Black Flag Army

The Biyun Temple in Xishan, Beijing, is tall and solemn, with dark red walls and dark yellow eaves. The first thing you see when you enter the courtyard is the main hall. Zhang Ade, housekeeper Wang and Tong Dazhong are burning incense to the Buddha in the hall, and eight bodyguards are guarding the courtyard and the gate. Since the attack, Zhang Ade has doubled the number of guards when he goes out.

Zhang Ade asked Butler Wang: "Have you found out where the group of people came from the night before yesterday?"

Steward Wang said, "We have found out that it was done by the Ghost Shadow Gang. Several Japanese swords were found at the scene. One of the swords had Duan Yong's name engraved on it. Duan Yong is a general of the Ghost Shadow Gang and the younger brother of the gang leader Duan Zhixiong."

Tong Dazhong said, "One of my bodyguards used to be in the Ghost Shadow Gang, and he recognized that the knife was indeed Duan Yong's. It is obvious that Duan Zhixiong coveted Eunuch Li's inheritance and sent Duan Yong to attack us. We should ask Chairman Guan of the Green Dragon Society to order us to declare war on the Ghost Shadow Gang and let them know how powerful we are. My brothers and more than 20 servants cannot die in vain. I heard that many people from the Green Dragon Society also died."

Zhang Ade said: "It is possible that the Ghost Shadow Gang did this, but there is another possibility that the Xihe Society did it. The young man whose white jade horse we swallowed a few days ago was called Wu Chunfeng. He was from the Xihe Society. They have a reason to retaliate."

Steward Wang said, "That's impossible. They are just a third-rate gang. How dare they challenge our Royalist Party and the Azure Dragon Society? Unless they are crazy."

Zhang Ade said, "It is precisely because they are a third-rate gang that they dare not confront us head-on that they have to pretend to be the Ghost Shadow Gang. As for the Japanese sword, it does not explain the problem. There are several teenagers in Xihe who used to be professional thieves in the Flying Eagle Gang. It is not difficult to steal a knife from Duan Yong."

Tong Dazhong said, "The night before yesterday, although the enemy had a small number of people, they were very brave and strong, and there were several sharpshooters among them. In just a dozen minutes, we suffered more than 20 casualties, and only killed a few of the enemy. The bodies were taken away by the enemy. Can a third-rate gang be so powerful?"

Zhang Ade said, "This is exactly what I'm most worried about. If it was the Ghost Shadow Gang that did it the night before yesterday, it would be fine. But if it was the Xihe Gang, it means this gang has great potential and must be eradicated as soon as possible. Otherwise, if it becomes powerful in the future, we will die without a burial place. How about this, when I go back, I will ask Chairman Guan to send people to wipe out the Xihe Gang's territory, regardless of whether it was them who did it or not."

While they were talking, they didn't notice that someone on the roof of the opposite building raised a rifle and pointed the black muzzle at them.

Suddenly, the sound of firecrackers was heard outside the temple gate. The eight bodyguards thought it was gunshots and were startled. They drew their guns. They looked towards the gate and saw a boy of twelve or thirteen years old setting off firecrackers. They breathed a sigh of relief, cursed a few words, and put away their guns.

When they turned around, they found that Zhang Ade and Tong Dazhong had been shot several times and had fallen in a pool of blood. Butler Wang fainted from fear. It was obvious that the child set off firecrackers to cover up the sound of the gunshots. Several bodyguards rushed out the door and found that the child had disappeared. Zhang Ade was shot in the chest twice and had died. Tong Dazhong was shot in the middle of his eyebrows and was also dead. After Butler Wang was awakened, he pointed to the roof of the opposite building and trembled and couldn't speak. The bodyguards looked at the roof of the opposite building, and there was no one on the blue roof tiles.

Leng Hanbing slowly walked down the stairs, took off the scope from his rifle, put the gun into a sack, and walked into the crowd of pilgrims on the road.

