The People's Party Central Committee dispatched a working group of the People's Internal Affairs Commission to investigate the "Liu Yongyi Counter-revolutionary Incident." Before interrogating Liu Yongyi and other counter-revolutionaries, the Internal Affairs Commission first investigated the relevant personnel of the local ruling organs in Wuhe County. This matter could be said to be a considerable stimulus for the party and government organs of Wuhe County. After the internal investigation ended, the Internal Affairs Commission did not go to interrogate the arrested Liu Yongyi and his accomplices, but held an internal work summary meeting by themselves. The comrades of the party and government organs of Wuhe County were not able to attend, which made Wuhe County Party Secretary Wu Liao quite dissatisfied.

However, on this matter, dissatisfaction was dissatisfaction; Wu Liao really had no reason to bring it up directly. First, the working group of the People's Internal Affairs Commission did not affect the normal work of local party and government organs. Second, the working group, except for not smiling and not exchanging pleasantries, did not lose their temper or criticize; they just asked some questions. What made Wu Liao truly dissatisfied was that the investigation method was too cold, making the investigated people feel very uncomfortable. But this problem happened to be impossible to complain about directly; the working group came to investigate problems, not to express condolences. One couldn't ask others to welcome them with smiles. In this dissatisfaction and unhappiness, Wu Liao simply didn't provoke the investigation group anymore.

The investigation group didn't care about County Party Secretary Wu Liao's mood at all. In the meeting hosted by Qi Huishen, the first thing analyzed was the work style of the ruling departments in Wuhe County. This was not because they had any opinion on Wu Liao and the comrades of Wuhe County; this was the work content arranged by Chen Ke before the People's Internal Affairs Commission working group set off.

Since the founding of the People's Party, the party organization had always lacked an institution for suppressing counter-revolutionaries. The reason was actually very simple: the People's Party had not yet established a revolutionary regime, so naturally there were no counter-revolutionaries to suppress. Although a Discipline Inspection Commission was also established, Chen Ke always felt that an institution for internal purging and rectification must be established. Although he recognized what Grandpa Mao said: "It would be strange if there were no factions within the party." "Where there are people, there are left, center, and right." But this did not mean Chen Ke thought he could indulge the disputes of various factions without limit.

Historically, Chinese dynasties were accustomed to adopting the model of "using divergent views to balance each other." That is, allowing various different political factions and ideas to exist in the imperial court. This allowed the monarch to control various factions relatively easily. Anyway, men are not sages; who is free from error? Wanting to find a reason to suppress a certain faction, one could completely use "if you want to condemn someone, you can always find a pretext." Qin Hui killed Yue Fei and could still say "perhaps there is" [Mo Xu You / Unwarranted charge]. The benefits of "using divergent views to balance each other" for playing power tactics can be said to be obvious.

For socialist political parties, this kind of ancient power tactic is completely harmful. The Party has always stressed unified thinking. Line debates, and even line struggles, are certainly inevitable. But this kind of struggle cannot be without a bottom line. The People's Party absolutely cannot unconditionally allow any debate. In order to ensure that the basic program can be implemented, an institution like the People's Internal Affairs Commission must exist.

Of course, Chen Ke wouldn't be so stupid as to say clearly now: "I established the People's Internal Affairs Commission for future purges." Moreover, as a figure from a technical background, Chen Ke believed that since there must be a purge, the purge must absolutely not be an unprincipled political strife. If it turned into a chaotic fight where comrades in the party used every means for power and position, Chen Ke felt he might as well use the People's Internal Affairs Commission to purge himself.

Purging is to clear out counter-revolutionaries and rectify wrong ideas. This is a technical work with extremely high theoretical and practical height. Taking the opportunity of striking at counter-revolutionaries within the base area, the level of the People's Internal Affairs Commission had been quite high since its establishment. As a member of the Central Standing Committee, Qi Huishen directly led the work of the Internal Affairs Commission, and he was equipped with many elite soldiers and strong generals under his command. Arriving in Wuhe County this time, besides investigating the problem of the "Liu Yongyi Counter-revolutionary Gang" clearly, they also had to analyze the development of work in Wuhe County.

"Judging from the situation collected now, the work enthusiasm of the comrades in the county committee and local areas is very high. According to the inquiry of items 1037, 1064, and 1079 of the base area regulations, Comrade Wu Liao has certain resistance to supervision, but his work is still relatively meticulous."

"Comrade Zhou Yiying is a military dependent and is very loyal to the Party. She has a psychology of repaying kindness, and her theoretical understanding is insufficient. According to the inquiry of items 2117 and 2200, her current thoughts are still on work."

