Xuzhou Station is a truly big station on the Tianjin-Puzhou Railway. It is not a place where ordinary people think of buying train tickets and queuing up to check in and get on the train, but a large area spread over a wide area, including depots and locomotive depots.
This area stretches for several kilometers from south to north in the east of Xuzhou City. In the middle of the intricate railway tracks, there are various bungalows, small buildings, coal yards, locomotive depots, staff dormitories, repair factories, and multiple highways, dirt roads, small
Rivers and ditches either run parallel to each other or intersect between them, intersect and have countless turnouts.
To the east outside the city, everything is shrouded in soot and steam. The sound of whistles, the puff of steam locomotives, and the rumble of passing trains can be heard from time to time, both far and near.
Behind the locomotive depot and between the coal yard and the coal yard, there is a sparse stretch of bungalows, which are part of the workers' dormitories on the railway.
It's already past eight o'clock in the evening. On a cold winter night, every household has its doors and windows closed, and even the curtains are drawn tightly. In the night, only the windows of the bungalows shine with yellow light, and there are stretchers.
From the iron chimney outside the window, hot smoke came out and immediately turned into thick white steam.
…
Li Changgui was alone in his dormitory, picking up the ashes with an iron hook and listening to the noise outside.
I don’t know what happened today, but it has been noisy since the afternoon. There are roadblocks and traps everywhere. Groups of soldiers running past with guns carried. There are also police and gendarmes. People are being arrested and searched everywhere.
He is a train driver, he is in his thirties, he is still single, and he is not on duty today. At this time, he would probably gather around someone's stove with a group of gangsters from the railway, gambling cards and drinking.
But it was obviously not the right day today, and no one dared to get together. Just before dinner, the bastard in front of me was taken away by the military police, saying that he suspected that he was a Ming Dynasty spy. It was not too dark at the time, and the neighbor on the left
Even his wife and children could see it, howling like crazy.
Generally, if you are charged with this kind of crime, no matter whether you are serious or not, once you are taken away, you will never see him again.
Now his wife and five-year-old child are still huddled together at home, crying and crying, which can be vaguely heard from such a distance. As a grown man, he can't bear to hear it. But this kind of crime, even if the neighbors live normally,
No matter how good he is, he doesn't dare to go home to comfort him.
God knows if you went to comfort her today, someone saw you and reported you, and the next day the military police broke into your house and took someone away.
…
Li Changgui glanced at the pile of rags under the bed, his heart tightened, and he pretended to be fine and took out the ashes.
At the very end of the pile of junk was a radio station.
I just received an order from the south: help the person complete a task and provide help at all costs. As for the task, listen to the person's instructions.
Someone knocked on the door.
Li Changgui was startled, and his instinct told him that this was not an acquaintance. If a co-worker or neighbor came to see him, he would call his name when knocking on the door: Changgui, open the door! Xiao Li, open the door, I am xxx...
Now I just knock on the door and don't say a word.
He calmed down and went to open the door.
He only opened a crack before he was knocked open. Several men in military uniforms swarmed in and held him at gunpoint. The last person gently closed the door.
Li Changgui felt relaxed for a while:
The day has finally come.
"Are you Li Changgui?"
asked the leading captain.
He said calmly:
"it's me."
A few people briefly searched the house and then made a gesture:
"take away!"
The last person to leave the house still closed the door intact.
…
The military vehicle drove two miles away and came to a secluded place. Several people jumped out first and then ordered Li Changgui to get off.
Winter nights are very cold. The terrain here is relatively high, with hills growing black berlins behind it. In the distance is a slow-moving train dragging long white smoke. What you can see from below are scattered small bungalows.
The truck turned on its headlights, and a bright beam of light shone in front of a small slope. There were already several soldiers waiting there, each holding a rifle.
There were two other tied people sitting on the ground with their heads lowered and not saying a word. Two soldiers suddenly grabbed Li Changgui's arms and tied him up with ropes.
Li Changgui understood it all at once. It felt like a burden had been lifted from his heart: he finally no longer had to be tortured, and he no longer had to worry about being unable to withstand it and becoming a traitor.
The captain asked them to line up in front of the headlights and asked:
"Do any of you have anything else to say?"
…
"No? Okay, blindfold them."
The three people were all covered with black cloth and turned around, facing a hill covered with black cypress trees.
"Raise the gun——"
"Shua", six rifles were neatly raised with flat ends, and two guns were aimed at a person's back.
One of the tied men trembled and shouted:
"Drive out the Tartars and restore China!"
Li Changgui felt hot in his heart and shouted loudly:
"Drive out the Tartars and restore China!"
The three people chanted "Drive out the Tartars" together, and the slogans echoed over Black Berlin.
"preparation--"
"put!"
Li Changgui silently recited the last sentence in his heart:
"I will have no regrets in this life!"
…
One hand was taking off the black cloth from his eyes, while the other two were loosening it.
Li Changgui felt all this in a daze, not knowing whether he was dead or alive. The officers and soldiers put away their guns and gathered around with smiles. Even the two death row prisoners next to him who were shot together were loosened.
He glanced at the face of the lamb to be slaughtered and gathered around him with a smile.
