On the eve of the fall of Liaodong, he led his troops in a remonstrance against the young marshal.

"Who did it?"

The chairman gritted his teeth.

"I don't know. The method was extremely professional, every shot was fatal, and no trace was left."

Gu Zhutong took a deep breath. "More importantly... Nakamura had the original treaty, negotiation records, and copies of telegrams from both sides... all gone."

The Chairman's body shuddered reflexively.

Treaty/Contract...

If these things are made public...

He stood there, stiff as a board, like a frozen sculpture.

After a long while, he finally regained his senses and, gritting his teeth, gave the order:

"Immediately seal off Hucheng, forbidding anyone from entering or leaving. Notify Du Yuesheng to conduct a city-wide search; the telegram must be found!"

Gu Zhutong pondered for a moment, then asked;

"Should we arrest Guo Rugui and interrogate him rigorously immediately?"

Are you brain-dead?

The chairman flew into a rage and roared:

"Guo Rugui is my confidant, how could he possibly betray me?"

"If he were the mole, the news of the contract would have been leaked on the very first day of the negotiations."

"Go to Hucheng immediately and find the contract!"

"yes!"

Gu Zhutong quickly left.

The chairman went to the window, looked at the moon outside, and felt his body getting colder and colder.

He might really be finished.

........

I'm destined to have a sleepless night.

At the same time, all major newspapers in China received a secret document.

The document contains information about the treaty and all the telegrams sent by the Chairman to the Northeast Army from the September 18 Incident to the Battle of Lushun.

In an instant, all the newspaper offices were in an uproar.

Beiping.

The Beijing Daily newspaper office in Dashilan outside Qianmen was brightly lit.

Editor-in-Chief Shao Piaoping personally stood in the typesetting workshop, watching the typesetting workers set up the last lead type, apply ink, and print the first sample newspaper.

He picked up the newspaper, still damp with ink, held it up to the light, glanced at it, then took a deep breath, suppressing his raging anger, and gritted his teeth as he gave the order:

"Print! Print another 100,000 copies."

"Let everyone see the Chairman's true character!"

The front page headline of the newspaper was a photocopy.

The photo was extremely clear; it was the signature page of the treaty contract, with a lean, strong signature clearly visible in the lower right corner, next to which was the signature and seal of the Biju Kingdom's ambassador, Nakamura Kotaro.

Above the photo is a bold, extra-large headline.

"Traitors to the nation must be punished! They sold out their country for personal gain with 65 million taels of silver!"

The second edition is a photocopy of all the original telegrams sent by the Chairman to Zhang Xueliang.

From the first letter on the night of September 18th, "No resistance allowed," to the subsequent "Withdraw from Lushun and restore the status quo," every word is presented to the reader without any discrepancies.

The same scene was playing out simultaneously in every major city across the country, including Fengtian, Nanjing, Hucheng, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Guangzhou.

The Shen Bao newspaper was reprinted 80,000 times, and it was snapped up by newspaper vendors before it even left the printing plant.

The editors of Ta Kung Pao wrote the four-character headline "The sun shines brightly" on the front page, with the subtitle "The crime of treason is unforgivable."

The newspaper *The News* went even further, printing the slogan "Military Tribunal!!" on its front page.

........

Jinling City.

Before dawn, with the morning star still twinkling on Purple Mountain, the clock tower of Jinling University rang at four in the morning.

However, the city of Jinling, which should have been silent, was now like a giant beast that had been awakened, and the whole city began to boil.

The students were outraged when they saw the newspaper, and the student council immediately organized a march.

The first group of marchers started from Jinling University and advanced along Hankou Road toward Xinjiekou.

Leading the way was the president of the Student Union of Jinling University, a tall, thin boy wearing glasses, holding a black banner that had been hastily made overnight, with four characters written on it in white paint.

"Traitor to the nation, he deserves to die!"

The students behind them held torches high, the flames illuminating half the street and casting a red glow on every young and angry face.

They marched and chanted slogans, their voices hoarse but unified, as if they came from the same throat.

"Abolish the traitorous treaties!"

"Execute the traitor!"

The group turned from Hankou Road onto Guangzhou Road, where they encountered the second group.

Those were students from Jinling High School, younger than them, but with louder voices.

The two streams of people merged together and marched in a mighty torrent along Zhongshan North Road toward the south of the city.

As they passed the Executive Yuan, the students stopped, waved their fists at the drab building, and shouted loudly.

The doors and windows of the Executive Yuan were tightly shut, and the guards at the gate stood ramrod straight with their bayonets at the ready, but their eyes were full of bewilderment.

These soldiers had also read the newspapers and knew about the shameful treaty. At that moment, they didn't know whether to stop the students or to shoot the traitors.

The team continued to advance.

Upon reaching Gulou Square, the crowd that had gathered was no longer limited to students.

Railway workers in overalls, carrying wooden signs that read "Down with traitors," came from the direction of Xiaguan.

Some vendors wearing long gowns dismantled the door panels of their shops, wrote slogans on them, and carried them on their shoulders.

An elderly woman with bound feet was being helped by her grandson as she walked shakily in the procession; all three of her sons had died in the Northern Expedition.

She came today to seek justice for her three sons. The country they fought so hard to build back then was not meant to be sold to the Japanese.

The procession turned south from the Drum Tower and headed towards the Chairman's official residence.

The official residence is located at the end of Huangpu Road in the east of the city. It is a gray two-story Western-style building with several plane trees in the courtyard and a platoon of guards stationed at the gate all year round.

Normally, this street is the quietest, because no one dares to make a fuss in front of the chairman's door.

But today, the leaves of the plane trees glowed blood red under the torchlight, and the entire street was packed with people.

The guards formed three human walls at the entrance of the official residence, bayonets fixed to their rifles and pointed at the crowd.

But their legs were shaking.

Because among the crowd were people they knew, their fellow villagers, their relatives, and even their parents.

An old man in a gray cotton-padded coat squeezed out of the crowd, stood in front of the wall of guards, pointed at the nose of the young soldier closest to him, and after trembling for a long time, finally managed to utter a sentence:

"Sanwazi, your father was killed by the Japanese in Jinan back then, have you forgotten?"

"You pointed a gun at your father's fellow villager today, have you no conscience?"

The young soldier named Sanwazi's rifle trembled violently.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, something swirled in his eyes, and then he slowly lowered his bayonet.

A roar of grief and indignation erupted from the crowd. They began to shout in unison, their voices converging and shaking the glass windows of the official residence.

"Chairman! Get out here!"

"Traitor! Come out here!"

"Execute the traitors! Reclaim our land!"

The cry of "Give me back my homeland" was repeated over and over again, growing louder and hoarser, spreading from Huangpu Road to Zhongshan Road, from Zhongshan Road to Confucius Temple, and from Confucius Temple to the entire city of Nanjing.

In Hucheng, the situation was even more intense.