Chapter 1941
In the original plan of Haihan officials, this inspection trip prepared for the Joseon Crown Prince would become the content of news reports, as a way to publicize the friendly relations between the two countries, and at the same time, to demonstrate to the people of the country what the country's diplomatic capabilities are. new achievements. The Propaganda Department sent Hong Jingwen to accompany him all the way, so that he could collect materials and write a manuscript as soon as possible, and then arrange for it to be published in the nearest official newspaper as soon as possible to ensure the timeliness of the news.
According to Hong Jingwen's plan, there will be a corresponding report on every stop Li Bo visits on this trip. However, the current incident in Changhua is obviously not suitable to be disclosed in newspapers. It will damage Haihan's positive image of good public security, and It will make outsiders question whether the security measures Haihan has prepared for foreign dignitaries are really reliable. Even if the propaganda department is asked to report the relevant situation, it will have to wait until the case is solved and the person is arrested.
Hong Jingwen was very wise, and after learning about the case later, he also obeyed Zhang Qianzhi's request. The publicity department only played a supporting role during this inspection trip, and Hong Jingwen had no intention of being in the limelight. A press release on this subject could easily overturn the ship if he was not careful. As a press officer, he needed to be careful in dealing with it. .
Zhang Qianzhi believes that there is no need to make major adjustments to the already arranged itinerary, but this matter is not his alone to have the final say. Bai Kesi and Qiao Zhiya are both in Changhua, so the decision must be made by these two big shots. But regardless of whether the itinerary is modified or not, he will probably be busy in the coming time. On the one hand, he must strengthen security measures with Gai Liangcai, and on the other hand, he must try to detect the attempted attack in Changhua.
After listening to Zhang Qianzhi's analysis, Bai Kesi and Qiao Zhiya praised Zhang Qianzhi's professional abilities. Qiao Zhiya even gave Zhang Qianzhi the authority to mobilize and command local military and police forces, and he was temporarily responsible for commanding related investigation work.
Zhang Qianzhi's investigation idea is very clear, that is, he must first try to trace the whereabouts of these dozen people. Where did they come from, where did they hide before the action, and where did they escape afterwards. It is impossible to leave no trace at all. Moreover, Zhang Qianzhi had drawn a general appearance of Xue Zheng based on the description of the cavalry involved, and had it confirmed by the freight foreman of the coke factory. Next, he would copy the portrait and launch a larger-scale investigation locally.
Since this group of people are porters pretending to be new immigrants, their supervisory unit, the local civil affairs management agency, has also joined in the co-investigation work, going to the shantytowns where new immigrants live to find out from the public whether such a group of people has arrived in the near future. . At the same time, Zhang Qianzhi did not let go of another possibility. These people only pretended to be porters during the operation, and at other times they may appear as businessmen, sailors, etc. who came to Changhua for a temporary stay. Therefore, large and small hotels, restaurants, pubs, tea shops, etc. inside and outside the county have also become the targets of investigations to find his whereabouts.
To complete such a large-scale investigation, the manpower required is not small. Fortunately, Zhang Qianzhi was authorized to mobilize the local military and police forces, so starting from the afternoon, various people launched a detailed investigation inside and outside Changhua County. Zhang Qianzhi cannot go to the front line yet, so he must seize the time to draw a few more portraits of the suspect with two temporarily found local painters so that front-line investigators can confirm his whereabouts more quickly.
Li Pu didn't know that the Haihan people had such a big reaction to a suspected attack that was not carried out in the morning. He really thought that Qiao Zhiya changed the lunch originally scheduled for the industrial area to return to Daling Manor because of Bai Kesi. arrival. However, after lunch, Haihan's two senior officials said they had official business to deal with and excused themselves. They did not say whether the afternoon visit arrangements would be carried out as originally planned. Several of Haihan's accompanying officials were also constantly coming in and out, and it seemed that there were many things that needed their intervention. Li Bo asked Tian Zheng about the afternoon arrangements, but did not get a clear response.
