Chapter 2015
For Haihan, North Korea is currently one of the most important allies and the top priority of Haihan's diplomatic work in the past two years. This is related to Haihan's development plans in Northeast Asia in the next few years. For this reason, Haihan has invested a lot of resources in North Korea in the past few years, and even organized coalition forces to go to North Korea to help it expel foreign enemy invasion. The political, economic, cultural, military and other fields are exerting force at the same time, with the purpose of drawing North Korea into the international camp led by Haihan.
Under such a major policy, the political stance of the current and future rulers of North Korea has naturally become one of Haihan's goals in the diplomatic field. In addition to trying his best to win over King Li Zhu, Haihan also put a lot of effort into his successor Li Zhi. For example, by arranging for Li Zhi to study abroad in Haihan, he hoped to take this opportunity to instill more ideas in favor of Haihan in Li Zhi, so that after he took over the power of rule, North Korea could continue to be Haihan's ally.
However, the matter of arranging for Li Zhi to study abroad in Haihan was still a secret to the outside world before Li Zhi set off from Seoul. The Spanish base was far away in the depths of the South China Sea. Logically speaking, it was impossible to learn of Li Zhi's visit in time. The news about Haihan was that Li Xie participated in the assassination operation not long after he arrived on Hainan Island. Moreover, the Spanish did not seem to see any motive for directly benefiting from this matter.
It is difficult for He Xi to provide a clear answer to Tao Donglai's question: "This probably won't be clear until we catch the Spaniards involved. But I think their involvement is just to show their attitude. The real messengers are In fact, they are the unidentified southern maritime merchants.”
"Oh? How do you say this?"
"According to the information we have, there are no official contacts between Spain and North Korea, and there is no open trade, so they actually don't have much practical interests in North Korea. Even if Li Zhen is gone, the King of North Korea will have another heir. , There is no direct benefit to Spain, but it may not be to those maritime merchants. Before us, there were many Han maritime merchants trading with North Korea. If their partners in the country were officials who opposed Li Xie's succession. , it is very likely that it will convey some wrong information to the Han maritime merchants and induce them to take action against Li Zhen in our country."
The possibility that He Xi mentioned does exist objectively, and the inference is more reasonable, because everyone has determined that for the Spaniards to be able to intervene in the affairs of these areas, there must be someone pulling the strings, and in the case of assassinating the crown prince of Joseon The behind-the-scenes instigator revealed in the film seems to fit this setting exactly.
"But who are these Han maritime merchants? Is there any evidence to prove that they have interests entangled with North Korea?" Bai Kesi asked.
He Xi smiled bitterly and said: "This is what we are going to investigate with all our strength now. We know that these people are key figures, but we don't know their true identities. I have reason to suspect that the incidents that happened in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Liaodong were also caused by this group of people." People are doing evil in secret. If their identities and origins are found out, perhaps the truth about these cases will be revealed.”
The Ministry of Security has actually thought of many ways to investigate the identities of these mysterious masterminds, but so far the progress has not been very satisfactory. Although these people captured in Danzhou have confessed one after another, the information obtained from them is far from meeting the expectations of the Ministry of Security. Most of them are messengers who communicate with their employers through a single line. The other party will issue tasks to them at certain specific points in time, as well as corresponding remuneration. However, there are very few opportunities to actually meet with the employer. Not necessarily once.
Regarding the true identity of the employer, the exact information these people could provide was too vague. He Xi had to mobilize members of the security department overseas to slowly verify the authenticity of this information. But He Xi is not too optimistic about whether they can follow the clues to find the real owner, because many days have passed since the group was arrested and they began to confess. If their employer realizes that the group has lost contact, they will probably All previous contact information has been cleared.
Although the true identity of the opponent is still unclear, He Xi can truly feel that the opponent's approach this time is different from the opponents he has encountered in the past. He does not follow the rules, does not care about the cost, and does not care about the price. He is like a gangster. Luzi's approach, but his skill is astonishingly large. Just the span of this region and country is definitely not something that ordinary people can complete. He Xi even believed that even Ming Dynasty's official intelligence agency might not be able to do better than this group of people.
