1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1068 Follow-up Effects
In the early summer of the seventh year of Chongzhen, a rather strange event happened in Hangzhou City.According to rumors, the first person to discover the situation was the family of Yu Pingfeng, the commander of the capital of Zhejiang Province, because Mr. Yu did not return home from work on time as usual this day. greet.The steward sent someone to the Dusi Yamen to inquire, and said that Mr. Yu left at noon and never came back.After careful inquiry, it was said that the people from Jinyiwei came at noon and left the Dusi Yamen with Yu Pingfeng.

The members of the Yu family also knew that Yu Pingfeng had a close relationship with Liao Xun of Jinyiwei, so they hurried to the Jinyiwei yamen to inquire about the news, but the answer was that Liao Baihu had never been to the yamen all day.However, Jin Yiwei needed to go out to deal with many of the affairs that Jin Yiwei was in charge of, and he would often not go to the Yamen for a day or two, so no one was surprised by this.And the night before, Liao Xun took more than a dozen people out of the city to carry out a secret mission, and he didn't mention to the Yamen when he would come back.

Although Liao Xun was not found in the yamen, the members of the Yu family did not give up. They turned around and went to Liao's mansion again, but after patting the door for a long time, no one responded, it was like an empty house.The Yu family had no choice but to continue guarding Liao's house while sending someone to ask for help.Yu Pingfeng's brother-in-law is a school lieutenant of the garrison in the city. After hearing the news, he rushed over and asked people to climb over the wall and enter Liao's house, only to find that the house was empty. There was not even a living person left.

Now the members of Yu's family knew that the matter was serious, so they quickly sent someone to report to the officials.Yu Pingfeng's best friend, Guo Zheng, was to be punished for the affairs of the Procuratorate, so the Yu family sent someone to Guo's mansion, hoping that Guo Zheng would come forward so that they could send someone to investigate the disappearance of Yu Pingfeng and Liao Xun as soon as possible. Unexpectedly, Guo Zheng was not in the mansion either. It was just that he usually had a lot of social activities, and his family thought he was out on business, so they didn't realize that something was wrong. They didn't realize that something was wrong until they heard that the other two had disappeared, so they hurriedly sent someone to the yamen. Ask, sure enough, like Yu Pingfeng, Guo Zheng was picked up by Jin Yiwei's people this afternoon, and he also did not explain his whereabouts to his colleagues before leaving.

The final whereabouts of Yu Pingfeng and Guo Zheng seem to be inseparable from Liao Xun, but since Liao Xun's family has disappeared, there is no way to find the parties to confirm this matter for a while.Within one day, three court officials disappeared without any reason, and they disappeared in such a strange and inexplicable manner, which has never happened before in Hangzhou City.Of course, the strangest thing was the disappearance of Liao Xun, because almost at the same time with him disappeared more than ten members of his family, as well as more than ten subordinates who followed him out of the city.

It was already night when the situation was discovered, and the gates of various cities in Hangzhou City were also closed, so there was no need to apply for a separate ban on closing the city.At present, the city defense army and the police in the city were mobilized to search everywhere in the city, hoping to find some clues.Of course, this night's tossing didn't yield any real gains, and the 20-odd people seemed to disappear into the air out of thin air, without leaving any traces.

After dawn, the scope of the search was extended to outside the city, and checkpoints began to be set up on the main roads entering and leaving Hangzhou. Even the officers and soldiers began to appear on various rivers and lakes, and all water and land transportation arteries began to be controlled.

It has to be said that the Hangzhou government reacted relatively quickly and took the right measures. If the missing person is still near the city of Hangzhou, there will indeed be a relatively high chance of finding his whereabouts through these measures.However, the missing persons, including the three court officials, were all dead or alive. The government mobilized thousands of people to search within a radius of [-] miles of Hangzhou city for several days, but they still did not find their traces. .

At the same time, a fire incident outside the Fengshan Gate in the south of the city attracted much less attention.In the middle of the night when Liao Xun and others disappeared, a commercial store outside the city suddenly caught fire. Probably because there were too many flammable items stored in the store recently, the fire quickly got out of control and burned the three-entry yard to a clean slate. , and the people in the inn may be because they are asleep, but no one escaped from the fire.The next day, when people cleaned up the ruins, nine corpses were found among them. Judging from the location and physical appearance of the room, Wan, the shopkeeper of the store, should be among them, and the rest might be shop assistants and people who lived here. guest.

