Chapter 35 Sibai River Smuggling
The departure date is November 10.According to the plan, I have to sneak out of the gate of Jingyuan in the evening, hiding from all eyes and ears.I have spent a lot of time thinking about this matter.At first I planned not to go through the gate, and simply drove the car out through the garage door.I ordered my closest valet, Da Li, to see if he could open the garage door. He said that the garage door hadn’t been used for a long time, and the outside of the door had been covered with advertising posters.Later, it was Qi Jizhong who came up with a way, which was to hide me in the trunk of a sports car (that is, a convertible with only two seats), and then selected a valet who could barely drive to act as a temporary driver.He himself sat next to the driver, escorted the empty car, and drove me out of Jingyuan.
Not far from the gate of Jingyuan, Yoshida Chutaro was waiting in a car, and as soon as he saw my car exiting the gate, his car quietly followed behind.
It was the third day of the Tianjin riots.Martial law was imposed all day long in the Japanese Concession and the adjacent Chinese area.Whether this riot and martial law was a deliberate arrangement or a coincidence, I can't say for sure, but in short, it created an extremely smooth environment for my departure.Under the circumstances that any Chinese vehicles were not allowed to pass, my car walked to the barbed wire fence at each intersection, and when it was blocked by Japanese soldiers, Yoshida behind greeted me and passed immediately.So even though the skill of the second-handed knife driver Qi Jizhong found was really bad (as soon as the car got out of the Jingyuan gate, the car hit the electric pole, and my head was hit hard by the box cover, and it bumped me very uncomfortable along the way) , but finally successfully opened to the scheduled location Shikishima restaurant.
After the car stopped, Qi Jizhong pushed the driver aside, Yoshida came over and opened the trunk, helped me out, and went into the Shikishima restaurant together.The Japanese officer who had been waiting here earlier was called Lieutenant Zhenfang Xun. He took out a Japanese army overcoat and military cap, dressed me up quickly, and then accompanied me to a military vehicle of the Japanese army headquarters with Yoshida.The car drove unimpeded on the banks of the White River until it reached a pier.After the car stopped, Yoshida and Zhen Fangxun helped me out of the car.I quickly saw that this was not the Japanese Concession, and I felt a little panicked.Yoshida comforted me in a low voice and said: It doesn't matter, this is the British Concession.With the support of him and Zhen Fangxun, I walked quickly on the concrete floor for a while, and a small steamboat without lights appeared in front of me.I walked into the cabin and saw Zheng Xiaoxu and his son waiting inside as promised, so I calmed down.There are also three Japanese sitting here, one is Kamikaku Riichi, the other is the Japanese ronin Tesaburo Ido who used to work under Sheng Yun, and the other is Otani, whose origin is forgotten now.I met the captain, Nishi Chojiro, and learned that there were ten Japanese soldiers on board, led by a sergeant named Suwa Ji, as an escort.The name of this ship is Hijiyama Maru, and it belongs to the Transportation Department of the Japanese Army Command.For this special transportation task, sandbags and steel plates were piled on board.Twenty years later, I read a memoir written by Kudo in the Japanese magazine Bungeishunju.According to him, a large barrel of gasoline was hidden on the ship at that time, and if the Chinese army found it and could not escape, the Japanese soldiers would set it on fire and let us witnesses and the ship perish together.At that time, my seat was probably no more than three meters away from the gasoline tank, and I thought I was getting closer to happiness!
Captain Yoshida and Makata left the steamer, and the steamer left the pier.The electric light was on, and I looked at the night view of the river through the window, feeling very moved.I have been to Baihe several times during the day. On the gunboat Bi Shucheng of the Northeast Navy and the Japanese destroyer, I had fantasies, and I saw Baihe as my future to go to the other side of the ocean and find a way to restore foreign aid.Now that I am actually sailing on this river, I can't help being carried away, and I am so happy that I want to find something to say.
But it was too early for me to be happy. Zheng Chui told me: the foreign concessions have passed, and the power of the Chinese is ahead.On the other side of Junliang City, there are Chinese troops guarding it!
After hearing this, my heart suddenly rose to my throat.Look at Zheng's father and son and those few Japanese, all of them are stern, without saying a word.After two hours of silence, everyone suddenly shouted from the shore: stop the boat!
As if a nerve had been severed all of a sudden, I almost collapsed on the ground.A few Japanese soldiers in the cabin went up to the deck suddenly, and there were whispered passwords and scattered footsteps on the deck.I poked my head out of the window and saw that behind every sandbag there was someone lying down, holding a gun in a posture ready to shoot.At this time, I felt that the speed of the boat was decreasing, and the course seemed to be approaching the river bank.Just as I was wondering why, all of a sudden the electric lights went out, and gunshots rang out from the shore. Almost at the same time, the sound of machines suddenly rang loudly, and the ship accelerated suddenly. Shouts and gunshots gradually faded away.It turned out that the Japanese had already prepared for this move. They first pretended to be obedient, and then took advantage of the unpreparedness on the shore and fled in a hurry.
After a while, the lights came on, and the cabin was alive again.In the middle of the night, we arrived outside Dagukou.While waiting for us to be picked up at the Awaji Nine Exit of the Shanglin, the Japanese soldiers brought out miso soup, salted cabbage and Japanese wine.Zheng Xiaoxu became active, talking about the fallacy of the same language and the same race, and portraying this thrilling experience as part of the hero's career.He toasted with the Japanese soldiers, and he became very enthusiastic about poetry, and impromptuly recited a poem:
The two emperors of the same continent want to respect the same,
Seven guests in the same boat try to discuss together;
Man will conquer the sky is not a wave of words,
It should not be too much to say.
Because I ate a Japanese meal made of rice and barley that night, Zheng Xiaoxu later engraved two stamps for me, one is not forgotten in Ju, and the other is Hutuo barley rice.The former is based on the story of Lu Zhaogong running to Ju, implying that I never forget the danger, and don’t forget the night I was with him; the latter is based on Liu Xiu’s defeat to the Hutuo River, and the big tree general Feng Yi baked clothes and cooked rice for him. Hungry story.Zheng Xiaoxu compared me to Liu Xiu, so he naturally compared himself to General Dashu.
Zheng Xiaoxu's happiness that night, besides being a victor, probably has another reason that is inconvenient to say. This is that he has seen the superficial friction and differences between the Japanese military and politics earlier than anyone else. Their agreement.On the day after my meeting with Doihara (November 3), he wrote in his diary:
When Daqi (that is, Zheng Chui) went to the Japanese consulate, Goto said: Doihara said that coming here is to welcome him to Fengtian, and the consulate can pretend not to know.
The archives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that were discovered after World War II included a confidential telegram from Foreign Minister Yuan Yuan to Tianjin Sangdao Consul General on November 6th, which explained the drama of the smuggling of Shirakawa:
About the campaign to support Emperor Xuantong.It is believed that if the emperor's freedom is overly restricted, the internal and external relations will be bad.This opinion has been discussed in foreign affairs. Although the foreign affairs also agree, but regarding the current situation in Manchuria, there are movements to support the emperor from all sides. Therefore, it is difficult to guarantee that the implementation of the imperial state policy will not be affected.At the same time, protection around the emperor was also necessary, so he took considerable precautions.In terms of foreign affairs, the current political situation in Manchuria is also somewhat stable, and the general will of the people in the three eastern provinces also wants to support the emperor.If there is no hindrance to the implementation of national policies, it is fine to let things take their course.