Chapter 1954
As an organization whose main functions are the collection, analysis, and organization of intelligence information, the Ministry of Security has its own set of methods for conducting information warfare in the seventeenth-century environment, and has achieved fairly good results in the past few years. Although the current situation is somewhat urgent, those involved in the operation are all well-trained professionals, and Zhang Qianzhi is still quite confident that it will be successful.
According to the information known to Wang Baisuo and his subordinates, there are indeed several underground brokers engaged in gray transactions in the local area, and the business is not small. People from various countries who come in and out of Danzhou have direct or indirect customers. In addition to providing some information in the commercial field to transnational businessmen, these brokers also engage in some invisible transactions, such as connecting foreign businessmen with certain local officials, or secretly selling materials that are officially prohibited from circulation, and other Some less than legal operations.
As long as the local stability is not endangered, Wang Baisuo has always turned a blind eye to the existence of these brokers, and has not spent any energy to delve into information such as their identities and backgrounds. This is not because he has neglected his duties, but because the interests involved in these brokers are too complex, including people from the government. If the Ministry of Security actively intervenes, they may be indirectly used as a tool in officialdom struggles. Therefore, even if Wang Baisuo knew the existence of these situations, he would usually just sit on the sidelines and not interfere easily.
However, if these brokers are currently used to spread news and lure enemies who may be lurking in the dark, they will definitely not come forward to handle this matter in the name of the Ministry of Security. But this is of course not a problem for Wang Baisuo. In addition to their positions in the Ministry of Security, the people under him all have other identities. Most of them are clerks and clerks in government agencies and various official organizations. . Using these identities to release information about the Joseon Crown Prince's itinerary to brokers would not be so easy for others to doubt its authenticity.
"Everyone, this matter is of great importance. If there is any progress, I hope you can report it as soon as possible. If we can successfully lure the snake out of the hole this time and catch those murderers, I will personally ask Minister He for you after the case is completed. Gong! ”
Zhang Qianzhi knew that whether the matter would be successful or not would depend on the performance of these subordinates, so he quickly gave a few more instructions, promised rewards, and urged everyone to handle the matter seriously.
The shrimp has its own way, and the crab has its own way. These agents of the Ministry of Security have their own way of doing things. They did not rashly release information about North Koreans to black market channels, but first relied on several agents controlled by the Ministry of Security. channel, and offered a price on the black market for accurate information about the visit of the Joseon Crown Prince to Danzhou.
Yes, that's right. The Ministry of Security did the opposite, first creating the illusion that someone was acquiring relevant news, and the price offered was not low. Of course, it is impossible for brokers in the black market to have information about North Koreans, but the high prices offered by buyers will drive them to actively spread the news in order to find channels to get information about North Koreans as soon as possible, and then they will be the first to make the purchase. Then resell it to a buyer for a good price. The effect the Ministry of Security wants to achieve is for black market brokers to spontaneously announce this situation. If an opponent is lurking in Danzhou and trying to obtain the North Koreans' itinerary, they will definitely notice this trend.
Such an approach might confuse adversaries why anyone else besides them is so interested in the North Koreans' itinerary. But before they could figure out what was going on, the Department of Security would take the next step.
In fact, because Xue Zheng was worried about exposing his whereabouts and was not very familiar with the local situation in Danzhou, he did not arrange for his men to pay close attention to the intelligence trading on the black market in real time. Using Mr. Huo's line to spend money to buy information is no longer an option at the moment. It involves a lot of risks. Xue Zheng does not dare to take the initiative to find other information channels, otherwise he will be betrayed by the powerful Huo. The husband realized that he might turn around and package up his group and sell them to the government.
But despite Xue Zheng's cautious thoughts, others may not think he is so "honest." Not long after the news came out that someone was bidding on the North Korean's itinerary on the black market, Mr. Huo sent someone to the inn where he was staying to question him about trying to find another way to acquire information.
