Zhang Youliang knew his end was approaching and didn't offer any resistance. When two Insurance Corps soldiers dragged him outside the main gate, he didn't cry or shout. The soldiers didn't intend to make things difficult for this old man, so their movements weren't rough. Zhang Youliang didn't resist either, letting them take him to the gate.

"Reset his shoulder," Chen Ke had already come down from the watchtower and ordered. Hua Xiongmao deftly reset the dislocated arm. Zhang Youliang just moved his arm slightly, then stood straight in front of the crowd. Chen Ke didn't want Hua Xiongmao to reset Zhang Youliang's dislocated jaw. The Insurance Corps had far from enough in-depth ideological education now. If Zhang Youliang shouted "Are you rebelling?", Chen Ke wasn't confident he could explain clearly to the comrades why they were rebelling.

1906 was completely different from 1927. In 1927, the Party could mobilize the masses to armed resistance against the Kuomintang without hesitation because the people didn't believe the Kuomintang was the central government "ordained by heaven." But in 1906, the people still considered the Manchu Qing as the Imperial Court. The people dared to kill a landlord happily, but they didn't dare to oppose the Imperial Court happily. Of course, the people actually didn't quite understand what the Imperial Court was all about. To avoid trouble, Chen Ke only prepared to execute Zhang Youliang, declaring the complete end of the Zhang family's rule in Yuezhangji.

Chen Ke didn't care about killing a landlord in his heart, but many things weren't that simple originally. Since they wanted to prove that the Insurance Corps had controlled Yuezhangji, executing Zhang Youliang was necessary to become a ceremony.

The troops had completely resolved the resistance inside the fortified village, and everyone inside was brought out. There were five or six hundred people in total, comparable to the number of Insurance Corps soldiers. This dispatch of troops was very hasty; the Military Commission mainly formulated the combat plan and didn't consider much about how to deal with the aftermath. Everyone's general view was to root out the Zhang family's power from Yuezhangji completely. Seeing these five or six hundred people, everyone looked a bit uneasy. How to start this "rooting out completely"?

Chen Ke called the cadres together. He Zudao asked first: "Battalion Commander, what do we do next?"

"Pacify the people (*Anmin*)," Chen Ke laughed.

Pacify the people? This term confused the comrades. They were about to kill people immediately; no matter how they looked at it, it was "terrifying the people" (*haimin*). It couldn't be connected with pacifying the people in any way.

He Zudao had been with Chen Ke for more than a year. He knew Chen Ke sometimes had some unexpected sense of humor, so he didn't make a sound to save himself from saying something wrong and causing trouble for Chen Ke. First Company Commander Xu Dian asked doubtfully: "Write a notice to pacify the people?"

This sounded like something learned from storytelling. Let alone how high the literacy rate in Yuezhangji was, the Insurance Corps driving the people with knives and guns to read a notice—this was too ridiculous.

"Humph!" Chai Qingguo snorted coldly, "We are going to kill all the Zhang family members. Write what bullshit notice to pacify the people." Xu Dian had voted to kick Chai Qingguo out of the venue in Beijing back then. Chai Qingguo held a grudge about this and was never polite when refuting Xu Dian.

"Kill them all?" Xu Dian was startled by Chai Qingguo's statement, "How many people do we have to kill?"

"Since we want to occupy this fortified village, if we don't kill all the Zhang family members, are we waiting for them to come for revenge later?" Chai Qingguo said in a contemptuous tone.

"We have to kill some people, but it's better not to kill too many." Hua Xiongmao interjected, "Just killing the Zhang family members is enough. It's better to spare others a way out if we can avoid killing them."

"Of course we have to release them; get a boat to send them away?" Chai Qingguo said with a sneer.

"Could it be... could it be on the boat..." Xu Dian had read *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*. Cao Cao conquered Jingzhou back then, appointed Liu Biao's son Liu Cong as the Inspector of Jingzhou, sent Liu Cong and his mother Lady Cai to Qingzhou, but secretly ordered Yu Jin to intercept and kill them halfway.

"Humph!" Chai Qingguo just snorted to express agreement.

Hearing this, the faces of the Insurance Corps cadres were all gloomy. However, Chen Ke felt that if he arranged for them to do so, this group of comrades would probably agree.

Of course, Chen Ke couldn't arrange it like this. Seeing everyone couldn't come up with a solution, Chen Ke stated his own thoughts.

"Pacifying the people, the first thing is to let the people know where our bottom line lies. Who exactly to kill, who to release, who to win over. Not letting go of a single one who should be killed, and not implicating a single one who should be released. What do you think?"

