Chapter 2028
Chapter 2028
Chapter 2028
Like Sanya, a port city with international trade as its main business direction, there are a large number of people from various countries coming in and out almost every day. In addition, Haihan's review of foreign immigrants is relatively loose at this stage. Even if the relevant departments adopt Many anti-espionage measures have been taken, but it is still impossible to completely prevent foreign intelligence personnel and other people with ulterior motives from mixing in.Among the cases cracked by the Ministry of Security over the years, espionage-related cases have always accounted for the highest proportion.
However, this case is different from the anti-espionage cases handled by the security department in the past. It is not a single force behind the scenes, but a joint operation by multiple parties. This was an extremely rare phenomenon in the past.According to the information obtained by the Ministry of Security from Xue Zheng and others, the people they assembled in Sanya came from at least four to five different forces. At that time, Xue Zheng could only confirm the identities of these participants through their respective tokens. .Among these people, apart from a few of his subordinates, Lu Weng, the only person he knew before the action, had already been killed by him in Changhua because of disagreements.
According to Xue Zheng, this Lu Weng's accent should be from the Central Plains in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, but he doesn't know who he is working for. The two of them have only handed over some things face to face before, and they have never had any deep friendship. .And the rest of the team are also secretive about their origins, they never take the initiative to mention their masters, and they don't inquire about other people's backgrounds in order to avoid suspicion.So this led to a lack of understanding and trust between them, and most of the internal strife that broke out at the last moment was also due to this.
The Ministry of Security traced all the clues brought by Xue Zheng and others, but the results were pitiful. Obviously, after the plan was launched, the other party decisively cut off contact with Xue Zheng and others, leaving them to fend for themselves.This also shows that the opponent had already anticipated the possibility of a miss when planning, and had taken effective preventive measures against it.
After Zhang Qianzhi returned to Sanya from Danzhou, he met with Li Qingyang, who was in charge of anti-espionage work, almost every day to discuss the progress of the investigation and collect the latest information. Confirm other forces involved in this case.
For such an investigation situation, not to mention the Executive Committee and He Xi, even Zhang Qianzhi himself finds it unacceptable.Obviously there are so many clues, but all of them came to an abrupt end in Sanya, and the thread was cut off in advance, which made the investigators feel depressed because they were holding their breath in their chests.
And Li Qingyang also did a lot of work for this, and even arrested two Jin Yiwei spies who had been under surveillance by the security department for a long time in advance to find out whether Jin Yiwei was related to the case.Originally, the Ministry of Security was going to rely on these two spies to monitor Jin Yiwei's movements in reverse, but the case involved too much, and the Ministry of Security worried that Jin Yiwei was also involved, so they secretly took him down, but they were slightly disappointed in the result. , Jin Yiwei didn't know about it at all, let alone participated in the attack on the son of Joseon.
This is actually somewhat different from the Ministry of Security's previous expectations. They thought that Jin Yiwei was not directly involved, but considering that there were people from Daming territory in the team that attacked the son of Joseon, Jin Yiwei should have at least received some rumors, but the actual situation was not. Not so.
"Jin Yiwei is very slow this time. I remember that no matter what happened in the past, there would be some news from Jin Yiwei." After reading the interrogation records brought by Li Qingyang, Zhang Qianzhi couldn't help feeling a little bit about this situation. Disappointed.
Li Qingyang smiled wryly and said, "There's nothing you can do about it. Jinyiwei in Fuguang and Guangxi provinces have been living so comfortably these past few years, and many of them don't do much at all. Anyway, you can earn money while lying down, and you still work hard Well?"
Zhang Qianzhi wanted to make some complaints at first, but when he thought that the yamen he was in was responsible for this situation, he coughed dryly twice, and didn't answer Li Qingyang's words.
In recent years, as Haihan has become more and more powerful, its influence in the southern coastal areas of Daming has also increased. Although Jinyiwei is a special yamen directly serving the Emperor of Ming Dynasty, in terms of funds, equipment, operation methods, organizational structure, etc. They couldn't compare to the more professional Haihan intelligence department. In addition, there were many "insiders" like Li Qingyang who had defected from Jinyiwei's camp, which made Jinyiwei's operations in Haihan's ruled area more difficult.
