After the morning lectures, the students did not go home from school, but went to the canteen next door to queue up for dinner.
The cook is a peasant woman hired from nearby, with a monthly salary of 1 yuan, and is responsible for cooking for the teachers and students. The nutritious lunch does not have milk, just ordinary home-cooked dishes and white flour steamed buns. Even so, the students eat with gusto and hug them.
I licked the oily tableware again and again until it was clean and I didn't even need to wash the dishes again.
While reporters were taking pictures, Zhou Hexuan suddenly asked: "Hey, where is the Sixth Commander?"
Feng Yong said: "The Sixth Son has left, and he will go to the north to take charge of the army."
Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "You are quite free."
"There is no way, the air force is too expensive, and the old commander is not willing to use it," Feng Yong laughed at himself, "Now I am a commander who eats for free all day long, and my bones are rusty with idleness."
Zhou Hexuan said: "Let's go, we will go back too."
Feng Yong looked at the children with full bellies and happy smiles on their faces, and said with emotion: "I have lived for more than twenty years, and today I finally feel that I am doing something."
"Haha, each other!" Zhou Hexuan laughed.
The two took a rickshaw back to the concession. When passing by the British concession, they suddenly saw a large number of students demonstrating. They held banners, waved flags and shouted slogans as they marched toward the British Consulate.
"Down with British imperialism!"
"Severely punish the murderer and protest against interference!"
"China is the China of the Chinese people!"
"..."
The British concession military police quickly arrived and blocked the marching students in the street. The scene became extremely tense for a while.
Zhou Hexuan was unable to do anything about it. He and Feng Yong could only stand aside and watch the excitement. The students were in a state of passion and anger, and there was no way they could persuade them. As for the concession military police, they would not listen to Zhou Hexuan's command.
Not only in Tianjin, but now there are demonstrations all over the country.
The cause was the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army, which, despite the mediation and intervention of the great powers, successively occupied the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. These were the traditional spheres of influence of the British, and they suffered heavy losses in the war. The British finally could no longer sit still and dispatched warships in the Yangtze River Basin.
pick a quarrel.
At the beginning, British ships and merchant ships took advantage of their huge tonnage to sink Chinese wooden ships and drown Chinese people for fun. In the Wanxian section of the Yangtze River alone, more than 40 people were drowned in three months, including 4 Chinese civilian ships.
Being hit and sunk.
The conflict intensified at the end of August.
The British Merchant Wanliu ran into the Yunyang River to cause trouble and indiscriminately sank three wooden ships carrying military pay by Yang Sen. More than 50 soldiers and civilians on board were drowned, and more than 80,000 paychecks and a small number of guns sank to the bottom of the river.
By the way, Yang Sen was the governor of Sichuan appointed by Wu Peifu, and the British are now helping Wu Peifu. This incident simply destroyed the Dragon King Temple.
But the British guys are awesome, just hit the wrong one, I don’t care who you are, anyway, Chinese people’s lives are cheap.
Yang Sen was also brave. In a rage, he sent troops to seize the British merchant ships Wantong and Wanxian and demanded compensation from the British for the losses. The British responded by sending more warships and issued a 24-hour ultimatum. Once the deadline was up, they would directly open fire.
On September 5, the British warships bombarded the urban area of Wanxian County brazenly. The bombardment lasted for nearly three hours and fired more than 300 artillery shells and incendiary bombs. Thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed and injured, and more than a thousand houses and shops were destroyed. It was called "Wanxian County" in history.
massacre".
After the tragedy, many newspapers across the country, including Ta Kung Pao, reported it in detail and severely condemned the British's criminal behavior. Naturally, the passionate and patriotic young people couldn't sit still and spontaneously took to the streets to demonstrate.
If protests and marches work, why do we need the army?
Today, the British are still arrogant. Not only have they refused to hand over the murderer and compensate for the losses, they have threatened Wu Peifu to resolve the matter peacefully. Wu Peifu had no choice but to put pressure on Yang Sen, asking Yang Sen to apologize to the British and release the impounded British merchant ship as soon as possible.
The world is upside down, and there is no distinction between black and white. This has always been the case in the great Republic of China.
"Stop looking and let's go." Feng Yong sighed.
Zhou Hexuan shook his head helplessly, and the joy of successfully running the school was instantly washed away.