The procuratorate, Jinyiwei, Hangzhou government office, and Qiantang county government office specially sent people to check and examine the remains of the deceased to determine whether there were any officials the government was looking for among the victims. .However, the results of the joint inspection conducted by several people made them very disappointed. There was no target person they were looking for in these corpses, and there was nothing suspicious about the corpse itself. The autopsy results confirmed that these people had indeed died in the fire. There were no traces of trauma other than burns.And the police found no obvious traces of arson in the fire scene, and everything indicated that this seemed to be just an accident.

Since the main energy of the government was put on the errand of finding the three missing officials, although several people died in the fire shop, it did not attract much attention.Although there is uncertain news that Liao Xun seemed to have appeared near the fire site on the day of his disappearance, it is difficult for investigators to link the two incidents due to lack of evidence.Because almost at the same time, among the sighting news received by the government, the missing officials seem to have appeared in other places, and each such news must be followed up and verified, so it will be over soon The investigation work will be handed over to the neighbors to deal with the rest of the finishing work.

Of course, Wan Fa was not burned to death in Chengfeng Hang. That night when Chengfeng Hang was ablaze, he was already on the boat going to Zhoushan Island.At this time, Zhoushan, who was on the same boat as him, also had three captured officials of the Ming Dynasty.According to the instructions sent by Zhoushan Island, Gong Shiqi did not execute them on the spot, but used Liao Xun's subordinates as scapegoats to burn all possible loopholes in Chengfenghang, and burned them up.

Gong Shiqi did not return to Zhoushan with the boat. He stayed in Hangzhou City to continue his activities. Taking advantage of his position in the dark, he continued to release various false news around Hangzhou City, disrupting the government's investigation of the official's disappearance.Since the missing persons are currently under the control of Haihan, it is not difficult for Gong Shiqi to fabricate some decent fake news, and it is easy for the government investigators to be exhausted.

Under the influence of many disturbing news, Gong Shiqi can be sure that it will be difficult for the Hangzhou government to find out the true whereabouts of these three people in a short period of time. Fly ash annihilated.Even if someone who is familiar with the situation of these three people suspects that Hai Han is related to this matter, without any evidence, it is difficult to confirm this conjecture and send people to Zhoushan, four hundred miles away, to search and arrest them. , which is an impossible task.So this matter has developed to the current stage, and it is almost certain that no decent investigation results will be obtained.

Fortunately, Gong Shiqi had bought a house in Hangzhou in advance. Although Chengfenghang was gone, there was a new base in the city, and he could still sit in Hangzhou with peace of mind and handle the follow-up mopping-up matters.

The person in charge of escorting the prisoners back to Sanya was naturally Gao Qiaonan, and he withdrew the people from the Special Operations Battalion to Hangzhou first.As a supporting role in this operation, Gao Qiaonan was only responsible for directing the final stage of the operation in the city. He captured Liao Xun's family almost effortlessly, and shipped them to the outside of the city in batches for loading. Gong Shiqi was a little more relaxed.However, this operation also allowed Gao Qiaonan to see the strength of the field team of the Ministry of Security. The Ministry of Security is indeed better than the military at performing such special tasks in areas not controlled by Haihan.

Moreover, the formulation and adjustment of the action plan during his stay in Hangzhou were almost all operated by Gong Shiqi, which also gave Gao Qiaonan a new understanding of his personal ability.When the joint action team first arrived in Hangzhou, they could hardly think of an effective way to complete the task, and they were almost exposed when Jin Yiwei came to the door, but Gong Shiqi cleverly took advantage of the seemingly dangerous situation and used his strength to fight , captured all three targets alive in two days and one night, and cleaned up all the traces. Apart from the loss of a trading post, our side did not suffer any loss in terms of personnel. called perfect.

The boat that Gao Qiaonan took didn't make any stops on the way, and went straight out of Hangzhou Bay along the Qiantang River, heading east all the way to Zhoushan.It took only one and a half days to arrive at Dinghai Port in Zhoushan.Hao Wanqing and Qian Tiandun, who had learned the news in advance through the radio, also came to the pier in person to welcome the returning team.

