"Although you are oppressed and neglected, you must know the power you have. You can make the government inoperable if you want to. I'm talking about you, who are in charge of the railroads and telegraphs, and you who mediate disputes and collect taxes......"

- Bal Gangadhar Tilak (leader of the Indian National Movement), 1902.

July 1908, the glorious month of the Asian Revolution – it is not an exaggeration to say that.

Whatever one may think, this month of this time and space, a hot and exhilarating storm is blowing over the continent of Asia.

On July 3, the Turkish officers and Young Turks in the city of Lesna, Macedonia in the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks gathered a crowd to revolt, and within a few days, the Second and Third Corps of the Imperial Army in Macedonia and part of the Albanian Regiment known as the Second Guards of Sultan Hamid II mutinied, and on July 23, the rebel army occupied the Macedonian capital Salonika, and Hamid II was forced to issue an edict that night, announcing the immediate restoration of the 1876 constitution and the holding of national elections in a short time. Turkey, which has been suppressed by tyranny for a long time, has finally ushered in the fresh morning of revolution!

Also in July, the Persian revolution did not come to a low ebb after the successful counter-revolutionary coup d'état of the Persian king Muhammad Ali on June 23. Although the fruits of Iran's constitutional revolution that began in December 1905 – the 1906 constitution and the first parliament – were snuffed out by artillery fire from the king's Cossack brigades, the revolutionary spirit could not be easily eradicated, and less than two weeks after the Parliament Building and Sheibach • and the Salar Mosque (then the center of mass movements) were bombed into ruins, Tabriz, the capital of the Azerbaijani province in western Persia, was founded by two revolutionary leaders, Sardar Khan and Baghir Khan. The Revolutionary Military Council, led by the people of Tabriz, called Sardar the Leader of the People and Baghar the Stonemason Commander-in-Chief of the People. The Revolutionary Military Council put forward the following slogan: "Restore the constitution, convene a new parliament, and drive out of Persia the foreigners who supported the king and the reactionaries!" ”

The revolutionary regime in Tabriz expropriated the money and grain of the rich and distributed them to the poor, confiscated the property of the king and his clan in Azerbaijan, controlled most of Azerbaijan, and established close ties with the revolutionary forces in the South Caucasus of Russia.

The torch of revolution in Tabriz illuminated the revolutionary situation in Iran, and by January 1909, the constitutionalists in the central town of Isfahan had seized power in the city, and the forces of the Bakhtiar tribe refused to obey the king's orders to go out to suppress the uprising in Tabriz, but defected to the constitutionalists. A revolutionary coup d'état also took place in the northern province of Geelong, where the inhabitants of Mashhad refused to pay taxes and disobey the king's orders, then proclaimed Nchumin (People's Council) as the supreme authority and formed Fedayi (revolutionary death squads) to defend the revolutionary regime. In the southern coastal areas of Bushehr and Abbas, the constitutionalists also seized power – that's all for later.

Also in July, on July 10, King Habibullah Khan of Afghanistan abruptly declared the Anglo-Argandamak and Heizhi Treaties null and void, declaring Afghanistan an independent state rather than a British protectorate. A week later, China and Japan recognized Afghanistan as an independent and sovereign state and announced that they would prepare to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.

The angry British authorities, on the one hand, issued a threat of war against Afghanistan, on the other hand, sent a note of protest to China and Japan, and began to concentrate troops on the Indo-Afghan border.

However, the Afghans were not afraid of war, and even less of the British.

The First Anglo-Afghan War from 1839 lasted three and a half years, costing the British colonists more than 30,000 people and 150 million pounds, and ended in a complete victory for the Afghan people! In this war, in November 1841, more than 16,000 British troops were wiped out on the way from Kabul to Jalalabad, and only one doctor who was seriously wounded escaped back to Jalalabad! During the same period, the Qing Dynasty in the east was beaten by thousands of British troops to the point that they had lost their temper, and the foreigners had to do whatever they said about land cession, indemnity, consular jurisdiction, and opening of ports.

