Chapter 2098

But such thoughts flashed through Shi Diwen's mind, and he immediately thought of another possibility, that is, Sun Feizhou's status in the Eighteen Zhiyu Party may be much higher than expected, although his public identity in Ningbo is

The owner of the dry goods store, but the actual operations he was in charge of were not necessarily limited to Ningbo. This person had potent poisons for suicide with him, and he took them decisively before being arrested. It can be seen that he should be responsible for those who were arrested.

He was fully prepared for the risks. From a certain perspective, this determination was even greater than that of the leaders who resisted during the arrest operation in the south.

However, whether Sun Feizhou's specific functions in the Eighteen Zhiyu Party are as he guessed, he probably has to wait for the Military Intelligence Bureau to interrogate the prisoners before he can confirm it. Shi Diwen is not in a hurry, and now Wang Tom has sent someone to

Japan has conducted preliminary reconnaissance, and the Executive Committee has also set the tone to take action against the Hirado Domain. Even if there are still some powerful figures among the Eighteen Shiba Remaining Party lurking along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, no matter how hard they try, they will ultimately be unable to reverse the trend.

You have come several ways, but I have only gone one way. As long as the Haihan army is launched to pacify the households and eradicate the hiding places of the Eighteen Zhiyu Party, then the deployment made by the other side along the coast of the Ming Dynasty will become rootless trees and it will be difficult to form a climate again.

The absolute power means that Shi Diwen doesn't need to be particularly concerned about whether there will be one or two capable people with outstanding vision in the opponent's camp.

But out of caution, after listening to Duan Tiancheng's report on the arrest operation, Shi Diwen summoned the head of the Military Intelligence Bureau and asked him to carefully check the identities of the captured people, especially the dead Sun Feizhou

, we must try to find out its functions.

In fact, while Duan Tiancheng was waiting for Shi Diwen to get up early, the military intelligence department stationed in Zhoushan had already begun investigating the few survivors captured. However, the two seriously injured people had lost too much blood from their wounds due to the fatigue of traveling and traveling all night.

He died before he could provide any valuable information.

By noon, the preliminary interrogation of the few survivors had come to an end, and Shi Diwen received an oral report from the Military Intelligence Bureau before lunch.

Sun Feizhou's death undoubtedly had a great impact on his subordinates. In addition, they were captured by the Ming army without forming any decent resistance during their capture. Therefore, it was relatively easy to defeat the psychological defenses of these people. Under the influence of the interrogators,

Under coercion and inducement, one after another opened their mouths. After cross-comparison and verification of their confessions, it was found that most of the confessions were consistent and should have relatively high credibility.

According to the confessions of these people, among them were indeed members of the Eighteen Zhizhi Party members who escaped from Ishigaki Island and other places, as well as locals from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who were later employed by Sun Feizhou. This dry goods shop was opened by Sun Feizhou about three years ago.

It was opened slightly later that year when the Zhoushan authorities caused a fire outside Hangzhou, and then used this to send troops to force the Hangzhou government to submit and obtain Zhejiang's trade rights.

These people are not sure why Sun Feizhou chose Ningbo City to set up this secret intelligence base. However, in addition to daily operations, the dry goods store is indeed responsible for collecting local military and political intelligence. And the objects of this collection are not only

It was aimed at the Zhoushan authorities, and also included the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, in addition to the function of collecting intelligence, the dry goods store also has an important mission, which is to obtain profits through trade. Some of the money and goods will be shipped to Hirado, Japan, and the rest will be kept locally for daily operations.

Funds. According to insiders, the total value of all kinds of property shipped from here to Hirado every year is at least one hundred thousand taels of silver. This seems to once again prove the capital circulation of this dry goods shop.

The quantity is unusual.

In Shi Diwen's opinion, this kind of performance focuses more on the outstanding ability of the operator. As far as he knows, the businessmen in Ningbo who can earn more than 100,000 taels of silver a year basically have a close relationship with Haihan.

Trade cooperation relationships, such as the He brothers who work as white gloves for the prefect Qu Yutong, and other big businessmen who also have official backgrounds. But Feizhou's dry goods store is obviously not among these, and it can actually operate such a business quietly.

