Liu Guangying had never spoken loudly before. As the eldest daughter of the Liu family, she had been educated since childhood to be amiable and not to raise her voice at people. She had never disappointed her parents' education. The reputation of the eldest daughter of the Liu family within the fort was actually very good. But when Liu Guangying saw the charred corpses of her parents and brother not far away, looked at the blue-clad people holding swords and guns around her, and looked at her relatives, the young Miss Liu could no longer maintain her former gentleness. A magma-like emotion boiled in her chest, making Miss Liu Guangying's voice become incomparably sharp.

The blue-clad man opposite her actually dared to say that just because her family's grain was not grown by her family, they had to attack her family's fort and kill her parents. A kind of spite burned in Miss Liu Guangying's chest. "It is perfectly justified to pay rent for farming the land. If our family hired workers to farm it ourselves, we would only harvest more." Although she knew these words would only make her end even more miserable, Miss Liu Guangying no longer cared about that. "Without my family, those tenants would die even faster."

Regarding the people's revolution, the first and last enemies encountered are the landlord militias. This was the content of the conversation between Grandpa Mao and Snow back in the day. And historically it was also so; regarding the land reform policy, all landlords instinctively wanted to resist. For them, it was only a question of whether they dared to resist, not whether they wanted to resist. On this point, Chen Ke never had the slightest doubt.

Before the Water Detachment set out, Chen Ke had held a training class for political commissars. He specifically talked about the core of political work for this battle—winning the support of the people. Any political force has its class stance. The class stance of the People's Party is the common people. The People's Party is not a political party that exists to maintain the interests of the ruling class of 1916. Nor is it a political party that styles itself as a "Party of the Whole People." Regarding this battle, the object the People's Party relies on is the broad masses of the disaster area, and the enemies of the People's Party are those landlords inside the forts. Whoever supports these landlords is an enemy of the People's Party, and whoever supports those common people struggling on the edge of life and death in the disaster area is a friend of the People's Party. Before the troops set out, political commissars at all levels of the troops were repeatedly emphasized these points.

Seeing the Liu family girl wanting to reason with him, Xiong Mingyang actually had a little worry. If this child just pretended to be pitiful, it would only have a very bad effect on morale. But when this girl began to speak from the standpoint of a landlord, Xiong Mingyang was firmly convinced that this was an opportunity to boost morale and clarify the truth.

There is no common reasoning to speak of between the exploiting class and the exploited class; Chen Ke had emphasized this point repeatedly. No matter how the wolf states the fact that it will die if it doesn't eat meat, this is not a reason for the sheep to be eaten by the wolf. Class struggle is just like this; the establishment of the relationship between exploitation and being exploited is just like this. The exploiter must create a justification for being exploited, and in order to maintain the existence of exploitation, the exploiter must also maintain the existence of the exploited, and also has to maintain the survival of the exploited within a certain limit. Even if the exploited do not resist and are obediently exploited to death. But exploiting all the exploited to death at once only makes the exploitation relationship unsustainable. The exploiter not only wants to domineer during his own lifetime but also wants to leave objects of exploitation for his descendants.

Xiong Mingyang himself did not understand this truth before. After receiving systematic theoretical education and understanding this truth, this young man became a true "revolutionary." Previously, he only had a deep-seated hatred for foreign invasions of China. Now, Xiong Mingyang was filled with profound hatred for both Chinese and foreign exploiting classes. He previously couldn't understand why the Qing army was defeated repeatedly. Now he knew that the ordinary soldiers of the Qing army had no obligation to sell their lives for this rotten regime ruled by exploiters. Even the foolish loyalty of a few people was simply not enough to save the fate of this regime.

To save China, a new regime must be established. A regime that truly serves the common people. Now, Xiong Mingyang was establishing this new regime together with the comrades of the People's Party. Only when the people know the significance of participating in the war, only when the people know that fighting bravely and shedding blood and sacrificing amidst the enemy's hail of bullets will bring true liberation, will the people stand up, follow behind the People's Party members rushing to the front line, wipe out all domestic and foreign exploiters, and build a New China, a new world where the people truly live and work in peace and contentment.

Regarding Liu Guangying's questioning, Xiong Mingyang didn't think it had any meaning at all. If it were before, Xiong Mingyang might have fallen into a debate about land ownership, and the result of the debate would be that the landlords might deserve to die, or might not deserve to die. That is because the premise of such a discussion is the recognition of private ownership of land. Falling into this trap would be sheer stupidity. This is the landlords' reasoning, not the common people's reasoning. Chen Ke had long said that the good or evil of the landlord himself is meaningless to the revolution. Justice is not about the quality of personal character, but the superiority or inferiority of the social system. Xiong Mingyang knew very well that what he wanted to persuade and educate were the soldiers fighting alongside him, not this little girl in front of him.

"Comrades, everyone participated in this harvest, right? Or at least heard about this harvest?" Xiong Mingyang asked loudly.

"I participated!"

"I know!"

The comrades responded one after another.

The harvest in early October was a major event for the soldiers and masses in the base area; no one was not rejoiced and encouraged by it. After months of firm effort and shedding so much sweat, the people of Fengtai County finally believed that they could survive this terrible disaster year and live on. And the future promised by the People's Party leading the people also changed from an illusory pie in the sky into a future that could be completely believed in and entrusted with hope.

"If there were no landlords, would our lives be better?" Xiong Mingyang continued to ask loudly.

The Insurance Corps soldiers participating in this large-scale breaching of forts everywhere were all politically quite active soldiers. Even so, after hearing Liu Guangying's righteous and even somewhat hysterical questioning, everyone was somewhat affected by Liu Guangying's emotions. Hearing this question from Xiong Mingyang, quite a few people couldn't help but pause slightly before responding, "It would be better."

