Chapter 881 Zhoushan Investment Promotion Conference (6)
The person responsible for interrogating Wu Huanzhi was Gong Shiqi, a confidant specially transferred from Guangzhou by the Minister of Security He Xi. After Haihan occupied Zhoushan, Gong Shiqi was solely responsible for intelligence collection and internal security matters, as well as the formulation and implementation of some public security measures. If nothing unexpected happens, Gong Shiqi will continue to be responsible for the intelligence and security work in this area after the local operations are on track.
Gong Shiqi was transferred to Guangzhou to work with He Xi since the establishment of the Guangdong Office. He was previously responsible for field tasks, mainly conducting secret operations such as intelligence collection, surveillance, tracking, kidnapping, and assassination. Over the past few years, he has accumulated quite a wealth of experience. He Xi had originally intended to find an opportunity to give him greater authority, but it was the first time in his career to take charge of the intelligence and security affairs of a region. Moreover, this Zhoushan area has always been a paradise for maritime adventurers in the past, and the security situation is also very complicated. This position is a huge challenge for Gong Shiqi.
From a security perspective, Gong Shiqi actually disagrees with hastily convening an investment meeting before Zhoushan Island is fully occupied, because the influx of a large number of foreigners will exponentially increase the pressure on local security work. Although Gong Shiqi is also convinced that there is no armed force in Zhoushan that can compete head-on with the Haihan Militia Army, if the people participating in the investment conference are mixed with hostile elements who are deliberately causing trouble, causing trouble during the investment conference, or even resorting to arson, poisoning, or Assassinating important figures, organizing armed rebellions, etc., it will be difficult for the Ministry of Security to achieve effective monitoring and management of the occupied areas with only the Ministry of Security.
However, an investment promotion meeting should be held in the Zhoushan area as soon as possible to attract businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to join the Haihan trade system. This decision was made by the executive committee, and the people below can only implement it unconditionally instead of questioning it. Even if Gong Shiqi knew that this was a big pit, I just had to bite the bullet.
The Haihan Security Department has not even established a rudimentary intelligence network in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. The so-called intelligence collection basically relies on the information provided by the Leading Party. The effects that this operating model can achieve are naturally very limited. For the monitoring of the docks, conference venues, and food and accommodation places with the largest flow of people during the investment fair, Gong Shiqi could only rely on the deployment of the military. He only imposed a number of temporary regulations that required notification to the security department in case of emergencies.
This passive monitoring method really made Gong Shiqi feel uneasy, so he simply set up his headquarters in the port area of Dinghaiwan, Zhoushan, the gateway to the investment fair. In this way, at least close surveillance can be achieved, and if there is any situation, we can respond in the shortest time. What happened later also fully proved that the measure taken by Gong Shiqi was still useful.
Speaking of this, we must mention the security measures for this investment conference. The military has deployed a large number of militia soldiers in several places with the largest flow of people. At the same time, the scope of activities of people landing on the island has also been classified and restricted. Except for the businessmen and entourage who came to participate in the investment conference, a large number of sailors and crew members were restricted to the port area and were not allowed to enter the venue area. To this end, a separate isolation line composed of bamboo fences, wooden fences, barbed wire and buildings was specially set up in the port area. There are people on duty to patrol day and night, and notices are posted in the port area to warn sailors not to easily try to cross the isolation line. Go offline to avoid being treated like a gangster.
Although the island has strict restrictions on the supply of alcohol, this is not a problem for sailors who travel on the sea all year round, because every sea ship will stock some alcohol to a greater or lesser extent. The consequence was that on the day before the investment conference, five or six drunken sailors caused trouble and fights in Dinghai Port. Fortunately, the militia soldiers on duty quickly calmed down these small-scale emergencies, and the follow-up investigation by the Ministry of Security did not find any hidden dangers. After all, the people involved in the fight were all with bare hands, and the few injured guys were also Not a serious skin injury.
The work Gong Shiqi is responsible for is not only the security of the port area. A large number of pirate prisoners captured previously are still being identified and interrogated. There is too much information that he needs to sort out and report to the Sanya headquarters. As for trivial matters such as fights between sailors, he didn't have much energy to deal with them one by one.
