The news was just passed on from Li Yuanqing, who was in charge of the Northern Intelligence Department-

According to the spies, starting on the morning of 16 September, the garrison of the Kaifeng Forbidden Army in Tokyo suddenly became under martial law in the coming week, and there were scattered family members of soldiers near the garrison to visit and deliver things, and occasionally old people, women and children stood outside the camp and wept silently; At noon on the 16th, a large group of people wearing official uniforms surveyed the terrain at the south gate of the outer city, and began to simply level the land and remove garbage and cluttered buildings. Based on these details, the Northern Division suspected that the Later Zhou Forbidden Army was one of the main forces of the Southern Expedition, and that the enemy army might conduct a swearing-in ceremony at the South City Gate.

Lin Feng was not very relieved, and repeatedly asked Li Yuanqing about the details of these news, and only after the last time did he put his mind at ease and immediately organized an emergency secret military meeting. The first batch of people only called Feng Jingyun, Ge Chang and Li Yuanqing, and the meeting time was also very short, less than a quarter of an hour. After the three of them came out, they said hello to the other brothers in the army who were already waiting in the study of the Assassin's Mansion and hurried away.

At the second meeting, Lin Feng immediately announced that Shouzhou would officially enter a state of war from this moment on, and that all armies must be in place in accordance with their respective responsibilities and organize the most effective combat drills.

The meeting lasted a long time, not ending until midnight. Lin Feng, who didn't even bother to eat dinner, followed up and organized the third meeting: the Three Governments Collegiate Conference.

At the meeting, Lin Feng announced with a cold face:

1. From now on, the entire territory of Shouzhou will be subject to military control, and a curfew will be imposed at night, and all actions must be approved by the Assassin Prefecture and the Central Governor's Office.

2. From 7 a.m. on September 20, the four gates of the city were opened for two days, and the three governments led all the street representatives to go house to house to persuade women and children to leave Shouzhou City; Shouzhou officials can send their families away, but individuals are never allowed to leave without permission, and those who leave are immediately removed from the official sequence! By 6 p.m. on the evening of the 21st, the four gates were closed, and no one in the city was allowed to enter or leave unless ordered.

3. From now on, all the central work of the three prefectures will be carried out around the upcoming war, and all non-essential matters will be simplified or postponed.

At the end, facing the frightened, flat, or hesitant gazes of the officials in front of him, Lin Feng said solemnly: "How is the future of Shouzhou in this critical battle!" As long as we work together and grit our teeth to survive, our future will be a smooth road, and Shouzhou will become the most desirable city in the world! I have confidence in myself, in the army of 60,000, and in you, and I hope that you will not fail the people of this city and the expectations of the saints! ”

With a wave of Lin Feng's hand, dozens of officials, big and small, all dispersed. Lin Feng left Xi Mucheng, Lu Jiang, Wu Qiao and other officials of the Central Governor's Office, and especially reminded them to send people to organize the evacuation and retreat of the Academy of Sciences, factory workers, and the surrounding people. Several of them had been staying up for more than ten days in a row, and their eyes were red, but they all nodded without hesitation.

Lin Feng, who was finally busy, washed his face with hot water, sat down and looked up at the moon that had just risen. At this moment, several wisps of dark clouds floated over, covering the lower part of Haoyue, but in Lin Feng's red and sour eyes, the thin clouds were like a layer of black and red blood, announcing to him the bloody future of Shouzhou.

In this hard battle, I don't know how many soldiers and civilians will fall in pools of blood?! I hope that Shouzhou can successfully achieve nirvana from this war and become a holy city that people all over the world yearn for! Lin Feng, who was tired and wanted to die, was not sleepy at the moment, staring at the moon in the sky that seemed to be getting redder and redder in a daze.

Early in the morning of 20 September, when the tired sun pierced the morning twilight, the killing, known as the "Assassination Day" in later generations, had quietly begun on the north bank of the Huai River, but this kind of assassination was at first mistaken by some people who did not know the truth as just a coincidental accident.

Crossing the Huai River from Shouzhou to the north, going up along the Yingshui in the west, the straight-line distance is not more than 100 miles, that is, Yingzhou (now Fuyang, Anhui), and it is also the nearest northern state capital from Shouzhou.

At about seven o'clock in the morning, Fan Tonghai, who joined the army in Yingzhou Thorn Mansion, went to call his iron buddy - Zhao Shuang, who joined the army, just walked to Zhao's mansion, but heard panicked shouts from the mansion, occasionally mixed with sad crying.

