The Beiping military and political dignitaries Lin Hongwen had spoken of were not traveling to Tianjin for a military conference because it was the rear and comparatively safe.
Rather, after repeated urgings from Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing, Song Zheyuan—who had been tending ancestral tombs in Leling, Shandong—finally agreed to stir himself and manage the deteriorating situation in North China. Yet Army Commander Song had changed his mind along the way. Instead of proceeding to Beiping to anchor the front line, or to Baoding to command the troops, he boarded the Tianjin-Pukou Railway like a casual traveler and went straight to Tianjin.
Now that the master of the house had returned, a major conference had to be held as a matter of course. With an incident of this magnitude unfolding, whether it could be resolved was beside the point; going through the motions of a conference was non-negotiable.
However, Langfang had fallen and the railway line was severed. The military and political cadres in Beiping were forced to pile into Jeeps and pick their way across rural dirt tracks to reach Tianjin. The broader situation in Beiping was left in the hands of Chief of Staff Zhang Boting.
***
"Damn them. These bastards have the gall to steal cultural relics." Though Zhu Shiqing kept his face calm, he was internally appalled by their brazen audacity.
The last time he had felt this stunned was over the national defense fortifications in Nanjing, where bunkers heaped together from slag and pillboxes built facing the wrong direction remained vivid in his memory.
The items involved this time could be called cultural symbols spanning millennia of Chinese history. Back when he served in Jiangning County, Zhu Shiqing had seen written directives regarding the southward evacuation of cultural relics on more than one occasion. Following the Mukden Incident, an initial shipment of Forbidden City treasures had already been relocated to Shanghai.
The British, Americans, and Japanese had all cast covetous eyes on these artifacts, but who could have imagined that their own countrymen would seek to enrich themselves off them as well! It was profiting from national catastrophe, pure and simple!
Braving the dark of night, the two walked through the deserted outer city of Beiping. They had traversed several alleys by now, and being unfamiliar with the city, they could no longer tell which street they had reached.
"So what do we do? With this mess tonight, I doubt we can return to Nanjing anytime soon," Fang Wenjian said with a bitter smile. Not long ago, he had been looking forward to a sound night's sleep once they reached Nanjing.
"Let's go find Deputy Army Commander Qin," Zhu Shiqing said after hesitating for a long moment. "There's no other way. If they rush the shipment out and we fail to intercept it along the route, shooting all of them afterward won't make up for such a monumental loss to the nation."
At this hour, the headquarters of the 29th Army should be located on Tieshizi Hutong, once the seat of the Beiyang government.
Zhu Shiqing had passed by it on his way to Zhongnanhai last time. Fortunately, Beiping's urban layout followed a straight grid pattern. Following the northbound streets, they ambled along and located Tieshizi Hutong in under an hour.
Tieshizi Hutong—Iron Lion Alley—lived up to its name. In front of the official residence's gates stood a pair of stone lions carved during the Yuan dynasty, one on the left and one on the right.
Even in the dead of night, lights still flickered within the headquarters. Two sentries stood guard at the entrance. Seeing two able-bodied young men sauntering toward them, they instantly went on high alert, gripping their German MP 18 submachine guns—known colloquially as "flower machine guns."
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Hearing the sentry's curt bark, Zhu Shiqing hurried forward, snapped a salute, and announced in a clear, resonant voice, "Lieutenant Staff Officer Zhu Shiqing, 219th Regiment, 37th Division, 29th Army."
Hearing that he was one of their own, the sentries' stern expressions eased slightly. After looking Zhu Shiqing up and down, one asked, "Isn't the 219th Regiment supposed to be in Wanping? What are you doing at headquarters in the middle of the night?"
Before the words had fully landed, the two sentries raised their weapons again. These men had arrived in the dead of night without uniforms; for all they knew, they could be enemy operatives attempting a decapitation strike.
"Brothers, you can verify my identity with a single phone call. I've come late at night because I have urgent military intelligence to report!"
The two guards exchanged a look. One of them headed inside to fetch the guard company commander on duty that night. A short while later, a young man in an officer's uniform trotted out. Seeing Zhu Shiqing, he signaled the other guard to lower his weapon.
"Lieutenant, I recognize you. You two were dispatched from Nanjing, correct?" The guard company commander looked at Zhu Shiqing and said, "The army commander is convening an operational conference in Tianjin today. If you need to see him, come back tomorrow."
*Song Zheyuan is back?* The piece of information slotted into Zhu Shiqing's train of thought at once. No wonder those scoundrels at the railway station chose tonight to set off—they intended to fish in troubled waters.
