Sudden change in wind and clouds

  "Didn't your hundred-mile younger brother also not wear a military uniform?"

  Xu Shuzheng recognized this person as Jiang Baili, the military advisor to the Presidential Palace, and immediately smiled and shook his hand.

  "At this time, wearing a military uniform on the street, once surrounded by students, it's not easy to get out of it." General Suiyuan Zhang Shaoyang looked at Xu Shuzheng in casual clothes with some amusement and said, "The student representatives come to the Ministry of War every day to mourn Qin Ting, it seems that you can't bear it either."

  "The students, witnessing the Japanese army invading our country and killing our people, were driven by righteous indignation to do this. With a heart full of patriotic fervor, they should not be overly blamed." Xu Shuzheng greeted everyone briefly, speaking calmly as he walked over to sit down at the table.

  As the youngest deputy head of the Chinese government, 34-year-old Xu Shuzheng stood out among many older generals and military leaders from other provinces and Beijing, with a unique air of authority.

  As soon as Xu Shuzheng sat down, all the generals and inspectors also took their seats.

  "After the Japanese occupied Qingdao, they have been pressing in on our country step by step. Today, I invite everyone to come and discuss whether there is a way to resolve this huge crisis that we are facing." Xu Shuzheng's gaze swept across the generals as he spoke.

  Xu Shuzheng's first sentence chilled the atmosphere, and the originally lively hall suddenly fell silent, with only people's heavy breathing sounds audible.

  "Today is just a private gathering of friends, whatever anyone says, it doesn't matter," Xu Shuzheng said. "We can't always be yielding, are we really going to hand over the entire Shandong province to the Japanese?"

  "Shandong must not fall into the hands of the Japanese," Jiang Baili said first, "The Germans have occupied Qingdao for many years and have done some construction. Moreover, the Germans are far away, it is difficult to deploy troops, and they only occupy a corner of Qingdao, which does not pose a great threat to our country. But the Japanese are different, they want to swallow up our territory, they have already occupied Taiwan and Korea, and put Fujian in their sights. If Shandong falls into the hands of the Japanese, Beijing will be under the muzzle of the Japanese guns at all times, then our country will be on the verge of collapse."

  "Everyone understands the principle, but the problem is how to stop the Japanese action." Zhang Shaozeng said, looking at Xu Shuzheng, "After the Japanese army landed, they did not rush to attack the German troops in Qingdao, but instead divided their forces to harass and occupy our provinces, counties, and railways, and then attacked Qingdao. From their deployment, it is clear that they have been planning to occupy Shandong for a long time. After they gain a foothold in Shandong, they may seek to provoke us and enter our territory, but we currently do not have any preparations in place."

  "The meaning of 'Jing Yu' is that we should take action now to prevent the Japanese army from invading the mainland from the Jiaodong Peninsula." Xu Shuzheng nodded and said.

  "In addition, we should concentrate the troops in Beijing and Tianjin to prevent the Japanese army from launching a surprise attack on Tianjin by sea and then advancing on Beijing. Our military strength is actually inferior to that of Japan, and our actions are slow. Although the Japanese have occupied half of Shandong Peninsula, they are currently fully engaged in the European war, and their troops within our borders are not many. We should take advantage of this opportunity to gather our forces as soon as possible, gathering all the capable armies from various provinces to come, even if it's not for recovering Shandong, taking necessary precautions is also a must."

  "What Song Po said is absolutely right," Xu Shuzheng said, "otherwise, once the Japanese army launches a surprise attack, our army will not have any preparations and will inevitably suffer greatly."

  "If it really comes to a fight, the fear will not be limited to Shandong alone." Jiang Baili sighed and said, "My navy's strength is weak, and it is impossible to defend every place along the southeastern coast. If war breaks out on a large scale, the people there will inevitably suffer a great disaster."

  "This is also why President Taft has been tolerant and restrained in the face of Japan's arrogant and overbearing attitude," said Xu Shuzheng.

  "The Japanese Navy poses a great threat to our country. If we are to safely pass through this crisis, we must rebuild our naval defenses. We cannot continue with no defense at sea." Chiang said, "If the coast is lost, our inland territory will eventually be nibbled away by Japan."

  After listening to Jiang Baili's words, several generals from other provinces all nodded in agreement, and the discussion atmosphere of the meeting gradually became less dull than at the beginning.

  Just then, an army officer rushed in, and Xu Shuzheng noticed that his expression was very flustered, which made him quite curious.

  "What's wrong, Xiaoan?" Xu Shuzheng recognized the newcomer as Peiyang New Army Training Supervisor Fu Xiaoan, and asked while standing up, "Aren't you on leave to visit your family?"

  "Just now, someone brought this," Fu Xiaoan saluted Xu Shuzheng with a military salute and said in a hoarse voice, "After subordinates saw it, they thought it was important, so they rushed back to report to the deputy director." As he spoke, he handed over a letter-like thing in his hand to Xu Shuzheng.

  Xu Shuzheng noticed Fu Xia'an's tension, furrowed his brow, took over the letter, pulled out the contents, and only glanced at it for a few moments before his expression changed.

  "Who sent this thing?" Xu Shu-zheng asked in a low voice.

