Kong Peng is now arguably the busiest person in Guangxi. Before his appointment as head of the Military Intelligence Agency's Changde Station, he was the head of the Liuzhou Station.

  It can be said that he spent three months getting a clear understanding of Liuzhou's situation.

  But now that he has been promoted to the head of Guangxi Station, according to the latest organizational chart of the Military Intelligence Agency, both Liuzhou Station and Nanning Station have become branch stations. So the head of this major station is busy, with only so many agents to investigate not only Liu Guixiang's intelligence but also Lu Rongting's intelligence from Nanning. Prior to that, the agents working at Nanning Station did a poor job in this regard, until Gong Peng transferred five Guangxi-born soldiers from the army to the Military Intelligence Agency, and the situation improved.

  He Chang's latest request is to focus the work on Liuzhou and Nanning, and any news should be immediately transmitted by carrier pigeon (as radio stations are not yet widespread).

  He Keyi himself led a group of people from the Military Intelligence Department to Jingzhou with Wang Zhenyu's General Command, where Song Haomin had just been transferred to serve as the Director of Logistics Support Department, still holding the rank of Colonel.

  From the military deployment, Wang Zhenyu indeed had to take control of Liuzhou and other northern Guangxi areas. Not only did he bring in the First Division, but also the Mountainous First Brigade and the Mountainous Second Brigade, which had just shown great prowess in the Changde battle.

  To know that Liu Xing's second guard division has been transferred to Changde area for garrison, assisting local political reform (assisting with guns?). Currently, the entire western Hunan base camp, except for the security general team, only Zhao Dongsheng's guards brigade is left.

  However, Wang Zhenyu was not entirely taking a risk. He had taken into account that as long as Cai E was still around, Liu Xiang would not dare to set foot in western Hunan. After all, General Cai had declared neutrality, and if Liu Xiang dared to disrupt General Cai's plans, he would likely lose his position as the military governor of Guizhou.

  "Deputy Commander, why did General Wang let us set out for Liuzhou immediately without any reason?" White Chongyi had just met with Wang Zhenyu along with Li Zongren after the battle of Changde. However, after only a few words, Wang Zhenyu ordered them to return to the pass immediately and then led his troops to depart for Liuzhou, leaving White Chongyi perplexed.

  Li Zongren shook his head: "The commander has always been unpredictable, so I'm not too clear either. It seems that our military intelligence department provided some important information again? Didn't you benefit from it once in Cili? Besides, there's nothing wrong with fighting in Guangxi. We've been away from home for almost two years now, and who knows if the people back home are still doing well?"

  When it comes to family, Bai Chongxi, who has always been cold and expressionless, also reveals a gentle gaze, looking at the distant mountains, where the other end of the mountain is home.

  Just as Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, two Guangxi men, began to feel homesick, a bloody scene was unfolding in Liuzhou.

  If historians are interested in selecting the top 10 most tragic figures in China in 1913, or the second year of the Republic of China, Liu Guoxiang would definitely be ranked first. As for Song Jiaoren and others, they would all have to be ranked after him, because if Liu Guoxiang considered himself second, it's likely that no one would dare to consider themselves first. If you want to compare misfortunes, who can compare with Liu Guoxiang?

  Liu Guoxiang, born in 1873, was a native of Maping, Guangxi (now Liuzhou). He participated in the famous Guangzhou Huanghuagang Uprising and led an uprising in Liuzhou during the Xinhai Revolution. He served as the head of the Right River Military Government Division of Guangxi and commander of the 5th Army.

  In later years, when local gazetteers were compiled, he was described as follows:

  "After Yuan Shikai usurped the fruits of the revolution in 1913 and plotted to become emperor, Liu actively responded to Sun Yat-sen's leadership of the anti-Yuan movement. He led an uprising in Liuzhou, issued a telegram calling on various provinces to respond, and declared Guangxi's independence. Unfortunately, due to Shen Hongying's betrayal, he was captured by Yuan Shikai's henchman Lu Rongting. On October 14th of the same year, he calmly accepted his fate at the East Gate of Liuzhou."