Although Jin Yiwei still insisted on sending spies to Hainan Island, they basically did not take any more obvious hostile actions, and only lurked to collect intelligence.And the Ministry of Security is not like in the past few years. As long as the spies sent by foreign countries are arrested first, they will deliberately put some small fish and shrimps in as long-term monitoring targets to grasp the other party's movements.
But in this way, Jin Yiwei's practice of sending spies to Haihan gradually became a mere formality, just to report to the court regularly to complete the errand.And when the task of monitoring Haihan's official movements began to become perfunctory, let alone pay attention to other forces in Haihan's territory.After Li Qingyang brought the two Jinyiwei spies back to the Ministry of Security for an interrogation, they didn't even know that the attack on the son of Joseon had happened, and they didn't even realize that there was any underground force conspiring in Sanya recently.
Li Qingyang continued: "However, Jin Yiwei didn't know about it, so it's not entirely bad news for us. At least it shows that the Ming officials were not directly involved, and the situation we were most worried about didn't happen."
Zhang Qianzhi nodded in agreement and said, "That's true. If I had to choose, I would rather let Jin Yiwei know nothing about it... Sigh, this is really a contradictory thing!"
Compared with the Spaniard's secret tricks, Hai Han was actually more worried that Da Ming would also have a hand in it.Since the day when Haihan started the incident, he had had unreasonable conflicts of interest with Daming, and the territorial issue was undoubtedly the most unsolvable one.Even if the two countries have formally established diplomatic relations and both expressed their attitude of peaceful coexistence in the future, it is still impossible to resolve the differences between the two countries on the territorial issue.
And now Haihan has pulled Daming's traditional vassal state North Korea to his side, which is also a situation that is difficult for Daming to accept.North Korea gave up Daming's asylum and took refuge in Haihan. The reason could not be more obvious, that is, to rely on Haihan's military assistance to resist the invasion of foreign enemies. If Ming wants to change this situation and save North Korea, he has to prove that he is stronger than Haihan.If Da Ming tried to weaken Hai Han's strength through some secret means, then Hai Han would definitely not be surprised by this.
However, no matter from the perspective of emotions or practical interests, Haihan is unwilling to let his country confront Ming Dynasty, and this attitude is from top to bottom, from the executive committee in charge of the big government to ordinary civilians, more or less There will be such a tendency.As senior officials of the intelligence system, Zhang Qianzhi and Li Qingyang naturally had a deeper understanding of this.
However, although Li Qingyang "jumped" from Daming's intelligence department, he has no psychological barriers to arresting his colleagues, and even used his achievements in this area to prove his determination to be loyal to Haihan.Li Qingyang was actually disappointed that he didn't find any useful information from the two Jinyiwei spies. It's just that his city would never show it in front of Zhang Qianzhi.
Haihan's investigation has made some progress, but he still can't follow through the existing clues to find out who is behind the scenes.Compared with the stagnation of investigation work in Sanya, the situation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is relatively clear.
Although Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing's actions in Yangzhou were extremely risky, they achieved fruitful results. In addition to killing more than half of the firearms team that had not yet fully formed their combat effectiveness in the local area, they also successfully brought back witnesses and material evidence, proving that It revealed the fact that the Shanshan salt merchants in Yangzhou colluded with the Spaniards.But as the investigation progressed, they also found that a very important link of information was missing.
Who was the bridge between the Spaniards and the Shanxi salt merchants, allowing them to establish a cooperative relationship across thousands of miles?
During their stay in Yangzhou, Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing did not find any information about the intermediary. Now the only thing that can be confirmed is that Lu Kangtai from the Shanshan salt merchant camp is the backstage boss of the Musketeers. He must be one of the insiders.But the commotion in Yangzhou this time is too great, and it may not be realistic to send someone to Yangzhou to arrest him in Zhoushan.