Seeing the soldiers express their attitude like this, Xiong Mingyang asked the same question again, "If there were no landlords, would our lives be better?"

"It would be better!" This time the soldiers no longer hesitated and answered in unison.

Xiong Mingyang then asked a new question, "If there are never any landlords in the future, how will everyone's life be?"

This was a most fundamental question, and also a question Chen Ke never dared to raise loudly before. In the early days of the People's Party, let alone the common people having any supportive reaction to this question, the common people would even think that this kind of propaganda by Chen Ke definitely harbored evil intentions and had purposes belonging to Chen Ke personally. After the first harvest of rush-planting in the disaster year, and after eating the life-saving grain provided free by the People's Party for half a year, these soldiers who came from ordinary common people no longer doubted the People's Party led by Chen Ke in their hearts, and no longer doubted that these party members had dark thoughts belonging to themselves personally.

After Xiong Mingyang raised this question, there was still no one answering directly, but the atmosphere lingering around the soldiers was completely different. That was not hesitation, but a kind of true high spirits.

"When rent is collected every year, do people die?" Xiong Mingyang asked.

"People die; every year people are driven to death!" the soldiers shouted one after another.

"With the great flood this year, if we didn't attack the forts, could the thousands of common people outside still live for half a month? Were the landlords going to kill them all?" Xiong Mingyang asked.

"Right, they just want to kill people. They just want the common people to die!" The soldiers' response was already filled with righteous indignation.

"Who takes the most of the grain we grew in previous years? Is it us ourselves, or those landlords?"

"It's the landlords!" the soldiers roared.

"Of the grain grown every year, do the landlords eat more, or do the common people eat more?"

"The landlords!" The bit of pity, sympathy, and unbearable feeling that had appeared on the soldiers' faces had disappeared completely. What now emerged on their faces was true anger.

The Liu family members had been thoroughly awed by such roars. It wasn't that they hadn't seen the angry expressions of farmers, but that kind of expression was only revealed when farmers were desperate and launched attacks with no chance of winning. These blue-clad people of the Insurance Corps were obviously of peasant origin. This didn't need to be proven one by one; just seeing their skin color, their figures, some of their habitual movements, and that simple look, one could confirm this matter. Although these blue-clad people had differences from ordinary peasants, and although one couldn't say where that strange feeling came from, the Liu landlord's family members could all see that these people holding weapons and fighting swiftly and bravely were all once peasants. When these peasants shouted out the anger belonging to peasants, that was anger accumulated for countless days, anger originating from their hearts. These peasants who already occupied the position of the strong now looked so terrifying in the eyes of the Liu landlord's family. after the positions of strong and weak were swapped, the fear of the former strong towards the former weak would be doubly intense.

"That's because those people are lazy and stupid. They didn't work hard themselves. They deserve to starve!" The eldest Miss Liu was not frightened; on the contrary, vicious curses spewed out from her delicate mouth. This was the contemptuous evaluation of the common people that Miss Liu Guangying had heard from her parents, her brother, and her clansmen. Although her parents had tried to educate her into a quiet lady from a noble family since she was young, Miss Liu Guangying had never looked up to ordinary common people. These common people were boors who completely didn't understand upper-class life, treacherous and hateful guys, bad eggs who were never willing to honestly obey the Liu family's orders for their own interests. This was Miss Liu's true thought.

Hearing this, the corners of Xiong Mingyang's mouth curled up slightly. And in the eyes of the soldiers who heard this looking at Miss Liu, there was only cold light.

"Comrades, our People's Party and our Insurance Corps are the people's team, the people's armed forces. It is not because of this disaster year. What we want to say to the landlords is just one sentence. For so many years, what these landlords took from the common people, give it back to the common people! What they ate from the common people, spit it out for the common people! Should they or should they not!"

"They should!" "They should!" "They should!"

This was a voice that had transcended anger. It was a firm belief in the justice of their own actions, a firm belief in the inevitability of their own actions. There was a steel-like conviction in the soldiers' voices.

"I will ask one more time, do you want to surrender? Those who are unwilling to surrender, pick up the knife." Xiong Mingyang swished his sword out, the tip pointing at the Liu siblings. "I won't rely on having more people either. You two with two knives, me alone with one knife. Let's decide life and death with knives."

Miss Liu was trembling all over. She already understood that the people in front of her were not on the same path as her at all. These people's reasoning was completely different from her own. If she fell into the hands of these people, all her past life would cease to exist. Miss Liu suddenly bent down and grabbed a knife, rushing towards Xiong Mingyang. Xiong Mingyang didn't even blink. He swung his broadsword, and the blade cleanly severed Miss Liu Guangying's neck. Her head flew into mid-air, described an arc, and landed behind her body which continued to rush forward.

"Sister!" Liu Guangying's brother let out a miserable scream. He wanted to hug his sister, but saw his sister's head rolling in front of him. The brother's eyes widened to the extreme. His legs went soft and he knelt on the ground, his eyes staring deadly at his sister's head.

The Liu family members immediately began to cause a commotion. "Captives who attempt to riot will all be dealt with as enemies. Kill without mercy!" Xiong Mingyang roared.

"Yes!" the soldiers responded with a roar.

Swords and guns turned to point at the Liu clansmen. Seeing the determined gaze of the soldiers, the Liu family members, who fully understood that they had completely failed, lowered their hands that were preparing to rise one after another, and closed their mouths that were preparing to shout something. They submitted to the Insurance Corps.