Chapter 331: Eliminating Hidden Dangers

According to the report of the civil affairs cadres, there were both women and men in the opera troupe. The Senate needed these women, but not the men behind them. In the old time and space, any group of prostitutes was secretly controlled by pimps: Wenzhou shampoo girls, nightclubs everywhere, all were like this. Without the protection of these people, they could not operate at all. In this time and space, this kind of opera troupe was a mobile brothel, and the few middle-aged men in the opera troupe were the ones who controlled this group of actors. These women had been oppressed and controlled by them for a long time and had a habitual dependence and fear of them, so these men had to disappear.

“Take them away and hand them over to the military tribunal to be dealt with for the crime of bandit organization,” Zhu Mingxia instructed the orderly.

When Qimu Island began to take in refugees, a gallows was built. The Arbitration Tribunal had issued two authorization certificates, authorizing the Northern Expeditionary Detachment to set up a military tribunal on Qimu Island and Jeju Island, respectively, to serve as a legal basis for temporary disposal.

The military tribunal was set up in this refugee camp for the sole purpose of intimidation. With nearly ten thousand people gathered together, it would become a veritable hell on earth without strong means of violence to maintain order.

Once the gallows were put into use, they were never empty. The body of a hanged prisoner would not be taken down until the next unlucky person was hung up.

An hour later, the messenger brought the verdict. Zhu Mingxia was also the president of the military tribunal.

He flipped through the materials: the facts were clear, the evidence was conclusive, and the indictment, testimony, and confession were all complete. In addition to the crime of bandit organization, a series of crimes were added: human trafficking, intentional injury, illegal detention, illegal torture, and gang fighting. Of course, it would be strange if there were no such things in this kind of opera troupe at that time.

Zhu Mingxia nodded with satisfaction. The young men had memorized the legal provisions very well. With this, everything seemed reasonable and legal—”ruling the country according to law” could not be abolished.

“In the name of the Senate and the people, I order the necessary disposal of the following personnel.” He signed his name after this line and handed the document to the messenger. “Execute immediately.”

After executing the people who should not exist, Zhu Mingxia felt in a good mood. He looked out the window. In the small square next to the stockade, the carcasses of dead cattle, horses, and mules were being skinned. They were preparing to use the meat of these animals to improve the food of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment in the evening. In the past few days, the Northern Expeditionary Detachment had eaten very hard. Besides being full, they were no different from the refugees. There was very little supply of fresh vegetables here, let alone meat.

Even Zhu Mingxia himself had not eaten fresh meat for a long time. Seeing this scene, he not only did not feel disgusted, but also swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva. He immediately instructed the orderly, “Tell the cooking class to make some steak first, and then some radish and beef balls! And beef tendon, add more pepper, Sichuan pepper, and cumin…”

As he was talking, Lu Wenyan and Chen Sigen also came. Both of them were in high spirits. They had just drafted a telegram to Lingao to report this major victory and at the same time requested to increase the frequency of sending ships.

The telegram could be sent in the name of the Jeju Island front command after Zhu Mingxia had read and signed it. Although this was not a great victory, it at least showed that the Northern Expeditionary Detachment had established a firm foothold in Shandong, and the operation of the engine was also running smoothly.

“If the ships can’t come in time, hundreds of people will definitely freeze to death after a few more days of snow,” Lu Wenyan said with some regret. “It would be a bit of a waste for us to capture so many prisoners.”

“Last time, Zhao Yigong sent a telegram saying that he was trying to solve it—how is he going to solve it?” Zhu Mingxia was also very worried about this problem. “It wasn’t easy to get so many people. Don’t let a large number of them die again.”

He had no objection to the telegram. As a military commander, even if he didn’t boast about himself, the four words “commanded well” were always unavoidable.

After signing, Lu Yang came. He reported that all the corpses had been disposed of.

“It’s finally over—it got my Hafa-class landing craft all bloody. They need a good scrubbing…” he complained. “I say, why don’t we just bury them? It’s like fertilizing the land—”

“It’s too hard to dig pits in this freezing weather,” Zhu Mingxia shook his head. “Besides, if it’s not done well, we have to consider the problem of plague and groundwater pollution. It’s better to throw them into the sea. You can think of it this way: burying them in the ground is for fertilizer, and throwing them into the sea is for raising fish. Anyway, once the Senate has a firm foothold in Jeju and Shandong, large-scale development of local fishery resources should be put on the agenda soon. This will not only solve a large part of the food problem, but also supplement the urgently needed protein. What a good thing!”

Lu Wenyan laughed, “Sir Zhu, your level of comprehensive utilization is not high. If it were the guys from the Planning Institute, they would definitely shave off the hair of the dead, sterilize it with high-temperature steam, and then weave it into felt for keeping warm, shoe pads, etc. The corpses would be thrown into a biogas digester to decompose, producing biogas for the refugees to keep warm and cook. The biogas slurry would be used to fertilize the fields, and the residue would be fed to pigs. If there’s any left over, it would be thrown into the sea to feed the fish and develop fishery production…”

“Stop it, I’m about to puke,” Chen Sigen frowned. “You’ve made me not want to eat fish anymore.”