"Are these our three guests?" Hao Wanqing asked him when he saw the ashen-faced three men being escorted off the boat by Gao Qiaonan's men.

Gao Qiaonan replied: "Master Mingjian, the short one is Liao Xun, the tall and dark-skinned one is Yu Pingfeng, and the one with a goatee is Guo Zheng."

Hao Wanqing nodded repeatedly and said: "These few people are more valuable alive than dead. You have done a good job!"

In order to disintegrate the anti-Haihan forces in the Zhejiang officialdom, the Ministry of Security joined forces with the military to plan this operation. Hao Wanqing's original plan was to assassinate these three people, because it was too difficult to capture them alive, and he didn't want to use his subordinates However, there are too many uncontrollable objective factors in the assassination operation, it is difficult to guarantee the success rate, and the second is that even if it succeeds, the possibility of one's own deeds being exposed is very high.The action team brought the three back to Zhoushan unscathed, which has greatly exceeded Hao Wanqing's original expectations.

These three people can be said to be the main representatives of the anti-Hai Han in Zhejiang official circles. If they can be captured, Hao Wanqing is sure to get more information from them.Their accomplices will be Haihan's next batch of targets, and the voices against Haihan in Zhejiang's official circles will also subside a little.Moreover, the issue of intelligence security that Haihan has always attached great importance to will get a more complete answer from Liao Xun. Although the group of personnel sent by Jin Yiwei has been successfully intercepted before, it is not yet sure whether there are others before that. The guards in Jinyi have mixed into the island, and Liao Xun is the long-awaited insider of the Ministry of Security.

"I want to start interrogating them as soon as possible." Hao Wanqing said to Qian Tiandun eagerly: "Because the officialdom in Zhejiang has not made a clear response to their disappearance, we should make corresponding arrangements, and the nails that need to be pulled out must be Pull it out at this time!"

Hao Wanqing took the three officials away on the spot, and he had no interest in the rest of the prisoners, and handed over all powers to the military for handling.These people included Liao Xun's family members, servants, subordinates, and one of Yu Pingfeng's aides. They were quickly taken to a prison on the island for isolation.Regarding the identities of these people, Haihan still had to keep them a secret for a period of time, otherwise, once the news spread to Zhejiang officials, conflicts would inevitably erupt between the two sides.

After the Ministry of Security's interrogation of the three people is over, these people will probably be sent to the south separately, either as hard labor or as immigrants, to settle in places they have never heard of.As for Liao Xun and the other three, whether they can save their lives in Zhoushan depends on their cooperation.

Qian Tiandun also praised Gao Qiaonan's performance this time without hesitation. He and Gao Qiaonan were both commanding remotely this time, but the actual effect they can play is very limited. In most cases, Gong Shiqiu He Gaoqiaonan interpreted and judged the situation on his own, and made adjustments to the already rough action plan.Although there was always concern about whether the plan could go smoothly, in the end the joint action team did not disappoint the base camp, and even the result greatly exceeded the expected level.

During this period, Qian Tiandun specially assembled a company of troops and deployed them in Hangzhou Bay as a quick-response force. Once the operation in Hangzhou required military reinforcements, the fleet of three ships would immediately head west to Hangzhou. , Cooperate with the arrangement of Gong Shiqi and Gao Qiaonan to start the operation.Of course, this force was not put into use in the end, and the action team in Hangzhou solved all the difficulties and successfully completed the task with an extremely clever plan.

This matter is not over yet. To be on the safe side, Gong Shiqi will send the latest situation of Hangzhou City back to Zhoushan through the radio every day to ensure that the follow-up of the matter will not cause any substantial trouble to Hai Han.The quick response force will also continue to deploy in Hangzhou Bay for a period of time until the action team headed by Gong Shiqi withdraws to Zhoushan.

"After the matter in Hangzhou is resolved, we can start to arrange the plan to go north." Qian Tiandun said to Gao Qiaonan: "This time we spent more than ten days less than expected, which is enough for us The preparations before heading north have been completed."

(End of this chapter)