The First Order

Chapter 998: Interrogation report

Just as Luoyang City was abuzz with the investigation of the real murderer, some breaking news shocked everyone.

The Wang Consortium had just recalled all men under the age of 30 who had served in the military from the strongholds they controlled. Then they suddenly launched an all-out war against the Kong Consortium and the Pyro Company.

Currently, the Kong Consortium existed in name only. Their former bureaucracy and big shots had taken refuge in the easternmost strongholds along the coast after abandoning the dozen or so strongholds they originally controlled.

During the past few months, those strongholds had been left unmanned, with a large number of residents having fled south. As such, criminals started running amok in them. Whoever had a gun would call the shots.

It would not be difficult for the Wang Consortium to occupy most of the Kong Consortium’s strongholds anymore.

As for the Pyro Company, they only had two of their original 12 divisions left due to the war with the expeditionary army in the north.

If the Wang Consortium had planned to unify the entire Alliance of Strongholds from very early on, this would probably be the best opportunity for them to annex the other organizations.

Moreover, the Wang Consortium’s conscription policy played an extremely effective role during such a time.

Similarly, they had fought against the northern expeditionary army like the Pyro Company. Although they suffered many casualties, the Wang Consortium was able to quickly replenish its troops.

However, the focus of the average person’s discussion of this war was more about how they had just defeated the foreign enemies, so should the Wang Consortium take advantage of the situation?

After all, the Pyro Company had fought very hard to resist the expeditionary army’s advance. For the Wang Consortium to make a move now, wasn’t that a little too unethical?

But they also knew their discussions were pointless and would not change the will of the consortium. The Wang Consortium did not care how they were viewed.

As the saying goes, winner takes all. If the Wang Consortium could really unify the Alliance of Strongholds one day, history would be written by them.

Everyone knew the Pyro Company and the Kong Consortium no longer had the strength to resist the Wang Consortium. After this battle, the Zhou Consortium would be the only force in the Central Plains that could stand up to the Wang Consortium.

However, only the Wang Consortium’s higher-ups knew that the Zhou Consortium, who they were initially worried about, was probably unable to even look after themselves.

Just as the Wang Consortium was sending out their troops to the Kong Consortium and the Pyro Company, the Zhou Consortium suddenly started mobilizing their main forces.

When the rest of the world learned of this news, they thought the Zhou Consortium was preparing to guard against the Wang Consortium’s troops who were heading south. After all, the deployment of the main forces this time was extremely widespread, and it looked like they were preparing for a total war.

Among the deployments, the Zhou Consortium’s 1st and 3rd Divisions marched northwards when they were originally garrisoned in the south.

But two days later, everyone realized the Zhou Consortium’s main forces did not seem to be rushing to its northern front line. Based on their trajectory, they were actually heading to Stronghold 73 where the Zhou Consortium’s political center was based.

This left many of the intel brokers confused. Why were so many of the Zhou Consortium’s divisions heading to Stronghold 73?

After all, Stronghold 73 was located in the center of the Zhou Consortium’s territory. Even if the Wang Consortium attacked, they couldn’t make inroads there, right?

Could it be that the Zhou Consortium was planning to abandon their six strongholds north of Stronghold 73?!

At this moment, an article called Interrogation Report was published in Hope Media’s newspaper.

In the report, it detailed how the Qing Consortium and the Northwest Army had surrounded the hitmen in Luoyang City and investigated the spies, how they analyzed the surveillance footage of the city, how they arrested corrupt officials who had taken bribes, all of which led to the capture of the mastermind, Luo Zongren (real name: Yang Yanbang).

This interrogation report clearly listed all the events of the time leading up to Jiang Xu’s assassination and the events after that. It was obvious Hope Media had received Ren Xiaosu’s authorization to publish this report, and they even had someone who specially provided them with information to write the article.

In the interrogation report, even the interrogation process was described. Although most of the violent torture methods were omitted, the process of how Luo Zongren pointed the blame at the Wang Consortium and how he was exposed was also mentioned in the article.

This was the first time Hope Media had published an article like that. When the readers of Hope Media saw this report, all of them were thrilled.

This was probably the readers’ first experience with a real spy war.

In the past, no newspaper had ever dared to publish such articles. This was because there would be bloody battles involving the organizations, and no organization would allow such reports to be published.

Moreover, even though there were also relevant cultural works covering spy wars in the past, those were mostly just the imaginations of directors and authors. They were not as authentic as the interrogation report that was published.

However, the main point of this interrogation report was that it pointed out the real culprit responsible for Jiang Xu’s death—the Zhou Consortium.

While everyone thought the Wang Consortium had killed Jiang Xu, Hope Media announced the true murderer in the headlines. The Zhou Consortium’s purpose was to make everyone outraged at the Wang Consortium and even split the Wang Consortium from the inside.

In an instant, many of the young people in the Zhou Consortium’s strongholds walked out onto the streets to protest. Before this, the Zhou Consortium’s spokesperson even held a press conference to condemn the Wang Consortium for the assassination.

At that time, many young people still supported the Zhou Consortium’s unyielding attitude and admired their courage for criticizing the Wang Consortium.

But now they realized they had been deceived. So it was actually the Zhou Consortium that did it.

There was no doubt about Hope Media’s reputation. The trust the journalists and editors had accumulated over the years made it so no one doubted the authenticity of the newspaper when they read it.

At this moment, many of the intelligence brokers realized the Zhou Consortium had not mobilized their troops to defend against the Wang Consortium but to prevent someone from taking revenge on them.

And the intelligence circle knew very well who that someone was.

However, they could not understand why the Zhou Consortium would mobilize such a large force. Was it really necessary?

The Northwest was so far away from the Zhou Consortium, and it could be seen from the previous sting operation in Luoyang City that not many of the Northwest’s intelligence agents were operating covertly in the Central Plains.

Moreover, after Luo Zongren was beaten and killed by the residents of Luoyang City during the protest, all of the Northwest’s intelligence agents left.

Therefore, no matter how powerful that future commander was, he could not possibly take on the Zhou Consortium’s main forces all by himself.

The intelligence brokers somehow felt the Zhou Consortium was making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, the Zhou Consortium was an organization, while the other party was seemingly only one person.

However, they still rushed to Stronghold 73 very quickly. Everyone felt that the future commander would definitely head there. Witnessing someone opposing an entire organization was something that would probably only happen once in their lifetimes.

Just as everyone’s gaze turned to the Zhou Consortium, a group of more than 2,000 soldiers in the north advanced into the Sacred Mountains that had been abandoned by the Pyro Company.

After the Battle of the Sacred Mountains, this place had become desolate. Even the Pyro Company’s own troops had pulled out from this place.

No one knew what these troops had come to the Sacred Mountains for.