Xu Hongji, the government secretary of the Royal Palace of China, can't sleep all night now. He works with his colleagues in his official office every day to process piles of documents. At night, he has to be left alone to process some documents by himself. things that people deal with.
This time, Xu Hongji was the main person in charge of the Chinese Company and the Chinese Army, that is, the political purge movement in Yin Feng's ruling area.
Before July of the second year of Tianqi, personnel from the Chinese Military Supervision Department, the Military Intelligence Department, and the Chinese Royal Palace Internal Affairs Department had already set off from Taiwan Port to various places including North Korea and Japan in the Ming Dynasty. They were going to conduct secret investigations. of.
After Xu Guangqi entrusted Li Zhizao and sent disciples Zhang Tao and Sun Xueshi to Guangdong to secretly purchase four red barbarian cannons from the Macau Portuguese, Yin Feng began to conduct a secret internal investigation. Although Yin Feng used the excuse of selling cannons to the court without permission, Seized the rule of Macau by force, and then conducted an investigation in Macau. Lin Xiao found out several Portuguese people who were in contact with Li Zhizao, but did not find out the true identities of the several Chinese people who connected the two. In the following years, Lin Xiao Xiaohe's Military Intelligence Department also found no internal spies in Macau directly related to imperial transactions.
As for the number of red barbarian cannons owned by the Portuguese in Macau at that time, due to the restrictions of the peace agreement between the Chinese Company and Macau, it was indeed a lot but not a lot for more than ten years. In the entire East Asia, there are no places that can produce similar types of cannons. There are only two cities, Taiwan City and Manila City on Luzon Island, both of which belong to Yin Feng.
This means that the four cannons were shipped from Europe and then shipped to Guangzhou.
It was the forty-seventh year of Wanli. Portuguese ships transporting cannons from Europe must pass through the Strait of Malacca or the Port of Wandan. According to Yin Feng's navigation law, among Europeans, only Portuguese ships could pass through Malacca. Doing business in various ports in East Asia, however, Portuguese ships must be inspected by the Chinese military in Malacca or Banten and pay customs duties. Even when trading in Macau Port, there will be people from the Chinese company supervising the transportation of goods.
Therefore, Yin Feng speculated that if the four cannons could be transported to Macau and successfully transported to Guangzhou, there must be heavyweights within the China Company as internal agents. It may be that the ships directly under the China Company are responsible for the transportation, and those who have the ability to own exclusive ships. Moreover, the only people who had personnel rights over the ship's staff and could secretly transport cannons to the Ming Dynasty court were the major shareholders and full directors of the company's board of directors.
There are people within the Zhonghua Company and in the area under their control who are working on two different things and are half-hearted. Yin Feng has known some details of this matter for a long time. It was discovered by Lin Xiao when he was in charge of internal security. For example, Chen, the secretary of the Hainan Governor's Office, Dong was an undercover agent of the imperial court, and Yin Feng was always aware of the situation. Someone at the director level was secretly liaising with the imperial court. Although Yin Feng was mentally prepared for this, he still felt very uncomfortable about it.
The relevant investigations in overseas colonies were mainly presided over by Princess Li Lihua, while the secret investigations in Luzon, Taiwan, Ryukyu, Liaodong and other places as well as the mainland of the Ming Dynasty were originally presided over by Lin Xiao. When Lin Xiao was in charge of the Commercial Information Department, he obeyed Yin Feng's advice and conducted internal affairs. The external methods are ruthless enough.
But Lin Xiao has a problem, which some people think is a good quality: he is too loyal. Lin Xiao can mercilessly punish ordinary internal staff who make mistakes, but when it comes to those on the board of directors or those in the Chinese military, Lin Xiao would often involuntarily look aside and show mercy to the brothers who had lived and died with him. Of course, there was no problem with his loyalty to Yin Feng, but he could not grasp the balance between his brotherly loyalty and his own responsibilities. Balance, this is one of the reasons why he was removed from the intelligence department.
Not only for this reason, Yin Feng also resolutely abolished the Ministry of Business and Information in order to reduce the functions of China Corporation and straighten out the functional relationship between the future government agencies and the company. Lin Xiao therefore left the intelligence department and transferred its relevant functions to China Corporation. Combined with the Communications Section and Discipline Section of the Internal Affairs Department of the company, as well as the Internal Affairs Intelligence Bureau of the Royal Palace of China (General Manager Xu Xinsu), and the Domestic Bureau of the Military Intelligence Department (General Manager Zeng Rui, Deputy General Manager Mai Xiaoliu), this is also to decentralize power and prevent one person from holding power. There are too many and too many. Although Yin Feng is not a qualified politician, practical needs are forcing him to develop his potential.