Such a gang with experience, organization and financial resources suddenly appeared without warning. He Xi felt that this situation was unscientific. To be honest, on the entire southeastern coast, almost all powerful maritime merchants have more or less entangled interests with Haihan, and most of those merchants who reject or even intend to fight against Haihan will slowly disappear after a period of time. Disappeared from the market.
Only by being in the same camp as Haihan can you ensure that you can make big money safely. This has basically become the consensus of maritime merchants along the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty. What considerations did He Xi have for having the audacity to act against Haihan under such circumstances? This is a question that He Xi has never figured out. The only measure he can take is to conduct a large-scale investigation to investigate those businessmen who have had issues or conflicts with Haihan. However, this kind of investigation is time-consuming and laborious. If it is not for the overwhelming luck, there will probably not be any special breakthroughs in the short term. .
Since the establishment of the Ministry of Security ten years ago, it seems that it has rarely encountered such a situation that cannot be opened during the investigation of cases, and this time it is not just the Ministry of Security who feels the difficulty in the investigation process, but also participates in the investigation The Military Intelligence Bureau also failed to make much progress. The two intelligence agencies, which have long been mainly in a competitive relationship, have become brothers this time and have to cooperate in part of the investigation work and share the intelligence information they have.
"I think the investigation has reached a dead end. Have you ever considered changing the direction of the investigation?" Gu Kai, who had been silent, suddenly broke the awkward silence: "Think about what we have so far. In fact, we have already found out the general situation, who provided the weapons and who is using the weapons. The biggest problem now is that we cannot find out who provided the channel for this cooperation, but our investigation is focused on that. On the weapons user side, why not try to investigate from the other side?”
He Xi asked thoughtfully: "You mean, we directly investigate the Spaniards?"
Gu Kai nodded and said: "Yes, the Spaniards' current territory is far away from Hainan Island. They should not get relevant news so quickly. I think you can consider trying this approach."
"It's not that I can't give it a try..." Although He Xi felt that Gu Kai's suggestion was a bit bold, it made sense after thinking about it. If the Spaniards were in contact with the forces on the mainland through the channels provided by intermediaries, then the feedback of information would be very slow for cooperation with such a large geographical span. After the Spanish were defeated in Manila, their range of activities had retreated south to near the equator, thousands of miles away from Hainan Island and Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Considering that they may have to pass through intermediaries to obtain information, the delay will definitely be longer. It is also difficult to respond in a timely manner to changes on the continent.
As for how to get to the areas controlled by Spain in the South China Sea, this is not impossible to solve. After the war in Manila, although most of the Spaniards managed to flee the area, there were still a considerable number of Hispanic people who had no choice but to stay and accept Haihan's rule.
In post-war Manila, it was not uncommon for Hispanic locals to choose to serve Haihan. For example, the former Spanish official Colonel Francis successfully changed his identity from the commander of the Manila City Defense to the director of the Hispanic People's Administration. As for the younger generation who were born and raised in Manila, their sense of belonging to the Spanish Empire is not that strong to begin with. Many of them want to take advantage of this opportunity of changing dynasties to seek an opportunity to break through class.
Ran Tianlu, the local head of the Ministry of Security, and Fang Peng, the local head of the Military Intelligence Bureau, were familiar with the situation in Manila, and after the war, they successively recruited some people from the local area. Not all of these people are Han Chinese, there are also young Hispanic people with dark eyes and high noses who can’t even speak Chinese.
The purpose of absorbing these young Hispanics into the intelligence agency is, of course, to send them to perform missions against Spain one day. If we want to investigate the Spaniards far south of Manila, then trying to send these Hispanic spies is undoubtedly the most appropriate choice. However, doing so will inevitably involve certain risks. First of all, these people have not been with Haihan for a long time, and their loyalty has not been sufficiently tested. Secondly, the training they have received may not be up to the level of carrying out such investigative tasks. Risks However, sending them to Spanish-controlled areas to collect intelligence may not necessarily achieve the expected results.