"Comrades of the Armed Working Team..."

Specific examples and corresponding evaluations were reported and summarized continuously. While Qi Huishen watched the comrades analyze according to the pre-written inquiry outline, he felt a bit strange in his heart.

This was a psychological analysis method proposed by Chen Ke. Chen Ke himself admitted that this kind of regulation was very "metaphysical" and "mechanical" at this stage. The human heart is not an experiment that can be completely standardized and quantified. But Qi Huishen agreed very much with another view of Chen Ke: "What we need is to discover and promote People's Party members and cadres who stick to principles, obey discipline, and strive upwards. Although with the deepening and accumulation of work in the future, this analysis will become deeper and more detailed, the task of the People's Internal Affairs Commission for internal supervision is not to come up with some full analysis of human psychology. The task of the Internal Affairs Commission is to inspect and evaluate party members and cadres. What we must first determine is the psychological activity laws of qualified party members and cadres; how these qualified party members should think and act when encountering problems. If because some party members and cadres themselves are unqualified, and as a result their original intentions are misinterpreted in the evaluation because of the standards, then we have to accept and tolerate such unjust, false, and wrong cases for the time being."

Moreover, Qi Huishen believed that the requirements of the People's Party for party members at this stage were not excessive. "Seek truth from facts," "Speak the truth, do practical things." As long as party members could implement the oath made at the joining ceremony, it was enough. The internal party meetings of the People's Party often discussed how exactly to work. Including the current Wuhe County Party Secretary Wu Liao, everyone agreed with a basic point of view, that is, "Everyone makes mistakes. But this mistake should be divided into subjective and objective." Objective mistakes are just ability problems; ability can always be improved through work and study. But subjective mistakes are quality problems, which absolutely cannot be let off.

Up to now, the comrades of Wuhe County had not made any major mistakes subjectively. Everyone's goal was to do the work well, and they also stuck to their posts and responsibilities. Disliking supervision and hoping to exaggerate their own credit a little—this kind of ideological tendency was certainly dangerous, but at this stage, it could still be improved through organizing study and education. No need to raise it to the level of principle [politicize it] for the time being.

After analyzing the situation in Wuhe County, it was the turn of the "Liu Yongyi Counter-revolutionary Gang" problem. The attitude within the Party towards this gang was very consistent: "A batch must be killed!" Everyone's disagreement lay in how to kill and how many to kill.

The attitude of the comrades in the troops was the toughest; they basically thought "counter-revolutionaries can all be killed." The judicial department led by Xu Dian had no firm attitude on how many to kill and how to kill; they only insisted on one thing: sentencing must be done after trial by judicial organs. Those with a relatively "moderate" attitude were political work cadres and administrative cadres. Both He Zudao and Lu Huitian suggested adopting the mode of severe punishment for principal offenders and leniency for accomplices. But who exactly were the principal offenders and who were the accomplices? What standard should be used to judge principal offenders and accomplices? Without more specific investigation, everyone could only express their basic attitude and could not make a definite conclusion. Therefore, Chen Ke's proposal to establish the People's Internal Affairs Commission was passed. One of the responsibilities of this newly established department was to "purge counter-revolutionaries." The Party Committee appointed this newly formed department to investigate the matter itself first, and then discuss it based on the investigation report.

When Qi Huishen led the team to set off, besides instructing to investigate and inquire about the party and government departments, Chen Ke also repeatedly emphasized that a detailed investigation must be conducted on this armed gang. Find out what purpose these people had in participating in the counter-revolutionary action. Being attacked by armed forces from the populace, this was the first time for the People's Party. Zhang Youliang once clamored to carry out an armed attack on the People's Party, but Zhang Youliang, as a big landlord, could not be classified into the category of the people. Liu Yongyi himself was not a rich man; he even stayed in the refugee camp in Fengtai County for a while. In the initial intelligence collected, those accomplices following Liu Yongyi were also mostly ordinary common people. Chen Ke never blinked an eye about eliminating landlords in forts, but when violence had to be taken against ordinary common people, Chen Ke felt he must be cautious and cautious again no matter what.

After the working group divided the labor, they began to interrogate the "Liu Yongyi" counter-revolutionary group captured in the battle.

