Chapter 569 Special Commissioner
Wang Baisuo didn't expect that Zhang Qianzhi, who had just entered Zhongming Academy for a day, could get any inside information. Even if He Xi came to Danzhou in person, he probably wouldn't be able to get valuable information from Zhongming Academy in such a short period of time. Therefore, the only method Wang Baisuo can use at present is to strengthen external surveillance. As for the monitoring of Yan Mingjun, it was mainly handed over to He Qi, the leader of the government officials. For this reason, He Qi received another fifty taels of "special operations funds" - which is about as much as he had spent in the past year. The total harvest including income is the highest single income he has ever received since working for Haihan.
Zhang Qianzhi did learn a lot of reconnaissance skills while following He Xi, but these things don't seem to be very useful at the moment. He was arranged to live in a room with three other Confucian scholars. His daily schedule was to study the Four Books and Five Classics in the morning, and practice calligraphy or study poetry and poetry in the afternoon. For a young man like him who has seen the market, this kind of life is quite boring.
However, Zhang Qianzhi has received special training after all, and has developed a professional habit of being wary of others. He can clearly feel that the other three people in the room will mention things about Haihan intentionally or unintentionally, and they will never forget it every time. Ask him what he thinks. It was not too difficult for Zhang Qianzhi to cope with this superficial routine. He knew very well how to play the role of an orthodox Confucian scholar from the Ming Dynasty who had many dissatisfaction with Haihan.
According to the pre-arrangement, Zhang Qianzhi will leave the academy every two to three days and go into the city to buy some daily necessities. During this period, people from the Security Department will arrange opportunities to contact him and exchange information.
Wang Baisuo's deployment on this matter can only be maintained to this extent for the time being. This kind of monitoring may not be effective in a short time, and he cannot devote all his resources to this matter. . Although Danzhou is not a large place, the Ministry of Security is responsible for more than just a reactionary scholar and a new local official who is ready to make a move. Wang Baisuo needs to deal with much more than this.
For example, this afternoon, he received the latest instructions from Hao Wanqing via telegram from the Sanya base camp. In principle, the importance level of the content of instructions transmitted by text messages is already relatively high. Due to the limited staffing, the Security Department does not have its own wireless communication department and operators. It only has instructions that require relatively high timeliness. Security The ministry will borrow the radio station of the military or the management committee to send, and ordinary orders are usually transmitted through land or sea channels - just like other counterparts in this era.
When this telegram was delivered to Wang Baisuo, he noticed at a glance that the envelope containing the telegram was marked "Top Secret". This was the first time in the few months since he took office as the Ministry of Security's agency in Danzhou— —In fact, this was the first time in his career that he received the legendary "top secret" code message.
Wang Baisuo carefully closed the door and window, sat on his seat and calmed down a little, then opened the envelope, took out the message, and read the contents.
The content of the message was very brief, to the general idea that during the "Operation Prairie Fire", some omissions were made in the raids on Qiongbei's officialdom. This omission does not refer to the only city in Qiongzhou that has not been captured by the pirate army, but in the Qiongbei area that the pirate army is responsible for occupying, there are still big fish that have slipped through the net.
According to the arrangement of the "Plan Fire", after the Annan army disguised as a pirate army occupied various prefectures and counties in Qiongbei, one of its next tasks was to clean up the local Ming government agencies and target those who had been identified in advance. Officials with obvious hostile stances carried out large-scale arrests. Since there is a relatively clear list of arrest targets in advance, the efficiency of this large-scale cleaning operation is also very high. Similar to the local government in Danzhou, all the full-time officials in the main departments are tightly controlled. The people who are now cooperating with the interim management committee are all deputies or "people aware of current affairs" who have been recently promoted from below.
At that time, the military was responsible for checking the arrest list. Due to various reasons, the Ministry of Security was not directly involved on the front line. In the list of personnel submitted by the military to the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Security after the war, there seemed to be no missing persons whose whereabouts were questionable. But now the top-secret message sent from the base camp says that there is a big fish that has slipped through the net. This must be a loophole in some previous link.