The news of Zhang Ade's murder caused chaos in Zhang's mansion. Several of his wives, concubines and children fought for the inheritance. That night, Di Xiong led people into Zhang's mansion again. Since Wu had bribed the chef Zhao Qi to be an insider, the chef Zhao Qi used knockout drugs to knock down the machine gunner, hid the machine gun, opened the door and led the way for Di Xiong and his men, and only killed eight resisting servants before the battle ended. Hong Tianlie rushed to the front with a big knife. Three of the eight dead were killed by him, and the rest of the servants surrendered. The Xihe Gang suffered no casualties in this operation and took away property worth more than 500,000 silver dollars. Except for a few antiques, most of them were silver bills, gold bars and silver dollars that were easy to cash. The three machine guns and a batch of long and short guns also became the spoils of the Xihe Gang.

Following the orders of the president, the thugs from the Qinglong Society's headquarters went out in full force at night to retaliate against the Ghost Shadow Gang. Only a few people were left to guard the gate. When Zhang's mansion was attacked again, they dared not to rescue him.

"Boss! The warehouse of our textile factory has been burned down. The fire is too big to save the situation. I guess it's the Qinglong Society who did it again." Kawashima Koji reported to Yokota Ichiro.

Yokota Ichiro said: "Why do you think it was the Qinglong Society that did it? Is it because the Qinglong Society has been causing trouble in the Ghost Shadow Gang's territory recently?"

In recent days, the two largest gangs in the capital have been engaged in a large-scale fight. First, the casinos, brothels and opium dens belonging to the Ghost Shadow Gang were smashed, looted and burned by members of the Green Dragon Society. Then the Ghost Shadow Gang retaliated by smashing and burning the Green Dragon Society's territory. Members of the two gangs have been engaged in bloody fights on the streets of Beijing every day, resulting in heavy casualties. The police station and the gendarmerie have also been alarmed. Although Police Chief Zhao Bingjun and the gendarmerie commander have friendships with both gangs, they still had to dispatch forces to suppress the situation as the situation became too serious. As a result, many members of the two gangs were thrown into jail, including Guan Rongting, the president of the Green Dragon Society, and Duan Zhixiong, the leader of the Ghost Shadow Gang.

Koji said, "I led the factory security team to engage in a firefight with the arsonists and shot one of them dead. I found a blue dragon tattooed on the left arm of the corpse. You should know that this is a tattoo that every member of the Blue Dragon Society has."

Ichiro Yokota was silent for a moment and then asked, "What has the Xihe Society been doing recently?"

Hao Er said: "The Xihe Society has changed its name to the Justice Party and the Sharp Knife Society. Our spy Gray Wolf has also become a small leader of the Sharp Knife Society. Di Xiong has been very generous recently. He bought a large number of machines from British and German companies. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to open an ironware factory and a pharmaceutical factory. He hired several British and German people as consultants and recruited a large number of workers. The number of armed personnel has also increased from more than 20 to more than 100."

Yokota Ichiro was surprised and asked, "Where did this guy get so much money? Could it be that Di Xiong and his gang attacked Zhang's house? What has happened to the Weili Textile Factory recently?"

Hao Er said: "Not only did they not stop production, but they added more machines and increased production. It's just that the cotton cloth they produced was kept in the warehouse and not sold. However, the workers' wages were paid on time without any deduction, and overtime pay was also increased, so no workers left. On the contrary, because of the unpaid wages and the chaos caused by the Qinglong Society, another group of workers ran to their factory to work, and even Bian Zhimei took the opportunity to escape."

Ichiro Yokota said: "Why are you delaying the wages? Are you deducting wages again? Didn't I tell you? This is a critical moment in the business war, don't deduct workers' wages at will!"

Koji said, "The factory really has no money to pay. The dumping of cotton cloth at low prices has caused the East Asia Factory to lose a lot of money. The Qinglong Society caused trouble and smashed many machines, and the repair costs are also a lot of money. The profits handed over to the Black Dragon Society cannot be reduced. Where is the money to pay the wages? Boss! This business war should end. Otherwise, Weili Company will not collapse, but we will collapse first. Besides, the warehouse has burned down, and we have no cotton cloth to dump. Many merchants have begun to secretly raise prices. After the news of the warehouse burning spreads, they will raise prices even more sharply."