In 1878, the British invaded Afghanistan again, and because the rulers pinned their hopes on Russian intervention and adopted a policy of non-resistance, the territory fell rapidly, and Afghanistan was forced to sign the Treaty of Gandamak with Britain in 1879, and Afghanistan became a vassal state of the United Kingdom. The signing of the treaty provoked a large-scale popular uprising in Afghanistan, and the anti-British rebel army developed rapidly, repeatedly inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, and the British colonial army was beaten everywhere and hit walls everywhere, and was forced to sign a compromise agreement with the royal leader of the rebel army, Abdul• Rahman Khan (the father of the current Afghan king Habibullah Khan), supporting Rahman Khan's ascension to the throne as king, and agreeing to the autonomy of Afghanistan's internal affairs, but the foreign affairs were controlled by the British (that is, it became a protectorate). The British eventually gave up their intention to occupy Afghanistan and withdrew in disgrace.

After the current King Habibullah Khan succeeded to the throne in 1901, he adopted a pro-British policy, and on March 21, 1904, the two sides signed the "Black Zhi Treaty", which confirmed Britain's control of Afghanistan's diplomacy in exchange for a British annual grant of 160,000 pounds. The interior affairs were confirmed to be handled by the King of Afghanistan. However, the outcome of the Russo-Chinese War of 1903-1904 and the Gurkha War of 1905 greatly shook the pragmatic king, and the reality that both Britain and Russia were forced to make concessions to China, coupled with the frequent visits of Chinese envoys, inspired him to seek China's support for independence.

In July, the king finally made the decision to become completely independent, and war was on the horizon, and the Uzberi Pass on the Pamirs began to be busy. Since the reconquest of the Western Pamirs, China's contacts with Afghanistan have become more convenient. After the Chinese army entered this area, it spent a lot of manpower and material resources to repair the road from the Buren Pass through the Uzberi Pass to the West Pamir and the strongholds on the banks of the Pench River, among which the rugged mountain road from Susserkul along the Penchi River valley to the Afghan border town of Ishkashim became the most important direct passage between China and Afghanistan. In any case, the Uzberi Pass is the key to the passage of everything destined for the Western Pamirs and Afghanistan, and the volume of mules and horses in the Uzberi Pass skyrocketed fivefold throughout July compared to the same period last year – what does this mean? In hindsight, the people naturally knew the answer.

July, it's still July, do you see the shape of 7? Like what? Sickle? That's right, the scythe, the sharp scythe that sweeps away the feudal power and the colonizers!

In July, in India, workers raised their hammers and peasants raised their sickles.

In June 1908, the British colonial government arrested Tirak, the leader of the radical Nationalist Party of India's National Congress Party, on charges of "subversion", and sentenced him to six years in prison in the Supreme Court of Bombay from July 13 to 22. In his impassioned speech, Tirak used the court as a forum for national independence.

On July 23, 100,000 workers in Mumbai staged a city-wide political general strike, organized demonstrations, built barricades, and resisted the repression of the colonial military and police.

On July 25, the third day of the general strike, in the filthy slums of Mumbai, a man wrapped in a Muslim headscarf walked briskly, not looking like an Arabized Mongol, nor much like a light-skinned Indianized Aryan, his yellowed skin, dark eyes, and bearded face more like the Chinese who have come to Mumbai to do business in recent years.

He walked to a straw hut full of gaps, and coughed a few times, three long and two short.

A naked, bare-faced, dignified-looking young man lifted the rotten curtain that served as the door, and when he saw that it was him, he welcomed him warmly into the house.

"Hasumi, dear friend, we are all waiting for you."

In the narrow grass hut, a dozen people, mostly topless, probably fresh from eating, and a stack of curry-stained banana leaves were piled up in the corner, and the room was filled with the sour smell of India.

Hasumi was just a symbol, and the man wearing the symbol and the Muslim turban nodded to the crowd and sat down cross-legged in their same way.

"Friends, according to the agreement, I came, and I shouldn't be late."

The young man who ushered him in clasped his hands together: "You came at a good time. ”

"Alright, Agapa, let's get straight to the point, as you know, I have a gun."

As soon as the word "gun" was heard, the crowd whispered like flies, and Hasumi deliberately stopped and waited for their response.

It was a long time before Agaba, the young man, spoke on behalf of the crowd: "We need guns, a lot of guns." ”

"What do you do with it?" Hasumi waved his hand to chase away a fly that had perched on the tip of his nose.

"How many guns do you have?" Agaba asked rhetorically.

"We're old friends, Agaba."

"I know it."

"You also know that I am an enemy of the British, do you think I will betray you?"