According to the follow-up news sent back from Yangzhou, the local area did not return to calm after the all-night fight, but immediately fell into a new round of battles among salt merchants.The reason is also related to Haihan. This operation has caused heavy damage to the armed organizations under the command of the Shanxi salt merchants. In addition to the loss of the musketeers, the elites of the Shanxi salt merchants suffered differently in the pursuit that night. Among them, Lu Kangtai, who almost came out of the nest, was the most serious, and he became a polished commander almost overnight.
Seeing this situation, their old rival Huizhou salt merchants will naturally not continue to stand by and take various measures to take advantage of the decline of Shanxian salt merchants to eradicate their remaining armed forces as much as possible power.
As a result, Yangzhou City and a large area of nearby towns began to frequently fight among salt merchants. In the battles in the city, the government could dispatch troops to suppress them. I can't manage so many things at all.
After a few small-scale fights, the conflict between the two sides quickly escalated, and even began to gather a large number of people to cross the canal to attack the other party's private estate.
As beautiful as Lu Kangtai was at the beginning, he is now miserable. The first manor to be breached by Huizhou salt merchants was his home.Due to the lack of manned guards, Lu Kangtai had no choice but to voluntarily abandon his manor and fled into Yangzhou City with his family.
Of course, the Shanshan salt merchants knew who plotted against them, but they didn't have the strength to come to Ningbo to settle accounts with the Haihan people. After all, they sent two boats and dozens of people over, and they didn't even dispatch a lot of naval guns. The warships and the regular army have already beaten their elites to pieces. Even if they are not convinced, they can only swallow their anger and deal with the current Huizhou salt merchants who are taking advantage of the troubled waters.
The Zhoushan authorities no longer intend to further intervene in the chaotic situation in Yangzhou. After all, these two groups of salt merchants are said to be competitors of Haihan Salt Industry. Let them have a dog-eat-dog fight first to weaken each other, and then deal with them in the future It can also save a lot of effort.
At this time, the Spaniards in the South China Sea had just received the secret letter from the Chief Executive of Manila, Qiu Yuan, and believed that overseas cooperation projects including Yangzhou had achieved great success, and were preparing to hand over more arms to them. Give it to middlemen, let it be sent to partners, and help these partners further expand their armed forces.
However, the actual situation was very different from the news received by the Spaniards. The disadvantage of information transmission speed was fully utilized by Haihan in this specific environment, and once again defeated the almost unaware Spaniards in the intelligence field.
However, after the situation in Yangzhou was reported to Manila through the channel of the intelligence department, the local people immediately realized that Jose and others could not stay in Cebu for too long, otherwise the news from the north would reach Cebu in the future, and the Spaniards would definitely be aware of the letter. There is a problem with the information in the secret letter, which will doubt the real intention of Jose and others to come to Cebu.
The only one that has not achieved actual combat results during this period is probably the Marine Corps that performed reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines in Liaodong.However, at this time, the number of marines landing near Jinshitan has doubled several times, and a full company has successively stationed in temporary strongholds near the coast.And the scale of this stronghold has also been expanded several times in just half a month, and now it has changed from a temporary stronghold to a small-scale base.
The main reason for adding more manpower to this task was that Sun Bing found a musketeer team stationed for training in the nearby Qing army camp.Sun Bing had very limited troops at hand, and even if he had the opportunity, he would not dare to attack, for fear of attracting the siege of the Qing army camp.This place is still several miles away from the coastline. If there is a real fight, they will definitely not be able to outrun the cavalry of the Qing army when they retreat on foot. Therefore, Sun Bing discovered that the Qing army's musketeers were still only performing surveillance tasks, and at the same time reported the situation here to the headquarters. reported.
As soon as Wang Tom heard that he had found the target, he decisively chose to increase troops to this place.If the right opportunity arises, more troops will make it easier for the Marine Corps to force the opponent.
After the increase in troops, Sun Bing's surveillance tasks were slightly less intensive, and he no longer had to personally guard from dawn to dusk every day.But the frequency of the enemy's Musketeers practicing every two to three days made Sun Bing feel that they probably wouldn't spend the entire winter here at ease, and would definitely take action at some point, and at that time it might be their own hands. opportunity.
