1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2012
Speaking of interrogation, this is what Gong Shiqi is good at.He has been engaged in intelligence work for nearly ten years, and the number of subjects he has personally interrogated has already reached three figures. Whether it is verbal intimidation or torture to extract confessions, he has rich practical experience.As for the fact that the interrogation objects are a group of wounded, this is even more common to him, because even healthy people, he will often turn them into wounded during the interrogation process, which saves a lot of money. time.

But today, Gong Shiqi obviously couldn't do anything to the interrogation target himself. The injuries on his body made him sit on a chair and give orders.But this will not prevent him from using words to intimidate the interrogators and extract the information he needs from them.

For these prisoners, they are actually in a desperate situation at this time. If they do not receive timely and effective treatment, then within three to five days at most, they will suffer from complications caused by gunshot wounds. die.At this time, the desire to survive often overshadows the loyalty to the employer, and it is also the easiest time to reveal the secrets in their minds.Gong Shiqi didn't spend too much time, and he extracted some valuable information from several interrogators one after another.

These people admitted that the employer they worked for was Lu Kangtai, a salt merchant in Yangzhou. Before joining the Musketeers, most of them worked under Lu Kangtai, and some of them were even members of the Lu clan.As for their training time, the earliest time was about half a year ago, and there were also newcomers who were selected to this team two months ago.

As for the sources of weapons that Haihan's intelligence department is most concerned about and the partners who provide military training to salt merchants, there is finally some news.

According to the explanations of these prisoners, there are two commanders of this musketeer team, one is Lu Kangtai's cousin, and the other is Franji.But unfortunately, both of them died in the battle last night, and the Franji man among them was the western-looking corpse that Ji Yuanqing had noticed before.But the way these weapons flowed into the hands of Yangzhou salt merchants, these captives can't tell clearly, after all, with their identities, it is reasonable to have no access to these secrets.

The gun was a Spanish-made musket, and one of the commanders was also a Spaniard. There is no doubt that this matter has something to do with the Spaniard.But there are still many things that cannot be explained for the time being. For example, how did the Spaniards bypass Haihan's blockade on the southeast coast and quietly enter the Yangzhou area?The two parties in this cooperation had no contact in the past. What made them come together?If there is someone in the middle who bridges the gap for them, who is this middleman?

In addition, whether the clues from the Yangzhou salt merchants are related to the gun cases that occurred in Hainan Island and Liaodong is also the focus of the investigation.The Ministry of Security had already suspected that the Spaniards had found a helper before they could re-extend their tentacles from the South China Sea to the vicinity of Daming, but so far this is just an unconfirmed guess, and more evidence is still needed to confirm that this happened. possibility of the situation.

Gong Shiqi did not get any clues related to this from the prisoners who were interrogated temporarily.Although these people working for Yangzhou salt merchants can be regarded as reliable internal personnel, the information they have is still very limited, and they have no knowledge of things outside Yangzhou, and they have never heard of Liaodong and Hainan Island. matter.

"Probably we have to catch that Lu Kangtai back!" Gong Shiqi came out of the cabin to breathe and smoke a cigarette, and exchanged the results of the interrogation with Ji Yuanqing by the way: "These gangsters have nothing to do except being used as gunmen." I don’t know, it seems that they can’t be expected to give any key information.”

"Catch it... I'm afraid I won't be able to leave if I really catch it!" Ji Yuanqing bowed and took the cigarette handed over by Gong Shiqi with his mouth, and replied vaguely: "It is said that Lu Kangtai is from the salt merchant in Yangzhou. If you think about it, after the musketeers broke up, he organized hundreds of people and a dozen boats to chase him to the canal. Poked a hornet's nest?"

Gong Shiqi shook his head and said: "That's not necessarily the case. Think about it, the lives of these gangsters are definitely not worth as much as him. If you catch him, you will be a hostage who can really coerce the other party into submission. If anyone dares to catch up, I will hoist him to the mast." , live and die with the ship!"

