Chapter 52: The Ji Province Militia

  "Ma Anliang, you're really too much." After finishing reading the confession, Chen An's face was darker than ever, but he didn't have any anger left. Others had crossed him twice, and Chen An had endured it both times, only to come back with a third underhanded move right away - what can be tolerated and what cannot?

  The Shaanxi Anti-Donation Riot appeared to be a spontaneous action by the Shaanxi Knife Society, but in reality, it had a subtle background of revolutionary party involvement. However, the incident at the Hanzhong office was actually planned by the Ma family, who used a few defeated members of the Shaanxi Knife Society to carry it out. It was precisely because the Ma family gave the signal that the Hanzhong telegraph office dared to detain the telegram, and the person who came forward was Liu Shiyeh. Although the Hanzhong prefect did not participate in the incident, he tacitly allowed it to happen; otherwise, Liu Shiyeh would not have been so bold.

  As for the reason, Liu Shiyeye said it was true that Gansu officials had a good life after dividing the two rivers, while the originally wealthy Shaanxi government was envious.

  After careful consideration, Chen An sent an urgent telegram to the Governor's Office, attaching a full transcript of the confession. At the same time, he issued several instructions to Li Huichen's group, who were still in Hanzhong, and Lin Yushan's intelligence agency.

  Governor-General Sheng allowed the telegram to be received, and his first reaction was that things were going badly. It could almost be certain that Chen An, who had suffered a great loss, would definitely counterattack. Sheng allowed immediately sent a telegram to comfort Chen An, stating that he would report to the imperial court to dismiss and investigate Han Zhong's prefecture, and also urgently dispatched someone to interrogate Ma Anliang about his intentions.

  The governor-general's telegram has not yet arrived, and Chen An's retaliatory measures have already begun.

  The rivers and lakes are talking about the affairs of the rivers and lakes. Chen An, through Jing Yue Xiu, put up a huge reward of 1,000 taels of silver for the capture of the fourteen leaders of the gang that robbed and burned down the Hanzhong office, and anyone who could provide proof would be rewarded with the money upon presenting the head at the Hanzhong office. Suddenly, a great sensation was stirred up on both banks of the Wei River in Shaanxi.

  The Wei River was almost a bloody storm between the northern and southern knife guests, who often went on a killing spree to hunt down these fourteen people, starting with those related to them. More people fell under the pursuit and counter-pursuit of the knife guests. In the end, even Iizuka Hideshi felt a chill, as over a thousand people had fallen in the mutual slaughter before finally taking out the fourteenth fugitive knife guest who was on the run.

  From then on, the Shaanxi knife guests no longer had a united enemy, but were filled with suspicion and vigilance, their power greatly declining, all of which was due to Chen An's crazy huge reward.

  Li Hu's group was also acting in secret. Liu Shiyé was soon found drowned after drinking, his family came over crying to collect him, and directly carried him back home for burial, then packed their bags and immediately fled Hanzhong. The Hanzhong government office hadn't even had time to send out a coroner to examine the body before Liu Shiyé's funeral was over.

  But an experienced coroner happened to pass by, and after just a few glances, he knew that Liu's entire body was already shattered, and it was impossible for him to have fallen into the river while drunk. The cautious coroner did not report it, but only mentioned it unintentionally once when he was drunk, causing the Hanzhong government officials to be shocked and lose their color.

  What the coroner's office didn't know was that in Hanzhong these past few days, seven or eight people had already drowned from excessive drinking, and all of them had their bones completely shattered. Liu Shiye also died in this manner, and naturally, the higher-ups at the government office were aware that this was revenge, and it was heading straight for them. Many of the people who died earlier were pawns of the Ma family in Hanzhong.

  Originally, they were delighted when Liu Shiyeh died, thinking it was an accident and the trail would be cut off. Who would have thought that the other party had already grasped the clue and simply killed Liu Shiyeh? So who's next?

  The Hanzhong prefect immediately reported his illness to the Shaanxi governor and requested a temporary return to Xi'an for recuperation. Many informed or uninformed high-ranking officials in the government fled into nearby military camps, and some even resigned and left.

  The governor was also frightened and Chen An's and Ma Jia's actions were no different from those of a madman.

  The entire Jiezhou is on high alert, and anyone related to the Ma family or their merchant teams have all been arrested and taken into military camps. Duan Cao's men from the Inspection Department are carrying out a thorough search and slaughter of the Ma family's henchmen within Jiezhou. All officials in the Jiezhou government office have been severely warned by Chen An, and they're all hiding their heads like turtles.

  All members of the Ma family or those who followed the Green Teachings were executed on the spot after interrogation, and then burned into fertilizer.

  Chen An was already furious, if you want to fight, come and fight. Lin Yushan had moved to Xiguan, Liu Shi also strengthened the front search, preparing to have a good fight with the possible invading garrison of Town South.

  No one knows how heavy the losses of Ma Anliang were. It is estimated that after weighing for a long time, when there was still one flag that had not been formed, Ma Anliang finally retreated.

  Soon, the Governor's office intervened to mediate. The first thing Sheng allowed was to order the Han Prefecture to return to the yamen and send people to capture the person in charge of the Ma family in Hanzhong, and immediately execute him, and then hand it over to the Hanzhong Office. The man who was executed was a nephew of Ma Anliang and also the organizer of the whole incident.

  The Governor-General himself sent a telegram to Chen An, informing him that the Ma family was willing to use 100,000 taels of silver to exchange for those detained merchant teams and personnel, hinting at a settlement in this way.