(End of this chapter)
Like Sanya, a port city with international trade as its main business direction, there are a large number of people from various countries coming in and out almost every day. In addition, Haihan's review of foreign immigrants is relatively loose at this stage. Even if the relevant departments adopt Many anti-espionage measures have been taken, but it is still impossible to completely prevent foreign intelligence personnel and other people with ulterior motives from mixing in.Among the cases cracked by the Ministry of Security over the years, espionage-related cases have always accounted for the highest proportion.
However, this case is different from the anti-espionage cases handled by the security department in the past. It is not a single force behind the scenes, but a joint operation by multiple parties. This was an extremely rare phenomenon in the past.According to the information obtained by the Ministry of Security from Xue Zheng and others, the people they assembled in Sanya came from at least four to five different forces. At that time, Xue Zheng could only confirm the identities of these participants through their respective tokens. .Among these people, apart from a few of his subordinates, Lu Weng, the only person he knew before the action, had already been killed by him in Changhua because of disagreements.
According to Xue Zheng, this Lu Weng's accent should be from the Central Plains in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, but he doesn't know who he is working for. The two of them have only handed over some things face to face before, and they have never had any deep friendship. .And the rest of the team are also secretive about their origins, they never take the initiative to mention their masters, and they don't inquire about other people's backgrounds in order to avoid suspicion.So this led to a lack of understanding and trust between them, and most of the internal strife that broke out at the last moment was also due to this.
The Ministry of Security traced all the clues brought by Xue Zheng and others, but the results were pitiful. Obviously, after the plan was launched, the other party decisively cut off contact with Xue Zheng and others, leaving them to fend for themselves.This also shows that the opponent had already anticipated the possibility of a miss when planning, and had taken effective preventive measures against it.
After Zhang Qianzhi returned to Sanya from Danzhou, he met with Li Qingyang, who was in charge of anti-espionage work, almost every day to discuss the progress of the investigation and collect the latest information. Confirm other forces involved in this case.
For such an investigation situation, not to mention the Executive Committee and He Xi, even Zhang Qianzhi himself finds it unacceptable.Obviously there are so many clues, but all of them came to an abrupt end in Sanya, and the thread was cut off in advance, which made the investigators feel depressed because they were holding their breath in their chests.
And Li Qingyang also did a lot of work for this, and even arrested two Jin Yiwei spies who had been under surveillance by the security department for a long time in advance to find out whether Jin Yiwei was related to the case.Originally, the Ministry of Security was going to rely on these two spies to monitor Jin Yiwei's movements in reverse, but the case involved too much, and the Ministry of Security worried that Jin Yiwei was also involved, so they secretly took him down, but they were slightly disappointed in the result. , Jin Yiwei didn't know about it at all, let alone participated in the attack on the son of Joseon.
This is actually somewhat different from the Ministry of Security's previous expectations. They thought that Jin Yiwei was not directly involved, but considering that there were people from Daming territory in the team that attacked the son of Joseon, Jin Yiwei should have at least received some rumors, but the actual situation was not. Not so.
"Jin Yiwei is very slow this time. I remember that no matter what happened in the past, there would be some news from Jin Yiwei." After reading the interrogation records brought by Li Qingyang, Zhang Qianzhi couldn't help feeling a little bit about this situation. Disappointed.
Li Qingyang smiled wryly and said, "There's nothing you can do about it. Jinyiwei in Fuguang and Guangxi provinces have been living so comfortably these past few years, and many of them don't do much at all. Anyway, you can earn money while lying down, and you still work hard Well?"
Zhang Qianzhi wanted to make some complaints at first, but when he thought that the yamen he was in was responsible for this situation, he coughed dryly twice, and didn't answer Li Qingyang's words.
In recent years, as Haihan has become more and more powerful, its influence in the southern coastal areas of Daming has also increased. Although Jinyiwei is a special yamen directly serving the Emperor of Ming Dynasty, in terms of funds, equipment, operation methods, organizational structure, etc. They couldn't compare to the more professional Haihan intelligence department. In addition, there were many "insiders" like Li Qingyang who had defected from Jinyiwei's camp, which made Jinyiwei's operations in Haihan's ruled area more difficult.