“Alright, let’s not complain about the Planning Institute. I think we should send a boat tomorrow to contact Sun Yuanhua,” Zhu Mingxia said. “First, to give him a gift, and second, to see if we should help him strengthen the defense of Laizhou. Kong Youde and the others have suffered such a big loss, they will be even more ferocious and ruthless when they attack Laizhou.”

“The headquarters has already sent a telegram. They will soon send a senator to be specifically responsible for the defense of Laizhou and the liaison work with Sun Yuanhua. They want us to find a suitable opportunity to help him get in touch with Sun Yuanhua,” Lu Wenyan said.

“Huh? Isn’t that person me?” Lu Yang was greatly disappointed.

“You’ll be busy soon enough—you’re the commander of the naval detachment, not a diplomat. What do you want to do by not doing your own job and hanging out with Old Sun?” Chen Sigen gave him a malicious look.

“Fine, fine, I know,” Lu Yang had no choice but to nod. “I have great respect for Mr. Huodong…”

“It’s not good to have too much respect. We just need to respect him,” Zhu Mingxia said. “In that case, we have to find a suitable opportunity. Either we don’t send our gift first and send it together when the person arrives—let him see the favor.”

“Agreed. We have to find the right time,” Lu Wenyan nodded. “Today is the twenty-fourth of the first lunar month. In a few more days, the rebels will fight a battle with the government troops led by Yang Yufan and Wang Hongtong in Xincheng. So I think we don’t need to be in a hurry to go now. It will be more favorable to go after the government troops are defeated and the people in Laizhou are in a panic.”

Another effect was that Yang Yufan and Wang Hong had been defeated, but Sun Yuanhua had won a victory. Reporting them at the same time would be of great benefit in reducing Sun Yuanhua’s guilt.

“I didn’t expect you to have such ideas,” Chen Sigen said with admiration. “I think this is feasible.”

Zhu Mingxia also expressed his agreement. Everyone unanimously decided to “send a gift” after the government troops were defeated.

Zhu Mingxia also ordered the organization of a special action team to be ready to “pick up the scraps” after the rebels finished fighting the government troops on the thirtieth of the first lunar month. Even if they could get some dead horses and mules, it would be good.

After fighting the rebels, they were depressed for a few days. The three of them on Qimu Island were waiting for the rebels to contact them. The special reconnaissance team that had gone to Dengzhou to investigate returned. They also brought back some prisoners.

Seeing the few people in the courtyard, wrapped in dirty cotton robes and looking dejected, Lu Wenyan immediately knew who they were.

These were the former officials of Dengzhou who had been captured when the city fell: the Dengzhou Military Intendant Song Guanglan, the Liaohai Supervising Censor Wang Zheng, the Garrison Commander Zhang Tao…

According to the report of the special reconnaissance team, they had discovered these people being sent out by the rebels while they were under surveillance. The rebels were very polite. Not only did they send people to escort them out of the city, but they also gave each of them a few mules, as well as servants and luggage.

The special reconnaissance team had long received relevant orders and naturally would not let them go. They immediately sent people to follow and monitor them. After the group was far from the city, they launched a surprise attack, wiped out the escorting rebel cavalry, and captured all the remaining people.

A simple interrogation of the captured rebels and servants confirmed that these people were the captured Dengzhou officials.

“You did a good job,” Lu Wenyan patted the team member’s shoulder vigorously and turned to Chen Sigen, “We must record their merits!”

“No problem!” Chen Sigen smiled and nodded. “Beautifully done!”

Capturing this group of officials eliminated Sun Yuanhua’s biggest hidden danger. The so-called “unifying the caliber” was also a very important matter.

“Take all these people to the stockade for a bath and a change of clothes. Then give them a physical examination. Later, prepare a banquet to calm their nerves,” Lu Wenyan instructed his subordinates. “Return their luggage and servants, but they are not allowed to move freely. Put them all under house arrest!”

When Dengzhou fell, most of the civil and military officials either surrendered to the rebels or committed suicide. People like them who neither surrendered nor committed suicide were a very small minority. This made these officials the main evidence for the court to suspect them of “surrendering to the enemy and colluding with the rebels” after they were released by the rebels. However, for the Senate, the motive for these people not to commit suicide was not strange at all: most of these people were Catholics, and suicide was a mortal sin for Catholics. It could not be forgiven without the personal absolution of the Pope after death.

It was indeed that so many high-ranking Catholic officials were gathered in this small Dengzhou city. Sun Yuanhua really regarded his fellow believers as his most reliable assistants. Speaking of which, it was a bit like a Dengzhou Catholic clique.

However, Zhu Mingxia understood his approach very well. The new system that Sun Yuanhua was implementing was not something that ordinary officials and scholars of the Ming Dynasty could understand and accept. It was understandable to form a small clique.

Although these officials were not very useful, they were Sun Yuanhua’s best allies. They were Sun Yuanhua’s colleagues in his career and also his fellow believers. Now they were facing the same crisis. It was easy to persuade them to cooperate. Helping Sun Yuanhua was helping themselves. They would not fail to understand this simple truth. As long as they were made to understand the current situation, they would follow the pre-arranged plan.