If Gong Shiqi knew that the Lu Kangtai he was talking about had commanded the chasing boat last night and fought with them all night, then his mind would probably have changed.Although that old man is a little fat, he has a very ruthless style of acting. Even if he can catch him, he will probably still fight to the death, and he won't be able to get away easily like Gong Shiqi thought.

Of course, it is definitely unrealistic to turn around and go back to Yangzhou to arrest people now, and there is no need for them to carry out another arrest mission against the wind at this point in time.Compared with taking risks with a very low probability of success, it is more important to send the personal and physical evidence obtained in Yangzhou back to Zhoushan as soon as possible.Moreover, many of our own personnel were killed and injured in this operation, and the combat effectiveness has been greatly reduced. It would be unwise to carry out high-risk operations with a tired body.

Although the two were extremely tired, after a short rest and some hot food, they returned to the cabin to continue interrogating the prisoners.They hoped to obtain as much information as possible from some of the dying captives before they arrived in Zhoushan, otherwise these wounded numbers might have died after they arrived in Zhoushan.

A day later, they met the two Haihan warships that had come to meet them at the predetermined location at the mouth of the Yangtze River. This finally reassured the group of people who had been on tenterhooks along the way.As long as they are escorted by naval warships, the safety of these two ships is basically guaranteed. If there is a scene of being chased by a bunch of ships on the canal, it can be compared with the presence of warships. Handled it with ease.

The military doctors on board the two ships were also temporarily transferred to the two cargo ships to assist in the treatment of the many wounded on board.The casualties of the Haihan personnel who participated in the operation this time were mainly concentrated on the ship that stayed behind, and in order to ensure combat effectiveness, the personnel who stayed on this ship were mainly soldiers, and the field service team of the Ministry of Security is not good at this kind of combat. So most of them were transferred to another ship.This makes the final casualties mostly military.

But compared to the results of this operation, this seems to be an acceptable price.After all, the military has many inconveniences, and it is difficult to send a special force to Yangzhou to destroy the musketeers. However, this time they sneaked into Yangzhou with the help of the cover provided by the Ministry of Security and completed the task with relatively small casualties. In the face of diplomatic disputes, Ji Yuanqing, as one of the commanders in this operation, will definitely receive rewards from high-level officials afterwards.

As for Gong Shiqi, he himself felt that this trip south to participate in the operation was quite rewarding. In addition to adding a few more scars on his body and an extra experience of escaping, more importantly, he handed over the experience during the operation. Ji Yuanqing is a friend.

Although the two belong to different units, they are both intelligence officers. They have many common topics in work, and they cooperated quite tacitly during the operation, so that Gong Shiqi later forgot the relationship between the Ministry of Security and the Military Intelligence Bureau. competition relationship.

However, he knew that he would not stay in Zhoushan for too long, at most he would heal his injuries for a few days, and when he was almost able to move, he had to return to the north to continue his previous mission.And the next time I meet Ji Yuanqing, I don't know when it will be.

When this fleet sailed out of Wusongkou and headed south from Hangzhou Bay, on the Liaodong Peninsula, two thousand miles away to the north, the latent team led by Sun Bing finally obtained the victory after many days of surveillance. progress.

At Wang Tom's insistence, the Marine Corps took over the task of investigating the Qing Army's musketeers, but this task was not easy to handle. Sun Bing led this team into the enemy-controlled area for more than ten days. During this period, the enemy camp was monitored around the clock, but no trace of the Musketeers was found.

So much so that Sun Bing was a little suspicious, whether the other party had transferred the Musketeers away from the Liaodong front and stationed elsewhere. In that case, even if he stayed here for a whole year, he would still not get any relevant information.

However, the military order was like a mountain, and the order he received was to find clues related to the Musketeers from the enemy camp, so although he did not get any results, as long as the military order did not change, he had to continue to carry out the current mission.

