At the end of July 1906, a fleet composed entirely of traditional Chinese large black-awning boats was sailing on a wide river. The entire fleet consisted of eighteen boats, fully loaded with heavy cargo that pressed the gunwales close to the water surface. The river was wide and the current quite swift; although the sails were set, oars were still needed. Accompanied by powerful chants, the boatmen, stripped to the waist, pulled the heavy oars in unison. Every stroke moved the boats slightly upstream against the current, and splashing water occasionally hit the decks or the boat awnings.

On the bow of the foremost boat, Chai Qingguo stood under a large flag. Dark clouds hung low, and the wind, saturated with moisture, blew from the water surface. Occasional raindrops drifted with the wind, hitting Chai Qingguo's face and body. Despite having stayed in the south for more than half a year, this big fellow from Shandong still felt unaccustomed to such humidity. The wind blew the large flag, making it flap loudly. Chai Qingguo had seen this flag many times; he could draw the pattern of the flag in his mind even with his eyes closed.

The flag was entirely crimson, with a black symbol in the upper left corner. A sickle and a hammer were superimposed on each other, forming a peculiar pattern that looked like a strangely shaped drawn bow. The sickle naturally represented the peasants, and the hammer represented the workers. As for why the red flag was chosen, Chai Qingguo could still clearly recall Chen Ke's sonorous voice: "We choose the red flag because this flag is dyed red with the blood of the people's heroes who sacrificed themselves in successive struggles against internal and external enemies for national independence and the people's freedom and happiness since 1840."

These words were literary and long; Chai Qingguo didn't understand them at first. Having been with Chen Ke and the others for a long time, Chai Qingguo himself had become accustomed to the habits of literati. After asking carefully about the meaning of these words, Chai Qingguo summarized the answer he was interested in: Zhao Sanduo and Uncle Jing Tingbin were also the "people's heroes" Chen Ke mentioned, and the brothers who fought together with him in the *Gengzi* year (1900) were also "people's heroes." Only then did he accept Chen Ke's explanation for the color of the red flag.

Of course, standing at the bow of the boat at this moment, Chai Qingguo felt no particular sentiment regarding this passage. He didn't even think about it at all. What was in this Shandong hero's heart at this moment was something else.

In *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, it is told that Marquis Zhuge burned Sima Yi in the Gourd Valley. Just as Sima Yi and his two sons were about to be buried in the sea of fire, heavy rain suddenly fell from the sky and extinguished the fire, allowing Sima Yi and his sons to escape. Watching the fleeing figures of Sima Yi and his sons, Marquis Zhuge sighed: "Man proposes, Heaven disposes."

The People's Party's work in Anhui in 1906 also felt much like this.

Throughout the spring, the core of the People's Party's work revolved around Fengtai County, Anhui. After Shang Yuan took office as the magistrate of Fengtai County, People's Party members quickly infiltrated the county yamen as "clerks." The positions of private advisors, constables, and several important posts in the county changed hands one after another. At least on the official surface, the People's Party controlled the political power in the county. At the same time, Chen Ke selected a group of People's Party cadres, as well as those fellow villagers of Yuwen Badu who returned home with Chen Ke, and mixed them to form the armed force of the People's Party.

The second-in-command of the Anhui New Army, Commander Pu Guanshui, met with Chen Ke in Anqing. He pulled strings and applied for the title of "Insurance Corps" for Chen Ke. The "Insurance Corps," to put it plainly, were bandits who fought bandits. These years were very uneven; the huge number of unemployed peasants greatly supplemented those bandit armed forces gathering in the forests, so organizations like the "Insurance Corps" emerged as the times required. They also set "shares" in various places and collected money and grain, not much different from bandits. But on the other hand, the Insurance Corps also did some black-on-black business. They struck at bandits and protected the safety of traveling merchants. They could be considered a mixture of "sitting bandits" with some background and "armed escort agencies."

Chai Qingguo didn't like the government army, so Chen Ke personally led the team, including Chai Qingguo and others, a total of 120 people, to undergo a month and a half of military training in the Anhui New Army. It was almost May when the training finished. Pu Guanshui used his connections to get a batch of guns, plus the relationship with Kuroshima Jinichiro to get a batch of guns from those in Shanghai who "intentionally supported the revolution," so the 120-man core team of the Insurance Corps had a gun for everyone.

Just as the team returned to Fengtai County, ready to make a big splash, it started to rain.

