Chapter 2021
In order to create a credible enough background information for Jose's team, the Ministry of Security and Military Intelligence also worked hard on this. In addition to making up a story that the Spaniards could believe, they also had to Every detail was carefully prepared, including the corpses and related items on the ship, and every piece of evidence was carefully prepared by these two intelligence agencies.
Even if the Spaniards asked professionals to conduct autopsies, they would basically not be able to find any loopholes, because those corpses were really the felons who were executed just before Jose's team set off, and the fatal injuries on their bodies were similar to those of the prisoners. Jose's experience of escaping from prison and fighting back is exactly the same.
This means that there is no exaggeration or fabrication in Jose's account, and every detail, including the time of action, can withstand scrutiny.
The cargo carried on the ship, the personal belongings of the escort, and the secret letters sealed with fire paint found in their luggage were all designed to make the whole story more authentic and believable.
The Spaniards who were exiled by Haihan rose up and resisted. After killing the guards, they successfully hijacked the ship and escaped. The big winner in this incident was undoubtedly the Spanish side.
Therefore, whether it was Second Lieutenant Joaquin who first discovered the ship, or the city defense commander Fernando who questioned Jose face to face, all the information they received showed that the deeds of Jose and others were heroic. It was a shot in the arm for the passive colonial authorities.
Fernando was very satisfied with the humility shown by Jose in front of him. Although the young man in front of him did not look amazing, he did not appear to be frightened by the murder and escaped. His speech was still very organized, which showed that his psychological quality should not be bad. .
If all Hispanic young people in the colonies have such qualities, then why should they be afraid of the pressure exerted by the Haihan people?
"You did a great job! This is how our Spanish warriors should react when facing the enemy!"
Fernando waved his fist excitedly: "Young man, you should be rewarded for your heroic actions. I will report this to the Governor. I believe he will be happy to hear such news!"
There is no doubt that the Governor of the Philippines, Aragones, was a staunch militant. Although he suffered repeated defeats, his attitude towards the Haihans never softened. And this sailing ship, which was snatched from the Haihans by Spanish prisoners, This is a rare piece of positive news in recent times. Fernando is sure that this incident will make Aragones very excited, and these brave young people should be rewarded.
Fernando told Joaquin to settle the people on the ship first, and he returned to the city with the secret letter found on the ship, and went to the Governor's Palace to report the good news to Aragones.
Sure enough, after listening to Fernando's detailed description, Aragones also thought this was a very inspiring special case.
"We should immediately invite these warriors to the city and hold a grand reception banquet for them to commend their heroic actions. At the same time, we should also use this as an opportunity to warn the weak surrenderers that only by resisting bravely can the evil forces be defeated. Haihan people!”
Aragones' few words had already set the tone for the subsequent handling of the entire matter.
For Aragones, he needed some such inspiring battle examples to guide the direction of public opinion in the colony. Otherwise, if those civil servants who advocated peace talks continued to make trouble, the resistance to the reconstruction of the local armed forces would only increase.
Of course, it is not accurate to classify this incident as a war example. After all, Jose and others are not soldiers, but just ordinary people in Manila who failed to escape in time. Moreover, the entire incident is not a military conflict, but a personal escape for survival. Just behavior.
But Aragones believes that as long as it is done properly, this can have the effect of changing the direction of the wind.
As soon as he said it, Fernando immediately asked someone to send an order to bring Jose and others to Cebu City.
However, such treatment was only provided to the three Spaniards on the ship. As for the other indigenous Filipino crew members, neither Aragones nor Fernando planned to give them any additional rewards.
After all, the colonial authorities have always regarded the local indigenous people as tool people, and they are still the kind with limited abilities. Even if they are given better treatment, they will not be able to play a greater role, so they might as well save these unnecessary things. Expenditure, just let them do whatever they have to do.
After arranging this matter, the next step is the secret letter found on the ship.
Judging from the letterhead and signature on the envelope, it was an official letter between the top officials of Manila and Sing Tao. Moreover, there was a paint seal on the envelope, so it was very likely that there were some important secrets in it.
Aragones still had trustworthy Han staff, so he summoned a Han man named Cheng Mu to interpret the contents of the letter for him.
Cheng Mu took the letter, carefully scraped off the seal, then opened the envelope and took out several neatly folded pieces of letter paper.
Although Aragones did not know Chinese characters, he could tell from a quick glance that the letter was written with a hard pen with a very fine tip, not the kind of writing brush that the Han people were accustomed to.
As far as he knew, this kind of writing method was also a special habit of high-ranking officials in Haihan, because this kind of writing tool, called a "pen" in Haihan, was quite expensive, and generally only the high-ranking officials in the upper class could afford it. , which also further confirmed the authenticity of this letter from the side.
After Cheng Mu unfolded the letter paper, he said to Aragones: "The texture of this paper is very good, and it also has a grid printed on it to facilitate writing neatly. This kind of paper has never been seen on the market before. ”
In fact, Haihan worked hard not only on details such as writing tools and paper. Even the content of this letter was specially copied by Qiu Yuan himself, making it an authentic and authentic work.
The purpose of this is to completely avoid possible loopholes in the details. Even if the Spaniards can get Qiu Yuan's own previous handwriting for comparison and identification, the conclusions they can get will definitely not be false.
The intelligence agencies spent so much money to convince the Spaniards that the information they received was true.
The story of Team Jose is to let the Spaniards confirm that this secret letter is indeed an official official letter from Haihan, and the content of this letter will in turn make the identity and background of Team Jose more credible.
Cheng Mu first briefly read the contents of the letter, and then slowly explained it to Aragones and Fernando word for word.