Every day before dawn, they set off from the temporary station by the sea, march to the mountains near the enemy camp, and then monitor the target area for a whole day, and then return to the seaside camp for the night after dark.Others can be on duty in rotation, but as the commander, he has to go to the front line to participate in monitoring work every day. This is really a very time-consuming and frustrating job.

During the monitoring period, they can't walk around at will, and can only stay in a few confirmed hidden monitoring points. minimum.And the food is only simple dry food such as fried noodles, fried rice, compressed biscuits, etc., and they are swallowed with cold water, which is really uncomfortable in this season.Only after returning to the station every night can I have a hot meal.

After several heavy snowfalls in recent days, it has become more and more difficult to travel in the mountains and forests. The time spent on the way has increased by at least one-third every day. will shiver with cold.

However, just when they all thought that the Qing army should have died down and would no longer cause trouble this winter, the musketeer team suddenly appeared in the camp they were monitoring.

This musketeer team entered the camp on horseback one afternoon. After many days of observation, Sun Bing was already familiar with the various troops stationed here, and the appearance of this cavalry team immediately aroused his attention. Notice.He saw through the binoculars that these riders were carrying a stick wrapped in cloth on their backs. It was about four or five feet long. It was not an ordinary weapon of the Qing army, which made him immediately think of it. The target that I have been waiting for to appear.

After continuous observation of this cavalry team, Sun Bing could basically confirm that this should be the target he was looking for.As the secret weapon of the Qing army, this special force has a separate station in this camp. It is not a tent for ordinary soldiers, but a residential house built by the Han people in the past. Although it is only mud walls and thatched roofs The configuration, but in this camp is already a high-end building, looking at the smoke from the chimney behind the house, it is obvious that it can still burn the kang, and the living conditions are much better than tents.

The most important thing is that after these people dismounted, they continued to carry the stick-shaped package on their backs. Obviously, the contents inside were very important.Apart from muskets, Sun Bing couldn't think of any other weapon that would make these Qing soldiers care so much.

But the place where this army was stationed was quite far from the observation point of Sun Bing's team, and there were other Qing troops stationed in the periphery, so it was basically impossible to sneak up close to find out.Sun Bing could only continue to monitor and wait for a better time.

On the same day that the Yangzhou salt merchants took action against Gong Shiqi, Sun Bing also looked forward to the opportunity he had been waiting for.This musketeer team was probably training for fighting in the snow, and suddenly assembled one morning, and then set off to march south.And the direction they were traveling happened to be where Sun Bing's team was.

However, Sun Bing does not think that this unit will enter the mountain forest area for training at this time, and most of them just go to the hillside to practice target shooting—the Marine Corps will find a hillside near the station as a shooting range in daily training, and set up the target In the direction of the hillside, this can effectively avoid stray bullets from hurting people.

Sure enough, the troops stopped at the foot of the hillside, only about twenty or thirty feet away from where Sun Bing was. However, considering the height difference, it was difficult for people at the foot of the hillside to notice the movement in the forest high up on the slope.What's more, the monitoring points had special camouflages, and it was impossible to detect their existence from the bottom of the mountain, so Sun Bing continued to observe calmly, and had no intention of moving.

The Qing army dug out several human-shaped chest targets made of wood from the snowdrifts under the hillside. Before that, this place was a shooting range.But I don't know why this Qing army has not been stationed here recently, so this shooting range seems to have been deserted for a while.

After the Qing army placed the target, an officer walked aside, drew out his saber and shouted command, ordering the Qing army to form a battle formation.This is almost the same as the basic combat formation of muskets known to Sun Bing. They all use several horizontal lines as the firepower output surface, and they shoot and load sequentially to ensure the continuation of the firepower output.However, Sun Bing didn't pay attention to the musketeers who were lining up. He stared at the commander through the binoculars, as if there was something about him that particularly interested him.

(End of this chapter)