But the current investigation has indeed reached a dead end as Gu Kai described. Increasing the direction of the investigation and launching related investigations against the Spaniards in the South China Sea may be a solution to the problem. If done well, it can harvest intelligence and train a group of Hispanic intelligence personnel at the same time, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone. If it doesn't go so smoothly, it will just get nothing, and it will not be worse than the current situation. At most, it will lose a few Hispanic newcomers, but it cannot be said to be a big loss to the Ministry of Security and Military Intelligence.
While He Xi was still weighing the pros and cons, Yan Chujie first expressed his position on behalf of the military: "Gu Kaiti can try this method. Even if he doesn't get any information related to the several cases here, he can still collect some other information. ”
Yan Chujie's idea is to first lower the net to catch a few fish if there are no fish. If you can't catch the big fish, if you can catch some small fish and shrimp, it is not in vain. For Haihan, the current situation of the Spanish colonists in the South China Sea was valuable information. Even if he just sent someone over to take a look, the trip would definitely not be in vain.
This idea is very practical, and probably only the military would consider the pros and cons so directly. Yan Chujie's statement basically represents the attitude of the Military Intelligence Bureau. If He Xi didn't follow up, then this would be a gamble. She could only respond at the moment: "Minister Yan is right. After the meeting is over, I will send a telegram as soon as possible and let Manila arrange the action."
It only took a few sentences for the big shots in the executive committee to make such a decision, but He Xi knew that it was enough to keep the people below busy for a long time. No matter how efficient it is, it will inevitably take a month or two to formulate an action plan, select personnel to perform the task, send people to unknown areas in the South China Sea, and then complete the investigation to obtain feedback. But at present, it seems that since this is one of the few feasible directions for investigation, and there may be additional gains, we can only implement the resolution of the Executive Committee accordingly.
However, as Yan Chujie said, this kind of mission actually involves collecting intelligence in many fields. He Xi is also prepared to make full use of this mission to maximize the possible effects. For example, it might be a good time to take this opportunity to start building an intelligence network mainly composed of Hispanic intelligence personnel in the Spanish-controlled areas of the South China Sea.
Of course, establishing an intelligence network in enemy-controlled areas is not as easy as it sounds. It requires careful planning, a lot of investment, and capable and reliable execution personnel. Although the members of the Security Department currently stationed in Manila are of good quality, their quantity is really limited. If you want to carry out such a task, you really have to rely on local Hispanic intelligence personnel.
"Both the Ministry of Security and the Military Intelligence Bureau let it go!" Tao Donglai quickly set the tone for this matter: "The recent series of events have shown that the struggle between us and Spain will not end soon, so for No matter whether the subsequent investigation goes smoothly, we must establish a monitoring system for the Spanish and we must try to limit their activities to the south of Luzon Island!”
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Tao Donglai's attitude basically represents the attitude of the Executive Committee, and as long as the Executive Committee expresses its approval, the resources and funds required for follow-up actions should not be a problem, and it will also help them eliminate problems to a certain extent. No worries.
Sure enough, in the later voting session, the Executive Committee passed a resolution on launching a special investigation into the Spanish-controlled areas, and authorized the Ministry of Security and Military Intelligence to implement this resolution and take all measures within their functions to ensure the implementation of this resolution. implementation.
After the meeting, the Ministry of Security and the Military Intelligence Bureau held separate meetings and began to deploy related tasks. Later that day, the relevant resolution was telegraphed to Manila. At this time, more than twenty days had passed since the arrest of the Danzhou case was completed, and it had been three days since Gong Shiqi's team returned to Zhoushan. In the distant Liaodong, Sun Bing had just discovered traces of Spanish activities. Investigations in various places seemed No major progress has been made yet, but clues found in various places are slowly being connected together, all pointing to the Spaniards in the South China Sea.
(End of chapter)