"Your Majesty, there seems to be something going on here in Haihan. It may be related to the news I heard in the workshop this morning." Li Xi was quite alert and reported his findings to Li Bo when no one was around: "Then Captain Gai didn't take a break at noon, and kept giving lectures to his subordinates. I went to listen for a while, all of which emphasized how to strengthen security measures. "
Li Mu said: "Perhaps someone really wants to harm the senior officials of Haihan. I really want to see how the Haihan people handle this kind of incident, but I guess they won't give this chance."
Li Bo acted very relaxed about this, but if he knew that the protagonist of the incident was actually him, he might have a different feeling. He had never encountered a situation like this when he was in China before, and he never thought that someone would make an attack plan against him in Haihan. On the contrary, he was quite excited about the current situation and wanted to understand the Haihan people. processing method.
Li Xi advised: "Your Majesty, there is no need to ask. Since they are unwilling to take the initiative to explain, they must have something that is inconvenient for us to know."
Li Pu nodded and said: "You are right, the Haihan people are very happy about success. If they are sure that they can do something beautifully, they will definitely show it to us to promote their strength. If they are so secretive, most of the things will happen. It’s strange. If you go to ask them, I’m afraid it will make them embarrassed.”
Li Bo has been dealing with the Haihan people for a long time, and he has also noticed that this group is very concerned about face when dealing with the outside world, and they especially like to show foreigners the glamorous side of their country - for example, what Li Bo saw and heard after coming to Haihan is In this way, the environment he was exposed to most of the time was arranged by Haihan officials. It was like there was a stage surrounding him, striving to present the perfect scene before his eyes at all times.
Of course, the more places he travels, the more he understands Haihan, and Li Bo gradually realizes that this country is not as beautiful as it seems on the surface. On the edge of the prosperous city, there are also shabby shantytowns where the lower class live; it is said that this is the largest iron ore mine in the entire South China Sea, and the lives of many hard labor prisoners were lost in the mine; and there is this place that a senior official from Haihan called " The Changhua Industrial Zone, a "national treasure" and an "industrial base", is shrouded in dense smoke and dust all year round. The environment here is not even suitable for long-term human habitation.
There is no doubt about the power of Haihan, but this power is not entirely supported by the various pioneering technologies boasted by the Haihan people. This is probably difficult to imagine if you have not come to Haihan in person. A country also has its wild and even primitive side.
Of course, Li Ming knew very well that the purpose of his trip was not to find fault with Haihan, but to find parts of the projects he visited that were suitable for his country, and to consider how to introduce Haihan's strengths in operating these industries to North Korea. . In the several places he has visited, Li Bo believes that there are still many parts that his country can successfully imitate, and those production links that require steam engines can also be supplemented with manpower. However, the investment in the development stage of these industries in Haihan is huge, which is not a small problem for North Korea, which is currently in the post-war reconstruction period.
After a long lunch break, Qiao Zhiya carried out the previous itinerary and asked Li Bo and his party to continue to the industrial zone to visit the local metal processing industry. However, because of what happened in the morning, the security arrangements were specially strengthened.
In the past few hours, the main area of Changhua Industrial Zone has been screened almost again. Of course, nothing was found. However, in order to ensure that North Koreans will not encounter similar situations during their visit, the checkpoints in and out of the industrial zone have also been increased. We have stepped up inspections and temporarily banned non-Hispanic workers from entering this area. For those workers who make a living as porters in industrial areas, the jobs they can receive today will be greatly reduced as a result. The workshop that we were going to visit in the afternoon had been cleaned inside and outside before that, and a large isolation area was deployed around it. There were more than 40 cavalrymen on duty outside. ——This is almost all the cavalry personnel in the local garrison in Changhua. The garrison even specially brought in iron network roadblocks and set up temporary checkpoints on nearby streets to prohibit unauthorized persons from passing during the visit of North Koreans.
Qiao Zhiya's personal guard was responsible for the task of setting up defenses inside and outside the workshop, and also set up lookout posts high on the walls of several surrounding workshops to ensure that there were no blind spots around the workshop.
The men and horses led by Gai Liangcai were responsible for the close defense of Li Shu and others in the workshop. They also cooperated with Qiao Zhiya's guards to prepare an action plan for evacuating the workshop in case of emergency.
In terms of security intensity, such a deployment of three floors inside and three outside can be regarded as the level of a large-scale war. Even if Tao Donglai came to Changhua in person, the security measures may not be more than this. In this way, if anyone is hiding in the dark and trying to attack the Koreans, they will be directly dissuaded by such a large formation.