Although Jin Yiwei still insisted on sending spies to Hainan Island, they basically did not take any more obvious hostile actions, and only lurked to collect intelligence.And the Ministry of Security is not like in the past few years. As long as the spies sent by foreign countries are arrested first, they will deliberately put some small fish and shrimps in as long-term monitoring targets to grasp the other party's movements.
But in this way, Jin Yiwei's practice of sending spies to Haihan gradually became a mere formality, just to report to the court regularly to complete the errand.And when the task of monitoring Haihan's official movements began to become perfunctory, let alone pay attention to other forces in Haihan's territory.After Li Qingyang brought the two Jinyiwei spies back to the Ministry of Security for an interrogation, they didn't even know that the attack on the son of Joseon had happened, and they didn't even realize that there was any underground force conspiring in Sanya recently.
Li Qingyang continued: "However, Jin Yiwei didn't know about it, so it's not entirely bad news for us. At least it shows that the Ming officials were not directly involved, and the situation we were most worried about didn't happen."
Zhang Qianzhi nodded in agreement and said, "That's true. If I had to choose, I would rather let Jin Yiwei know nothing about it... Sigh, this is really a contradictory thing!"
Compared with the Spaniard's secret tricks, Hai Han was actually more worried that Da Ming would also have a hand in it.Since the day when Haihan started the incident, he had had unreasonable conflicts of interest with Daming, and the territorial issue was undoubtedly the most unsolvable one.Even if the two countries have formally established diplomatic relations and both expressed their attitude of peaceful coexistence in the future, it is still impossible to resolve the differences between the two countries on the territorial issue.
And now Haihan has pulled Daming's traditional vassal state North Korea to his side, which is also a situation that is difficult for Daming to accept.North Korea gave up Daming's asylum and took refuge in Haihan. The reason could not be more obvious, that is, to rely on Haihan's military assistance to resist the invasion of foreign enemies. If Ming wants to change this situation and save North Korea, he has to prove that he is stronger than Haihan.If Da Ming tried to weaken Hai Han's strength through some secret means, then Hai Han would definitely not be surprised by this.
However, no matter from the perspective of emotions or practical interests, Haihan is unwilling to let his country confront Ming Dynasty, and this attitude is from top to bottom, from the executive committee in charge of the big government to ordinary civilians, more or less There will be such a tendency.As senior officials of the intelligence system, Zhang Qianzhi and Li Qingyang naturally had a deeper understanding of this.
However, although Li Qingyang "jumped" from Daming's intelligence department, he has no psychological barriers to arresting his colleagues, and even used his achievements in this area to prove his determination to be loyal to Haihan.Li Qingyang was actually disappointed that he didn't find any useful information from the two Jinyiwei spies. It's just that his city would never show it in front of Zhang Qianzhi.
Haihan's investigation has made some progress, but he still can't follow through the existing clues to find out who is behind the scenes.Compared with the stagnation of investigation work in Sanya, the situation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is relatively clear.
Although Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing's actions in Yangzhou were extremely risky, they achieved fruitful results. In addition to killing more than half of the firearms team that had not yet fully formed their combat effectiveness in the local area, they also successfully brought back witnesses and material evidence, proving that It revealed the fact that the Shanshan salt merchants in Yangzhou colluded with the Spaniards.But as the investigation progressed, they also found that a very important link of information was missing.
Who was the bridge between the Spaniards and the Shanxi salt merchants, allowing them to establish a cooperative relationship across thousands of miles?
During their stay in Yangzhou, Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing did not find any information about the intermediary. Now the only thing that can be confirmed is that Lu Kangtai from the Shanshan salt merchant camp is the backstage boss of the Musketeers. He must be one of the insiders.But the commotion in Yangzhou this time is too great, and it may not be realistic to send someone to Yangzhou to arrest him in Zhoushan.