"Boss Xue, since you have already negotiated the price terms with my boss, just wait for the news. Why are you still letting the news out that you want to buy the North Korean trip at a high price? Do you know that doing so will only be counterproductive and make my boss unable to Trust you again!”
The visitor's fierce words made Monk Xue Zheng Zhanger confused. He had no idea what was going on. After some persuasion, he slowly asked and found out that someone had offered 10,000 yuan to buy the itinerary of the Prince of Korea's visit to Danzhou. Although this price is much lower than Mr. Huo's asking price, it is still considered a big deal in the market. After all, information that can sell for tens of thousands is not always available. So now the Danzhou black market brokers, big and small, have begun to take action, hoping to find information and make money.
But in fact, due to security problems in Changhua, the official deliberately controlled the information related to the visit of the Joseon Crown Prince to Danzhou, so this arrangement has not been made public locally, let alone the specific itinerary. As a well-known local broker and intelligence dealer, Mr. Huo, of course, received the news immediately. His first reaction was that Xue Zheng was not confident about his ability to do things, and wanted to find another way to collect information on his own and lower the price. I couldn't help but be furious at the moment.
Mr. Huo does not think that this method of casting a wide net can really buy relevant information, because his information channels should be far more reliable than most black market brokers, and he has not made any progress yet. Don't worry about others. Even if Xue Zheng goes out to buy it at a high price, no one will be able to sell him real information. However, because the number of people in Danzhou who have access to such high-level diplomatic information is limited, others may seek the information channel he controls, and in order to ensure exclusive possession of the information source, he has to come up with more information. High remuneration for safety.
There may be two results after such a tossing. One is that Mr. Huo paid more to buy the information in time, or did the Xue Zheng deal, but the profit will be relatively smaller; the other may be to master After the person with the relevant intelligence heard the news, he skipped the step of letting the middleman Mr. Huo make the difference and directly contacted Xue Zheng to sell the information to him, leaving Mr. Huo with nothing. But no matter which one it was, Mr. Huo couldn't accept it, so he immediately sent someone to warn Xue Zheng and asked Xue Zheng not to take things for granted.
Of course Xue Zheng was so confused about this that Mr. Huo's subordinates also murmured, not sure whether this was due to Xue Zheng's superior acting skills or a real misunderstanding among people collecting intelligence in the market. It's not him.
"Is it possible that there is another group of people doing the same thing as me?" Xue Zheng couldn't help but have a strange idea in his mind. There are several forces behind his team. It is not completely impossible to send other teams to perform this task at the same time. However, he has not received the notice at all and cannot confirm whether his idea is true. Xue Zheng could only explain to those who came that he had not released purchase information through other channels, nor did he intend to make such an attempt, because doing so might expose his purpose and attract unnecessary attention, allowing officials to take precautions in advance.
"I also told Mr. Huo before that as long as we can get real and reliable information, price is not an issue. You can go back and tell Mr. Huo that it doesn't matter to us if you spend tens of thousands more or less on this matter. , we will not change the agreement we reached with Mr. Huo just to save a few dollars, but we must be quick, we must get the news as soon as possible”
Xue Zheng quickly explained the whole story to Mr. Huo's men, and persuaded them to believe him for the time being and bring a message back to Mr. Huo. In order to show that he was not short of money, Xue Zheng readily took out one hundred yuan of Haihan coins and handed it to the visitor as payment for his hard work.
After sending the person away, Xue Zheng's face immediately darkened. He really didn't expect that such an unexpected situation would happen when things came, and it almost completely disrupted his original plan. If Mr. Huo loses trust in him because of this and interrupts the originally negotiated deal, he will have to find another source of information at this time. The outside world has already made a big deal about this matter, and the risk of exposure will undoubtedly increase greatly. .
But Xue Zheng had to consider another possibility, that is, an insider would choose to sell the information to other suitors because of the price on the black market. Mr. Huo's intelligence source may be very appropriate, but it may not be the only intelligence source on the market, so Xue Zheng made a special request to Mr. Huo to get the relevant information as soon as possible.