The comrades nodded one after another.

"Let's talk about who to release first. In Yuezhangji, all relatives of our Insurance Corps soldiers, those our comrades are willing to come out and vouch for, pull them all to our side. Everyone go and talk to the comrades now," Chen Ke ordered.

As the First Secretary of the People's Party these days, Chen Ke relied on being able to come up with plans acceptable to everyone when facing various problems to establish prestige. Of course, as the initiator and founder of the People's Party, he had enough status originally. So comrades generally didn't oppose Chen Ke's orders. Hearing Chen Ke's suggestion, the comrades felt it was acceptable and went one after another.

Among the six hundred people dispatched by the Insurance Corps this time, there were more than eighty comrades from Yuezhangji. They didn't know how the Insurance Corps would deal with these people originally. From the moment Chen Ke held the meeting, these comrades from Yuezhangji also began to look at each other. They didn't want their relatives and friends to be treated as enemies. But the discipline of the Insurance Corps was established after all. Although everyone looked at each other, the squad leaders managed the teams effectively, forbidding whispering or connecting to talk. While everyone was anxious, they suddenly received an order to pull over the people they considered reliable. These local comrades from Yuezhangji immediately became happy. They lined up and dragged their relatives and friends out of that pile of people one by one.

In this battle, those common people were already scared enough. They even thought bandits had come to break the fortified village. If the battle hadn't proceeded so swiftly that the people had no chance to join the battle group, I'm afraid they would have joined the fight under Zhang Youliang's organization in the end. When the Insurance Corps brought them all out, they saw many familiar fellow villagers and felt relieved. Learning that the Insurance Corps only wanted to beat Zhang Youliang this time, not to massacre the fortified village, everyone was even more relieved.

Now seeing dozens of their acquaintances starting to pull people over, the people were even more reassured. Anyone called obediently followed to the other side.

More than half of the original five or six hundred people were pulled away in an instant; more than three hundred people were taken away. There were two hundred forty or fifty people left. Chen Ke ordered the First Company to take these relatives and friends of the Insurance Corps to the south of the fortified village and settle them down far away. When these people bypassed the fortified village and disappeared behind the wall, Chen Ke ordered the Rifle Team to surround the remaining people from two sides.

"Wenqing, you aren't going to kill all these people, are you?" Xu Dian became anxious seeing this situation. After these relatives and friends of the Insurance Corps' own people were pulled to the Insurance Corps' side, facing the remaining people, the Insurance Corps internally already had a consistent attitude. They were no longer "one of us." If Chen Ke ordered a massacre of them, the soldiers from Yuezhangji would at least not have obvious opposition. And taking those people far away, this was obviously clearing the field of irrelevant people to prepare for the next fierce action.

"There is no Wenqing on the battlefield, only the Battalion Commander. Political Commissar Xu, please pay attention to this in the future. We are soldiers, and soldiers should have military discipline." Chen Ke immediately warned Xu Dian seriously.

"Battalion Commander Chen, we can't kill people indiscriminately. We have to speak of law!" Xu Dian was really anxious. Coming from the Law Department of Tokyo University, he couldn't help but bring out the law in his haste.

"I am doing this to unite the majority and divide the minority. Comrades, look, as long as we don't kill people indiscriminately ourselves, those three hundred or so common people have already stood on our side. At least they are no longer following Zhang Youliang, right?" Chen Ke laughed.

At this time, the cadres gathered together again. Hearing this, everyone couldn't figure out Chen Ke's thoughts, but they felt these words at least made some sense.

"The people we face are composed of many relationships. For them, closeness and distance have their own standards. We can't draw this standard too finely or too broadly. Everyone say, how should we divide next?"

"Divide the Zhang family members from those who aren't Zhang family members." Chai Qingguo still held the attitude of rooting out completely.

"That won't do. Let's separate Zhang Youliang's subordinates from ordinary people." Xu Dian immediately opposed, "The Zhang family members may not necessarily have fought with us. We just want to suppress the enemy. What kind of hero kills the innocent indiscriminately?"

"Then how do you know who is Zhang Youliang's subordinate and who isn't? Breaking the fortified village was so fast this time; many of Zhang Youliang's subordinates didn't have time to go out before being blocked. If we ask them now, will they admit it? Wouldn't admitting it mean being beheaded! Do you think they are that stupid? Hmm!" Chai Qingguo got angrier as he spoke and couldn't help adding a sentence, "Do you think they are like you?"