Ichiro Yokota smashed a teacup to pieces and shouted angrily, "Damn it! I can't accept losing to a Chinese!"

Hao Er said: "Otherwise, we can find a few professional killers to kill Di Xiong. Once Di Xiong is dead, Weili Company will be finished."

Ichiro Yokota shook his head and said, "It's not that step yet. Ask your insider to find out what kind of machines Di Xiong bought. If necessary, we can report him and let the police take care of him."

Nankou Town is a place that is easy to defend but difficult to attack. It is surrounded by high mountains and steep cliffs, and only the east and west valleys can be entered and exited. Di Xiong stood on the top of a high mountain called Huangcaoling, facing the morning spring breeze and looking at the small path at the valley entrance below. He thought: "No wonder the Northwest Army chose this place as the site of the decisive battle more than ten years later. The four-party coalition forces of Zhilu, Fengtian and Jin had hundreds of thousands of people and had absolute advantages such as Japanese airplanes and artillery, but it took three months to capture Nankou and lost more than 20,000 people. At that time, the Nankou garrison had only 30,000 people."

Di Xiong decided to set up a checkpoint at Huangcaoling.

Leng Hanbing was also in the pine forest on the top of the mountain, practicing shooting with a group of new members of the company's security team. After obtaining the property of Zhang's mansion, Di Xiong began to recruit soldiers and recruited more than 100 young and strong men from the refugees from Hebei who fled famine to join the security team. The security team was expanded into a security brigade, with five squadrons, a total of more than 150 people. Weili Company's textile factory, iron factory, pharmaceutical factory and restaurant each stationed a security squadron, and there was also a mobile squadron, which was directly under the management of the brigade leader Leng Hanbing. Di Xiong trained the team members in the way of training special police in later generations. The methods were very harsh. People were constantly eliminated and new people were recruited. The guns used by the new team members were all newly produced by the iron factory. The iron factory was divided into two floors, the upper floor produced broadswords and farm tools, and the basement produced rifles, grenades and bullets. At present, there is a new type of continuous rifle production line and rifle bullet production line. Di Xiong also wanted to produce machine guns and light infantry artillery, but this required more money, which he could not take out for the time being, so he had to wait for the next opportunity to make a fortune.

The new recruits' shooting skills were very poor, and bullets flew everywhere, but there was a strong man with a beard who had outstanding shooting skills. He hit three ten-rings in a row, which aroused cheers from everyone, and Di Xiong also noticed him.

Di Xiong called Leng Hanbing over and asked, "This guy looks familiar. What's his name? He doesn't look like a refugee."

Leng Hanbing said, "His name is Ma Tiehan. He was originally a disciple of Jingwu Sect. After the death of Mr. Huo, Jingwu Sect disbanded. The eldest disciple Liu Zhensheng was invited by Zhang Zuolin to Fengtian to be a martial arts instructor. He didn't want to go to the Northeast, so he became a small leader of the Qinglong Society. When he first joined the Qinglong Society, he went to the Weili Hotel with the leader Baldhead to collect protection fees. When they fought, the leader Baldhead and the other three were knocked down. Only he insisted on resisting. In the end, you, the boss, took action yourself and it took more than a dozen rounds to knock him down. He offended the vice president Wang Mazi in the Qinglong Society and was often bullied. In anger, he brought a dozen brothers to join us. He made a contribution as soon as he arrived. The warehouse of the East Asia Factory was burned down by him and the old members of the Qinglong Society. Only one brother was killed."

Di Xiong asked, "How did you get in touch with him?"

Leng Hanbing said, "Li Fei found him through a friend. He originally just wanted to hire him to burn down the warehouse, but he brought people to join him. Of course, he also made a request at the time, which was to rescue his senior brother Liu Zhendong from prison."