At the same time, he must also consider the more extreme situation, that is, if Mr. Huo fails to obtain the information in time, then he may have to adopt the current operation on the black market and directly purchase the information at a high price - there is no doubt that It would be a very risky operation.
Xue Zheng couldn't help but sigh. He originally thought that arriving in Danzhou in advance would give him an advantage and be able to more calmly deploy an action plan to deal with the Koreans. However, the reality was far more difficult than he imagined. The North Koreans' itinerary arrangements have already consumed a lot of their energy, and they are taking huge risks at all times, but now they are still not sure at all.
Is this Korean's life so good? Xue Zheng couldn't help but murmur in his heart. Earlier when he was in Changhua, an unexpected situation disrupted his plan and he had to temporarily terminate the operation and evacuate voluntarily. Could it be that a similar situation is going to happen again in Danzhou, where the government declares failure without even being able to see the Korean people in person?
Xue Zheng shook his head. If this was the result, he would have no way to go back and deliver the work. In any case, he couldn't fail without even trying, and he didn't plan to leave the action to the next stop of the Koreans. God knows if he would still have a chance to take action after giving in again.
While Xue was worrying about poor information collection in Danzhou, the unknowing Li Meng was still visiting Heitu Port. What impressed him most was not the advanced management system and various production technologies used by Haihan in the process of mining coal here. After all, the relatively high production efficiency was already a basic operation for Haihan, and he was no longer surprised. Strange, but it was Haihan's mining-based overseas colony in Black Earth Port that gave Li Bo a better understanding of Haihan's external expansion methods.
Since he went abroad and went south, he has visited many of Haihan's overseas ruling areas, but almost all of these areas are based on seaports, supplemented by the development of maritime trade, agriculture, and fisheries. But he has never seen Black Earth Port with such a reputation. Natural resource based dominion area. It can be said that Haihan built such a seaside city in this originally uninhabited place because of the coal resources buried underground. This shows how strong Haihan's thirst for important resources is.
However, Li Ming does not need to worry about Haihan taking over the coal mines in the Datong River Basin in his country for the time being. The quality of the coal in Heitu Port far exceeds that of the coal mines being mined near Pyongyang City, and according to Xie Chun, the fuel of the Haihan steam warship All coal is clean coal shipped from here, and other relatively poor-quality coal will not be supplemented overseas unless absolutely necessary, so the coal mines near Pyongyang City are not very attractive to Haihan.
Li Bo is actually worried about the iron ore that has been discovered to be mined at the mouth of the Datong River. If North Korea does not have enough manpower and material resources to activate this mineral deposit, then the Haihan people will look at this place right under their noses and refuse to go. Touch? Li Ming didn't think the Haihan people were so honest. He witnessed with his own eyes that in order to mine the Shilu iron ore in the inland mountainous area, the Haihan people laid more than 80 miles of railway tracks from the sea and opened up Shilu regardless of the cost. The passage between the iron mine and the outside world. Looking at the coal mine in front of him, which was five hundred miles away from the mainland of Haihan, he had no doubt that the Haihan people would do whatever they could to obtain a high-quality mineral deposit.
Moreover, the Haihan people did not just open mines and be done with it. The black soil port directly became the territory of the Haihans in a few years. If the domestic mineral deposits were also seized and operated by the Haihan people in the name of mining, then it is impossible to say that in a few years it will be the same in North Korea. The next Black Earth Port, Red Earth Port, and White Earth Port will appear...
Of course, Li Bo would not express his worries in front of Haihan senior officials, but he still learned in detail from Xie Chun and others about Haihan's development of Black Earth Port. But the more he learned about it, the more he felt that there were many similarities between the situation of Annan at that time and the situation of North Korea today. He secretly made up his mind to write a secret memorial about his experiences here as soon as possible and send it back to the country, urging his father to Wang hopes to launch the Datong River iron ore project as soon as possible so as not to leave more room for Haihan to operate.
(End of chapter)