Internal discussion meetings of the People's Party always emphasized stressing science and democracy. The reason why Chen Ke could sit firmly in the position of Party Chairman until now and get everyone's support was that besides being able to come up with solutions to problems and always being able to set an example in work, Chen Ke's "theoretical guidance" in many fields was also an important reason. These days, Chen Ke had gradually stopped going to the front line. This didn't mean he started to enjoy a comfortable life. Since returning to this era, Chen Ke wrote down what he had learned whenever he had time. Of course, Chen Ke naturally wouldn't write boring stuff like anime and AV. He wrote down the social and technological knowledge he had seen and learned, regardless of whether it was correct or not, first.

Besides systematic textbooks, other contents were varied. Those with scientific basis and empirical data basis were okay. Those "knowledge" Chen Ke saw from movies and TV that were quite exaggerated and used as selling points [gimmicks], Chen Ke also wrote down equally. He just specially noted: "This content may not be reliable."

These documents recording various knowledge would be archived and opened to comrades within the party for reading according to levels. Chen Ke knew clearly himself that misremembered and omitted things in these gadgets, and views that might be fundamentally wrong, were piled up like a mountain. But the thoughts of the comrades were different. Just being able to write a million words in a year, in everyone's view, this itself was an incredible miracle. Not to mention that these contents were obviously different categories of knowledge. Everyone had never seen such a knowledgeable person. No matter how Chen Ke emphasized the unreliability of these contents, the habit of comrades within the Party was "read it first."

Before Qi Huishen and the others set off, besides learning from comrades in the public security system like Lin Shenhe, they also habitually went to the library to search for literature related to interrogation. Chen Ke's exposition on this part was scattered and fragmented; obviously, it was rambling, writing whatever came to mind. Thanks to Qi Huishen and the others having enough energy to finish reading these gadgets, and then after a series of discussions, everyone decided on their own plan.

Interrogation started with low-level personnel. Those who could become leaders were generally not incompetent people. Enough preparation was needed when interrogating them. It was best to make them feel that they were already betrayed by everyone and their kin, and all their former subordinates had betrayed them and abandoned them. When the psychology of these high-level personnel changed from a high-above state to a state of falling into a deep valley, only then could their arrogance be thoroughly knocked out. To achieve this step, enough intelligence and information had to be accumulated. Those who could provide such information were the low-level personnel.

When the low-level personnel of the "counter-revolutionary gang" were brought in by comrades dressed in such a way, their fear was very obvious. The attire of the People's Internal Affairs Commission reinforced this feeling in a sense. This clothing combination originated from one of Chen Ke's many disordered records.

"Making the interrogated feel powerless and fearful is one of the key points to overwhelm them spiritually." Chen Ke wrote in his discussion on interrogation techniques.

This idea was easily accepted by the comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission. Chinese tradition emphasizes "majesty and ceremony" most. This little trick of Chen Ke was not an original creation. But the People's Party couldn't put on colorful official robes. Chen Ke's subsequent suggestion for the interrogator's clothing was "simple, powerful, metallic texture, and shiny." Of course, after this passage, Chen Ke heavily wrote the instruction "personal extremely immature idea."

The comrades exerted the People's Party's style of seeking truth from facts. After reading Chen Ke's suggestion, the committee split into two factions at that time. One faction believed that Chairman Chen's suggestion should be implemented to completely overwhelm those counter-revolutionaries in terms of clothing and momentum. The other faction believed that since the purpose this time was to investigate clearly why a part of the masses attacked the grassroots organization of the People's Party, it was better to dress more approachable. Both factions had their own reasons. As the leader of the People's Internal Affairs Commission, Qi Huishen adopted a compromise plan. After comparing various clothing combinations, he finally decided on the military uniform combined with a leather armed belt with a cross-shoulder strap. The armed belt wiped with lard had luster and texture; after fastening it, the whole person also looked more spirited, and the oppressive force increased significantly.

These low-level personnel had been locked up for several days; naturally, they couldn't eat well during the days of detention. Their already thin and weak bodies were held by the powerful arms of the working group comrades; they really felt great fear.

Many of these people were locals, so their personal information was prepared completely. After inquiring about basic information such as name and age, when further asking why these people participated in attacking the base area government, their answers were quite consistent: "For loyalty [Yi Qi]."

"Since Big Brother Liu spoke, and also promised us grain, we followed him." Almost every bottom-level person answered the same way.

regarding such an answer, the working group personnel had to ask: "You survived by eating the grain of our People's Party, and then attacked the fort of our People's Party; do you think doing this is loyal?"

The answers to this question became varied. Some swore solemnly that they didn't know Liujiapu had been occupied by the People's Party before attacking the fort. Some were not skilled in lying, so they could only say they were deceived. Or smiled apologetically saying they had eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai, and resolutely wouldn't do such a stupid thing next time. Of course, there were more bizarre answers; participants said they didn't know they were going to fight at all; they participated just to join in the fun and see something rare. Some even said they were originally sleeping, were woken up from their dreams, went confusedly, and then were captured confusedly.