But how could Zhu Shiqing wait until tomorrow?
Zhu Shiqing took a step forward, leaned close to the company commander's ear, and whispered a few words. The commander's brows furrowed deeply. He stepped back a pace and asked with utmost gravity, "Are you certain this is true?"
Zhu Shiqing nodded solemnly. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have come visiting in the middle of the night."
The company commander dared not treat the matter lightly. After a moment's consideration, he said, "Right now, only Chief of Staff Zhang is still in Beiping. I'll go place a call to his residence."
The guard company commander turned and reentered the headquarters, leaving Zhu and Fang to wait outside. Fang Wenjian felt curious, leaned in, and murmured, "I didn't expect a guard company commander to have the breadth of mind to care about national cultural relics. His awareness is leagues ahead of those bureaucrats back in Jiangning County!"
Zhu Shiqing smiled faintly. "What I told him was that a group of men dressed in black, with pistols tucked into their waists, are roaming all over Beiping, and that I suspect they're enemy operatives attempting to assassinate the senior leadership of the 29th Army!"
Fang Wenjian stared blankly for a second, then gave him a thumbs-up in admiration. "Brilliant. Truly brilliant."
There was an art to officialdom: if you wanted an uninvolved party to resolve your problem, you had to make it about them. What mattered most to a guard company commander went without saying.
A moment later, the commander trotted back out, shaking his head. "No luck. No one is answering at Chief of Staff Zhang's residence. We'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. There are no senior officers present at headquarters tonight either. I'll tell the men to stay sharp, and I'll report to the chief of staff first thing in the morning."
Zhu Shiqing was privately speechless. *How could no one be answering the phone? At such a critical juncture, what if genuine emergency intelligence came through?*
Still, the company commander had gone as far as he could. Zhu Shiqing saw no point in pushing further. He offered a smile, saluted, and said, "Thank you for your trouble, brother."
"Would you two care to stay at headquarters for the night?"
Zhu Shiqing waved his hand in thanks. "No need to impose. We have our own mission, and we only came by to report after spotting something amiss."
They parted ways.
Returning to the silent streets, Zhu Shiqing knew that since nobody could be reached at headquarters, inspecting that train immediately was out of the question. Given the delay, Lin Hongwen would have plenty of time to move the items. But on second thought, as long as the goods remained inside Beiping, all was not lost.
With that in mind, Zhu Shiqing decided to head back to West Station to keep watch and see whether those scoundrels were actually departing tonight.
Steam locomotives made a tremendous racket when running. There was no need to get too close; the moment the train prepared to move, it could be heard clearly within a two-li radius, especially in the dead of night.
They had not walked far along Chongwenmen Street when Fang Wenjian suddenly rested a hand on Zhu Shiqing's shoulder, quickening his pace slightly.
"Someone's tailing us," Fang Wenjian murmured.
Zhu Shiqing reacted instantly. Without looking back, he matched Fang Wenjian's stride. Back in the Staff Corps, Fang Wenjian had constantly handled field assignments, giving him abundant experience in this area and an exceptionally sharp instinct.
After another li, the two turned left into an unnamed alley, melting into the pitch-black darkness.
The four men dressed in black who had been tailing them saw they had lost their quarry and picked up their pace in pursuit. Not far into the alley, a punch flew out of the darkness on the right, instantly flattening the man in the lead. A kick slammed directly into the knee of the man beside him, sending sharp, agonizing pain surging through his body and dropping him in a heap.
The three behind drew daggers from their waists, but just as they were about to resist, Zhu Shiqing came up behind them with two pistols pressed against their skulls.
"Damn it, Zhu Shiqing, you really have a jinx for a mouth! You mentioned men in black, and here they bloody well are," Fang Wenjian muttered curses as he looked the four over. Snatching the dagger from one of them, he pressed it against the throat of the man on the ground and demanded, "Who are you people, tailing us in the middle of the night?"
The man made no reply. Fang Wenjian was not a patient man; he turned the dagger downward and plunged it viciously into the man's forearm, drawing an agonizing screech.
"We're President Lu's men... President Lu's men!"
Zhu Shiqing asked, "President Lu? Which President Lu?"
"We're brothers from the Yimeng Society! Brothers from the Yimeng Society!"
Zhu Shiqing felt he had somewhat underestimated the complexity of Beiping. The Yimeng Society was clearly a gang syndicate. As expected, whenever money was involved, a whole crowd was bound to crawl out of the woodwork!
Chapter 64