Before long, all the attendees arrived at the banquet on time. Ning Zhiheng looked around and secretly observed that the lineup of attendees was impressive, encompassing almost all the important military and political figures of the Japanese puppet regime in Nanjing at that time.
On the Japanese side, almost all of the Central China Expeditionary Army officers were present, except for a few senior generals stationed in Wuhan.
On the Nanjing puppet government side, apart from Wang Tianhai who was absent due to health reasons, all the other deans were present. As for the so-called ministers, such as the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Pacification, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Education, etc., there were countless others, and the entire banquet hall was packed.
The banquet began at seven o'clock. Consul General Hori Koichi, as the host, first went on stage to deliver a welcome speech, welcoming Shimizu and his delegation to the site. He then invited Shimizu Hidetoshi to give a speech. Several other military and political leaders followed suit and spoke. The audience, naturally, did not dare to be negligent and responded with enthusiastic applause and cheers.
The process took quite a while, and it took a long time to complete the formalities before the banquet officially began. Hori-kun invited everyone to raise their glasses in celebration, and then the clinking of glasses and the clatter of plates filled the table with delicious food and fine wine.
Meanwhile, in the consulate's kitchen, Zhan Yuanliang was working busily. Everything was going as he had expected. Because of the banquet, the kitchen was under heavy workload and there was a severe shortage of chefs. Zhan Yuanliang had previously worked as a chef at the consulate, but he was later transferred to a clerical position because he gained the trust of the Japanese and was educated. Now, Zhan Yuanliang volunteered to help in the kitchen, and the consulate readily agreed.
Fortunately, not long after the banquet began, all the dishes were cooked and served to the tables by the waiters. After the intense work, everyone in the kitchen could finally take a breather.
After finishing his work, Zhan Yuanliang felt relieved. He took off his chef's hat and skirt, went outside the kitchen, found a place to rest, took out a cigarette, lit it, and smoked while secretly observing the surroundings.
Security for the banquet was extremely tight. All staff members were subject to strict checks upon entry. However, because Zhan Yuanliang was a long-time employee of the consulate, he was not searched at all and easily brought in the potassium chloride poison.
However, when he was preparing to poison the food, he encountered some problems. He originally wanted to poison the food, but after careful consideration, he felt that this would not be very effective because many people have different eating habits and tastes. As a result, the time it takes for people to eat the food will also be different, and some people may not even touch certain dishes. If someone shows symptoms of poisoning, it will alert others, so the number of people poisoned will not be too many.
Moreover, he didn't know the preferences of those Japanese officials, and because of the time constraints, he didn't have time to find out.
Finally, he decided to poison the drinks, since everyone would be drinking them, and there was a custom of toasting and drinking at the same time during the banquet, so the drinking time would be relatively consistent, thus ensuring that most people would be poisoned at the same time.
However, the place where the drinks were kept was not in the kitchen, so Zhan Yuanliang could only slowly look for an opportunity.
By this time, the banquet had been going on for half an hour. As the food and drinks were consumed, the atmosphere in the banquet hall gradually became more lively. The consulate had also specially arranged for singing and dancing to add to the festivities. The hall was filled with music and various sounds, creating a very lively atmosphere.
Zhan Yuanliang checked the time and knew that the time was almost up. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he threw the cigarette butt on the ground, gently stomped it out, breathed a sigh of relief, calmed himself down, and then got up and went to the door of the storage room not far from the kitchen.
This is where the consulate stores its beverages. It's usually locked, but it's open today because the banquet requires a lot of drinks, so the waiters can easily access them to serve the banquet.
Zhan Yuanliang looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then quickly stepped forward, pushed open the door to the storage room, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him.
The storage room wasn't very big, but it was filled with jars and bottles of various kinds of alcohol, with sake being the most common drink among the Japanese.
A small portion was yellow wine, because it was to entertain many Chinese guests, and at this time, yellow wine was the most high-end type of wine at Chinese banquets.
Zhan Yuanliang strode to the outermost shelf of sake, picked up a bottle of sake—the most expensive brand—and deftly uncorked it. He then took out a small bottle containing potassium cyanide from his pocket.
He opened the small bottle, poured some poison into the sake, shook it, and was about to put the cork back on when a bitter almond smell wafted up. He felt dizzy and almost collapsed to the ground.
not good!
Only then did he recall that potassium cyanide, when exposed to moisture and water, would have a highly volatile bitter almond smell. Before infiltrating the Japanese consulate, he had also carried out a poisoning mission using potassium cyanide, but that time he had put it in liquor. Because the dosage was small and the liquor had a high alcohol content and a strong smell, it masked the bitter almond smell, so it did not attract the target's attention, and he successfully completed the mission.
However, Japanese sake has a very low alcohol content and a light, watery taste. The bitter almond flavor is immediately overpowering. If this sake is served at a banquet, Japanese people who are familiar with the taste of sake will immediately notice something is wrong.
Too careless! This made Zhan Yuanliang realize his mistake immediately, and he secretly regretted it. After all, he hadn't carried out such a mission for so many years, and many of his skills had become rusty. He still made a mistake in the details.
However, he quickly opened several other bottles of sake and mixed this bottle with the others. He then smelled the sake again, and the smell was almost undetectable. This should be enough to fool people. However, this would lower the concentration of potassium cyanide and greatly reduce its toxicity. But time was of the essence, and he couldn't worry about that now.
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