Since they were going to fight, given the current military situation, they must go all out. This was the guiding opinion of the military plan formulated by Chen Ke in the Military Commission. In the final plan, the People's Party dispatched almost its entire army. The military plan was very simple and traditional: first, Hua Xiongmao and Xu Dian would enter the fortified village for negotiations. Once they came out, as long as Zhang Youliang did not immediately agree to hand over the land and personally go to the Insurance Corps station in the county town, the People's Party would launch an attack. The main force composed of the Second and Third Companies would besiege the enemy from the front. After attracting the enemy's attention to the front, the troops that would truly decide the victory or defeat at the back of the fortified village would move out. This was the troop led by Chen Ke. Chen Ke did not command the large troop but commanded a small troop. This "small" was only compared to the more than five hundred people of the Second and Third Companies plus the Scout Team. He led the First and Second Platoons of the First Company. The two platoons added up to about a hundred people. This force alone was equal to the force Zhang Youliang could mobilize.

The plan formulated for this battle was targeted at Zhang Youliang's fortified village. The structure of Zhang Youliang's fortified village was simple, with only one gate on the south side. Moreover, the fortified village only had walls. Although there was a watchtower on the north side, the scale of the watchtower was very small, accommodating two or three people standing at most. It was not a real fire support point. Although Zhang Youliang had some fowling pieces and firelocks, he definitely didn't have machine guns. Against bandits, these watchtowers could still play some role. Against a well-organized large troop, they wouldn't play any role at all.

Chen Ke's troops set off the earliest. Just after dark yesterday, the First and Second Platoons of the First Company set off with Chen Ke. At midnight, the troops quietly ambushed north of the fortified village. Chen Ke personally led the demolition team to set explosives under the wall. Fortunately, after the flood, the soil was relatively moist. And the volume of the explosives made by You Gou was much smaller than black powder. Even so, Chen Ke and the others dug silently for half the night before digging out enough space.

After burying the explosives, everyone hid behind a mound that had been scouted long ago, which was only more than three hundred meters away from Zhang Youliang's fortified village. There were originally some miscellaneous trees and shrubs on the mound, all drowned in the flood. After the sky cleared and they were baked by the sun, the leaves all turned withered and yellow. If it weren't for the scorching sun during the day, just looking at the scene, it would simply be the season of late autumn when all things wither. After the flood, there were no inhabitants nearby. If it were any other time, Chen Ke would absolutely not dare to arrange it like this. Even so, such a distance was too dangerous. Not only in case of encountering people, but burying soldiers here for a whole day also placed very high demands on the troops. This was a great test of discipline.

The first thing for the troops was to maintain silence; no one was allowed to speak without orders. Don't look at how simple it sounds; executing it in practice was extremely difficult. Chen Ke ordered the troops to sleep first, with cadres on standby. But sleeping on the mud ground was really unbearable. After a night of marching, although the troops were exhausted, they all woke up before noon. The first problem was urination and defecation. Troops couldn't go without eating or drinking to fight. Plus sleeping on the mud ground, the stomach easily caught a cold. So urination and defecation were very frequent.

This was still manageable, but keeping everyone quiet was simply killing them. The soldiers obeyed orders, holding back one by one. Their eyes rolled around, looking left and right. Everyone sat when tired of lying down, and lay down when tired of sitting. Some people lay down and sat up frequently, simply like doing sit-ups. Chen Ke really issued a death order this time; officers who went over to stop these restless actions were also not allowed to make a sound. They just stared and held the soldiers down to prevent them from moving around. So it was another silent standoff of staring at each other. It wasn't that the soldiers wanted to deliberately disobey orders; the Insurance Corps hadn't undergone harsh formation drills, and everyone wasn't used to such silence at all. Staring at the commanders was also a way to vent emotions. Chen Ke knew that soldiers would naturally be very nervous facing the upcoming battle because the decision time for this battle was short, and it was really too late to conduct a profound comprehensive mobilization. Moreover, the team was now a mixed bag; a comprehensive mobilization would probably leak the news. Chen Ke's idea was to conduct a comprehensive mobilization before launching the attack in the afternoon. Letting everyone hold back now would make it easier to stimulate the comrades' fighting spirit when the time came.

Since it was the silence order issued by Chen Ke, he implemented the model of "officers and soldiers as one" himself, lying on the ground without saying a word. In these days, he had meetings and commanded work all day long. Speaking every day made his throat burn. Being able to lie quietly, even if the back was mud, gave Chen Ke a rare sense of leisure. Looking at the dry yellow leaves overhead, Chen Ke felt that if there were no combat mission, now would look like a comfortable autumn outing. The pressure of the first battle wasn't great. Chen Ke also thought it through; bullets don't have eyes, and he wasn't Superman or Wolverine, so whether he would be killed instantly by a stray bullet was completely not within Chen Ke's consideration. The Insurance Corps dispatched six hundred troops, with nearly 200 various firearms. Among them were 40 rifles, more than 20 pistols, and the rest were miscellaneous guns bought from various places. Other soldiers held long spears. The Insurance Corps practiced spear assassination techniques hard from top to bottom. Now that guns couldn't be manufactured by themselves, the price of purchasing guns was also very high. Spear training was helpful for future bayonet techniques; as long as they were officers and soldiers of the Insurance Corps, they had to undergo strict training.