The message did not specify the specific identity of Big Fish, but only informed Wang Baisuo that a commissioner would go to Danzhou to preside over the investigation in the near future, and hoped that he would cooperate. This also reflects the importance that the top management of the Ministry of Security attaches to this matter. Of course, the base camp will send a commissioner to guide the work. What Wang Baisuo can do to cooperate is probably to prepare manpower and provide it to the commissioner for command.
But Wang Baisuo has already allocated most of his manpower to monitor Zhongming Academy. For the local security department in Danzhou, this order from the base camp really comes at a bad time. Wang Baisuo had already borrowed someone from the local police force once before, so he had to be shameless and find Zhang Xin again.
Of course, this is not a big problem, and Wang Baisuo's focus is not on this aspect. As a former intelligence practitioner, Wang Baisuo's working experience within the system is enough to be considered an expert. He was keenly aware of the opportunities he might get in this matter - tracing back to the root cause, it should not be that the big fish slipped through the net. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Security, but if this big fish can be caught within his jurisdiction, then Wang Baisuo's share of the reward will definitely be indispensable.
On February 2, 1631, the tenth day after the new governor of Danzhou took office, Zhang Qianzhi, a spy from the Ministry of Security, disguised his identity and sneaked into Zhongming Academy on the fifth day. Wang Baisuo became the head of Danzhou under the Ministry of Security for three months and seven days. For them, this day does not seem to be much different from the countless days in the past, but for someone who has just arrived at Baimajing Pier in Danzhou Bay, it feels like a rebirth.
This was the first time that Li Qingyang had the opportunity to leave Sanya since he arrived in Qiongzhou Island. He has been in Sanya for a year, and many of his ideas have changed a lot from when he first arrived in Qiongzhou Island. If he had another chance to choose, he would probably refuse the order to go south from the beginning. , this can at least preserve loyalty to the court.
Through the close contact and gradual understanding of the Haihan people over the past year, Li Qingyang also understood that his strength was simply not enough to fight against the giant beast Haihan. To say that a mantis was like a chariot would be putting it mildly. Even the Jin Yiwei behind him, the most powerful yamen in the Ming Dynasty, can hardly compare with the operational efficiency of Haihan's security department - just Haihan's magical technique of sending messages across thousands of miles, Jin Yiwei is completely unable to crack and deal with it.
When Li Qingyang was in Sanya, apart from his public identity in the medicine shop, the person he dealt with the most was the Haihan Security Department. Every month, he must write a routine report to Jinyiweinan Town Fusi under the supervision of the Security Department personnel, his boss Lin Nan, and based on the feedback received, he will review the recent progress of Nanzhen Fusi. Make certain predictions about actions. In fact, this job is not difficult to do. It is much easier than he thought when he was under house arrest. He does not need to think about what to write in this official document, how to write it, and what purpose it needs to achieve. Everything is handled by the security team. The person responsible for this matter was drafted by the department, and he only played the role of copying and making suggestions.
Of course, when the Ministry of Security incorporated Li Qingyang into the establishment, they did not put him away as a living display. In addition to writing this report and stabilizing the investigation of the Jinyiwei side of the Ming Dynasty, Li Qingyang's role was to dig out information from him that was useful to Haihan. In short, it was about the various inside stories and operating rules of the Jinyiwei intelligence agency. .
These things have no value for the Ministry of Security. They are mainly used to understand the opponent's behavior so that they can better control the opponent's tactics in the field of intelligence work. Li Qingyang was somewhat resistant to this kind of thing at first, but the Haihan people then showed him some of the secrets of the Jinyi Guards, such as the replacement process of recent Jinyiwei commanders, from Liu Shouyou and Luo Sigong during the Wanli Period. , to Tian Ergen during the Tianqi period, and then to Luo Yangxing who took over after Emperor Chongzhen came to power, how these commanders came to power and how to step down were all explained to him clearly.
Jinyiwei actually knew some rumors about these things, but a low-level official like Li Qingyang, who was at the level of hundreds of households, knew very limited information, which was far less detailed than the inside information told to him by the Haihan people. Moreover, the information the Haihan people had was completely consistent with what Li Qingyang knew, which meant that the information they knew was not made up with their eyes closed. Compared with these secrets, Li Qingyang felt that the so-called secrets he was trying to keep were not worth mentioning. Therefore, when the Haihan people asked him to tell the inner workings of Jinyiwei later, he had nothing to worry about.
