Chapter 2025
Compared with the Spanish officials, the man surnamed Chen was obviously much more vigilant. Even though the experiences of Jose and others had been certified by the colonial authorities before, he still questioned this magical good luck. .
In fact, this is the part of the background of the story fabricated by the Haihan Intelligence Department that least withstands careful scrutiny. After all, the group of people used in the operation have never been to Cebu, and they indeed relied on the routes planned in advance. After completing the voyage of hundreds of nautical miles, if someone is carefully interrogated, they will probably notice something irrational about it.
The Spanish officials focused on the fact that the various physical evidence on the ship was completely consistent with the descriptions of Jose and others, and there was not even a Han Chinese on the ship, but there were several corpses of Haihan soldiers, which greatly lowered their vigilance. In addition, the secret letter sent between high-ranking officials in Haihan made Spanish officials convinced of the authenticity of the whole incident.
The most important thing is that many high-ranking officials, including Aragones, subconsciously believe that even though Haihan has an absolute military advantage, our own side does not seem to have any top-secret military information worthy of the other party setting up such a big plan to find out. information. What's more, Jose and others have clearly rejected the suggestion of enlisting in the army. It is obviously impossible for them to come here to inquire about the military situation. This undoubtedly completely dispels the doubts of Spanish officials.
However, due to the lack of real-time information, Spanish officials did not know that Haihan was stepping up investigations into cases related to his military exports in various parts of the north at this time, and had even begun to frequently take action against their cooperation partners. They thought that the external situation was good, and naturally they did not expect Haihan to be in trouble. The Hanhui specially arranged an operation to collect intelligence for this purpose.
But this man surnamed Chen was not from the colonial authorities, and he had little trust in the Spanish. Originally, he did not care about such trivial matters as Spanish people escaping from Luzon Island, but Aragones claimed that he had obtained secret messages from senior officials of Haihan from this incident, and it was necessary to expand the scale of overseas cooperation in the coming time. , and asked him to pay more remuneration to the colonial authorities. He did not completely believe this. After interrogating Jose and others, he still found some details that he thought were not credible enough.
Of course, Jose knew where his own loopholes were. He immediately deduced that the sailors on the ship who knew how to navigate determined the course based on the rise and fall of the sun and the position of the stars. During his escape, he only operated the sail ropes on the deck with others. Of course, this statement is only a stopgap measure. If the other party really wants to get to the bottom of it and brings those indigenous sailors back for careful questioning, they will also find that their sailing skills are limited and are far from the level of being able to leave the charts. .
Although the man surnamed Chen was still a little doubtful, his focus on this matter was also the changes in the overseas situation. Therefore, although he thought there were still doubts, he did not delve into the issue further and instead asked about the current situation in Manila.
This is also an issue of concern to many Spanish officials. They are eager to know what changes the Haihan people have made to the local area after occupying Manila this year. To put it bluntly, they wanted to confirm whether it was still possible to recapture the city of Manila from the Haihan people.
The purpose of the man surnamed Chen in asking this was not only to confirm the current situation of Manila City, but also to understand whether Haihan had any plans to expand outward in the next step. If Haihan continues to use military means to expand his control area in the Philippine Islands, then there will be some easily detectable signs in Manila, such as the sudden assembly of a large number of warships, the deployment of military supplies such as food and medicine, and the deployment of local garrison troops. Training density changes, etc. This information often does not require professional intelligence personnel to collect, ordinary people can notice it as long as they pay a little attention.
For this kind of problem, Jose and others were already prepared. According to the pre-arrangement of the intelligence department, it is necessary to try to downplay the military measures taken by Haihan in the local area after the war, appropriately exaggerate the anti-Haihan sentiment of the Manila people, and create some illusions for opponents, making them think that Haihan's current rule in Manila is not stable. .