Lin Xiao later served as the chief internal security officer of the Royal Palace of China, mainly managing the local security forces within the jurisdiction of the King of China, that is, the chief police officer of Yin Feng's ruling area. This job was similar to his original occupation: arresting government officials and maintaining local security. law and order.
The pursuit of the red cannon was later put in charge of Xu Hongji. This former Taoist priest was now determined to become Zhang Liang and Liu Bowen of Yin Feng's new dynasty. He was indeed capable of hard work, and soon a large number of suspects were identified within the Zhonghua Company. No problems have been found within the Chinese Army for the time being, but Yin Feng cannot wait any longer. The decisive battle between King Jinghai of China and the Ming Dynasty is getting closer and closer, and an internal cleaning must be carried out to eliminate all hidden dangers.
The time has come for businessmen and gentry who have various relationships with the China Company at home and abroad, and even the officials and gentry in the mainland, to choose sides.
At the same time that Yin Feng promulgated the new law, he sent Lin Xiao and others to the mainland to lay out a plan to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, and then bypassed the heads of various ministries and directly commanded a large number of personnel from the Internal Affairs Bureau, Military Intelligence Department and the Company's Finance Department to attack at home and abroad in separate ways. In various places, at the same time, in the port city of Taiwan, the homes of several company board members have been closely guarded by the Yin Feng Guards. The commander performing the task is the deputy captain of the Guards, Ingasi, the nephew of the former Black Guard Captain Magaro. Major, a tall man from the Tutsi ethnic group in East Africa who is 1.8 meters tall and has a dignified appearance.
He is also from the Portuguese East African colony. He was originally a slave of the Portuguese in Macau. He was captured by the Chinese Company's escort when the Chinese Company first attacked Macau. After arriving in Taiwan, he was declared a free man and became Yin Feng. Member of the Guards.
The black guard captain Magaro is getting older, so Yin Feng asked him to retire and serve as Li Lihua's bodyguard. In fact, Magaro is already semi-retired and spends every day with his mixed-race child Kabiro and his Siraya wife, enjoying their family relationship. Zhile, Magaro's position was taken over by his nephew Ingasi.
Yin Feng's order was carried out without hesitation by Yinggaxi. Most of the Guards soldiers who blocked the directors' houses were black people who obeyed Yin Feng and Li Lihua's orders. Since most of these former black slaves were Catholics, Li Lihua also He was the one who had the most contacts with the Portuguese and other Westerners, and he was also a Catholic. He worshiped and prayed with the blacks in the church. Therefore, the black guard members were more loyal to Li Lihua than to Yin Feng.
Half a month before Malacca City began purging members of the Han Ping family, Jiangnan Governor's Office, Liaodong Governor's Office, Hainan Governor's Office, Quanzhou, Macau and other places began internal purges almost at the same time.
The Luo Xuri family of Yuegang was once one of Yin Feng's sponsors in Fujian. Now Southern Fujian, including Quanzhou, is a Chinese military-controlled area. Therefore, the Luo Xuri family of the company's chief director has great influence in southern Fujian.
Southern Fujian garrison Wang Shuowang was originally the commander of the student army of the military academy. He later served as a battalion commander in Yan Siqi's division for a while and is now a major. He has more than 4,000 Chinese garrison troops and affiliated militiamen in Quanzhou City and a regiment in southern Fujian under his command.
As one of the Manila orphans adopted by Yin Feng, he is a mixed-race child of Chinese and Tagalog people from Luzon Island. His original name was Wang Gong, and Yin Feng changed his name to "Shuowang". In July of the second year of Tianqi, Wang Shuowang led his troops to During the suppression of bandits in Zhangzhou, a military judge from the Military Supervision Department came from Quanzhou overnight with several mysterious figures and went straight to his old camp. That night, the lights in Wang Shuowang's camp stayed on all night.
The next day, a sentry team from the anti-bandit force was mobilized to join Wang Shuowang's personal guards, led by him personally, and rushed to Xiamen day and night. After crossing the sea and arriving at Xiamen Island, hundreds of Taiwanese marines stationed in Xiamen were also mobilized. They got up and rushed into Luo Xuri's mansion in Gangang, Xiamen overnight. Luo Xuri was tied up with his concubine on the bed into rice dumplings in panic. The next day, the Marine Corps rushed into Luo Xuri's hometown in Yuegang and killed Luo Xuri. All his private troops were disarmed, and his whole family was bundled onto a ship and taken to Taiwan.
