Spy wars start with lurking Secretary Hong

Chapter 506 You're still too green to mess with me.
Hong Zhiyou returned to his office, opened a drawer, and threw the pistol inside.

He definitely couldn't bring a gun in; he didn't like others touching his things.

He put on his police uniform, and then draped the khaki military overcoat that Doihara had given him over it.

When they arrived downstairs, Zhou Yi had already driven his car and was waiting at the door.

Zhou Yi said, "Section Chief Gao called and asked me to accompany you to the bungalow."

Hong Zhi smiled and said, "That place would be deadly."

Zhou Yi said calmly and firmly, "Protecting you is equally important."

Hong Zhi opened the car door and got in: "Okay, let's go together then."

The car drove toward the bungalows of Ishiibu.

That place was a forbidden zone in the hearts of the Manchukuo people, a true hell on earth.

The high, impenetrable walls are covered with electrified barbed wire, and fierce soldiers patrol with their dogs around the clock.

As Zhou Yi drove, looking at the menacing building in the distance, he said, "More than two thousand soldiers are stationed here. Shiro Ishii is known for his radicalism and has special and independent command authority."

"He was unique in the Kwantung Army, and it is said that the amount of funding the Japanese Army Ministry invested in him was unimaginable."

"Although Ishii himself was not of high rank, he held a pivotal position within the Kwantung Army."

Zhou Yi turned his head and looked at Hong Zhiyou, whose expression remained unchanged: "Zhiyou, are you sure you want to go in?"

He said all this to remind Hong Zhiyou that this opponent was no ordinary one.

Hong Zhi flicked his cigarette ash: "Don't worry, I'm confident."

When the car arrived at the door, officers immediately led men forward to receive the murderers that Hong Zhiyou had brought.

After an extremely rigorous search, Hong Zhiyou was released.

Zhou Yi was indifferently blocked outside by several soldiers with guns.

No outsiders are allowed to enter without Ishii Shiro's permission.

……

Inside the office.

Shiro Ishii was holding a cup of tea, quietly savoring it.

He enjoyed the dark and gloomy feeling inside the "castle," much like the perpetually overcast skies of Harbin. This oppressive and suffocating feeling made him feel incredibly strong inside.

Seeing the fear in the eyes of those being brought in, Shiro Ishii would become extremely excited, as if he were witnessing the glorious scene of the Great Japanese Empire unifying all of East Asia.

Others' fears are the best medicine for his confidence.

A soldier walked in: "Doctor, he's here."

Shiro Ishii waved his hand.

Soon, Hong Zhiyou walked in, wearing a military overcoat.

Shiro Ishii knew that his close friend Saburo Shibuya had died at the hands of this young man.

But he never asked for Hong Zhiyou's information, nor did he ever see his photo.

Because it is not needed.

He only collects photos of dead bodies.

Shiro Ishii stared at Hong Zhiyou with a gloomy look in his eyes, without saying a word.

The young man in front of me was like any pretty boy you'd see on the streets of Tokyo—handsome but useless.

This was completely unrelated to the cunning and ruthless opponent he had imagined.

Hong Zhiyou was also sizing up this infamous human devil.

Shiro Ishii possesses the cold-bloodedness and rigidity unique to soldiers, as well as a deterrent force built upon bloodshed and cruelty.

However, such deterrence was nothing to Hong Zhiyou.

After all, he had once been on friendly terms with their father, MacArthur, and even the Emperor, whom they regarded as a god, was nothing more than a trembling clown in front of him.

A mere Japanese officer trying to put on airs in front of him? Ha, he's still too green.

Hong Zhiyou stood with his hands behind his back, coldly watching Ishii Shiro.

Standing over 1.8 meters tall, with his military boots and sharp, piercing eyes, he exuded an aura of imposing grandeur, as imposing as a mountain.

To make matters worse, the short-statured Shiro Ishii had to look up at him slightly.

Avoiding eye contact makes one appear weak.

But if you hold your head up, you feel inferior.

That damned feeling made Shiro Ishii very uncomfortable, and a nameless anger rose in his heart.

What angered him even more was that he couldn't see a trace of fear in this Chinese man's eyes.

This guy acted all high and mighty, like he was there to inspect the work, even more so than the commander and chief of staff of the Kwantung Army.

idiot!

"Dr. Ishii, where is the secret letter?" Hong Zhiyou asked first.

To avoid appearing inferior, Shiro Ishii turned around abruptly, sat down in his office chair, and gestured with his hand: "Please sit down."