Chai Qingguo was a northerner; he never knew that rain could fall day and night like this. Chen Ke didn't even know about this great flood, let alone Chai Qingguo. History books recorded it as follows:

"In 1906 (the 32nd year of Guangxu), at the turn of spring and summer in Anhui, excessive rain fell for more than 60 days. Mountain torrents erupted, and the Huai, Si, Sha, Ru, Fei and other rivers rose simultaneously. The water on the flat ground was several feet deep. 'Over a thousand *li* up and down, all became a watery country.' 'Forty or fifty hungry people died every day. There were whole families of men and women who threw themselves into the river to commit suicide, and there were those who migrated out of the territory and fell dead along the way. Corpses stared at each other on the road; it was too tragic to hear.'"

Chai Qingguo really had his eyes opened. It rained heavily every day; the sky seemed to have been stabbed with a big hole, pouring down endless rainwater every day. Watching the flat land turn into pools, then the pools expand into lakes, and the lakes continue to expand, turning hilltops into isolated islands. Only the tops of trees several *zhang* high barely emerged above the water surface.

There was no need to mention the fields and houses; they were all submerged and invisible. The people who escaped with their lives were trapped on hilltops. If Chen Ke hadn't personally led the team, and the People's Party's "Insurance Corps" braved the heavy rain to sail around saving people, taking the people trapped on the hilltops to higher places, no one knew how many more would have died just in the first few days of heavy rain.

The organization of the Insurance Corps completely followed the regular army establishment: one company had four platoons, one platoon had four squads, and one squad had twelve people. The Insurance Corps had a full company, totaling 240 people. People's Party members served as all company commanders, platoon commanders, and squad leaders. The Party Branch ordered that People's Party members must personally lead teams to save people. Leaving one's post under any excuse was absolutely not allowed. The torrential rain poured down from the sky, and floodwaters surged everywhere; sailing to save people was extremely dangerous. One could lose their life if they accidentally fell into the water. Although Shang Yuan borrowed all the relatively safe and reliable large boats he could find, casualties still inevitably occurred.

In just ten days, the People's Party paid a heavy price. Although everyone on the boat would tie ropes around their waists when it got dangerous, one Party member and five Insurance Corps members still unfortunately fell into the water and sacrificed their lives. For ten whole days, the Insurance Corps went out everywhere and saved more than three thousand people. Although it is said that "saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda," the members of the Insurance Corps were also human. If it weren't for Chen Ke and the Party members leading the teams personally every day and always standing in the most dangerous places; if it weren't because many members of the Insurance Corps were those locals Yuwen Badu took to Shanghai, who had worked together for a long time and had considerable affection for each other, and as locals, they sincerely hoped to save their fellow villagers—without these factors, this temporarily assembled team would probably have collapsed long ago.

Even so, by the eleventh day, the exhausted and injury-ridden Insurance Corps was powerless to go out. When Chen Ke announced a temporary rest and that they would go out to save people again in a few days, all members of the Insurance Corps showed joy. Although they knew that stopping the rescue operation meant that the people trapped in the flood outside basically had no way to survive, everyone had already worked hard for ten days, and their own lives were lives too.

Thinking of this, Chai Qingguo couldn't help but turn his head. Among the group of dark and strong boatmen, a distinctively fairer and much thinner young man was rowing hard with everyone. That was He Zudao, the Political Commissar of the Insurance Corps. This young man from Shanghai started as a cultural instructor in the Insurance Corps and concurrently served as the Organization Officer of the Soldiers' Committee. Now he was the Political Commissar of the Second Company of the Insurance Corps. Theoretically, the status of the Political Commissar was even higher than that of the Company Commander, which meant that Chai Qingguo, the Commander of the Second Company, also had to obey the decisions of the Party Committee led by the Political Commissar. In the Yihetuan (Boxers), this was the role of the "Military Advisor," but He Zudao didn't have any bureaucratic airs at all. The work arrangements he was responsible for always included all officers in the plan.

When Chen Ke focused on working on Yuwen Badu back then, Chai Qingguo didn't know how Chen Ke and the others hoodwinked him, but they actually persuaded Yuwen Badu to bring his Anhui fellow villagers back home together. Such a large group of people constituted the backbone of the Insurance Corps. Chen Ke led the team, and He Zudao arranged the luggage burden, marching, cooking, and other logistical work. Even Chen Ke carried his own luggage like a generic soldier, and had to do the living and cooking along the way personally. As the Organization Officer of the Soldiers' Committee, He Zudao told everyone that this was called "Officers and Soldiers as One." Since they were in the Insurance Corps, there was only a difference in position, not in status.

The Soldiers' Committee started by chatting about domestic trivia, with everyone talking about their family background and why they came out to work. As a member of the Soldiers' Committee, Chai Qingguo personally participated in all activities. Moreover, the representatives elected by the Soldiers' Committee were all ordinary soldiers. Officers were not allowed to concurrently serve as representatives of the Soldiers' Committee.