The captain with the silliest smile came over to him, put his arm around his shoulders and said affectionately:
"Brother Changgui, I'm sure you haven't defected to the Qingluo side. This is great... You know, we were sent by our family to carry out the mission and need your help... Haha, brother Changgui, my name is Xiang Xiaoqiang
,he is……"
Without saying a word, Li Changgui threw a right hook and flew more than a meter away towards Xiaoqiang with his chin raised.
Stomachache and Snail reacted and clamped him on the left and right. Li Changgui roared and was as strong as an ox, almost throwing the two away, and rushed towards Xiaoqiang, wanting to tear him to pieces.
Li Gensheng and another team member joined in, and it took four people to hold him down.
…
In the bumpy truck compartment, Xiang Xiaoqiang personally apologized to Li Changgui and explained the situation to him.
Because at dusk, they drove to the secluded place just now and reported the situation to the rear. The rear provided them with another person, Li Changgui. This person was a latent agent sent by the Dongchang, a genuine Dongchang employee. Because
In key departments such as important transportation hubs, such as railways, the Ming Dynasty will send some personnel to lurk, who can play a role at critical moments. Judging from the nature of their mission, the train driver Li Changgui is better than the shopkeeper Sun of the city restaurant.
It's more suitable. Why didn't Li Changgui be assigned to them the first time?
Because Dongchang once received some information, which was not very accurate, that is, someone had seen Li Changgui taken away from his home by the police last year and later released. In this way, Li Changgui was seriously suspected of rebellion and was very dangerous.
, this wire cannot be touched unless absolutely necessary.
Although this is just a guess, and the information is specious, you must be cautious in this business. If there is any danger, you must be very careful. Otherwise, you will learn a bloody lesson.
Really unable to find a suitable person this time, Dongchang asked Xiang Xiaoqiang and others to try to contact him, and told them to be careful. So Xiang Xiaoqiang made a plan and "tested" Li Changgui.
When Li Changgui heard this, he was even more aggrieved and almost jumped up:
"Bear! Who wants to be sued for nothing? That time, a few boys from the locomotive depot were drinking together. I passed by, and they insisted that I was looking at them and wanted to beat me. In the end, they told me to get down.
.There was a guy with connections, so the police arrested me, beat me up, and kept me in jail for a few days. Finally, he made me a fucking apology and pretended to be a grandchild, so he was willing to go private and let me out.
If we didn’t know that we have a heavy responsibility, and with our abilities, and being so angry with that fucking coward, damn, I wouldn’t be able to kill them one by one..."
Everyone was dumbfounded. Xiang Xiaoqiang said sternly:
"Brother Changgui, you are also in this industry, you know the rules here, and you also know how powerful the people here are. It's not that I can't get along with you, or I want to set up a trap against you, no one has that intention. This is the Qinglu rear area,
This mission is extremely important and cannot go wrong, so we have to be extremely careful. You may also know that there are heads hanging on the city gates again today. Two of them are colleagues of Brother Du. We all know each other, so let’s look at it that way
They put their heads in wooden cages and hung them on the city wall. Today at noon, we went to a restaurant in the city to meet, and the 'relationship' turned against us. Brother Du and I were arrested on the spot and put on the sticky pole. If it hadn't been for
The brothers rescued us with bravery and dexterity, and you won't miss it tonight. But if you go into the city tomorrow, you might see two new heads."
Even though I had a stomachache, I used my boss’s words to comfort me.
"Sir Xiang!" Li Changgui turned around, faced Xiang Xiaoqiang to the end, and sighed, "It's a waste that I have received formal training from Dongchang and have been working as an old intelligence agent for so many years! I can't think straight for a while, so don't talk to your subordinates.
General knowledge!"
Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled and said:
"I am just the person in charge of this operation, not a member of the East Factory. You should call this Chief Du a subordinate."
Stomachache quickly said a few words of humility to Xiang Xiaoqiang, and Li Changgui apologized to Stomachache to the end.
The military vehicle drove past a railway switch, and strong light from outside came in. Li Changgui suddenly saw Zhao Fang and Xiao Wu sitting inside. He was startled and looked at Xiang Xiaoqiang in confusion.
Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled when he saw this. He wanted to take this opportunity to open Miss Zhao's mouth.
He introduced it naturally:
"Oh, haha, this is Miss Zhao, uh, Miss Zhao Fang. Miss Zhao is... uh, haha, Miss Zhao, you see, it's been so long, and I still don't know how to introduce it to others, the lady said herself
Tell me."
Miss Zhao smiled and said:
"Mr. Xiang, I'm very grateful to you for saving us... But, didn't I follow you all the afternoon and don't know about your affairs? The first thing you take is the first thing you give. You should talk about it first. You guys
What mission did you come here for?"
Xiang Xiaoqiang was startled, and then he thought, it must be that her task was relatively large, so he shouldn't suffer any disadvantages by exchanging words with her. Just being able to hear who "Xiao Wu" was was enough.
He looked at Miss Zhao's eyes twinkling in the darkness and decided to tell the truth about the team's plan to rob the train under the guise of "rescuing the Queen."