Hong Zhi sat down opposite him with an air of authority.

Shiro Ishii got straight to the point: "I didn't send you a secret letter. I invited you here to conduct some investigations on you."

He took a file folder from the drawer and tossed it to Hong Zhiyou: "Take a look at this first."

Hong Zhi crossed his legs, casually opened the file folder, glanced at it briefly, and then threw it back: "It's all fake evidence. Ma Wendong gave it to you, didn't he?"

He paused for a moment, then continued, "Ma Wendong tried to steal my fur trade, but I refused."

"And... I slept with his wife."

"The truth is that simple."

Shiro Ishii was very dissatisfied with Koji's casual and unrestrained attitude. He slammed his hand on the table and shouted, "Watch your tone!"

"You're just a Chinese!"

"Everything you're doing now is enough to land you on a cold operating table!"

Hong Zhi lit a cigarette and nonchalantly raised his hand: "Chinaman?"

"You don't need to act tough in front of me."

"If you were really that capable, you wouldn't have needed to trick me into coming here with some secret letter."

Shiro Ishii sneered, "I know you're the prince's man, but here, I'm the one in charge!"

"With just one command from me, you will watch your heart being cut into pieces and ripped out!"

"And besides, I really hate you."

"You are the most arrogant Chinese person I have ever met."

Hong Zhi looked at him calmly and fearlessly, gently exhaling a puff of smoke: "I understand."

"Actually, I hate you too. You are the most beastly and disgusting person I have ever met."

Shiro Ishii never imagined that anyone would dare to speak to him like that.

He suddenly raised his hand, about to press the alarm bell on the table.

But just as he was about to strike, he stopped, his eyes fixed on Hong Zhiyou: "Aren't you afraid of dying?"

Hong Zhiyou frankly said, "Of course I'm afraid of dying."

“You can rip out my heart, but in Tokyo, someone will do the same to your wife and your two lovely daughters.”

"Oh, your eldest daughter is only nine years old, right?"

"She is very cute."

"And your wife is as delicious as a donut."

"My suggestion is that you call them now; maybe they really miss you."

Shiro Ishii's expression changed drastically. He grabbed the phone receiver as if he had been electrocuted and dialed his home number with trembling hands.

The call was connected.

But a man's gloomy voice came through the receiver.

"Crack!"

Shiro Ishii slammed down the phone. Pointing at Hong Zhiyou, he roared with a ferocious expression, "Baka! You bastard! I'm going to chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs!"

Hong Zhiyou smoked a cigarette, sneered, and remained silent.

Shiro Ishii suddenly burst into laughter again, a maniacal laugh: "I am a soldier, I have long since disregarded the lives of my wife and daughters!"

"If you think you can leave here with just this, you're oversimplifying things!"

Hong Zhi flicked his cigarette ash: "For a beast like you, of course I don't expect my family to restrain you."

"Next, let's talk about something else."

Do you know why I still came here even though I knew it was your clever trick?

Shiro Ishii stared at him coldly without saying a word.

Hong Zhiyou continued, "Nomonhan, your germ warfare is as stinking as shit."

"Your demands for funding over the years have already caused dissatisfaction among many generals in the military."

"This great battle has completely shattered your so-called mythical invincibility."

"Someone in Tokyo is already planning to report you for embezzling funds and planting your cronies."

Shiro Ishii laughed dismissively: "That's it? It's the same old story."

Hong Zhi said, "Yes, in the past, no one really cared."

"But what about now? Do you think Yoshijiro Umezu can still keep things under control?"

Shiro Ishii's expression changed slightly.

Hong Zhiyou stood up, walked over to him, and looked down at him: "Why do you want to kill me? Isn't it because you think my vote caused your plan against the Anti-Japanese Alliance to fail and damaged your unit's reputation?"

“But I’m going to die here today, and the Prince, the Chief of Staff, and my uncle will all investigate this matter thoroughly.”

"I kept a recording."

“As long as I don’t leave this door today, someone will hand over that recording.”

"The content is very simple. The reason why your plan against the Anti-Japanese Alliance failed last time was because your bacterial drugs were completely harmless and did not cause any infection at all."

"Therefore, this is the truth about why the Anti-Japanese United Army was well-organized."

“Listen carefully, it’s completely harmless!” Hong Zhiyou tapped the table. “Nonsense!”

He slammed his fist on the table in a fit of rage:

"The power of bacterial weapons has long been proven!"
"They possess extremely high lethality and contagiousness!"