  As for how Lu Rongting, Yuan Shikai's former henchman, later cooperated with our national father to carry out the Constitutional Protection Movement in the south, we won't discuss it. Let's talk about the miraculous end of Liu Guoxiang's life.

  During the Republic of China era, it was not uncommon for military leaders to encounter mutinies, such as Cao Kun in Baoding who had his headquarters shelled by his own troops with cannons due to withholding their wages, fortunately he was not at home at that time and only one of his concubines was killed.

  However, Liu Guoxiang's encounter with these people was different. In just five short days, he encountered two military mutinies.

  And the ending is getting worse and worse each time.

  The first mutiny is a bit embarrassing to talk about. The ones who launched the mutiny were none other than Liu Guoxiang's revolutionary comrades, the Nationalist Party members.

  Due to dissatisfaction with Liu Guxiang's indecision on the issue of overthrowing Yuan, comrades within the party claimed that they wanted to force Liu Guxiang to overthrow Yuan, and thus launched a military coup, which sounds similar to the Xi'an Incident.

  Records within the Nationalist Party also clearly documented this mutiny: On September 11th (what a propitious day it was), in the dead of night, Liu Guoxiang's guard commander Liu Ma Liu launched an armed demonstration with his troops, intending to coerce Liu Guoxiang into making up his mind to stage a rebellion.

  Oh, so it was just a warning shot. That's relatively mild. But what about the consequences? According to the KMT records, due to the suddenness of the event, Liu Guoxiang escaped in panic without knowing what was happening (of course, if he had known, you wouldn't have been able to cause such chaos!). However, a strange thing happened - although it was just a warning shot, why were Liu's secretary Liang Zuolin and his wife Ma Dian and daughter-in-law Yang Lin all killed by stray bullets? Were they already in heaven at the time?

  As a result of the first mutiny, Liu Guoxiang's wife died and he became a widower. Of course, his son also joined the ranks of widowers like him.

  This was just the beginning, Liu Guoxiang let his comrades in the party set him up, and he should have suddenly woken up to regret, then thrown himself into President Yuan Shikai's benevolent embrace, from then on becoming Old Yuan's pawn, a tool for suppressing revolution.

  But others didn't, Liu Guoxiang and a certain marshal later on, their wives were killed by the organization but they didn't hesitate to follow the organization to the end. What kind of comrade is this if not a firm revolutionary?

  Liu Guoxiang was nursing his wounds while counter-attacking Yuan, then appointed Liu Zhenhuan as the commander-in-chief of the Guangxi army to fight against Yuan, and sent troops to attack Lu Rongting who supported Yuan Shikai.

  The second mutiny was a modern version of the farmer and the snake, because Shen Hongying, who launched the second mutiny, was cultivated by Liu Guoxiang. Shen Hongying, also known as Guangnan, was originally named Shen Aiyin before joining the Green Forest. He was born in Enping, Guangdong Province, but his ancestors moved to Luocheng County, Guangxi Province due to conflicts between locals and Hakka people, where they made a living by running small businesses. At around 21 years old, Shen Hongying joined a bandit gang and committed robberies in Liucheng, Luotuo, and Luocheng. Due to his physical strength, cunning, and bravery, he was promoted as the leader of the gang. In places like Shatang, Luocheng, all of Shen's brothers, uncles, and cousins with strength joined the gang.

  After the Xinhai Revolution, Shen Hongying led his troops to join the revolutionary party member Liu Guxiang and became the commander of the 5th Army of Guangxi.

  Because Shen Hongying has a dignified appearance, is eloquent, handles matters quickly, and is good at catering to Liu Gu's intentions, and also shares the same Caozhou dialect with Liu Gu, she gained Liu's appreciation and trust, becoming his confidante.

