On March 3, 1915, just as the Zhejiang Beiyang Army began its raid on the West Zhejiang Branch's base, Military Governor Zhu Rui invited several people for a discussion at the Governor's Mansion in Hangzhou. All of these individuals had attended the "Party Purification" meeting convened by Cai Yuanpei. Judging by their casual postures during the conversation, it was clear that their relationship was anything but ordinary.

"Mr. Cai still has that air of a scholar, shouting about opposing radicalism all day long," someone said in a rather mocking tone.

Zhu Rui, however, stood on Cai Yuanpei's side this time. "If not for the principles Mr. Cai explained, we really wouldn't understand the People's Party's way of doing things. Without Mr. Cai, Zhejiang wouldn't have been able to unite."

"But Mr. Cai is now just shouting about opposing the People's Party. He obviously hasn't grasped the key point," someone replied.

"Purifying the party isn't something that can be done in a moment. Mr. Cai will definitely keep up with the times," Zhu Rui answered.

"Hehe." The implication in Zhu Rui's words was profound enough that someone couldn't help but laugh. "Then we'll just continue to wait for Mr. Cai to point out where the enemy is, and we'll follow Mr. Cai's lead."

This remark was a bit too blunt, and everyone at the meeting couldn't help but laugh. After laughing for a while, the conversation continued in a straightforward and simple manner. "What should be done about Wang Jinfa? Regardless of anything else, with Tao Chengzhang dead, he counts as a founding member."

"This person has already confessed to corruption, bribery, and helping people set up 'slaughtering white ducks' (hiring substitutes for execution). Just kill him," Zhu Rui replied lightly.

"Is there going to be a public execution?"

"Just shoot him directly in prison." Zhu Rui naturally wouldn't court such trouble. If Wang Jinfa were publicly killed on charges of corruption, then half the officials in Hangzhou would be liable to be killed.

"Governor Zhu, although the President has ordered us to promote the extermination of the rebel party members in the southeast, if the People's Party were to aid West Zhejiang..."

Zhu Rui sneered, "What does the People's Party rely on? It's just that they have many people, money, and guns. What did their territory produce before? When have we Zhejiang people ever looked up to people from Anhui? The key right now is that the local gentry are timid and afraid of trouble; they wet their pants at the mere mention of dealing with the People's Party. Only through such a 'Party Purification' can we make them dead set on following our boat. The landlord and gentry families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, big and small, must total one or two million people. Adding the militias they can mobilize, pulling together three or four hundred thousand people is no problem. Plus, the Third Army is about to expand to 100,000. With these several hundred thousand people, dealing with the People's Party in the Jiangnan region—even if we can't attack, keeping them immobilized will be more than enough."

The several Guangfu Society bigwigs fell silent. Zhu Rui's plan was indeed ruthless, but the overall calculation was correct. Cai Yuanpei had explained the People's Party's theories clearly enough: if the landlords and gentry of Zhejiang did not unite in the face of such a monstrous wave, only a dead end awaited them.

Looking at this group of Guangfu Society bigwigs, who were Cai Yuanpei's right-hand men in this purge, Zhu Rui admonished them again in a stern tone, "Gentlemen, Mr. Cai is a great scholar and sees things more thoroughly than we do. You must be sincerely convinced by Mr. Cai. After wiping out the rebel party in West Zhejiang, we must continue to push forward the work of purifying the party. If you are unconvinced of Mr. Cai in your hearts, it will definitely show in your words. You cannot be careless about this."

"That is natural!" everyone answered hurriedly.

Zhu Rui saw that these people were being somewhat perfunctory, but he had no intention of letting them off. "Gentlemen, there are indeed many things we must learn from the People's Party. The People's Party speaks simply and clearly; those unruly people can understand their nonsense about land revolution and overthrowing local tyrants and evil gentry as soon as they hear it. If we didn't have Mr. Cai to argue on our behalf, we wouldn't see the wolfish ambitions of the People's Party clearly either. Moreover, if Mr. Cai doesn't go to argue, are we supposed to go and argue with the literati of Jiangnan ourselves? When doing things, we will exert our efforts, but when speaking, we must let Mr. Cai be in the front. This point must not be mistaken."

Those present were all sensible people. With Zhu Rui speaking so plainly, a phrase popped into everyone's mind: "Being used as a gun!" It was unknown who burst out laughing first, but one by one, everyone present began to laugh loudly.