Chai Qingguo initially felt this was turning the sky upside down. *I am an officer; why should I listen to you, a soldier?* Not only the officers, but even the soldiers initially felt this was wrong. Small soldiers should definitely listen to officers. They also felt such overstepping shouldn't happen.

But He Zudao was not only the Organization Officer of the Soldiers' Committee; he also served as the cultural instructor. Addressing this situation, when He Zudao taught everyone to read every day, he compiled the People's Party's program into many small stories to teach everyone. The text consisted of words from the stories; in other words, the more of these characters one recognized, the more one could understand these programs of the People's Party.

With Chen Ke's strong support, after He Zudao had worked for a month, it happened to be payday. A soldier named Dai Enze was elected by the Soldiers' Committee as the representative for distributing pay. Dai Enze was originally a beggar living on the streets of Shanghai, a native of Anqing, Anhui. When Chen Ke and the team set off from Shanghai, Dai Enze was half-dead from hunger. Hearing the Anhui accent, he immediately came up to beg for food. Chen Ke gave him a steamed bun. Just as Dai Enze was wolfing down the bun, Chen Ke asked him if he wanted to go to Anhui with him. Dai Enze agreed immediately. At the Soldiers' Committee activity, Dai Enze also told his story. He was originally working at the docks with fellow villagers in Shanghai, but they offended another local gang. The fellow villagers were beaten badly. The original "Big Brother" also became a corpse floating in the Huangpu River. The others scattered. Dai Enze was beaten severely, and the money on his body was robbed. Ill and without any relatives to turn to, he had to become a beggar. As long as he could return to Anhui, he would do anything. He didn't want to stay in this place, Shanghai, anymore.

In He Zudao's culture class, whoever recognized more characters could wear a small red flower. Dai Enze had already worn it for more than ten days. Plus, he was someone who had experienced storms after all, and he could see Chen Ke's status. Since this Soldiers' Committee was strongly supported by Chen Ke, he dared to speak up and dared to raise some opinions of ordinary soldiers. So he was elected to be the representative for this pay distribution.

Dai Enze called out names one by one, from Chen Ke up top down to the soldiers, and then distributed the pay to everyone in public. After verifying it was correct, they signed the payroll. These days, the soldiers had learned to write their own names. After receiving the money and verifying it was correct, they happily signed their names one by one. When Dai Enze called out, "Comrade Chai Qingguo, come and collect your pay," Chai Qingguo felt uncomfortable all over. A small soldier who just joined the team, a small soldier of beggar origin, actually yelled at him like a human being. If it weren't for the fact that the steps for collecting money were completely unified, and Dai Enze also called Chen Ke "Comrade Chen Ke, come and collect your pay," Chai Qingguo would definitely not have let it go so easily.

As the days passed, this Soldiers' Committee became more and more lawless. In the regulations of the "Insurance Corps," "Officers and Soldiers as One" had a lot of content, including that officers were not allowed to beat or verbally abuse soldiers. This was one thing, but representatives of the Soldiers' Committee had to attend all officer meetings, and they had quite a significant voice. Dai Enze attended as a non-voting delegate many times. As time increased, he also began to make gestures and express some views. And Chen Ke completely indulged these people. Not only that, for every decision of the meeting, the Party Branch had to explain the purpose of these actions to the soldiers, let the soldiers understand the reasons for these actions, and obtain everyone's support.

Chai Qingguo felt Chen Ke was simply crazy. "Are you leading soldiers or leading masters? Even if you treat them as brothers, you can't spoil them like this," he once questioned Chen Ke to his face.

Chen Ke replied: "We are the people's army, and the people's army should be like this. If the army doesn't know what they are fighting for, can you expect them to fight to the bloody end with you?"

Chai Qingguo knew he couldn't beat Chen Ke in talking about big principles, so he simply gave up. Anyway, leading soldiers like this would definitely cause trouble; Chai Qingguo was waiting to see Chen Ke's joke later. After a few months, there were indeed several incidents of unstable soldier emotions and soldiers feeling bitter and tired, unwilling to train hard in the Insurance Corps. However, through the coordination of the Soldiers' Committee, these matters that could have easily caused fierce conflicts were actually resolved. Not only that, the "Establish New Customs" campaign promoted by Chen Ke had a very good reputation among the soldiers. He Zudao, who had quite some appeal, actually pushed it through and achieved considerable results. The organization and discipline of the army were greatly improved.