The purpose of this show of weakness is not to induce the Spaniards to immediately counterattack Manila. After all, the Spaniards have not yet recovered their strength, and they also know that their strength has not yet recovered to the extent that they can compete with Haihan again. The main purpose is to let the Spaniards Focus elsewhere to get more cover for Jose and others.
In addition to asking again most of the questions asked by Spanish officials, the man surnamed Chen also asked separately about the current proportion of Han Chinese in Manila and whether foreigners would be subject to strict interrogation when they arrive there. As an intelligence officer, Jose was naturally very sensitive to this. He immediately thought that the other party's purpose of inquiring about this information was to plan an operation similar to his own trip and arrange for Han spies to enter Manila to lurk.
The Haihan Intelligence Department probably did not expect that Jose and others would be questioned about these Han-related questions after they arrived in Cebu, so they did not prepare a corresponding plan. Jose didn't have a standard answer at hand, so he could only answer the other party's question with his own estimation. He thought it would be better to cause less trouble to his boss, so he said that after the war, a large number of Han people in Manila were moved to other places, and from Many Haihan immigrants were introduced to settle here. They must have been worried about the instability of the local Han people, so they had to conduct interrogations on everyone entering and leaving the port. Even prisoners who were exiled to Xingdao were boarded before leaving the port. The ship reconfirmed their identity.
Jose's remarks were so well crafted and he used his own experience as an example that the questioner couldn't help but believe him. After listening to the translator's report, the man surnamed Chen showed an expression of "Sure enough," on his face. It seemed that Jose's statement was in line with his guess about the current situation in Manila.
But in fact, the situation in Manila is not as severe as Jose said. Haihan officials did adjust the local population composition after the war, and relocated some ethnic groups that the official considered to be potential dangers, and then gradually About 2,000 immigrants continued to immigrate from Hainan Island. In addition to the Han, Li, and Miao ethnic groups, there were even some naturalized people of Annan descent. After settling in Manila, these immigrants can obtain official land and real estate rewards, and their loyalty is much higher than that of the local people in Manila.
In addition to adjusting the immigration policy, Haihan also used the trade methods he was good at. Soon after the war, he opened trade routes between Victory Port, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung Port and other places and the Port of Manila, allowing people in the Manila area to Produce can be transported to the northern market more efficiently than in the past, and at the same time, various materials that are lacking in the market can be delivered to the local area.
Manila's chief executive, Qiu Yuan, had previously served as director of the management committees of Victory Port and Haikou Port, and had extensive experience in operating ports and maritime trade. Manila's local port had been half a century old after being colonized by the Spaniards. After more than a century of operation, there is a relatively complete infrastructure, the damage suffered during the war was not serious, and there are a large number of skilled port operators available, so Qiu Yuan can make full use of it when formulating a post-war development strategy. The local port conditions are excellent, and the scale of foreign trade has been further increased based on the Spanish.
Haihan seized a huge amount of wealth from the local area during the Battle of Manila. In addition to the part that was transported back to Sanya, a considerable part was left locally as funds for post-war reconstruction. Therefore, Qiu Yuan had very ample funds in his hands, which allowed him to He implemented measures to transform Manila on multiple levels. Qiu Yuan has experience in governing in many places. He knows very well that as long as the ports and foreign trade can operate, the local people will have a stable livelihood and material supply, and their lives will be sustainable, and the people's hearts will not be prone to chaos. As for whether to fight against the new ruler and try to welcome back the previous master, this is not something that the vast majority of people will consider. As long as they are given a stable living environment, people generally will not risk their lives and property. If there is still a way to improve, most of them will quickly choose to be loyal to the new master.
The actual situation was exactly like this. After receiving the promise to select their children to enter the official system, the local influential Han families such as the Qin family and the Ding family quickly expressed their stance and joined the official camp. During this period, although Qin Huacheng, the youngest son of the Qin family, was sentenced to exile on Xingdao for committing crimes, he was a blessing in disguise. He was recruited by Cheng Dapeng from Xingdao into the Ministry of Security and took him to Batavia to work.