According to the follow-up news sent back from Yangzhou, the local area did not return to calm after the all-night fight, but immediately fell into a new round of battles among salt merchants.The reason is also related to Haihan. This operation has caused heavy damage to the armed organizations under the command of the Shanxi salt merchants. In addition to the loss of the musketeers, the elites of the Shanxi salt merchants suffered differently in the pursuit that night. Among them, Lu Kangtai, who almost came out of the nest, was the most serious, and he became a polished commander almost overnight.
Seeing this situation, their old rival Huizhou salt merchants will naturally not continue to stand by and take various measures to take advantage of the decline of Shanxian salt merchants to eradicate their remaining armed forces as much as possible power.
As a result, Yangzhou City and a large area of nearby towns began to frequently fight among salt merchants. In the battles in the city, the government could dispatch troops to suppress them. I can't manage so many things at all.
After a few small-scale fights, the conflict between the two sides quickly escalated, and even began to gather a large number of people to cross the canal to attack the other party's private estate.
As beautiful as Lu Kangtai was at the beginning, he is now miserable. The first manor to be breached by Huizhou salt merchants was his home.Due to the lack of manned guards, Lu Kangtai had no choice but to voluntarily abandon his manor and fled into Yangzhou City with his family.
Of course, the Shanshan salt merchants knew who plotted against them, but they didn't have the strength to come to Ningbo to settle accounts with the Haihan people. After all, they sent two boats and dozens of people over, and they didn't even dispatch a lot of naval guns. The warships and the regular army have already beaten their elites to pieces. Even if they are not convinced, they can only swallow their anger and deal with the current Huizhou salt merchants who are taking advantage of the troubled waters.
The Zhoushan authorities no longer intend to further intervene in the chaotic situation in Yangzhou. After all, these two groups of salt merchants are said to be competitors of Haihan Salt Industry. Let them have a dog-eat-dog fight first to weaken each other, and then deal with them in the future It can also save a lot of effort.
At this time, the Spaniards in the South China Sea had just received the secret letter from the Chief Executive of Manila, Qiu Yuan, and believed that overseas cooperation projects including Yangzhou had achieved great success, and were preparing to hand over more arms to them. Give it to middlemen, let it be sent to partners, and help these partners further expand their armed forces.
However, the actual situation was very different from the news received by the Spaniards. The disadvantage of information transmission speed was fully utilized by Haihan in this specific environment, and once again defeated the almost unaware Spaniards in the intelligence field.
However, after the situation in Yangzhou was reported to Manila through the channel of the intelligence department, the local people immediately realized that Jose and others could not stay in Cebu for too long, otherwise the news from the north would reach Cebu in the future, and the Spaniards would definitely be aware of the letter. There is a problem with the information in the secret letter, which will doubt the real intention of Jose and others to come to Cebu.
The only one that has not achieved actual combat results during this period is probably the Marine Corps that performed reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines in Liaodong.However, at this time, the number of marines landing near Jinshitan has doubled several times, and a full company has successively stationed in temporary strongholds near the coast.And the scale of this stronghold has also been expanded several times in just half a month, and now it has changed from a temporary stronghold to a small-scale base.
The main reason for adding more manpower to this task was that Sun Bing found a musketeer team stationed for training in the nearby Qing army camp.Sun Bing had very limited troops at hand, and even if he had the opportunity, he would not dare to attack, for fear of attracting the siege of the Qing army camp.This place is still several miles away from the coastline. If there is a real fight, they will definitely not be able to outrun the cavalry of the Qing army when they retreat on foot. Therefore, Sun Bing discovered that the Qing army's musketeers were still only performing surveillance tasks, and at the same time reported the situation here to the headquarters. reported.
As soon as Wang Tom heard that he had found the target, he decisively chose to increase troops to this place.If the right opportunity arises, more troops will make it easier for the Marine Corps to force the opponent.
After the increase in troops, Sun Bing's surveillance tasks were slightly less intensive, and he no longer had to personally guard from dawn to dusk every day.But the frequency of the enemy's Musketeers practicing every two to three days made Sun Bing feel that they probably wouldn't spend the entire winter here at ease, and would definitely take action at some point, and at that time it might be their own hands. opportunity.
(End of this chapter)