If not for these measures, according to the troops composed of those "brothers" Chai Qingguo led before, during the early stage of the flood, apart from a few brothers with particularly close relationships, very few people in the Insurance Corps would have truly obeyed orders to go out and sail to save people. In those arduous days, He Zudao not only had to go out every day himself, but after the troops returned, he also had to encourage the soldiers, arranging for everyone to bathe, change clothes, and eat. He also had to hold meetings to stir up morale. It wasn't just He Zudao; Chen Ke and other People's Party members had to do these jobs too, "serving" the hard-working soldiers. Every day, Chen Ke went to sleep last and woke up earliest. He Zudao went to sleep second last and woke up second earliest.

Although Chai Qingguo didn't admit it with his mouth, his heart was very clear. Without such an organizational model, the Insurance Corps couldn't have persisted in saving people for ten consecutive days. They might not have even persisted for one day.

Now, He Zudao rowed hard while shouting, "Comrades, shall we sing a song?"

"Good!" The ones rowing were all cadres and soldiers of the Insurance Corps, and they agreed with a boom.

"Let's sing *Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention*."

"Good!" Another booming response.

"Revolutionary soldiers must keep in mind, one, two!" He Zudao started with a loud voice.

Then the people on the whole boat sang together. "Revolutionary soldiers must keep in mind, the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention. First, obey orders in all your actions; march in step to win victory. Second, do not take a single needle or thread from the masses..."

Although there were mixed accents in the singing, everyone sang very consistently. Hearing the singing on this boat, the other boats quickly responded. The same song was sung one after another. On the river channel greatly widened by the flood, the singing spread far, far away.

The common people were not ungrateful either. Many of the locals of Fengtai County who were rescued actively requested to join the Insurance Corps. Although Chai Qingguo still believed that the main purpose of these people was to "become a soldier to eat grain"—in this monstrous flood, getting on the "big boat" of the Insurance Corps was the best choice for these victims—these people indeed joined the Insurance Corps voluntarily. The strength of the Insurance Corps rapidly changed from one company to one battalion. And a big reason for these people joining the Insurance Corps was also because the reputation of the Insurance Corps saving people had spread. Although everyone was somewhat worried about this troop that suddenly popped up, at least they no longer rejected it.

Chen Ke and the Party organization selected the applicants carefully. Yuwen Badu was a local, and many people in the Insurance Corps were locals. They knew who was from a decent family and who was a scoundrel. Most of the people recruited by the Insurance Corps were from decent families; only a few scoundrels with some special skills were recruited.

The expanded Insurance Corps had people and guns, and also received the support of the local government and the people. The Party organization then arranged the second step, starting to determine the route for transporting materials from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the disaster area. These eighteen black-awning boats were the second transport team organized. The boats were fully loaded with grain, seeds, cloth, medicine, salt, and some tools. At the People's Party Committee meeting, Chen Ke proposed that the People's Party must personally lead the people in the disaster area in post-disaster reconstruction, rush-planting and rush-harvesting, and try not to let people starve to death. Also, do not let major epidemics occur after the disaster.

When Chen Ke spoke, he was full of energy and high-spirited, showing no fatigue at all. One couldn't tell that he had been working on the front line for dozens of days. "Comrades, this flood completely disrupted our original plan. We must turn the unfavorable into the favorable. Natural disasters certainly make us very difficult, but natural disasters also destroyed all the old social structures of Fengtai County. Except for a few landlords and a few fortified villages, Fengtai County is basically soaked in water. As the saying goes, 'a vast white expanse, truly clean.' Now the common people have reached the point where they will starve to death immediately. Any clans, any land deeds are all bullshit."

Speaking of this, Chen Ke scanned the comrades around. Chai Qingguo felt as if two balls of fire were burning in Chen Ke's eyes; that kind of passion was something he had never seen before. "Now the common people have reached a life-and-death situation. Whoever saves them, they will follow. Now, our People's Party is here. Our People's Party is here to save them. So, we are not just going to save them from this flood; we are also going to point out a path for them where they don't have to starve, don't have to be forced to pay rent by landlords, and don't have to face days where they can't eat the grain they grow themselves. Do any comrades present think the common people want to live such days? Is there anyone? Please raise your hand if there is!"

Hearing this, the comrades burst into laughter.

Chen Ke also smiled. That smile was like a tiger about to eat people. "Replace the current old land system of Fengtai County with a new socialist system, and save the people from natural disasters and this land system. This is the Way of Heaven, this is Justice, this is Revolution!"

Just as he finished speaking, Chen Ke's left palm chopped down fiercely in the air, as if to split something invisible in front of him in half. Chai Qingguo sat relatively forward; he felt a gust of wind blowing against his face. At the same time, Chen Ke spoke loudly again: "This is the true People's Revolution that our People's Party wants to lead!"