  "It was a woman who was stuffed into the bag," said Fu Xiao'an, "judging from her attire she seemed to be a student. At that time, the bag was surrounded by students and it was too crowded, so I couldn't see her face clearly nor could I talk to her."

  After hearing Fu Xiaoan's answer, Xu Shuzheng's face turned even uglier. He carefully read the letter again, and his hand involuntarily trembled with rage, clearly furious to the extreme.

  "What's wrong? Tree Town?" Jiang Baili noticed Xu Shuzheng's unusual change and asked immediately.

  "You see for yourself." Xu Shuzheng handed the letter to Jiang Baili, saying in a hoarse voice.

  Jiang Baili took over the letter and glanced at it, his face also changed greatly.

  "This... wouldn't be someone intentionally fabricating it to create chaos, would it?" Jiang Baili asked Xu Shuzheng in surprise.

  "Look at those contents and terms, as well as that blood book, are they fake?" Xu Shu-zheng coldly laughed and asked back.

  Jiang Baili let out a long sigh and his eyes fell back onto the letter again.

  Hearing the conversation between the two, Cai E stood up and came to Jiang Baili's side, leaning over to look with him. The surrounding generals saw their faces turn from red to white, then back to red again, while Cai E's eyes seemed to be about to spit out fire.

  Xu Shuzheng easily stabilized his emotions and looked at the generals, saying: "Everyone take a look! The Japanese are going to make a move against us!"

  When Xu Shuzheng hastily came out of the entrance of Wuguo Restaurant and got into the car, he didn't notice that under a street lamp in the distance, a young couple was occasionally glancing over here.

  "Do you think he will believe this 'Twenty-one Articles'?" Shui Jing glanced at Jiang Xueying beside him and asked in a low voice.

  "He will believe it." Jiang Xueying nodded slightly, watching Xu Shuzheng's car disappear, "And the Japanese side will soon help us prove its authenticity."

  At this time, snowflakes began to float in the sky. Jiang Xueying tidied up her scarf and said to Shuijing, "Let's go, we have to send a telegram to 'Baiyang'." She looked at the darkening sky, "The blizzard is coming soon."

  "It's going to be lively tonight." Shui Jing said to himself, looking in the direction where Xu Shu-zheng's car had disappeared, and then turned around with Jiang Xue-ying.

  Just as Shui Jing had expected, it wasn't long before the Presidential Palace was packed with military and political leaders hastily summoned by Yuan Shikai.

  "This 'Twenty-One Demands', is probably a fabrication by someone with ulterior motives," Foreign Minister Sun Baoqi said to Yuan Shikai, "Currently, due to the Japanese occupation of the Shandong Peninsula, anti-Japanese sentiment among the people is strong, and the call for sending troops to expel them grows louder every day. Therefore, some people want to take advantage of this opportunity to fabricate such secret treaty documents, confuse public opinion, intensify conflicts, and reap benefits from it. It's likely the doing of the Sun-Yuan rebel party."

  "I'm afraid it's not necessarily the doing of Sun Yat-sen's party." Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cao Rulin said with a worried face, "Looking at the content of this clause, all of which are accompanied by the original Japanese text, not only is the format and language identical, but also extremely clear about our country's diplomatic situation with Japan, absolutely not something an ordinary person could fabricate."

  "Your meaning is that the contents of this treaty are likely to be true?" Yuan Shikai looked at Cao Rulin and asked loudly.

  "It's hard to say whether it's true or not, but judging from the recent moves of the Japanese side, they may propose a treaty with similar content to us..." Cao Rulin wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at Yuan Shikai's expression, speaking cautiously, "It's just that the fifth item in this is really too harsh, I've never heard of it before..."

  "Have you ever heard of the contents of the previous four numbers?" Yuan Shikai caught the hidden meaning in Cao Rulin's words and asked abruptly.

  After hearing Yuan Shikai's question, the military and political officials standing around all focused their attention on Cao Rulin.

  "Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had some news..." Cao Rulin nodded with difficulty and gave a positive response.

  "Why didn't you tell me earlier!" Yuan Shikai suddenly flew into a rage, slamming the letter on the purple sandalwood table, "What were you doing earlier?!"

  "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not received any formal documents from the Japanese side, and is unclear about the specific content. It was unable to report in time..." Cao Rulin said with a choked voice, "Diplomatic affairs are not trivial matters, slight carelessness can stir up great waves..."

  Yuan Shikai waved his hand impatiently at Cao Rulin, who immediately fell silent and retreated several steps, as if he had just received a great pardon.

  "What a deception!" Yuan Shikai slammed his fist on the table again, "A few days ago, the nineteen provincial governors sent telegrams one after another, pointing out that Japan had ulterior motives towards our country and demanded to take precautions in advance. I was afraid of causing tension between the two countries, so I replied 'Japan has always been friendly, it's unlikely they would make any unexpected moves, we should observe calmly and wait, there is no need to be alarmed, so as not to hinder diplomatic relations'. But they actually came up with this thing to deal with me! What a deception! What a deception!"

  Something came up and everyone had to wait for a long time, sorry about that. I'll post two chapters together instead.