  In early 1912, Liu Guoxiang went on an inspection tour of the counties under the jurisdiction of Youjiang, with Shen Hongying and his troops following him. When pacifying local bandits in each county, they were all assigned to Shen's unit, so Shen's military strength was relatively strong.

  The next morning after the first mutiny, Shen Hongying went to the headquarters of the Hubei Army and met with Liu Zhenhuan, expressing his intention to follow Liu Zhenhuan in opposing Yuan Shikai. He then met with Liu Guxiang, knelt down and said "I was nurtured by the commander-in-chief, but I failed to protect him, I am sorry to the commander-in-chief."

  At that time, Liu Gu Xiang was so moved that he almost recognized him as his own son.

  Then Shen Hongying said to Liu Zhenhuan, "The headquarters is crowded and busy, it's not easy for the leader to rest here, my place is relatively quiet, please come and stay with me."

  Liu Guoxiang trusted Shen Hongying very much and moved to Shen's place to recover from his injuries.

  In fact, Shen Hongying had already defected and surrendered to Lu Rongting.

  On September 14, taking advantage of Liu Chengfu's expedition against Lu Rongting with a thousand troops, Shen Hongying launched the second mutiny in Liuzhou. This time, even Liu Guxiang, who was wounded, had no chance to turn over. Liu Zhenhuan, seeing that things were not going well, escaped from Liuzhou with dozens of people and fled everywhere to avoid capture.

  Historically, Liu Guoxiang, who ended in a tragic finale, was handed over to Lu Rongting by Shen Hongying as a token of surrender. Lu Rongting immediately decided to execute this greatest opponent who had dominated Guangxi alone.

  Before the execution by firing squad, Lu Rongting smiled and asked Liu Guoxiang if he had any last words. Liu's last words were somewhat agitated: "Shen Hongying was promoted by me, today he kills me, tomorrow he will also kill you."

  Lu Rongting thought it was just a joke and waved his hand to kill Liu Guxiang, and Shen Hongying became the new master of Liuzhou.

  However, with the appearance of Wang Zhenyu, this irresponsible butterfly, history began to shift here...

  Liu Zhenhuan escaped from Liuzhou and his initial plan was to flee to Guangzhou, which was still within the control of the anti-Yuan Shikai forces. However, Shen Hongying had apparently anticipated this move and set up layers of checkpoints on the road to Wuzhou. As a former bandit, the idea of cutting grass but not removing its roots was deeply ingrained in him.

  Liu Zhenhua tried several times, not only failed to escape, but also lost more than a dozen brothers. Unwillingly, he could only head in the direction of Hunan, after all, Tan Yankai, the governor of Hunan, had declared independence and opposed Yuan.

  However, their whereabouts had been exposed, and Shen Hongying's subordinates Lan Ba and Tao Er led more than 80 bandit-turned-officials to chase after them.

  It's already the third day today, and almost every time he rests, the other side catches up. After a brief exchange of fire, the distance opens up again. To escape, Liu Zhenhuan had to learn from the gecko's trick of cutting off its tail, so now only a few people are still following him.

  Hunger, fatigue and fear accumulated over three days all attacked his heart at once. Liu Zhenhuan felt that he was about to die soon. Since childhood, growing up in a big household, he knew for sure that he couldn't outrun Lan Ba, Tao Er and those mountain bandits.

  Everyone was finally able to find a place to drink some water and catch their breath. A bullet suddenly hit the guard standing next to Liu Zhenhuan, and the guard fell into the gurgling stream, with dark red blood dyeing the creek water red.

  Liu Zhenhuan turned around in horror and saw Lan Ba leading thirty or so men with guns pointed at him: "Liu Bangtong, you can really run, brothers took a few shortcuts to catch up with you, not easy."

  Liu Zhenhuan knew his time was up, let out a sigh, the grudge of the old Liu family would never be avenged, he quietly closed his eyes and waited for the sound of gunfire to erupt.