Chen Ke didn't know that soon after, Xu Dian, this former scholar, would show the results of spear assassination training. Before the military operation, Chen Ke's mind was actually full of Party and government structures, completely without considering war issues.

After organizing such a big stall using the flood, Chen Ke himself was actually very unaccustomed to it. He used to be a teacher, with less than a hundred students under him at most. Suddenly he had to manage the lives of these tens of thousands of people. Chen Ke was completely in a feeling of being unaccustomed. Of course, Chen Ke was just unaccustomed; at any rate, he had more than a hundred years of historical experience to draw from. Other comrades were not only unaccustomed but also completely helpless. It could be said that the reason no one dared to challenge Chen Ke's current status was entirely built on the foundation that Chen Ke could lead everyone to solve problems.

For example, when Chen Ke mobilized people to build a water plant, everyone felt it sounded too profound. Actually, doing it really wasn't that troublesome: water wheels lifting water, preliminary sedimentation, coarse sand and stone filtration, fine sand and stone filtration, sedimentation again, and finally filtration with fine sand. After such layers of filtration, the "tap water" was purified. Fengtai County didn't lack space; what needed to be controlled was the length of these filtration "workshops," determining through experiments how to maximize the guarantee of sedimentation completion, and cleaning and sterilizing the filtering sand and stones in time. Chen Ke had absolutely no plan to popularize tap water to the whole county in the short term. Taking the Insurance Corps station as the center, prioritizing service to the Insurance Corps, and guaranteeing the livelihood of the people attached to the Insurance Corps—this was Chen Ke's action guide.

Obviously, being able to provide food and clean drinking water during a disaster year itself controlled the dependency of the victims. It was because of the hierarchical system, widening the treatment gap—the treatment of Insurance Corps members was significantly higher than that of their families, and the treatment of Insurance Corps families was higher than that of ordinary victims. Only in this way could the Insurance Corps grow rapidly. However, such operations brought only a pile of mercenaries. The people followed the People's Party and the Insurance Corps because they wanted to survive. If a more powerful force intervened at this time, a considerable part of these people would definitely scatter like birds and beasts.

But talking about industrialization or revolution to the victims had no positive effect at all, except for scaring these people and then making them fall apart. Now Chen Ke must use the natural disaster to greatly destroy the social organization system of the old era. Moreover, social contradictions were now established on life and death, so the contradictions became simpler and sharper. The landlord class and the victims were now in unprecedented opposition. As long as Zhang Youliang, who dared to stand up and confront, was solved, and then other forces daring to confront were solved, while winning over those landlord forces that could accept cooperation, Fengtai County would be completely under the control of the People's Party within the next six months. This stage was the most dangerous but also the most opportunistic time.

Chen Ke was thinking about these things when he suddenly felt something was very wrong. There seemed to be an abnormal change from inside Zhang Youliang's fortified village. Listening carefully, it seemed like many people were in commotion. *Is Zhang Youliang already preparing for armed confrontation?* Chen Ke sat up abruptly, breaking the silence.

"Everyone get up, get ready." As soon as these words were spoken, those comrades who had long been unable to hold back stood up with excitement on their faces. Comrades who had already fallen asleep or were dozing off in a daze were also shaken awake. They looked at the excited others with sleepy eyes.

To capture Zhang Youliang's fortified village, the Military Commission made extremely many preparations. Long before the troops set off, reliable soldiers who were originally locals of Yuezhangji were sent to infiltrate. In the plan, the task of these soldiers was to pay attention to news of any disturbance. As a result, Zhang Youliang was much more cautious than imagined. He blocked the entry and exit of the fortified village. After the soldiers managed to sneak in with difficulty, they simply had no way to transmit news out.

And plans can't keep up with changes. The People's Party had decided to eliminate Zhang Youliang's forces in the short term, so the original plan was completely changed. Chen Ke didn't expect the comrades who sneaked in originally to be able to coordinate from within, but these comrades could still do many things. After all, there was no aerial reconnaissance now. Chen Ke sent new comrades to sneak in, and these comrades carried fireworks. They only had to do one thing: when they confirmed that Zhang Youliang's subordinates were attracted to the front gate during the attack of the Second and Third Companies, they would set off fireworks. Chen Ke and the others would immediately detonate the bomb, blow open the north wall, and rush in.

Everyone started moving. Chen Ke could no longer hear the movement inside the fortified village clearly. Just then, suddenly, the firework agreed upon as a signal rose into the sky. Only a very small number of officers knew this contact method. Other soldiers saw this sudden firework and felt very strange. And the officers who knew the situation were very puzzled about the signal appearing now, which was originally planned to be sent out in the evening. Chen Ke didn't hesitate at all; he shouted: "Detonate!"