Regardless of what reasons these people used to explain their actions, no one expressed daring to oppose the People's Party government in the future.

When they finished talking about their own affairs and it was their turn to expose others' affairs, various information and materials began to gush out. In almost everyone's confession, others rushed in front, and they just followed behind as bystanders. In these confessions, the people rushing in front were different.

Thanks to considerable consideration for enduring mental power when selecting the first batch of comrades for the People's Internal Affairs Commission, the people selected were all relatively meticulous. Part of the comrades in the working group were responsible for interrogation, and another part began to cross-compare multiple confessions, screening out content with commonalities. More than a dozen names gradually surfaced in the summary.

"It seems Comrade Lin Shenhe's work was done very well." Qi Huishen couldn't help praising while looking at the lists in front of him. Before the working group came, Lin Shenhe provided a batch of lists he collected; these dozen names that appeared with great frequency in the confessions were impressively on the list. They were the names of the main secret society leaders near Wuhe County. The leaders who rose to oppose the People's Party were these secret society leaders.

Bi Qingshan didn't mean to echo Qi Huishen. He frowned and asked: "Should we comb through the accomplices again? Few of them told the truth. I'm afraid there are still some people who haven't been caught out."

Due to the adoption of advanced working methods, the lies of this batch of people already interrogated could be seen almost at a glance. Bi Qingshan was very disgusted with the performance of these people; he had quite a mind to investigate thoroughly to the end.

"Qingshan, are you really preparing to kill on a large scale?" Qi Huishen asked. "These people are all disaster victims. It hasn't been long since they returned to the local area, and they haven't joined our grassroots government. Saying they were coerced is not too excessive."

Bi Qingshan did not agree with Qi Huishen's idea. "Coerced? These people were all persuaded back by our local cadres; how could they not know who is in charge in the base area? These people went simply to grab grain. Just not bold enough, wanting to follow behind to get benefits. Just because the local area was fully prepared, they weren't given a chance. If they told the truth honestly, I would think we could let them go. Now that they are caught and still full of lies, what is this? We must teach them a lesson."

Looking at the indignant Bi Qingshan, Qi Huishen knew that what Bi Qingshan stated just now was exactly the reason why many People's Party comrades demanded severe punishment for this group of people. These disaster victims returned to their hometowns under the mobilization of cadres; to accept this group of people, the People's Party did a lot of work. It was impossible for these people not to know that the People's Party was in power in the base area. In such a situation, these people still dared to participate in the action of attacking the grassroots organization of the People's Party; this nature was definitely a contradiction between the enemy and us, not a contradiction among the people. Many comrades advocated killing all these people to eliminate future trouble.

Qi Huishen didn't like indiscriminate killing, and Chen Ke's attitude towards this counter-revolutionary incident was also relatively cautious. He didn't want a consensus of severe punishment to form in the working group first. Before personally commanding the investigation work, Qi Huishen hadn't felt how easy it was to fabricate charges. After personally participating in various inquiries, Qi Huishen felt that as long as there was a preconceived method, plus enough skills, it was really too easy to persecute a person to death. Needless to say these participants with actual counter-revolutionary actions, wanting to use this incident to bring down a batch of cadres in Wuhe County was not a difficult thing. Precisely because he personally felt the power of the People's Internal Affairs Commission, Qi Huishen hoped even more that the department he controlled would never have a strong violent impulse. He couldn't help advising: "In a disaster year, the common people's livelihood is precarious, and there are great changes in the base area. It is understandable that these people don't believe in our new regime."

Bi Qingshan didn't know Qi Huishen's thoughts. His heart was now full of anger towards counter-revolutionaries. "Use heavy punishment in troubled times. If we let these people off easily, what will other common people think watching? Moreover, they are full of lies now; this is opposing us, thinking they can muddle through. This is absolutely not okay."

Hearing this, even Qi Huishen couldn't say anything more. Although he thought there was no need to kill on a large scale, this tolerant attitude also needed a bottom line. Tolerance does not equal indulgence. These captured personnel indeed hadn't shown an honest attitude of admitting guilt so far. The People's Party advocated "leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist." This group of people still had luck in their hearts and were still resisting the new government. From this perspective, at least their luck mentality had to be dispelled, and they must tell the truth to the working group. Holding a kind of worry, Qi Huishen let Bi Qingshan continue his work.