"What do you mean!" Xu Dian got angry hearing this. Chai Qingguo was saying Xu Dian was stupid in a disguised way.

"Are you discussing the problem? I'm asking everyone how to separate these people next. You are not allowed to quarrel anymore." Chen Ke immediately stopped the dispute of wills between the two. "Do other comrades have any opinions?"

Actually, the opinions of these two people basically represented everyone's meaning. Hearing Chen Ke say this, the comrades didn't have other views. "Battalion Commander, what do you think?" Hua Xiongmao said.

"I still want to see what everyone thinks." Chen Ke didn't want to display his ability anymore now. Revolution wasn't Chen Ke conquering the world alone; what was needed now was to dig out the comrades' abilities as soon as possible. So he hoped someone would be brave enough to take responsibility.

"Report to Battalion Commander, I have something to say." Kuroshima Jinichiro applied in increasingly fluent Chinese. Although one couldn't distinguish Kuroshima's nationality from his speech anymore, Kuroshima, as a Japanese, was still very disciplined.

"You may speak!" Chen Ke said.

"Let's divide according to the standard of locals and outsiders." Kuroshima said in a well-behaved manner.

"Why divide like this?" Chen Ke asked. Although still in a commanding tone, a satisfied smile had appeared on his face.

Kuroshima Jinichiro stood straight according to the requirements of military posture, having quite a military style. He looked straight ahead and said calmly: "Now we want to come up with a reason to separate these people, making the number of our enemies fewer and fewer, and more and more isolated. Locals will absolutely not care about the life or death of outsiders. If we adopt this method, the resistance we receive will be much smaller."

"What does everyone think?" Chen Ke asked.

Other comrades all had a look of sudden realization. This division method was really reasonable. Comrades expressed agreement one after another.

Chen Ke waved his hand to everyone, "Doing just this is not enough. Absolutely not enough. Think about it; now these people all think they are going to be dealt with by us. Especially those hired from outside. We have already taken away a batch of locals. Now if we separate them out, they will definitely think we are going to perform surgery on them. What if they rise up to resist immediately?"

These words weren't a joke; comrades also felt it was quite tricky.

"We want to divide them now. Dividing means that those left until the end are our enemies. So now we have to divide according to locals and outsiders, but we have to guide these people's thoughts. If you say locals don't care about the life or death of outsiders, this is natural. At the same time, outsiders have no reason to risk their lives for locals; this is also natural. So I ask a question: who is our enemy this time?"

"It is Zhang Youliang, this local landlord." Hua Xiongmao said.

"Correct. So we have to tell these people that we want to beat Zhang Youliang, which has nothing to do with outsiders. Let them come out for us. Zhang Youliang has been caught; they have no need to sell their lives for Zhang Youliang now. As long as these outsiders stay out of it, the remaining people will be even fewer. What does everyone think?"

Now the comrades all had a look of sudden realization. So Hua Xiongmao, this "outsider," went to shout personally, plus the soldiers from Yuezhangji helped to screen and maintain order.

Hearing Hua Xiongmao shout: "Good fellows from out of town, you were selling your lives for Zhang Youliang. Now Zhang Youliang has been caught. You can't get a penny. I know you just take people's money to eliminate disasters for people. Now that things have reached this stage, although you are good fellows who value loyalty, you have to think for yourselves, right?" Those thugs from out of town immediately lost their fighting spirit.

"We only came to beat Zhang Youliang this time, not to trouble you gentlemen who make a living. You all come out; we don't kill captives." Hua Xiongmao shouted while letting local soldiers point out the outsiders, and then dragging them out regardless of whether they were willing or not. One by one, their left arms were tied with long ropes, and they were escorted to the lakeside by a team of musketeers. There were seventy or eighty of these people. After this screening, only one hundred fifty or sixty Yuezhangji people remained in place.

Two screenings encountered no real resistance, and the number of people who could be called potential enemies had dropped to a quarter of the original number. The Insurance Corps went from facing a number of people similar to themselves to a one-to-one ratio. Excluding the two teams guarding the separated people, the people remaining in place now faced the Insurance Corps occupying an absolute advantage with a ratio of three to one.

Chen Ke watched the troops surround these people tightly in the middle. The soldiers looked cold and stern, and the hands holding weapons used more force. For some reason, the scene was filled with a tense atmosphere.

These local people surrounded in the middle also felt this strange atmosphere. They leaned closer to each other. Under such pressure, someone had already started to weep softly.