Hong Zhi chuckled and leaned back lazily in his chair. "Hmm, I believe you."

"The problem is, some people in the Army don't believe it."

He slowly exhaled a smoke ring, watching the smoke drift across Shiro Ishii's furiously contorted face.

Who cares about the truth?
"They just want you dead."

"Nomonhan, you poisoned your own troops, making a huge joke of yourself."

"It had absolutely no effect on dealing with the Anti-Japanese United Army."

"In addition to the pressure from international public opinion, there are also your filthy deeds of embezzling and misappropriating military funds."

Do you think you can escape this time?

Hong Zhi leaned forward slightly, a hint of amusement in his voice:
"By then, not only will your biological weapons fail, but even if someone says you slept with the Emperor's wife, those idiots in the Army will believe it without a doubt."

"You are presumptuous!"

Shiro Ishii shouted angrily, trembling with rage.

Hong Zhi looked at him coldly, "You look very unhappy?"

"Fine, to be fair, you can go around saying I slept with Puyi's wife, I don't care."

"you!"

Shiro Ishii was completely numb.

He pointed at Hong Zhiyou, unable to utter a single word for a long time.

My heart was filled with mixed feelings: anger, fear, shame, and a whole host of other emotions.

He was well aware that many people in the military were dissatisfied with him.

Especially after the disastrous defeat in the Nomonhan biological warfare, more and more people within the military are pessimistic about the water supply department's epidemic prevention efforts.

If it weren't for Vice Minister Yoshijiro Umezu holding off the pressure, he would most likely have already been taken to Tokyo for questioning.

Hong Zhiyou looked at his face, which turned pale and then flushed, and sat up straight again.

He lifted his leg and placed his foot, clad in a military boot, directly on Shiro Ishii's expensive desk, then lit another cigarette, his movements utterly arrogant.

"Doctor, would you like to talk?"

Shiro Ishii was furious to the extreme; he was even tempted to kill.

But seeing Hong Zhi's calm and confident demeanor, he felt a strange sense of crisis rising in his heart.

This man is like a black hole; rejecting him might really lead to endless trouble.

He suppressed his raging anger and finally sat down slowly, squeezing out a few words through gritted teeth.

"I would like to hear your insights."

Hong Zhiyou, smoking a cigarette with a relaxed air, said, "Right now, the Japanese army is facing a shortage of resources, especially oil."

"Therefore, the most urgent task is to break through the blockade imposed by Britain, the United States and other countries, and seize the resources of Southeast Asia, which is what you call the Southward Expansion Plan."

"The Soviet armored onslaught has already terrified your Kwantung Army at Nomonhan, and there is no hope of advancing north."

"If I were Seishiro Itagaki, I would absolutely not agree to bet all the main forces of the Japanese army in North China and Central China on this icy and snowy land in the Far East."

"Moreover, your Navy Ministry will not allow the Kwantung Army to hold them back at this time."

He glanced at Shiro Ishii and smiled dismissively.

"I'm afraid you won't understand, so let me put it more bluntly."

"You will surely lose at Nomonhan, and the international laughingstock you created there will definitely be purged."

Shiro Ishii's face turned ashen, and he sneered, "This has little to do with whether you can leave here alive."

Hong Zhi shook his head, as if looking at a fool.

"You're so stupid, you got sold out and you're still happily helping the seller count the money."

“If you investigate me, you’ll have another messy account on your head, and the failure to deal with the Anti-Japanese United Army will be magnified infinitely.”

"In this way, Ma Wendong can both get rid of me, a thorn in his side, through your hands, and expose your failed plan against the Anti-Japanese Alliance, making you take the blame. It's a brilliant plan to kill two birds with one stone."

Let me tell you the truth.

"Old Qiu was the real red ticket. After I went up the mountain, I told him about the medicine. He immediately notified the Anti-Japanese Alliance and took this opportunity to successfully sneak back into the police station."

"Why did Ma Wendong tacitly allow me to kill Lao Qiu? It was for this reason."

"Now, he is taking advantage of your ignorant political mind to try to shift the blame onto you, so that you will attract the anger and shame of the Army Ministry and the Kwantung Army high command."

"But don't forget who has been advocating the theory of Soviet weakness and pushing the Northward Expansion Plan all along?"

"It was Ma Wendong and his father-in-law, Takuichi Ōmura, and other high-ranking officials of the South Manchuria Railway Company!"
"Now that the war is about to be lost, you are undoubtedly the best scapegoat they have put forward."