Chen Dong, the governor of Hainan Governor's Office, has been serving for many years and has a good reputation on Hainan Island. Due to the large-scale mining of Shilu copper mine and rich iron ore, Qiongzhou Port built a large number of iron-making blast furnaces based on the Shilu mining area, which is famous for its European tradition. The advanced cast iron technology provides raw materials for Taiwan's arms factories. At the same time, Hainan's shipbuilding industry has also developed on a large scale due to the large demand from Chinese companies. The entry of a large number of mainland immigrant workers and the temporary quelling of the "Li Rebellion" in the Li ethnic minority mountainous areas have given Hainan Coastal areas have brought unprecedented prosperity.
In fact, Chen Dong has been involved in all the experiences of Yin Feng starting from Taiwan. He was first a spy sent by the former Fujian capital commander Shen Yourong. Later, when Shen Yourong was the deputy commander-in-chief of Zhejiang and Ning Shao's general, he still had contact with him. In fact, Chen Dong's identity was already noticed by Lin Xiao when Shen Yourong left Fujian.
However, because Chen Dong had never done anything to provide information and was one of the most hidden insiders, Yin Feng asked him to serve as Yin Feng's secretary and concurrently as the head of the Qiongya branch of Huaxing Co., Ltd., but Chen Dong There are people around Dong who have been secretly monitoring him. Chen Dong is one of the few Confucian scholars who is willing to do practical things. As the director of the Immigration and Development Department, he has handled hundreds of thousands of mainland immigrants. In the past few years, Hainan has been carrying out construction projects to develop minerals. Chen Dong has He once again went to Hainan Island to concurrently serve as the governor of Hainan. In name, he was also the secretary of the Government Affairs Department of Prince Yin Feng's Palace.
As the earliest literati and Confucian scholar to participate in Yin Feng's career, although Chen Dong's status was surpassed by Zeng Jingshan and later Xu Hongji, he was also a highly respected literati within the Zhonghua Company system. He had actually been fully integrated into the system created by Yin Feng. He has also moved his whole family to Taiwan, and the Confucian principles that he originally regarded as heavenly principles have begun to waver in his mind, at least partially, under the impact of the intersection of Chinese and Western cultures in Taiwan.
Late at night on certain days, Chen Dong would often wake up suddenly, looking around in a cold sweat. The secret of the spy had been hidden by him for so long that he had almost forgotten his special identity. Sometimes, he hoped that this Identity is forever forgotten.
After Shen Yourong successively served as deputy commander-in-chief of Zhejiang and ascended to the post of deputy commander-in-chief, at the end of the 47th year of Wanli, the imperial court asked him to return to Fujian to serve as the commander-in-chief of Fujian in order to prevent the Taiwan Zhonghua Company. He secretly sent people across the sea to fight with Contact Chen Dong, hoping that Chen Dong can contribute to the court.
The visitor disguised himself as a businessman and transferred to Hainan via Taiwan. Chen Dong received him at his private home. Chen Dong was not moved by the visitor's words. Those who were loyal to the court could no longer arouse Chen Dong's emotions. However, although It is impossible for a scholar to die for his confidant, but Chen Dong, who was born as a Confucian scholar, could not evade his old master's request, so he had to vaguely agree to Shen Yourong's request. When Xu Guangqi was building the New Army, Shen Yourong served as the training director of the New Army. He recommended Yu Zhigao and other relevant talents to Xu Guangqi, and was also one of the people who helped Xu Guangqi purchase new Western cannons.
Chen Dong was Xu Guangqi's first internal contact in the China Company for purchasing cannons. The other person Xu Guangqi tried to contact was the Vicar of the Taiwan Branch of the Chinese Missionary Province, Jin Nige.
After more than ten days of hesitation and distress, Chen Dong finally introduced the people sent by Xu Guangqi, Zhang Tao and Sun Xueshi, disciples of Li Zhizao, to Jinni Pavilion. Jinni Pavilion contacted Han Ping through religious members of the Han Ping family. Ping himself.
After that, Chen Dong tried his best to stay away from this matter, holding on to a false hope that he could stay away from right and wrong.