The morning of the first day of the Investment Promotion Fair was still calm, and it was not until noon that something happened. Staff from the Ministry of Commerce who came from the venue asked port staff to conduct an inventory and valuation of the goods on a certain cargo ship. The reason was that the cargo owner used the goods on the ship as collateral to exchange for commodity franchise rights. So the port staff went to the ship to find the owner of the cargo to handle relevant matters. However, there was no news about this person after he boarded the ship, as if he had disappeared into the sea. The staff waiting for news here were impatient. They happened to meet an old acquaintance of the officer who was leading the patrol at the port, so they asked him to help go over there to urge the news.
So the officer led a group of soldiers over. As soon as he arrived at the dock, still twenty or thirty meters away, he saw the people on the boat actually shooting bows and arrows towards him. Fortunately, the people on duty in the port area were all elite soldiers of the special operations battalion. Although it was an emergency, they did not lose their position and immediately launched a counterattack with muskets.
With the sound of gunshots, there was chaos on the dock. Then some people on several other ships took out weapons and started fighting with the Haihan troops on the dock. This was obviously not an individual incident, but a premeditated armed sneak attack. However, the military had already made plans for various situations that might arise during the investment fair, and even made corresponding preparations for large-scale anti-landing operations. Therefore, two companies of infantry soon rushed to the dock to join the battle.
The rifle fire quickly suppressed the sporadic firepower on the ship. After receiving the alarm, several warships rushed to the outside of the dock and blocked the departure channel. If the people on the ship tried to cut off the cables and escape, wait for them. There will be a merciless bombardment. As the Haihan soldiers advanced step by step, desperate gangsters continued to jump from the ship into the sea to escape. However, the coastline of the port area blocked by Haihan was several miles long, and it was not easy to escape from this area through the water.
It is a very unscientific thing for stragglers who use primitive weapons and lack unified command to compete head-on with a professional army that is well-trained and equipped with advanced equipment. The result of failure is destined to be irreversible. The people from the special operations battalion did not spend much effort to quell the commotion. Even the merchants participating in the investment conference a mile away were not aware of what was happening in the port area.
The soldiers found the body of the port worker on the ship where the incident occurred. It was obvious that he had been poisoned after boarding the ship. In addition, there were seven or eight corpses and a dozen injured people on board, as well as dozens of weapons such as knives and bows.
What frightened the security personnel who arrived later was that two nearly brand-new Haihan standard rifles were also found on the ship. Although it was only an export-type matchlock gun in the early years, the effective range of this gun still reached 100 meters. Just imagine if the assassin had been lurking on the ship, waiting for Haihan's important people to appear at the dock to fire a shot. If there is no hit, this responsibility is enough for the security department to drink a pot.
So while taking the captured gangsters back for interrogation, the Haihan military immediately blocked the port, prohibited all ships from entering and leaving the port, and began a comprehensive search of foreign ships docked at the seaside. After such a big incident, the ship bosses in the port area did not dare to say no to this kind of search, otherwise they would be regarded by Haihan as an accomplice of the gang and they would be arrested immediately.
The first thing Gong Shiqi did after arriving at the scene was to ask where the owner and cargo owner of the ship that had been involved in the accident were. The military's answer is that the ship owner jumped into the sea and escaped, and is still being hunted, while the cargo owner seems to be competing for a franchise on the island. The Security Department quickly found the Ministry of Commerce staff member who was still in a dazed state on the dock and asked him about the whereabouts of the cargo owner. So he led a group of soldiers and went straight to the dining place to find Wu Huanzhi who was confused. After a brief interrogation by the prisoners here, some confessed that they belonged to the Zhoushan Boat Gang. Wu Huanzhi had no idea that such a big mess had occurred at the port in the short period of time when he came out of the place where he went through the formalities. After Gong Qiqi asked a few questions, he could basically judge that this guy was also the target of being deceived. The several ships that made trouble in the port this time were almost all in similar situations, but the other ships only had sporadic gangsters mixed in. On the ship hired by Wu Huanzhi, except for him and his entourage, all the sailors and crew were from Zhoushan. Boat gang people.
There was a high possibility that Wu Huanzhi was innocent, but for safety reasons, Gong Shiqi could not let him go at this juncture, and immediately told him that he needed to stay here to cooperate with the investigation.