Cai Yuanpei did not disappoint these people. On March 5th, upon receiving news that the Beiyang Army had "recovered" Huzhou and Anji and was advancing towards Changxing, Cai Yuanpei convened a plenary meeting of the Guangfu Society headquarters. At the meeting, he first listed the "crimes" of the West Zhejiang Branch: spreading evil doctrines, harming the gentry, extorting landlords, and disobeying the headquarters. Therefore, the headquarters had to purify the Guangfu Society.

Amidst expressions ranging from dumbfounded to overjoyed among the crowd at the headquarters, Shen Kegang, who was overseeing the "Tao Chengzhang Case" this time, stood up and said, "The West Zhejiang Branch refuses to hand over Chen Boping. They are certainly inextricably linked to the conspiracy to assassinate Lord Tao. Gentlemen, I know that everyone feels that we are all of the Guangfu Society lineage and will always have some sentimental ties. Lord Tao was never unkind to the West Zhejiang Branch, yet they treated him like this. If they dare to harm even Lord Tao, what sentimental ties would they have towards our Guangfu Society headquarters? I'll say this upfront: if they obediently surrender and come to the headquarters to explain themselves, I, Shen Kegang, will absolutely treat them with justice. But if they resist with force, then we can only punish them severely without mercy."

Just as he was speaking, someone ran in and delivered a letter. After reading it, Cai Yuanpei stood up with a cold face. "The West Zhejiang Branch has already started fighting with the Beiyang Army in Changxing." After saying this, Cai Yuanpei slammed the letter heavily onto the table.

The conference hall immediately exploded with noise. Everyone knew that the West Zhejiang Branch would not surrender easily, but there was still a portion of people who hoped that Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin could come and explain things clearly. Now that the flames of war had been ignited, any explanation was useless.

"Gentlemen, does anyone have anything else to say?" Shen Kegang asked loudly.

No one dared to stand up and say anything more. Shen Kegang waited for a while before saying loudly, "Then we will expel the West Zhejiang Branch from our Guangfu Society for the crime of rebellion!"

As soon as the meeting ended, Zhao Hanqing, who had once been responsible for negotiations with the West Zhejiang Branch, hurriedly returned home and got busy. He wrote a letter, found his close friend Fan Ainong and two other trusted aides who served in the Hangzhou Tax Police Regiment, and ordered them to rush to Changxing. Fan Ainong was Xu Xilin's disciple and had been teaching at Hangzhou Normal College, so he had not gone to West Zhejiang. After receiving the letter, Zhao Hanqing explained the matter simply to Fan Ainong, then took out a blank document with the seal of the Hangzhou Military Governor's Office that he had prepared for himself and forged a travel pass. After handing it to Fan Ainong, he urged them to hit the road immediately.

With the travel pass, Fan Ainong simply took the main road. However, he didn't dare to head straight for Changxing. It was said that war had already broken out in Changxing, so the main road there would probably be completely impassable. He first detoured to Anji, planning to go to Changxing from Anji. Some of Fan Ainong's students were from Anji, and he had heard that Anji's economy had been good in recent years. Relying on the travel pass and the tax police uniforms, Fan Ainong and his companions arrived in Anji smoothly despite the numerous checkpoints along the way. Outside the county seat of Anji, they saw many things hanging on the city wall from a distance. Looking closely, they looked very much like human heads.

Fan Ainong couldn't believe they were human heads, not because they didn't look like them, but because the number was simply unimaginable. It was as if they were festively hanging lanterns; there were more than a dozen strings hanging down from the city wall, totaling at least several hundred. What kind of hostility could lead to chopping off several hundred heads? Fan Ainong couldn't believe such a thing would actually happen. But upon closer inspection, what else could they be but human heads? From the hairstyles, there were both men and women. Fan Ainong was too horrified to speak, but he heard the two tax policemen who came with him exclaim, "What on earth is going on?"

The three of them had seen a bit of the world and knew it was better not to attract attention at this moment. Just as they were preparing to leave quickly, they saw the Beiyang Army escorting a group of people out of the county seat. Their hands were all tied behind their backs, and they were strung together by a long rope. They were taken to the foot of the city wall and lined up. The Beiyang soldiers lined up and raised their guns. With a command from the officer, gunshots rang out, and these people fell to the ground one after another. The Beiyang soldiers carrying out the execution didn't pause; they stepped forward to deliver a finishing shot to those who weren't dead.