Shiro Ishii's brows furrowed tightly; he had become much more awake.

Hong Zhi continued to increase his bets.

"Only if I live can I prove that Ma Wendong's so-called evidence against the Anti-Japanese Alliance is false, and only then will you have a chance to fight back."

"If I die, you will die too."

"Only if I live will you have a chance to escape."

“I know you have a good relationship with Mr. Shibuya, but I hope you understand that Mr. Shibuya’s attempt to thoroughly investigate corruption touched the interests of the high command of the Kwantung Army, and that is the real reason for his death.”

"And I am just an unlucky guy who was pushed to the forefront."

"Don't underestimate those high-ranking military officers who only know how to make money. If they want someone to die, they will have a hundred or a thousand ways to do it."

"With your limited intelligence, my advice is to stay put in this godforsaken place and make your money, and don't get involved in those messy things outside."

Shiro Ishii was scolded like a grandson, but he was speechless and couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal.

Hong Zhi lowered his legs, stood up, and offered his hands:

"Come on, get me onto the operating table."

"This will give me a glimpse into the experiments you're so proud of."

Shiro Ishii took a deep breath, and the ferocity and anger on his face faded away, replaced by an almost distorted solemnity.

He stood up abruptly and bowed deeply to Hong Zhiyou:
“Hong Sang, I was caught off guard and almost fell into someone else’s trap. Please forgive me.”

Hong Zhi brushed the ash off his coat.

"Easy to say."

After saying that, he turned around and prepared to leave.

"Mr. Hong, please wait!"

Shiro Ishii panicked and quickly called out to him.

He strode quickly to Hong Zhiyou, adopting an extremely humble posture:
"Actually... we don't have any direct conflict of interest, so we shouldn't become enemies, right?"

Hong Zhi turned his head and looked at him. "Of course."

Shiro Ishii forced a smile:
"I must admit that I am far less shrewd than these people from the South Manchuria Railway when it comes to intrigue and scheming. I would appreciate Mr. Hong's guidance on how to break this deadlock."

Hong Zhiyou curled his lip: "Simple, strike first."

"You shall immediately send a secret telegram to the Army Ministry, stating that the failure of the Nomonhan bacteriological warfare operation was due to an intelligence leak."

"And Ma Wendong, as the only person in the Harbin area who knew the truth, was the one who leaked the information."

"By the way, also report Ma Wendong and Takuichi Omura for advocating the theory of Soviet weakness and secretly harboring malicious intentions."

"Even if we can't definitively accuse him of treason, we can at least pin the charge that he risked the interests of the South Manchuria Railway Company by endangering the Kwantung Army and the entire Japanese Empire."

Hong Zhi paused for a moment, then continued, "In that case, you can shift the blame to your subordinates for poor execution and improper operation, and completely absolve yourself of any responsibility."

"In this way, Vice Minister Yoshijiro Umezu can speak up for you legitimately."

"do you understand?"

Shiro Ishii was struck dumb, then his eyes lit up with wild joy, and he felt a sudden sense of enlightenment.

He bowed deeply to Hong Zhiyou again, his tone extremely sincere.

"Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Hong!"

Hong Zhiyou stood with his hands behind his back, looking at him indifferently: "May I leave now?"

Shiro Ishii immediately raised his hand, making a gesture of invitation.

"of course."

……

Police Department, Commissioner's Office.

Lieutenant Ogasawara strode in, his face beaming with barely suppressed excitement.

"Director, Hong Zhi has been transferred to the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department!"

Ma Wendong, who was reviewing documents, suddenly looked up, a glint of light flashing in his eyes: "Are you sure?"

Ogasawara nodded vigorously.

"Confirmed! Our informants in the area saw it with their own eyes; he's been inside for over twenty minutes!"

"Given Dr. Shiro Ishii's volatile temper, that bastard Hong Zhiyou is probably already on the operating table right now!"

"Great!"

Ma Wendong slammed his hand on the table, overjoyed.

He stood up and paced back and forth in the office, his smile filled with smugness and cruelty.

"Walk!

"I want to see Hong Zhiyou cry, wail, and repent with my own eyes!"

Of course, he had to take some precious photos before Hong Zhiyou was disposed of into a pile of fragments, so that he could take them back for Jia Huizi to "commemorate" properly.

Ma Wendong believes that when Jia Huizi sees those photos, the expression on her face will be very touching and wonderful.

Adjutant Ogasawara bowed and accepted the order.

"Yes!"

……

(End of this chapter)