Fan Tonghai's heart tightened, and he quickened his pace to enter the Zhao Mansion that seemed to be flustered, and rushed into the study in the direction of the flow of people, and found that the wife of the Zhao family, Huang, was paralyzed on the bed and hugged Zhao Shuang and cried bitterly, that Zhao Shuang's face was bruised, his whole body was naked, and he had been stiff for a long time.

When Huang saw Fan Tonghai, his expression became even more sad, he suddenly put down Zhao Shuang, rushed over and grabbed the hair of the concubine Ye who was curled up at the end of the bed, slammed it viciously on the bed board, and scolded bitterly: "You vixen, you pestering the master every day, and today you finally killed him, now you are a little goblin, right?" ”

Ye Shi screamed again and again, and kept shouting: "The master was still good when he fell asleep last night!" It's none of my business, it's none of my business! ”

Fan Tonghai looked at Zhao Shuang's corpse carefully, and he was puzzled, this Zhao Shuang's daily health is very good, and he often bragged to himself in private that he had worked hard in bed, how could he suddenly get a "stroke" after not seeing him overnight?

Fan Tonghai was suspicious, persuaded the Huang family to tear up, saying that the matter was urgent and that it must be reported to Lord Shi Han, and hurriedly walked out of the Zhao Mansion.

At the moment when Fan Tonghai, who was in a trance, was about to step out of the mansion, a man who happened to hide his face and cry bitterly howled in his mouth, and suddenly tripped under his feet and collided with Fan Tonghai fiercely. Fan Tonghai only felt a numbness in his chest, and he subconsciously reached out to wipe it, and found that his hands were full of sticky and slippery blood, his mind was dizzy, and he slowly fell to the ground.

The man was still shouting in his mouth, and his feet did not stop at all, and a few strides flashed into the back of a side room in the mansion and disappeared.

At nine o'clock, when the people of the Yingzhou Thorn Mansion were panicked because of the sudden accident of the two joining the army, six strong men with knives with black scarves on their faces raided the granary not far behind the Thorn Mansion, killing twelve guards, and then several fires successfully set fire to all the twelve large grain hoards in the granary, and then flew away.

It was the height of autumn, and the fire immediately rose up, and the black smoke could be seen rising all over the city. By the time the people in the city organized to put out the fire, the 100,000 stone grain in the city had already burned one.

Yingzhou Assassin Shi Han Yan was so angry that he searched all over the city, but where could he find anyone at this time? Han Yanfang naturally didn't dare to report it truthfully, so he lied that there was a big thief in the city, and some officials died bravely to save the people, and the grain storage in the city was slightly damaged, and sent someone to ask Guo Wei for the crime.

With the northward movement of this recital, all kinds of accidents also quietly went north like an invisible plague, spreading in the state capitals on the north bank of the Huai River corresponding to Shouzhou.

At noon on September 20, when Hao Shenjun, the commander of the Suzhou Prefecture of Houzhou (now Suzhou, Anhui), was eating wine in a restaurant, he quarreled with a reckless man next to him for no reason, and the two scuffled together.

When Suzhou Sibing Pang joined the army and rode home in the carriage at noon, the horses pulling the carriage suddenly jumped up and ran forward on their own. The crazy car hit a rock on the road and the whole thing fell to the ground. Coincidentally, Pang Senjun, who fell out of the car, hit his head on a sharp stone and finished playing directly.

On the same day, two strange cases occurred in Bozhou (now Anwei Bo County), which was 200 miles northwest from Suzhou. Sicang Cai joined the army and had a few words with his family at noon, turned around and went into the house to continue his lunch break that he had not been able to shake for decades, and his family didn't care, but they didn't see him come out until the evening. Before dinner, the family went into the house to call him to eat, only to find Cai Senjun lying on the bed, with no breath at all, but no scars on his body.

Cui Shenjun, a soldier in Bozhou, bumped into a delicate woman on the street on the way home at noon, and Cui Shenjun, who prides himself on being a master of the love field every day, couldn't stand the sad eyes that the woman projected straight at him, and his heart was full of pride, and he took out twenty pieces in public to do a good deed, and by the way, he received a beauty or something. As a result, since he took his entourage to accompany the woman out of the city to bury his father, no one has seen him return to the city. In the evening, anxious family members gathered relatives and friends to go out of the city to conduct a large-scale search, and finally found the body of the "good intentions" Cui Shenjun and a personal staff in a shallow puddle in the wasteland southwest of the city, leaving only a broken wooden cart at the scene, and the woman and her "dead" father were nowhere to be found.

At 8 o'clock in the evening of the 20th, the granary in the city of Chenzhou (now Huaiyang, Henan), the envoy of the Later Zhou Zhen'an Jiedu, suddenly caught fire.