Even the Manchu Qing would go through the motions when beheading people, or even give them a sip of wine. The Beiyang Army's crisp and efficient mass shooting of captives left Fan Ainong unable to comprehend for a moment what exactly he was watching. The two tax policemen who came with him were sharper; seeing that this situation was truly beyond common sense, they quickly pulled Fan Ainong and prepared to leave. But how could the Beiyang Army let these three suspicious people wander off? Someone had already come over to block the three of them. "What do you do?" a leading officer asked in the local Hangzhou dialect.

The fact that the other party was from Zhejiang and not the north made the tax policemen following Fan Ainong relax a bit. He quickly handed over the travel pass and said with a smile, "We are from the Fan family in Changxing. We heard something happened there, so we're rushing home."

While looking at the document, the officer asked suspiciously, "If you're going to Changxing, why did you run here?"

"Isn't it because we heard there's fighting in Changxing, so we detoured through Anji?"

This explanation was reasonable. The Beiyang Army officer saw that the document was indeed fine. Seeing that Fan Ainong looked like a scholar and the two next to him spoke with Hangzhou accents and wore tax police uniforms, he questioned them and discovered that he had even been neighbors with one of the tax policemen in his childhood. Now the relationship immediately became closer. The officer returned the document to Fan Ainong and instructed carefully, "You must be careful on the road. Take the main roads and travel during the day. Otherwise, if you are taken for rebels, it will be hard to explain."

"Officer, who exactly are the rebels? Looking at this, it's terrifying," the tax policeman asked with a smile.

"Here in West Zhejiang, anyone who follows Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin is a rebel. Moreover, we have received orders that anyone identified by the local gentry will also be treated as a rebel."

"Are there that many rebels?" The tax policeman looked at the heads on the city wall and quickly turned his head back.

The officer sighed, "Those on the city wall are only the ones who really followed the rebels. There are also some factories in Anji City. Many people in the factories had grievances with some masters in the city. As soon as these masters reported them, they were arrested and killed as rebels. Just in this one county seat, one or two thousand people have been killed. Men are killed, women are killed too. Sigh! It's a sin."

"Thank you, thank you!" the tax policeman replied hurriedly. Seeing Fan Ainong staring blankly as another group of people was brought out from the city, the tax policeman quickly pulled Fan Ainong. "Young Master Fan, let's leave quickly. It's so chaotic; we'll only feel at ease when we get home early."

Perhaps out of neighborly sentiment, or perhaps because of the Governor of Zhejiang's seal on the travel pass, the officer lowered his voice and said, "You must be careful on the road. It's very chaotic here right now. Many militias have already moved into the countryside. I heard that under the identification of those masters in the countryside, they have started killing the rebel party members of the Peasant Association. So stick to the main road and don't enter the villages."

The tax policeman thanked the officer profusely and immediately dragged Fan Ainong away to hurry on their journey. The three hadn't gone far when they heard a burst of gunfire behind them. Thinking of the scene they had just witnessed, their bodies couldn't help but stiffen. A moment later, there were scattered gunshots; that must be the sound of the finishing shots.

Having finally left the range of the county seat, the tax policeman let out a long breath and couldn't help patting his chest, saying, "Mr. Fan, that scared me to death just now."

Fan Ainong didn't answer. He frowned and muttered to himself, "How could the militia arrive in West Zhejiang so quickly?"

"Huh?" The tax policeman didn't understand.

Fan Ainong didn't explain. The three continued to speed up their journey. Not far along, they smelled a scent of blood. Observing carefully, they found that the scent of blood was actually drifting from a small river ahead. Mustering their courage to walk over, all three were frozen in place by the scene before them. It was an ordinary small river flowing happily down from the mountain, but the river water presented a strange red color. The scent of blood was emanating from this river.

Looking upstream, the river channel was obscured by the dense forest upstream. There were no corpses or severed limbs in the clear red river water. The water flow crashed against the stones, making a cheerful gurgling sound, as if it were a red ribbon flowing endlessly.

"Let's go, let's go up and take a look." Fan Ainong ignored the two tax policemen and simply said this before walking up the mountain along the river.