The letter began with Qiu Yuan's greetings and daily greetings to Roger, and then told the other party the contents of the supplies shipped to Xingdao this time, and also mentioned the three Spanish people on the ship who were exiled to the local area. The reason why these three people were sent to Star Island for exile was because the local area needed people who knew how to raise horses to be responsible for raising military horses. Although the crime for which Jose and others were exiled was that they poisoned the military horses in Manila, Qiu Yuan I think these three people are not beyond hope yet, and hope that a change of environment will make them repent, realize the mistakes they have made, and start a new life on Star Island.
Of course, the most important reason is that these three people have many years of experience in raising horses, which may temporarily alleviate the local demand for professional grooms. However, if these three people still do not want to repent when they arrive locally, Qiu Yuan's suggestion is to give them the death penalty decisively. as punishment.
"They obviously underestimated the courage and determination of the Spaniards. These boys will not work for the evil Haihan people!"
When Fernando heard this, he couldn't help but laugh at the wrong judgment of the senior officials of Haihan. At the same time, he became more convinced that the resistance methods adopted by Jose and others on the ship were necessary.
If they didn't find a way to escape, they might be pulled out and shot within two days after arriving at the local area.
Aragones felt that this high-ranking Haihan official was too benevolent. He could still be forgiven for a crime like poisoning an army horse. If the camps were reversed, he would definitely not forgive the criminal and would have ordered him to be sent to prison. On the gallows.
Of course, the behavior of Jose and others was a serious crime for Haihan, but it was a brave act of resistance to Spain. Now they have killed several Haihan people on the ship. If they are caught by the Haihan people again next time, I am afraid there will be no possibility of being forgiven.
However, this content once again provided a guarantee of trust for the people on the ship. The self-reports of Jose and others can all correspond to the contents of this secret letter. From the perspective of Aragones and Fernando, it is just right. It shows that they did not lie.
But these contents were not the real focus of the letter. The next contents that Cheng Mu translated made the expressions of the two senior Spanish officials become serious.
Qiu Yuan mentioned in the letter that unidentified armed personnel have appeared in many places in the north recently, equipped with relatively advanced muskets, causing considerable trouble for Haihan. He reminded Roger to be careful of similar situations happening locally, especially when small groups of troops patrolling outside must beware of sneak attacks.
"Has our measure already worked?" Aragones cheered up: "I didn't expect it to actually work!"
As one of the few senior generals of the colonial authorities, Fernando naturally knew the inside story of this, and he immediately echoed: "It seems that the multi-point flowering strategy formulated against Haihan was right. If the place is set on fire, they will not be able to take care of it!”
Compared with Haihan's information transmission speed, the external information the Spaniards have is undoubtedly much behind. They only have a general action plan, but how is the specific implementation and whether the progress is smooth, and the speed of getting information feedback is extremely slow.
At this time, more than ten days have passed since Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing's actions in Yangzhou City, but it is still a long way to wait for the local news to reach Cebu.
Haihan's strategy is to temporarily paralyze the Spanish colonial authorities through the content of this letter, making them think that their practice of providing military aid to many parties overseas has been effective. After they relax their vigilance, they may further increase their efforts. The intensity of military output to these areas will give Haihan more opportunities to catch the tail of its partners.
Of course, the most likely place to find clues is Cebu.
What Haihan Intelligence can confirm is that whoever is cooperating with the Spaniards must have personnel stationed in Cebu to communicate in a timely manner. Whether they can dig people out of Cebu depends to a certain extent on the performance of Jose and others.
Jose was actually still in a very nervous state at this time. He didn't know whether there were any loopholes in his performance after arriving at the Port of Cebu. If Spanish officials noticed something was wrong, they might do something wrong next. They had to line up to go to the gallows.
Regarding the contents of the secret letter, his boss did not tell him, which was one of the reasons that made him feel uneasy.
Before leaving Manila, he tentatively asked Fang Peng, but Fang Peng only said that the letter was their life-saving charm. If he knew the content, it might affect his performance, so the content needed to be kept secret from them.
Fang Peng made such an arrangement because he was mainly worried that the contents of the secret letter would cause Jose to inadvertently mention some information that he should not have revealed when recounting his experiences, such as that they were spared the death penalty and were exiled. The real reason for Star Island and more.
Since the person carrying out the task is a newcomer like Jose, a slight mistake in details may lead to the failure of the entire operation. Fang Peng and Ran Tianlu are worried about this and can only try to minimize the possible links that may cause problems.
Jose only knows what he needs to know so that he doesn't say the wrong thing because of his mindset, emotions, and experiences.
This arrangement is indeed very wise, because Jose was indeed nervous when talking to Spanish officials, but fortunately the plan arranged by the intelligence agency was almost seamless. As long as Jose and others did not take the initiative to speak out, it would be difficult for others to identify them. Considered a spy sent by Haihan.
According to Fernando's order, Jose and others were temporarily placed in a small hotel on the edge of the port.
Due to the war, the scale of Cebu's trade has also been greatly reduced. There are not many foreign merchant ships in the port, so the business of this small hotel is also extremely deserted. When Jose and others checked in, there were only a few guests in the entire hotel.
But this is good, they can take this opportunity to discuss how to proceed with the next plan.
According to the estimates of the intelligence agency, if the Spanish can be deceived in the first step and make them believe in the experiences of Jose and others, then there will be two possibilities. One is to use the deeds of Jose and others to create hype and encourage local people. Anti-Haihan sentiment, José might immediately become a guest of the upper echelons of society.
Another possibility is to be treated coldly and just treat them as immigrants fleeing from Manila, allowing them to settle there, but not giving them any special treatment.
Around these two possibilities, the intelligence agencies have also prepared corresponding action plans. But no matter which situation occurs in the end, it will be a big test for Jose and others who are just starting out.
(End of chapter)