  Chen An hesitated for a moment, then wired back to the Governor-General: "The Ma family is like a wolf, and I am very worried about the safety of our offices and farms outside. Is it possible to organize a small guard team?"

  Sheng Yun immediately replied, "Not allowed."

  Chen An immediately knew that the request was a bit too much, because the Northern Industrial Company was registered in the name of foreigners on the surface, and Governor Zhang would naturally not allow any armed forces controlled by foreigners to appear in Gansu.

  After turning over several ideas, Chen An sent another telegram, suggesting whether the prefect of Jiezhou should take the lead in establishing a militia team under the command of the Jiezhou government office to assist in protecting the safety of various business offices and farms.

  After half a day, the Governor-General sent a telegram and approved this matter. However, the officials must be appointed by the Prefect of Jiangzhou, and the number of people cannot exceed 300.

  Chen An hastily wired his agreement. With the excess grain and massive ammunition supplies, all the officials were appointed by him, what else could they do? They would immediately obey, and Chen An still had an ace in the hole - a red envelope bomb that he hadn't used yet.

  As expected, the prefect of Jingzhou, who did not want to offend Chen An at all, received several large red envelopes and promptly used the list provided by Chen An to report to the Governor's Office, appointing officials for the newly established militia bureau.

  Because they had to defend many places, Chen An decided to establish only a first-level formation and take turns replacing the defense of each place.

  Also as a new attempt, Chen An adopted the Beiyang New Army's squad organization plan, increasing the number of people in each squad to fourteen, with three squads forming one company, adding an officer as the company commander, and having a total of 43 officers and soldiers in the whole company.

  This large-scale grassroots unit far exceeds the general configuration of 10 people per shed in the patrol camp, but is more conducive to heavy firepower formation.

  In the original composition of the patrol camp, if three sheds were added with a Vickers 1906 model 7.7mm heavy machine gun, there could be only twenty-three soldiers on the front line, and the attacking force was relatively weak. This is also the reason why Chen An was forced to list only two machine guns in each sentry post.

  If the formation of the Beiyang New Army is adopted, with 43 men in each row, the number of first-line combatants can be increased to 36, which is an increase of nearly half, and it is more advantageous to strengthen the attack under the cover of heavy firepower.

  Chen An set up seven rows in the Tuanlian Bureau, mobilized dozens of backbone troops from the Northern Army and Chenjiazhuang Guard, recruited new soldiers among company employees, and actually operated no differently from the Northern Army.

  Since it was a training bureau, it naturally couldn't train with the Northern Army at the same time. Chen An directly took this team in charge of escorting to the vicinity of the company's steel factory and built another camp for separate training, also to avoid excessive attention from some people with ulterior motives.

  According to Chen An's deployment, each of the three offices in Hanzhong, Chongqing and Shanghai was garrisoned by a platoon. The Lanzhou Farm, Hanzhong Farm and Chongqing Shipyard were also each garrisoned by a platoon, with one platoon left to garrison the headquarters of the North Industries Company.

  The secret struggle between Chen An and Ma Anliang has finally come to an end. However, the officialdom of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces as well as the pawns on both banks of the Wei River have developed a deep fear of the power of the Chen family.

  When Chen An was enraged, it was really too crazy. Who could bear the terrifying atmosphere of being offered a huge reward? Especially since Chen An actually controlled the key passage from Gansu to Shu, once he started his madness, all the related merchant teams were blocked, and the losses were even more unbearable, really not a good object to provoke.

  Chen An issued a second commendation order, commending Wang Ping for his outstanding performance in the Hanzhong incident.

  The situation has eased a bit. Lane brought the newly formed shipping company's management team to meet Chen An in person, reporting on the preparations and next steps.

  The one who made the report was not Laine, but a young man named Lu Si. This young man was very surprised, so the report was a bit stumbling, but his thinking was very logical and clear, and Chen An affirmed several sentences.

  Lu Si was extremely surprised. Whoever saw their foreign boss suddenly tell them that there was another big boss, and this big boss was Chinese, would be even more astonished.

  Layne brought this young man from Hechuan, Chongqing, who is very smart and diligent, and Layne appreciates him very much, so he directly promoted him to the position of assistant and reused him.

  Chen An also directly gave Lu Si several orders, one of which was to investigate the navigation channel from Biku to Chongqing, where are the key places that need to be cleared, how to do it, and cannot be made public, and then submit a feasible plan for decision-making by the North Industrial Company.

  Seeing his foreign boss sitting next to him, leisurely watching him receive tasks from the big boss without expressing any dissatisfaction, Lu Si still felt unbelievable, when did Gansu rise to such a power.

  No matter what, Lin Yue'er rushed to tell Chen An that Old Master Chen and Mr. Lin had already chosen a date for the wedding. Chen An started busily preparing invitations and inviting some people to attend the banquet.

  Yin Weijun would naturally be invited, otherwise Lin Yushan would protest. Along with him, his sister Yin Ruiqi was also on the invitation list - you can't just invite the younger sister and not the older one, after all. Tao Chengzhang and Xu Bohui were both busy and not in Shanghai, so they missed out on this invitation.

  Chen An didn't want to make a big fuss, after all, the prefecture had been in chaos for some time and had just relaxed its guard. However, the preparation time was a bit long, and more and more people who knew about it came to drink ahead of time, so the scale naturally became larger and larger.