By the time Li Qingyang had gone over and over what he knew about the situation, his loyalty to the Ming Dynasty was running low. And during this period, Haihan also abided by his agreement. Not only did he not treat him badly, but he also gave him a certain number of silver notes every month as a reward for his work - the amount was more than the money he received from Jinyiwei. Out a lot.
Lin Nan had told him more than once that as long as he followed the Executive Committee faithfully, he would have no problem in being a wealthy family with sufficient food and clothing on Qiongzhou Island, let alone glory and wealth in the future.
Six months after Li Qingyang was arrested by Haihan, after many twists and turns, his relatives in Nanjing also traveled thousands of miles through various means and were finally sent to Sanya. Now for Li Qingyang, there was nothing to worry about anymore. For him, the identity of Ming Dynasty Jinyiwei is already a skin that can be shed at any time, while the special commissioner of the Haihan Security Department has become his true identity now. Compared with the situation two years ago when he was sent by Nanzhen Fusi to Qiongzhou as an undercover agent, it seems that he has changed his direction now. He was originally going to infiltrate Haihan, but now he has become the Haihan Security Department to infiltrate the Jinyi Guards of the Ming Dynasty. a chess piece.
Originally, before the "Puerra Fire Plan" was implemented, Hao Wanqing had a special interview with him and asked him if he had any plans to return to the Ming Dynasty to serve. This is not just to amuse Li Qingyang. If he is willing to cooperate, the Haihan Security Department can use him to provide Jinyiweinan Town Fusi with a large amount of intelligence information about the pirates' upcoming attack on Qiongzhou Island, and this information will be confirmed later. , Li Qingyang's credit will definitely be recorded in his account, and there is great hope for promotion and salary increase - if he can't be promoted, Haihan will use money to push him up.
However, after repeated weighing, Li Qingyang still did not agree to Hao Wanqing's proposal. After staying here for a period of time, he no longer wants to return to the infighting workplace environment of Nanjing Zhenfusi. Even if he can be promoted to Deputy Qianhu or even Qianhu, so what? After seeing the methods of the Haihan people, he no longer had much interest in returning to the Jinyiwei Yamen. He would rather continue his current life, work under the Haihan people, and stay safely in Sanya. With his salary and work benefits, it won't take long to apply for a job here specifically for security department employees. The dormitory. For him, life in Sanya was far more relaxed and comfortable than in Daming. He really didn't want to go back there and continue to be an undercover agent who never saw the light of day.
Hao Wanqing did not force him to accept the arrangement. Since Li Qingyang understood that he did not want to return to Ming Dynasty, Hao Wanqing simply changed his establishment from a non-staff special employee to a regular employee of the Security Department.
Ten days before this departure to Danzhou, that is, the same day that Yan Mingjun and Li Jin arrived in Danzhou, Li Qingyang had already obtained the application approval letter for naturalization from the Haihan Civil Affairs Department in Sanya, and officially naturalized as a Haihan returnee. Transform the people. And this identity means that he has completely escaped from house arrest and surveillance for more than a year, and can freely move around Haihan's ruling area - of course, such activities still have to be dispatched by the Ministry of Security, which is not what he wants. You can go wherever you go.
After Li Qingyang was officially naturalized, he quickly received his first field mission and went to Danzhou to investigate the disappearance of a certain Ming official. Speaking of this case, he was the first to discover the clues and had a certain relationship with him, so Hao Wanqing handed the matter over to him for investigation.
It may sound a little unbelievable. How did Li Qingyang, who was far away in Sanya, know that Ming officials in Qiongbei had disappeared during the "Operation Prairie Fire"? It doesn't seem to make sense logically, but it just happened to be such a coincidence.
During the implementation of "Operation Prairie Fire", the naval forces of the Haihan Militia blocked the Qiongzhou Strait, and all ports and ships in the Qiongbei area were temporarily blocked. During this period, Li Qingyang's contact with the mainland Jinyiwei organization was also temporarily interrupted. This was the starting point for his discovery of the crime.
(End of chapter)