Of course, these arrangements were all in vain. At this time, the ship Xue Zheng and others were traveling on was already more than 20 miles away from Changhua Port, and they had no intention of fighting back. Xue Zheng was determined to rush to Danzhou to make arrangements in advance, hoping to succeed there.
The investigation made some progress that afternoon. The restaurant where Qiao Zhiya hosted a banquet for Li Bo on the day he arrived in Changhua received more than a dozen foreigners the next day. These people had asked the waiter in the shop separately. The situation of Guodaling Manor and Changhua Industrial Zone. However, the shopkeeper could not confirm that the person with the suspect's portrait was one of the group that day, but the figure and accent of one of them were consistent with the suspect information that Zhang Qianzhi received from the cavalry. Zhang Qianzhi's intuition was that this was because the man was in disguise, but there was insufficient evidence, and it was still difficult to confirm that this was the suspect who attempted to launch an attack in the industrial area.
However, with this clue, Zhang Qianzhi was able to follow the clues for further tracking. Judging from what these people inquired about, they were not familiar with the local area and most likely had just arrived in Changhua. This also coincides with Zhang Qianzhi's inference that the target of the attack was North Koreans - if they were to be dealt with The target was Qiao Zhiya, so in theory there would be no need to act so hastily. The Crown Prince of Joseon will not stay here for too long, and obviously will not leave much time for the other party to plan. He can only take action when he gets the opportunity.
Zhang Qianzhi judged that if the other party came to Changhua to hunt down Li Bo, it was unlikely that he came from the direction of Danzhou, because although the time of Li Bo's departure from Sanya was public, only a few high-level officials from Danzhou came to pick him up. After receiving the telegram notification of arriving at Victory Fort, we learned the itinerary of Li Bo and his party. Ordinary people still don't know about this. He believes that the most likely scenario is that this group of people chased them all the way from Sanya. Judging from the time, this group of people should not have arrived by land, carriages and horses, so the only possibility was to take a boat.
In fact, there is no actual evidence in many of these links. Zhang Qianzhi made inferences based on experience and intuition. If it is to be used in court to judge the case, the evidence will definitely be insufficient. But Zhang Qianzhi is from the Ministry of Security. In many cases, there is no need for evidence to do things. As long as it makes sense in theory, measures can be taken first.
Once it was confirmed that the other party might have come from the sea, the scope of the investigation was greatly reduced again. Although Changhua is a place close to the sea, the only serious seaport is the estuary of the Changhua River. You only need to check the ships entering and leaving the port in the past few days, and then limit it to special time points, such as Li Before and after arriving in Changhua, he and his party entered the port and picked up a large number of ships carrying foreign passengers.
Of course, such a survey is not comprehensive. Zhang Qianzhi is also prepared to check the entry and exit status of ship personnel in recent days at several fishing village docks on the local coastline. But the investigation results at Changhua Port gave him an unexpected surprise - a ship entered the port the morning after their fleet arrived in Changhua, and the ship arrived at Changhua Port at midnight the night before. Just because there was no berth at the port, I had to wait one night. The ship's departure time happened to be shortly after the incident in the industrial zone this morning and before Qiao Zhiya's order prohibiting all ships from leaving the port without authorization was implemented.
According to the recollections of the port staff on duty that day, although the ship failed to enter the port that night, more than ten people on board took a small boat ashore to find another place to stay. Then the investigators soon found the hotel where they were accommodated that night, and once again confirmed from the hotel waiter that the group had inquired about the best local reception agency and about the situation of Daling Manor.
One doubt and two doubts may be coincidence, but if everything matches, the probability of coincidence will be reduced exponentially. Zhang Qianzhi doesn't believe there are so many coincidences, he trusts his intuition more.
"So what kind of ship is that? A merchant ship? A cargo ship? A passenger ship?" Zhang Qianzhi asked for details from his subordinates who came to report the progress of the investigation.
"The specific purpose is unknown. At present, we can only confirm that it is a lucky ship with about 200 materials." The subordinate responded quickly.
"Fortunate ship?" Zhang Qianzhi seemed to have remembered something when he heard this answer.
(End of chapter)