Bulgarian Empire

Chapter 25: The Great Purge

In the evening, a man in green, looking scared, walked into a small alley and knocked on the courtyard door.

"Oh, God forbid, Toma, you didn't get caught! Quick, come in, this is not the place to talk!" After that, the man in green was let in. He stuck his head out to look around for a while, then closed the door.

"Don't worry ~ Kulonov, I came here secretly, no one knows!" Toma said after taking a few moments to relax.

"Oh, that's good! Now the police in Sofia are going crazy, arresting rebels everywhere! Your newspaper was closed down and I heard that many people were arrested. I thought you were arrested too. It's good to see that you're okay, may God bless you!" Kulonov said happily.

"Don't mention it, I think only God knows what's going on! The police suddenly seized the newspaper and took away the editor-in-chief. It just so happened that I was outside covering the story and escaped!" Toma explained.

"Oh, God bless you! But how have you been living all these days?" Kulonov continued to ask.

"Hiding at home, of course! You know, even if there was something wrong, a little mongrel like me wouldn't qualify for a wanted notice and would mostly be forgotten."

"I came over to see you tonight to get some information about what's going on. Kulonov, you're my best friend and you work for the government, you must know what's going on!" Toma said first in a mocking way and then looked at Kulonov expectantly.

Kulonov smiled bitterly, lowered his voice, and said, "I'm not really sure, the top suddenly ordered that the rebels be arrested! Many newspapers have been seized, I guess it's related to your reports some time ago!"

"By the way, you'd better hide again and come out when the storm is over! There are so many arrests now that the police can't take care of you when they are occupied. You should leave Sofia tomorrow and go back to your hometown in the countryside to hide!"

Toma jumped up in the thrill and said in disbelief, "Oh, God! How is this possible?"

...

Following the actions of Stambolov's cabinet, Bulgaria has entered a "lockdown period" and Sofia has been under martial law for more than a month.

The police were constantly deployed, going around seizing newspaper offices and printing houses. Roadblocks were set up in the streets and alleys to check the newspapers being shipped to various places.

There are much more fish-like Toma who have been caught in the pool. Cullen is not wrong. Too many people were arrested. A small fish like Toma is too much for the police to take care of it.

As long as they missed them on the spot, they largely forgot the latter, and Sofia's prisons were already overcrowded.

The people are too angry to speak out against the government's rampage, and members of the outraged opposition parties have been forced to go underground.

What Ferdinand did not expect was that the Stambolov cabinet had done such a quick job this time that the opposition parties had no chance to resist.

The government quickly arrested the opposition and, at the same time, seized a large number of goods, which actually totaled hundreds of millions of Leva.

Together with the previous loan, it met the funds needed for the five-year plan in such a drastic manner.

Ferdinand did not know whether to rejoice or to worry.

The idea suddenly sprang up. Why not just let the cabinet continue to play? And then he dismissed this horrible idea. If the cabinet continues to toss and turn, God knows when the people will reach the limit of tolerance?

If the situation gets out of hand, civil war breaks out, and then a wave of foreign invasion. Who the hell can survive but God!

Although the plan went well, Stambolov still had a headache. Many people within the Liberal Party have expressed their complaints about the matter. It put a lot of pressure on him.

Externally, he could kill and destroy, but he had to appease in the face of his own people. Because of the many people involved, there was an endless stream of people pleading for mercy to Stambolov.

And the specific person in charge, Ionas, is now the face of the hitman. But the powerful Ionas does not care. He has surpassed the other three in the cabinet and is the number two person after Prime Minister Stambolov.

At the new cabinet meeting, Mihail spoke up and said, "Your Excellency, the enemies have almost been cleared out. Isn't it time to end martial law, the country needs to return to business as usual!"

"Mr. Mihail, the enemy is almost cleared, but there are still missing fish. We must make further efforts to find them all and destroy them!" Ionas retorted in a stern voice.

"Minister Ionas, you have already captured more than 20,000 people. That's almost one percent of our population, do you want to continue?" Wilson retorted.

"But they're all enemies, aren't they? You do not just see the bad side, there is a good side! Although the economic impact is great, but our five-year plan, the necessary funds have been put together, right? Clean up a bunch of state assholes, solve the financial crisis, a number of free labor, why not?" Sava said with optimism.

Stambolov knew that the quarrel of several people also involved their own interests. Now the crowd is no longer warm-blooded patriots, corrupted by power, in a short time began to become more than a politician.

Under the emergency policy, economic development was greatly affected secondarily. The main thing was to weaken the Ministry of Economic and Industry's voice in the government, and Mihail and Wilson had to come out against it.

Ionas and Sava, on the contrary, now hold power in their hands in this situation. Once the normal state is restored, it will surely make way for the country's development, and it will greatly reduce their right to speak. For their own benefit, they need to extend this period.

Stambolov could do nothing about it, and just because he was a politician himself didn't mean he liked them. Opening his mouth to stop it, he said:

"Okay, you guys stop arguing! The Great Purge is still doing a good job, which is worthy of credit! Likewise you all know that such a state cannot last forever!"

"I'll give you a month to get all those rats out, then lift martial law and the country will return to normal!"

...

At the end of 1888, martial law in Bulgaria was finally lifted. No one expected that Sofia had just lifted the martial law when the opposition party made another big news.

On Christmas Day 1889, Stambolov was attacked in front of his residence, and Stambolov escaped with his life. But three members of his staff died on the spot, and several others were wounded.

What is more crucial is that after the shooting, five killers, except for one corpse left behind, actually managed to let the other killers getaway. Prime Minister Stambolov was furious, and someone else was going to be unlucky.

At the same time, other high government officials have been taken care of as well. Minister of Defense Sava, one of the unlucky ones, was shot three times and was being treated. One of the shots hit him right in the balls and was scraped.

Even more bizarre was Hristo Belchev, the Minister of Finance with little presence in the government, who met a firefight between police and assassins on his way home, was crushed over his body by a frightened carriage, and then died a heroic death.

In the original time, Hristo Belchev was also an unlucky man who was wrongly killed by assassins as Stambolov in March 1891. He is now subjected to Ferdinand's butterfly effect and received his fate in advance.

This night was called "Bloody Christmas Eve". Dozens of high-ranking officials were attacked at the same time, causing hundreds of casualties and hundreds of thousands of Leva indirect economic losses.

The peace of Christmas Eve was broken. The military and police of Sofia were out in full force, and the whole city was in turmoil because of the big sow.