The profit level shows his strong ability to manage business.

Most of the strongholds seized in Fukuhiro and other places before this also have the practice of regularly or irregularly transporting property to Hirado, Japan, but the known number is not as high as the dry goods store just seized. Every year of the Hirado Domain

It is difficult to have a specific statistics on how much such benefits can be received from overseas, but according to estimates from the Military Intelligence Bureau and the Ministry of Security, the number should not be less than 300,000 taels of silver.

By comparison, the profits earned by the Zhoushan authorities through trade every year, after deducting the portion turned over to the national treasury, can be retained locally for military and other expenses, which is only about 400,000 taels of silver.

With relatively abundant funds, the Eighteen Chi Yu Party has room to operate if it wants to rebuild an armed fleet, and this has been verified in the recent actions of the reconnaissance fleet. This kind of operation is through many small commercial organizations

The method of realizing cross-ocean blood transfusion is also a new thing for Haihan. If these commercial institutions lurking in the Ming Dynasty had not been successively seized, I am afraid that this profit transmission channel would continue to operate for a long time.

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And now have the channels for the Hirado clan and the Eighteen Shiba Party to obtain profits from the Ming Dynasty completely eliminated? Shi Diwen believes that the answer should be no. He does not think that the dry goods store in Ningbo City was deployed by the opponent in the Ming Dynasty.

As for the last secret stronghold, it is very likely that there are still undiscovered institutions still operating in other places.

Shi Diwen's view was also confirmed by the confessions of the captives. They said that people from other secret strongholds would visit regularly to exchange some information with Feizhou. The last liaison officer who visited Feizhou left

The dry goods store had not been open for two hours when the Ming army came to the door.

Of course, the interrogators noticed this information and asked more questions about it, but the information they obtained was still relatively limited. It is said that the liaison officer's surname was Zheng and his name was unknown. He had been in Ningbo for more than a month, but he had not contacted the people at the dry goods store.

They eat and live together, but rent their own accommodation outside. During his stay in Ningbo, this man named Zheng was responsible for collecting various bulk buying and selling information in the market. He would come to the dry goods store to meet with Sun Feizhou every few days, and every time he came

They will disguise themselves as merchants to hide their identities.

It is precisely for this reason that the relevant personnel did not record the dry goods store as an arrest target at all during the early reconnaissance of the dry goods store. After the operation, Duan Tiancheng verified that the number of arrest targets was correct and withdrew his troops.

It was not until after several hours of interrogation by the Military Intelligence Bureau that they found out that there was another non-staff member who had narrowly escaped capture.

For now, we can only think of ways to remedy the situation. After confirming the general information of this person, the Military Intelligence Bureau has sent people to Ningbo Prefecture and asked them to arrange for the arrest to be carried out in Ningbo City. It’s just that this time it’s just a matter of time.

The delay has already passed for a day and a night. Yesterday's arrest operation in the city may have been enough to alert the snake, and there is a high probability that this person will not be found.

Although the capture plan went smoothly, some fish slipped through the net in the end, which can not but be said to be a small regret. However, Shi Diwen did not take this matter too seriously. After all, he did not let this stronghold

The leader of the group escaped, but the person who escaped was a non-staff member. The completion of this operation was at least 80%. What he really felt was a bit regretful was that he could not capture Sun Feizhou alive. Otherwise, he could have personally interrogated this seemingly private person.

A boss who seems to have quite good abilities and vision.

In addition, the preliminary identification of the seized weapons has also been completed. The Military Intelligence Bureau determined from some craftsmanship details that the muskets hidden in the dry goods shop were of the same standard as the muskets found along the coast of the Ming Dynasty so far. This can be regarded as a

The result was no surprise to anyone.

But the more guns found in various places, the more it worries Heihan that the owners did not purchase these weapons through the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippine Islands. According to the information Heihan has, such a supply is probably far away.

Far beyond the capabilities of the Spanish - unless the Spanish colonial authorities sold all the weapons they used, and this extreme situation is obviously unlikely to occur.

Previously, the Haihan reconnaissance fleet had discovered a local ordnance workshop for casting artillery in Hirado, which shows that the Spanish may have passed on the skills of manufacturing advanced weapons to the Hirado clan and achieved mass production locally. If

It seems not surprising that there is a musket-making workshop hidden in a ravine somewhere in Hirado.