The newly started second round of interrogation was targeting those contradictory statements. The effect of persuasion with kind words was very unobvious. Seeing that the People's Party didn't use torture, many participants felt they could deny to the end. regarding their contradictory words, many tried to use the excuse that they remembered wrong or said wrong at the time. Some even bolder ones actually said the working group recorded wrong. They didn't say so originally. Facing such a situation, the originally calm questioning quickly became intense.

Qi Huishen looked at the various inquiries and sophistry in the interrogation room; he really felt very helpless. The purpose of these participants was nothing more than to get a better result for themselves, little knowing that their own efforts were pushing themselves in the completely opposite direction. Actually, as long as these people admitted their mistakes with bitter tears, and then honestly confessed what they did at that time, the People's Party could let them go. The sophistry of these people only pushed themselves to a more dangerous situation. What made Qi Huishen feel sad was that there were basically no people willing to admit they were wrong.

"Liu Chengkun, you won't shed tears until you see the coffin." Not long after Bi Qingshan started the third round of interrogation, he finally couldn't help shouting loudly, "Even if we originally wanted to release you back, listening to you say this, we can't release people instead. Liu Chengkun, do you really feel you did wrong? You are just pretending to be pitiful to me because you feel you were caught. You don't know you shouldn't have participated in this kind of thing at all, do you?"

Liu Chengkun could see that Bi Qingshan was really angry. He tentatively said: "I was wrong, I know I was wrong. Officer, I admit my mistake; can you let me go?"

With a slap, Bi Qingshan slammed the table. He shouted: "Knowing you were wrong, you still tell me lies? You first said you followed to transport grain. Then you said you were at the very back of that group of people. Someone has clearly proved that you were holding a stick and following Liu Yongyi at that time. Hmm, you also said let Liu Yongyi rest assured, you would never be a coward. I asked you several times, and you didn't tell me the truth; is this you knowing you were wrong?"

Hearing this, Liu Chengkun seemed to be scalded by a soldering iron; his face was full of the horror peculiar to having lies exposed. "This, who said this? This is wronging me!"

"Wronging you?" Bi Qingshan patted a stack of interrogation records. "How many things about others have you said yourself; I don't need to read it to you again, right? You can talk about others; won't others talk about you? And we don't talk about what others said. Liu Chengkun, you said seven or eight times here what that Liu Yongren standing next to Liu Yongyi said, what Liu Yongyi said, and how they talked. You said you stood at the end of the team; there were hundreds of people. Are you clairvoyant and clairaudient? Can you see them talking across hundreds of people, and hear what Liu Yongyi and Liu Yongren at the very front said across hundreds of people? Who are you deceiving?"

Liu Chengkun opened his mouth but couldn't speak after hearing this. Bi Qingshan's interrogation skills were quite brilliant. He listened at first, then asked some very fragmented questions, and even indulged Liu Chengkun to ramble on about a lot of true and false things. But these things that seemed completely unimportant, once verified before and after, Liu Chengkun's own lies were immediately thoroughly exposed. Since he could stand next to the mastermind Liu Yongyi, Liu Chengkun was not a small character either. Seeing the situation was bad, he simply lunged forward and knelt on the ground.

"I'll tell the truth. Ask me anything again and I'll only tell the truth. Please spare my life, my lord." This voice was full of fear. If the guard hadn't immediately dragged Liu Chengkun back to the stool forcibly, Liu Chengkun would have kowtowed like pounding garlic.

Seeing Liu Chengkun was finally subdued, Bi Qingshan sneered. "You want to tell the truth, right? Good, Liu Chengkun, then tell me again who those people walking at the very front were and where they were."

Starting from the third interrogation, with Liu Chengkun as the breakthrough point, these participants successively couldn't hold on and submitted. Various relatively true information began to be collected. Many people once considered small characters revealed their true colors, and some of them also began to confess. After comparing and summarizing the confessions of these people, the working group felt they could finally begin to interrogate those leading key figures.

Liu Yongyi, the leader of this counter-revolutionary incident, was brought to the interrogation room for the first time.

Different from the imagined fierceness, Liu Yongyi's appearance did not give a brutal impression. He was not tall, and looked quite delicate. Especially when he tightened his mouth, two dimples would appear on his face. He looked very shy. But in the eyes of the working group, Liu Yongyi did not have such a harmless feeling. Bi Qingshan stared into Liu Yongyi's eyes. From Liu Yongyi's pair of still bright eyes, Bi Qingshan saw a deeply hidden firm hostility and an indescribable ruthlessness. That was a kind of sight only present before a wild beast attacks.

This person is dangerous, Bi Qingshan thought.