Although Wu Huanzhi tried to keep calm, he was still a little panicked when he heard that he was going to be detained. He quickly defended: "This military master, I really have nothing to do with the Zhoushan Shipping Gang, and I have no disrespect to Haihan. It’s useless to buckle here!”
Gong Shiqi responded coldly: "There may be some of their accomplices on the island. I can let you go. If the news is leaked and someone slips through the net, can you bear the responsibility? You can stay here honestly." Wait until the case investigation is clear and your innocence is proven, we will naturally let you go.”
Wu Huanzhi said anxiously: "Then I spent thousands of taels of silver to get the franchise, so what do you think?"
Gong Shiqi said: "Don't worry, you won't suffer any loss by doing business with us. As long as you are innocent and the previous agreement is still valid, we will also give you appropriate compensation. What you should do now is to cooperate with us. Wait here for news, the sooner we find out the truth, the sooner you can be free.”
Apart from admitting that he was unlucky, Wu Huanzhi had no other option at the moment. The current situation can no longer be affected by his status as a businessman. This Zhoushan Island is not a place that the Ming Dynasty can directly control. The decision is made by the Haihan people who now occupy this place. This group of people is extremely shrewd and cannot be fooled by a few nice words or a small amount of money. Wu Huanzhi not only secretly regretted why he didn't ask Zhou Hai, the owner of the ship, when renting the ship, maybe he would have a chance to see through the other party and avoid the trouble he would encounter on this trip to Zhoushan.
Gong Shiqi had no time to care about Wu Huanzhi's feelings. If he found out that what Wu Huanzhi said was a lie and that he was actually secretly colluding with the Zhoushan Boat Gang, then Wu Huanzhi would never have the chance to leave here safely. But judging from what we know so far, there is a high possibility that Wu Huanzhi is an innocent person who was implicated.
As the interrogation progressed, the general story of the entire incident was presented to Gong Shiqi. This group of gangsters who took advantage of the business meeting to lurk on the island are indeed members of the Zhoushan Boat Gang, and are personally commanded by their leader Wang Jialin. These people had been broken into pieces a few days before the incident. As sailors, they lurked on several ships that were preparing to come to Zhoushan Island to participate in investment promotion conferences, intending to look for opportunities to cause trouble on the island.
However, this group of people obviously did not expect that Haihan would block the entire port area and restrict the scope of activities of outsiders. Most of the ships docked in this port are foreign ships. The Haihan warships are all parked near Panzhi Island and Dongba Island outside the harbor. Even if they can burn all the ships here, they will not hurt Haihan. Han's fur.
In desperation, these people can only temporarily lurk in the port and wait for opportunities. At noon, when the port staff were about to board the ship to inventory the cargo, the bandit leader Wang Jialin happened to be convening people on the ship to distribute weapons and discuss the next move. The gangsters did not dare to refuse to let him board the ship, which would easily attract the attention of the Han soldiers at the dock, so they allowed him to board the ship and then took him into the cabin to kill him. Later, when the patrol was preparing to find the staff member, the people on the ship thought that their identities had been exposed and attracted the encirclement and suppression of the Haihan Army, so they temporarily launched an attempt to resist, but this futile action only attracted more opponents. .
In a battle that lasted only about ten minutes, Haihan's side defeated the Zhoushan Boat Gang's desperate struggle at the cost of only one person being seriously injured and five others slightly injured. After the war, a total of 23 bandits were killed on the spot and 11 were captured. According to the bandits' confessions, there are still seven people at large, including the bandit leader Wang Jialin.
Knowing that the bandit leader was still on the island, Gong Shiqi personally led the team to the dock again to preside over the search work, while reporting the news to the headquarters and requesting reinforcements. After Qian Tiandun received the news, he took it very seriously and sent Gao Qiaonan to bring elite soldiers from the reconnaissance platoon to the dock to support Gong Shiqi. At the same time, Shi Diwen also returned to the flagship Enterprise and ordered all naval personnel to cancel their vacations and return to their posts to prepare for war. The reconnaissance ship immediately left the port and searched the sea within a radius of five nautical miles to prevent the other party from having any back-ups.
However, the venue of the Investment Promotion Fair was still a lively scene, and the businessmen who had no idea what was happening at the port were still immersed in the exciting game of competing for exclusive rights. For them, nothing is more important right now than getting the opportunity to make money in the next two years.
(End of chapter)