Qiu Yuan knew very well what people from different classes needed after the change of dynasties, and it took him less than three months to stabilize the situation in Manila. After that, Manila gradually began to implement the Haihan social system step by step from top to bottom like other Haihan controlled areas.
At present, about 70% of the local population registration in Manila has been completed, and various civil administration agencies have begun to operate normally. Except for the replacement of the local official language and script and the currency in circulation, other changes are not too big for the time being. Under this circumstance, it was basically difficult for the Spanish to regain control of Manila through conventional means.
As for sending Han spies to sneak into Manila, although it is not too difficult to achieve, this measure actually does not have much effect. At most, it can get some information, but it is difficult to develop local resistance forces. Instead, it has to be done carefully. Hide your identity well - after all, the reward for exposing a foreign spy in Manila now starts as high as 500 Chinese dollars, and there is no upper limit, depending on the final investigation of the case. This means that every foreign spy is a walking money bag. If he dares to develop local resistance forces, he will be sold to the government at any time in exchange for a reward.
Jose answered the question for a long time, but still couldn't figure out the other party's method. Although he vaguely felt that the other person was the target person he was looking for on this trip, he had no way to verify the other person's identity. He could only remember the other person's face first, planning to wait until the incident here was over, and then slowly return to the local area. Find out this person's identity.
This was originally a celebration dinner for Jose and others, but they actually did not appear at the banquet for a long time. Before they even took a few bites of food, they were taken out alone to talk. By the time the man surnamed Chen had finished asking questions, the dinner was over. In the end, he could only pack some bread and sausages and take them back to his residence.
Perhaps he felt that these little people had exhausted their use value. Aragones did not show up again before leaving. Instead, Fernando came to give them a few words, asking them to abide by the law after settling in the local area and not to act recklessly just because they had made meritorious deeds.
As for the reward Aragones promised them, Fernando took a bag of silver coins to Jose and asked him to go back and distribute them to everyone. Jose weighed the weight and estimated that it was less than a hundred silver coins. Calculated, one person could not even get ten silver coins. It was not clear whether Aragones was stingy with this reward or was held hostage by Fernando. Jose Without daring to ask any more questions, they nodded and bowed to accept the bag of silver coins, and then the carriage arranged by Fernando took them back to the small hotel at the port.
The only good thing is that the colonial authorities did not confiscate their sailing ship, but carried out Aragones' order and gave it to Jose and others as part of the reward. However, Jose suspected that the main reason why the authorities did not want to confiscate the ship was that there were several rotting corpses in the cargo hold below the deck. Even if it was confiscated, no one would be willing to operate the ship.
But this ship is of great importance to Jose and others. In addition to the operational funds and weapons hidden on the ship, they can also drive this ship out of Cebu if necessary. Now that their identities have been basically cleared, they don’t have to worry about being restricted when going to sea. In fact, Jose believed that the colonial authorities should not care at all about whether they would stay or go. Anyway, almost all the information that should be obtained from them had been collected. Whether they went or stayed had no direct impact on the authorities.
After returning to the hotel, Jose called everyone together to discuss the current situation and the next steps to be taken in the name of cents.
Jose believed that the man named Chen who was talking to him today was the target he was looking for, and his temporary residence must be in Cebu. If he could find his location, he would have a chance to find out his identity. However, only Jose and three other people have seen the man today, and the local population of Cebu is at least several thousand. If the man lives in seclusion, it would only be up to the three of them to wander around the city, and they may not be able to find him in a short time. its whereabouts.
"Tomorrow we will first look for places where Han people live together, especially places frequented by wealthy Han maritime merchants. The man's surname is Chen, and the governor calls him Mr. Chen. His status should be very noble. We will find out if we go in this direction. Can find his whereabouts ”
After all, Jose was an intelligence officer who had received formal training for half a year. He still had basic professional skills. He quickly clarified his ideas and made arrangements for others.
(End of chapter)