If you include the two musketeers destroyed in Liaodong and Yangzhou, the current number of such standard muskets has exceeded 200, and this is just the sum of the scattered numbers seized by Haihan from various places. There is no doubt that

, the number of muskets owned by the Hirado Domain must still be far above this number, otherwise the other party would not be so generous in deploying such advanced weapons to secret overseas strongholds where they rarely have a chance to be used.

This discovery also greatly increased the urgency for Kaihan to take action against the Hirado Domain, because once the Hirado Domain mastered the ability to mass-produce muskets, it would be difficult to eliminate the possibility of musketeers reappearing in certain areas and form an organized system.

The musketeers can cause more trouble to Haihan than a secret stronghold with a few guns hidden as a treasure.

The Haihan Army is ahead of all opponents in this era in terms of the performance of weapons and equipment, but this does not mean that the Haihan Army is not afraid of encountering opponents who also use muskets and artillery on the battlefield. Even if the opponent's weapon performance is worse.

However, troops equipped with thermal weapons can already pose a considerable threat to the Haihan Army. Especially in the north, there is an old opponent of the Qing Army. If such weapons flow into the Qing Dynasty in large quantities, Haihan will have to fight in the Qing Dynasty.

More troops were deployed in the Liaodong direction to maintain the stability of the situation, and the possible conflicts during the period would also significantly increase the number of casualties of the Haihan Army.

The operation against the target in Ningbo City has come to an end, and Shi Diwen's attention has returned to war preparations. Thanks to the assistance of the local government and some large businesses, the procurement of war preparation materials went smoothly, especially grain.

Under the operation of the He brothers, half of the quantity has been shipped to Zhoushan Island today.

However, for the Haihan soldiers stationed in overseas colonies, there is actually another very important thing recently, and that is celebrating this year's National Day.

The National Day on April 1 every year has become a customary holiday for the Haihan people. In principle, celebrations will be held on this day everywhere, even in overseas colonies. For the military, National Day

In fact, it has another meaning.

Since the official founding of the People's Republic of China in 1634, almost every year after the founding celebrations, the military has carried out relatively large-scale military operations overseas. After the grand military parade in Sanya that year was completed, the task force set off for Taiwan.

The local area cleared out the indigenous people and established Chusuangkeng oil mining base.

After the National Day in 1635, the Haihan army went to war with the Johor coalition forces at Sing Tao in the Strait of Malacca. After successfully defeating their opponents, they signed the Sing Tao Treaty with the State of Johor, establishing Hai Han's local rule.

On the National Day of 1636, there was peace in the south, and the only war took place on the Liaodong Peninsula. The Haihan Army launched a spring offensive in March and captured the Jinzhou Isthmus from the Qing Army. This war lasted until May.

During the stalemate stage, although celebrations were held as usual in various places in Haihan, the progress of the Liaodong War made the Executive Committee quite concerned, and the victory of this war also laid a good foundation for the subsequent signing of an alliance with North Korea.

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As for last year's National Day, there were even more big moves. North Korean envoy Li Xi asked Haihan's senior officials for help at that time. Shortly after the celebrations, the coalition forces organized by Haihan sent their troops north to North Korea to help in the war. This

The war dealt a particularly heavy blow to the Qing army than the Jinzhou victory the previous year. The four-month war caused the Qing army to lose many troops and generals on the Korean battlefield, and its vitality was severely damaged. It would be difficult to recover in the short term.

This year, a new military operation is in the preparation stage. According to the plan of the Ministry of National Defense, this operation will dispatch troops from Zhoushan, Zhejiang and Datongjiang base in North Korea at the same time, and the number of troops used is estimated to be more than 5,000.

People, this is considered a large-scale battle for the Haihan Kingdom.

Taking into account the limited returns from establishing local occupation zones after the war, this operation is likely to be withdrawn after fighting, so the expected combat cycle will not last for several months like last year on the Korean battlefield. According to Shi Di

Wen estimated that if the operation started in April and May, the war would be over before summer arrived.
Chapter completed!