The crowd began to uneasy, and everyone began to discuss it crookedly, and after a long time, Agaba smiled again: "Hasumi, old friend, we believe in you, give us guns." The British want to suppress the strike, but also to intensify the persecution of our comrades, the comrades in the north and Bengal have already risen, and we cannot wait any longer. Yesterday, the farmers of Tana killed the British plantation owner and his gang of lackeys, and they contacted us to mobilize more men to fight together and spread the fire of the uprising across India. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone looked at Hasumi expectantly.

Hasumi folded his arms and muttered for a long time: "How much money do you have?" ”

Agaba bit his lip: "We don't have the money now, but when the British are driven out, you will be compensated far beyond the value of the goods......"

"But, let me say, do you really think the uprising will succeed?"

"Succeed or not, someone has to do it, and I heard that several rebel armies in the north have been holding out for more than three years, and yes, they have persevered. Although the authorities slandered them as bandits, our eyes saw clearly that the truly intelligent Indians knew that they were heroes fighting for freedom and independence! ”

"Understood." Hasumi nodded.

The rebels in the north can be replenished with arms from the Gorkhas, but you ...... Forget it, they shouldn't care about the truth, these people who stand up to the sky and the earth and do not hesitate to burn their lives for the great ideal of national liberation, even if they know that the Tao may be used by others, they will still fly towards the sun in their minds without reservation and sacrifice.

Hasumi easily convinced himself and reached out to straighten the fake beard on his face.

"As I said, the British are the eternal enemies of my family, so as long as it is against the British, I will do my best to help, my family has helped Egyptians, Afghans, Burmese, Malays, they are just like you, they are not afraid of sacrifice, fighting for freedom and independence. Yes, I have seen many heroes, I have helped many heroes, I know that you are all heroes, friends, I have 600 rifles and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, if you really have the courage to break the chains, and bring people to the beach of Longa at midnight, signaled by the red light of the sea. ”

When Hasumi had said this, he stood up, gave a Muslim chest touch, lifted the curtain, and hurried away as he had come.

At midnight, on Lunga Beach outside Mumbai, hundreds of men quietly hide in the bushes at the end of the beach.

As the minutes ticked by, the sea was still dark and mushy, and there was nothing.

"Why haven't you come yet?" Someone is starting to get anxious.

"Wait, Hasumi won't lie to us, he's our true friend." Agaba reassured.

"But he's a businessman after all, maybe it's a trap?"

"Believe me, or follow the fate of the fate, how can you not take the risk of picking palm fruits?"

As he spoke, a red light suddenly lit up on the sea, swaying leisurely, and gradually approaching.

Agaba led some of the best men to the beach with his cats on his back, jumped into the sea shirtless, and within a few swims he caught the gang of boats with red lights.

There was only one young man dressed as a fisherman on the boat, and when he saw Agaba, he stretched out his hands and squeaked for a long time, and it turned out to be a mute.

"Where's Hasumi?" Agaba asked.

The mute fisherman pointed to himself, and then to the sea in the darkness, and in the direction of his finger a vague outline of a sailboat could be faintly seen.

"Does he want you to take us there?" Agaba asked again.

The mute fisherman nodded repeatedly.

A quarter of an hour later, Agaba and a few of his attendants boarded a three-masted, single-deck galleon, but the ship was empty, and the mute fisherman led them down the hold with a lamp, and sure enough, hundreds of long wooden crates were piled up, and one of them was opened, and it was really a smooth Mauser rifle, and another was opened, and the box was full of rifle bullets, both marked with words similar to English but not recognized, only the Arabic numerals were the same.

The mute fisherman pulled Agabara to the deck again, and pointed to the boat's several small rowing boats.

"It seems that Hasumi wants us to carry it ourselves." Agaba finally got it.

Before daybreak, the six hundred boxes in the hold of the sailing ship were gone, and the dinghy that had been tied to the deck was still dripping with water, but it was back in place at all.

"Well done."

"Hasumi" patted the mute fisherman on the shoulder, and the young man smiled simply like a crystal—in his opinion, it was not enough to repay the benefactor who saved his life.

"What would the real Germans think when they see those guns?"

"Hasumi" smiled at the frighteningly quiet Lunga beach in the hazy night, pinched the fake mustache he had just changed, and waved to the sailors who had already taken their places: "Go boat!" ”