Courtyard House: I only wiped out 30,000 Japanese pirates

After news of the near-fall of Shanghai spread, the atmosphere in Beijing changed.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it started. Perhaps it was the day the newspaper published the article "The Battle of Shanghai Ends," or perhaps it was when the newspapers began to display too many photos of corpses strewn across the battlefield.

Perhaps it was the day that a storyteller in a teahouse first used "The Imperial Army will surely win" as his opening line.

In short, the atmosphere has changed; it's different from before.

Although the Japanese had occupied the city, there was still a suppressed anger on the faces of the people on the streets.

The anger is still there, but there's something else on top of it—a hazy, sticky, suffocating layer.

Some people started saying that the Great Xia could not defeat the Imperial Army, after all, not only did Beijing fall so quickly, but Shanghai also fell so quickly.

Some say that surrendering early means enjoying happiness sooner.

Some people say that after the Imperial Army came, everyone lived the same way. Although the food rations were small, at least no one starved to death. Isn't that better than fighting a war?

He Dajun first heard this while buying soy milk from Old Chen's family at the east end of Nanluoguxiang.

Old Chen's douzhi (fermented mung bean juice) stall hadn't been open for business much since the Japanese entered the city. But as soon as he set up the stall that day, several neighbors gathered around it.

A middle-aged man in a gray cloth shirt was holding a bowl of soy milk, drinking it while talking to the person next to him.

"Look at the Imperial Army. After they arrived, they built factories and distributed rations. Apart from being a bit strict with searches, they didn't really do anything to us. Then look at those Kuomintang people. In less than a month, more than 100,000 of them died. Isn't that just throwing lives away?"

"If you can't beat them, you can't beat them. Just accept it."

Someone nearby chimed in, saying, "That's right, the sooner we admit defeat, the sooner we'll shut up."

Some people kept their heads down and didn't speak, their fingers gripping the bowl of soy milk tightly, their knuckles turning purple.

He Dajun stood beside the stall, leaning on a wooden stick.

He glanced at the middle-aged man. He recognized him; his surname was Qian, and he was a teacher at a private school nearby. After the Japanese entered the city, the school closed down, and now he spent his days writing letters home for people in a teahouse, barely making ends meet.

He Dajun didn't say anything. He slowly took a sip of the soy milk, put the bowl on the stall, paid the money, and walked away with a limp, leaning on his wooden cane.

He memorized that face.

A few days later, these sounds became more and more frequent. Tea

There were people in the museum, people in the newspapers, and even people in the steel rolling mill's workers' sheds.

A worker was squatting on a pile of broken bricks, eating a cornbread bun at lunchtime. He said to his coworker, "The Imperial Army says the Great Xia army lost 300,000 men in the Shanghai area, while the Imperial Army only lost less than 20,000. 20,000 against 300,000, how can they possibly fight this battle?"

"I think we should just surrender sooner rather than later, so that more people don't die." Some of the workers nearby remained silent, some nodded, and some cursed him for being spineless.

Some even said that the resistance fighters were the worst, dragging so many people down with them.

He Dajun happened to be walking by and overheard these words.

He stopped, leaning on his wooden cane, and stood in front of the worker, looking down at him. The worker felt uneasy under his gaze, quickly stood up, dusted himself off, and lowered his head, not daring to speak.

Actually, the worker was also puzzled. Wasn't He Dajun a traitor? Why did he become so tense when He Dajun looked at him?

He Dajun stared at him for several seconds, then said, "This afternoon, you go and move all the broken bricks from the pile at the base of the east wall. You're not allowed to leave work until you've finished."

After saying that, he walked away, leaning on his wooden stick.

The worker stood there dumbfounded, wondering what he had done to offend this lackey of a team leader.

He Dajun, leaning on a wooden stick, walked to the entrance of Workshop 2 and stopped.

He looked at the new rolling mill running in the workshop, at the workers bustling between the machines, and at Suzuki standing at the other end of the workshop, holding a folder and writing something down.

Everything was normal, so normal that it made me uneasy.

He knew that sound would come.

In another timeline of history, after the defeat in the Battle of Shanghai, the theory of national subjugation spread throughout the country for quite some time.

The elite forces of the Kuomintang were wiped out, while local warlords were still slowly advancing. The common people saw no hope, so naturally some people felt it was better to surrender.

This is human nature, there's nothing to criticize.

But human nature is human nature, and saying certain things is tantamount to helping the Japanese draw their swords.

Why did the Japanese soldiers report the results of the Battle of Shanghai so extensively in the newspapers?

Why write down the casualty figures of the Great Xia army in such detail?

The goal was to make all the people of Daxia feel that resistance was futile and that it was better to surrender sooner rather than later.

This kind of psychological warfare is more insidious than killing someone with a gun.

He decided to do something, and he had to do something.

That evening, after returning to his room, He Dajun called Bai Ling into the tunnel and told her about his plan.

The plan was simple: from now on, any puppet troops or traitors who encountered traitors advocating the theory of national subjugation and whose attitudes were hostile should be killed on the spot.

If it's not serious, just the kind of thing that goes with the flow, we can let it go.

After listening, Bai Ling remained silent for a while, then said that she felt there was nothing wrong with the plan, but it should be implemented with caution.

Some people are just grumbling on the street and may not really want to be traitors. If the methods are too drastic, it will push those who could have been won over to the other side.

He Dajun said he knew, which is why he requested verification.

Those who voluntarily guide the Japanese, tip off the Japanese, or publicly persuade others to surrender are all traitors and should be dealt with directly.

Make a note of those who are just grumbling in private, and talk about them when things get better.

Bai Ling said that's how it would be done. She would go and coordinate with Lao Yang to have Lao Yang's people help verify the identity.

The next day, He Dajun called Liu Haizhong to his office and asked him to compile a list of people he had recently heard or seen advocating the theory of national subjugation and submit it to him.

Liu Haizhong's eyes lit up when he heard this. He felt that this was a good opportunity for him to show off, which meant that He Dajun valued these traitors.

That very evening, he submitted a densely packed list containing more than twenty names, some of which He Dajun had heard of, and some of which he hadn't.

He Dajun flipped through the list and sneered inwardly.

Liu Haizhong probably thought this was to promote them, which is why he was so proactive.

But that's okay, the list itself is useful.

He folded the list and put it in his pocket, telling Liu Haizhong to keep an eye on it.

The first name on the list was that of the private tutor surnamed Qian.

A few days later, when Lao Yang came to change He Dajun's dressing, he brought some news.

He said that recently a traitorous writer published an article in a Japanese-controlled newspaper, advocating a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and calling on the people of Great Britain to "be pragmatic and act accordingly" and actively cooperate with the Imperial Army to maintain order.

The article circulated widely among traitors, and some people even read it aloud in teahouses, applauding and cheering.

He Dajun asked who this person was. Old Yang said it was a man named Zhao Bingwen, who used to be a history professor at Peking University. After the Japanese entered the city, he transformed into the cultural committee member of the "New People's Association," specializing in writing propaganda for the Japanese.

He Dajun nodded and made a mental note of the name.

He Dajun said there was something else he wanted Lao Yang to investigate.

He said there was news from the south that the Japanese would soon attack Jingzhou, and asked Lao Yang if he could help spread some contradictory information in the city.

Old Yang asked him to spread rumors, and He Dajun said that the southern troops were gathering on the outskirts of Jingzhou, preparing to fight a big battle with the Japanese in Jingzhou. Although they lost the Battle of Shanghai, the Great Xia still existed and had not perished.