We didn’t come to provoke you, but you took the initiative to provoke us!

The Anti-foreigner Group is Shinno’s painstaking effort, and he has no intention of forgiving the Celestial Loyalty Faction for such behavior of undermining him.

The strength of the Celestial Loyalty Faction is far inferior to the Anti-foreigner Group, and if they were to engage in a brawl, the Anti-foreigner Group would undoubtedly win.

But Shinno does not wish to rely on brute force to retaliate against the Celestial Loyalty Faction.

Even though the Anti-foreigner Group has an absolute advantage in combat strength against the Celestial Loyalty Faction, a direct confrontation would still result in some casualties.

To devise a plan to dismantle, or even directly annihilate, the Celestial Loyalty Faction without losing a single soldier, Shinno dispatched several spies feigning allegiance to the Celestial Loyalty Faction to gather internal intelligence for him.

Soon after, Shinno obtained a highly useful piece of critical intelligence from the spies — in order to gather sufficient military funds, the Celestial Loyalty Faction plans to raid and rob the wealth of Ryogoku-dori tonight.

Upon receiving this intelligence, a strategy of "driving the tiger to swallow the wolf" quickly emerged in Shinno’s mind...

The strategy he conceived was not complicated — arrange for the Magistrate’s Office to learn that the Celestial Loyalty Faction will raid Ryogoku-dori tonight, and let the Officials of the Magistrate’s Office help him deal a heavy blow to the Celestial Loyalty Faction!

The plan set, the rest was to polish the details.

To make the intelligence that "Ryogoku-dori will be attacked" leak more naturally, Shinno had someone deliver false news to Hirota Takasaburo: that tonight, the Anti-foreigner Group plans to rob Ryogoku-dori!

Regarding Hirota Takasaburo...Shinno had long noticed that this lower-level member within the Anti-foreigner Group lacked strong anti-foreigner resolve.

Thus, Shinno anticipated that after learning about the Anti-foreigner Group’s outrageous plan, Hirota would likely get cold feet and leak the intelligence to the Magistrate’s Office.

The reason for framing it as the Anti-foreigner Group intending to rob Ryogoku-dori was simple: compared to an obscure Celestial Loyalty Faction, the Anti-foreigner Group obviously would attract more attention and caution from the Magistrate’s Office.

Shinno’s initial purpose was merely to retaliate against the Celestial Loyalty Faction and dismantle them, without any other plans. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

But after finalizing the "driving the tiger to swallow the wolf" strategy... Shinno suddenly grew ambitious!

Towards the Edo Magistrate’s Office, Shinno always harbored a significant discontent — in Shinno’s view, the Officials of the Magistrate’s Office, who constantly opposed the Anti-foreigner Warriors, were just a bunch of useless gluttons and lapdogs!

Why not... seize this opportunity to thoroughly humiliate the Edo Magistrate’s Office, which always sought to trouble the Anti-foreigner Warriors!

Deceive the Magistrate’s Office into spending great effort to guard Ryogoku-dori, and while the Magistrate’s Office aids in eliminating the Celestial Loyalty Faction, they can boldly attack their true target right under the Magistrate’s Office’s nose!

After taking great pains to fortify Edo, the defenses end up being completely ineffective, failing to stop the enemy... there’s no stronger humiliation than this!

Retaliating against the Celestial Loyalty Faction, sabotaging what the Anti-foreigner Group truly wishes to destroy, humiliating the Magistrate’s Office — one stone, three birds!

Therefore, with ambition swelling and great confidence in himself, Shinno was determined to achieve a three-fold victory in one night, and he revised the plan.

The "driving the tiger to swallow the wolf" section remained unchanged, but the content of personally leading a large force to attack the Foreign Language Research Institute was added.

The Foreign Language Research Institute, specializing in Western Studies, has always been a thorn in the side of the Anti-foreigner Group.

Shinno had long since marked the Foreign Language Research Institute as one of their must-conquer targets.

Anyway, they would eventually destroy the Foreign Language Research Institute, so they might as well flatten this despicable gathering place of traitors tonight!

To ensure the plan’s success, Kanda added the segment of "setting Edo City Town on fire to divert the Magistrate’s Office’s attention."

The Anti-foreigner Cause is supreme! Sacrifices are inevitable to accomplish such a great cause! Let the people of Edo suffer a bit! To be able to contribute to the Anti-foreigner Cause, it’s their honor!

This night, the early phases of Shinno’s ambitious three-fold plan went smoothly.

The Magistrate’s Office successfully helped them deal a severe blow to the Celestial Loyalty Faction in Ryogoku-dori.

The subsequent arson went smoothly too, successfully creating chaos in Edo and diverting the Magistrate’s Office’s attention.

At the start of the attack on the Foreign Language Research Institute, the operations went smoothly as well, their thin defense forces couldn’t withstand them, and they swept through and captured most of the Foreign Language Research Institute effortlessly.

However...just one last step...

Clearly, just one last step and tonight’s operation would have concluded perfectly...

It’s all because of Tachibana Aoto...!

His sudden appearance brought an glaring flaw to Shinno’s operation tonight!

Failing to completely destroy the Foreign Language Research Institute! The unexpectedly early arrival of a large force from the Magistrate’s Office even led to many of their comrades being captured!

It’s him again!

In a past assassination attempt on those French merchants, he was the one who obstructed them!

And now, it’s this guy again who caused tonight’s operation to become incomplete!

Damn! Damn!

The more Shinno thought, the angrier he got, clenching his teeth in fury.

He desperately wanted to tear this treacherous enemy into eight pieces right now! Otherwise, the hatred in his heart would be hard to quell!

"Tachibana Aoto... I must kill you with my own hands...!"

Shinno slowly turned his head, looking toward the distant Edo City Town.

In his eyes, an irrepressible intent to kill.

...

...

Five days later —

Man’en 1 (1860), April 1st —