B carried out activities in Liangxiang City, where the "Qingyuan" brothers lived and lurked in the first place, in a vain attempt to find out the military and civil affairs news here, and to find out the situation of the forbidden land in Jiedu Mansion, which was sixty miles southwest of the city.

As a result, instead of getting any useful information, the activities of Team B made themselves the target of the most attention in the local government and "Dark Feather". After allowing them to jump up and down in and out of the city for two days, the "Dark Feather" Dharma Protector Hall (Operations Department of the Intelligence Department) and the local branch hall quickly attacked with the cooperation of the local government, and it took less than half a cup of tea to capture the six members scattered in and around the city in one fell swoop, and all of them were sent to Beiping City, where they were sent from Jiedu Mansion.

Speaking of the situation when the head of Team B and one of his subordinates were arrested, the head of Team D, who witnessed all this, still had some heart palpitations when he reported the matter to Zhang Yan. At that time, the director of Team D, who arrived two days later than Team B, was planning to go to the largest restaurant in Liangxiang City, "Tianfu Building", to meet with the director of Team B according to the secret mark mark left by his colleagues in the city. As a result, just as he and one of his subordinates walked to a place only a few dozen steps away from the "Tianfu Tower", a team of local officials dressed in so-called "police" uniforms suddenly surrounded the restaurant. Almost at the same time, more than a dozen seemingly ordinary people who were originally setting up stalls on the street, customers who selected goods in the store, porters pushing carts to transport firewood and grass, and other seemingly ordinary people, took out swords and sticks from somewhere, and took out a red cloth belt with a pale yellow feather pattern from their bosom and tied it on their left arm, and under the leadership of a Taoist priest who set up a hexagram stall on the street and two Taoist boys beside him, they rushed into the "Tianfu Building" with lightning speed. Straight to the head of Team B, who was having dinner with one of his subordinates on the second floor. …,

Moreover, what surprised the head of Team D the most was that the head of Team B, who was recognized as the first-rate martial arts master of "Feiyan Hall", could be said to be vulnerable in front of that Taoist priest. From the time the director of Team B found out that things were not good, jumped from the second floor of the restaurant to the ground, to when he was caught up and subdued by the Taoist priest, the two of them only passed three or four moves. The other leader's superb skills made the head of Team D amazed at the same time, but also made him cry out for luck. Secretly sighed that he was lucky, he was a moment late, otherwise, now he and his entourage were also tied up by the people of the Beiping Army at this time, just like the head of Team B and his subordinates. This experience made the head of Team D more cautious at the same time, and finally arrived safely in Beiping City - unfortunately, not all teams had such good luck. In addition to Zhang Yan's own team A and the team in charge of Team D, the other five teams were arrested one after another before entering Beiping City, and they could no longer join the A and D teams.

After listening to the report of the head of Team D, Zhang Yan's heart suddenly cooled. On the one hand, it has been seven or eight days since he arrived in Beiping City, but except for Team D and Team B, who are known to have been arrested, the other four teams still have no news. Judging from the current situation and what happened to Team B in Liangxiang City, the four teams are only afraid that they will be more than lucky. Before she succeeded, she had already lost more than half of her people, and she couldn't help but feel cold about such an unfavorable situation.

On the other hand, the strong strength shown by the person who was called "Dark Feather Hall" by the locals and was obviously a member of the secret spy yamen under the Beiping Army also made Zhang Yan deeply feel that the difficulty of rebuilding the Youzhou branch was far greater than he had expected before he set out, and the danger he and his subordinates faced was much higher than originally estimated. The name of the secret spy Yamen of the Beiping Army, which was heard from the discussion of the local onlookers next to him and confirmed by careful listening by many parties.

However, the heart is cold, and Zhang Yan, who has always been strong, did not give up - and he couldn't explain to his father-in-law and brother just like this. After thinking about it carefully, she decided to temporarily leave Beiping City, which was most tightly controlled by the Beiping Army, and go to Luxian County in the east, where she established the "Feiyan Hall" as the first foothold of the Beiping Army.

The reason why Lu County was chosen as the foothold is because it is only fifty or sixty miles away from Beiping City. The second is because Luxian is an ordinary county town of the Beiping Army, and the monitoring of it by the "Dark Feather Hall" should be much worse than that of Beiping City, which is conducive to its own lurking and concealment. The third reason is that there is a distant relative of their brother and sister in Lu County who is doing business locally, and he can contact him in the name of his father-in-law Zhang Yongde going north to do business -- this distant relative only knows that the Zhang brother and sister are the righteous son and daughter of Zhang Yongde, a heavy minister of the Later Zhou Dynasty, but he does not know that the two of them are managing a secret spy organization for Zhang Yongde. With such a local as a cover, it is naturally conducive to Zhang Yan and his subordinates to gain a firm foothold there.

The plan has been decided, on the 28th day of the 11th lunar calendar of the seventh year of Xiande, Zhang Yan led the remaining dozen or so subordinates to leave Beiping City, which was full of dangers for them, and went to Lu County.