Depressed, he returned to the newspaper office. Before Zhou Hexuan's buttocks could get hot, Hu Zhengzhi and Zhang Jiluan came to find him.
Zhang Jiluan said: "We have just received a warning. The Peiping side ordered Ta Kung Pao to downplay the Wanxian tragedy and not to use too drastic words in its reports. It seems that all newspapers in the Zhili region have received this telegram."
"President, tell me what to do." Hu Zhengzhi looked at Zhou Hexuan.
Zhou Hexuan asked: "What are your opinions?"
Zhang Jiluan said: "Report how you should report. No party, no selfishness, no selling, and no blindness. These eight words cannot be lost."
Zhou Hexuan carefully considered the pros and cons, and finally gritted his teeth and said: "Repay!"
Hu Zhengzhi and Zhang Jiluan looked at each other and smiled. The former said: "I will write this editorial and try to be as subtle as possible, but the facts must be made clear."
If you want to run a newspaper in the Republic of China, you must have both backbone and tact. Hu Zhengzhi would not be stupid enough to deliberately anger warlords and foreigners, but he must stick to the bottom line at critical times. This is the true policy of running a newspaper of "Ta Kung Pao".
Hu Zhengzhi had already collected the in-depth report that Zhou Hexuan mentioned last time on the military expenditures of warlords in various places in recent years. But at this time, the Northern Expedition was experiencing a series of great victories, so he chose not to publish it for the time being, because once such calls for peace were
Writing the article is equivalent to speaking for Wu Peifu in disguise.
The real time to report is when the North and South armies are in a stalemate.
After sending Hu and Zhang away, Zhou Hexuan sat in the office and sighed. He found that no matter what he did, it would not help China's bad situation.
"Dong dong dong!"
There was a knock on the door.
Zhou Hexuan said angrily: "Please come in!"
A young man pushed the door open and said respectfully: "Hello, Mr. Zhou, I'm here to deliver an invitation."
Zhou Hexuan opened the post, but it was Feng Wuyue, Zhang Xueliang's former adjutant and now the president of "Beiyang Pictorial", inviting him to a dance party over the weekend.
"Please inform President Feng, I will be there then."
Zhou Hexuan found it very ironic. Nowadays, people all over the country are protesting against the great powers, but the dances of wealthy people are still going on. And he, Zhou Hexuan, is also one of those people who "do not know how to hate the country's subjugation".
…
Chu Mansion.
Chu Yufeng lay on the couch, smoking a cigarette and asked: "It's been half a month and you still haven't found a chance?"
Du Xiaoshan said with a bitter face: "That Taiji thief named Zhou usually stays in the concession. Today he went to the eastern suburbs, but he was accompanied by Zhang Xueliang and Feng Yong. This matter is not easy to handle."
Chu Yufeng said nonchalantly: "If he doesn't rent out the concession, then we will start in the concession."
"No way!"
Du Xiaoshan quickly dissuaded him: "Second Master, it is taboo to use firearms in the concession. If you are not careful, foreigners will interfere."
"You are just too cowardly," Chu Yufeng said with a smile. "Find a gunman, hide in the crowd, fire a gun, and then run away after shooting. Can the foreigners find out?"
"This..." Du Xiaoshan hesitated. He really didn't want to care about this matter. After all, Zhou Hexuan was Zhang Xueliang's man, and he was also a well-known scholar. If something went wrong, it would be his turn, Du Xiaoshan, to take the blame.
Chu Yufeng said with a ferocious face: "You are a local snake in Tianjin. Go and find a gunman for me who will not risk your life. Give him 1,000 yuan and be sure to bring Zhou Hexuan's head. This is a military order, you must not disobey it!"
"Okay... okay." Du Xiaoshan reluctantly agreed, already scolding Chu Yufeng's eighteen generations of ancestors in his heart.
Even though Chu Yufeng was running rampant in Tianjin City, he was actually still a coward. He didn't dare to kill people in the concession. He even hired Du Xiaoshan to hire gunmen, so that he could completely blame him for any future troubles.
Of course, Du Xiaoshan was not a fool. He worked as a gunman for nothing. He returned home, thought about it, called his confidants and said, "Go and send a message to Zhou Hexuan, telling him to be careful when he goes out and beware of assassins."
