Spy Wars: Red Shopkeeper

Chapter 112 Difficulties
News in Shanghai is very timely.

The next day, as soon as he got to work, Liu Xiaolou asked, "Director, have you read the newspaper?"

"What did you say?"

"The news of counterfeit military notes was reported in the newspapers, and foreign media also reported that our treasury was short on foreign currency. While I was having breakfast, I heard from passersby that people had gone to the Finance Bureau early in the morning and blocked the door, demanding that they exchange them immediately."

"What's the point of blocking the Finance Bureau's door? Blocking the mayor's door, blocking the new government's door, blocking the consulate's door, that would be effective. You can't even be smart when asking for money."

Liu Xiaolou couldn't respond. "There's another thing. A newspaper called this morning, asking if we arrested a British man yesterday and what was the reason for the arrest."

Gu Yansheng put the clothes down on the hanger, turned around, frowned at her and asked, "Who arrested him?"

"The Economic Department said that a British man came to exchange money, but the staff detained him on the spot."

"What does that have to do with us? Whoever arrests someone should explain." After Gu Yansheng finished speaking, he thought about it and realized that he couldn't say that. Arresting people was the responsibility of the judiciary. It was not legitimate for the Economic Department to detain someone, and it would damage the reputation of the Judicial Department.

"Where is he now?"

Liu Xiaolou shook his head. "I don't know about this. Do you need me to ask?"

Gu Yansheng walked over, picked up the phone, and called the Economic Department office: "Hello, this is Gu Yansheng. Did you detain a British person yesterday?"

"Yes, Director Gu, an Englishman and two Chinese. They came to exchange money, but they were using fake military notes."

"Where is he now?"

"He has been taken away by the people from the secret service headquarters."

"Agent Headquarters?" Gu Yansheng frowned. "How did the person end up in their hands?"

"At first, we wanted to hand it over to the police, but they showed up before the police even arrived yesterday, just before get off work ended. They said they had received orders from the Military Police Headquarters to investigate the matter. They not only took away the three people who came to exchange the banknotes, but also our supervisor, several responsible persons, and the staff who had been in charge of the exchange for the past two days."

"Okay, I see."

Gu Yansheng was about to hang up the phone when the person on the other end asked something.

"Director Gu, are they okay?"

After all, it was the secret service headquarters that came to arrest people, which sounded scarier than the police station.

"If you don't do anything wrong, nothing will happen. Just do your own thing."

Gu Yansheng put down the phone, thought for a moment, and said, "If anyone comes to ask about the British, just say they were taken away by the secret service headquarters. These people were very ruthless. Don't kill them and hold us responsible."

We also need to let foreigners know the correct way to recruit talents.

Liu Xiaolou nodded: "I understand."

Gu Yansheng had just had time to relax and have a cup of coffee when the secretariat called to convene an emergency meeting.

It is urgent. The strategy that was just decided at the meeting yesterday is now in the newspapers. The Finance Bureau is blocked by people and many people and companies are asking to exchange money. I guess there have been several calls from the Japanese asking for payment.

Now the plan to transport military notes to Suzhou has also failed. Although the newspaper did not write that they were going to transport them to Suzhou, everyone knows that there are a lot of fake military notes wandering around outside. If they want to implement it again, they have to force SZ citizens to exchange them at gunpoint. What is there to exchange for? It is simpler to just rob them.

After a whole morning of meetings, no solution was discussed. Now foreign businessmen are forcing us, and there is no foreign currency in the treasury. No matter what we try, it is impossible to drive away the foreign businessmen outside the Finance Bureau.

The situation continued to escalate, with more and more people blocking the door of the Finance Bureau, and the situation outside the city government was no less severe. Ordinary people who had been cheated of all their money launched a wave of protests, and many reporters set up their cameras, waiting to interview city government officials.

In Hongkou, the consulate entrance was also surrounded by reporters from various countries, demanding an explanation from Hasegawa.

Ding Ling Ling, Ding Ling Ling, the consulate is ringing non-stop. Hasegawa Inchuan doesn't dare to answer the phone at this moment. He walks around the room with a frown and an indignant expression.

According to what he knew, the current situation was far more serious than what was said in the newspaper!
No matter how bad the situation is, they can just treat it as a dog bite and endure it. If the foreign company wants to exchange money, they can just advance the money themselves and exchange it to the foreign company first to ease the situation.

As long as the foreign businessmen withdraw and stop making trouble, the problem with ordinary people will be easy to deal with. They are just a bunch of rabble, and they can be suppressed. If that doesn't work, just arrest some people and they will naturally disperse.

The counterfeit currency will be slowly collected and destroyed, and the problem will be solved.

But Ling Xianwen, who is now in charge of the Economic Affairs Department, called him and broke some shocking news.

A foreign company called and said that the military notes they had just exchanged from the Economic Department were all fake after inspection.

According to the process of exchanging military notes by the Economic Department, foreign companies bring dollars or foreign currencies to the Economic Department to exchange for military notes, and the Economic Department will naturally take out military notes from the warehouse for them to complete the exchange.

The Economic Department receives foreign currency, and foreign companies receive military notes.

But now the foreign currencies of foreign companies have been exchanged for fake military notes, and the fake military notes have been handed over to foreign companies by people from the Economic Department.

The Economic Department actually acted as a middleman for fake military notes, and it was free.

Foreign companies could not have imagined that the military notes taken out by the Economic Department themselves could be fake.

After Ling Xianwen finished talking about this, he reminded him and told him the biggest pitfall of this matter!
"Mr. Hase, the biggest problem in this matter is not that foreign companies have the counterfeit military notes we exchanged.

But the source of this matter is very likely to be a foreign company. If it is really them, will you be willing to pay them to continue to replace it? It is useless!

We have no way of judging whether the fake military notes they have in their hands were actually exchanged from us or whether they were produced by themselves!

If you say you will exchange them for them, and foreign companies come with a bunch of fake military notes again, should we exchange them for them or not?
If we don’t change it for him, it means we are not trustworthy. If they bite it to death, it means we gave it to them. How do we explain it?

If we change it for him, what will we do if the loophole is opened and hundreds of millions of fake military notes come in? "

When Hasegawa heard this, his eyes widened and his whole body felt numb as if it had been electrified.

What a big pit!
According to Ling Xianwen, there is no solution to this problem. It is impossible to exchange it with foreign businessmen. This loophole cannot be opened at all.

Otherwise, the problem will not be solved even if their foreign currency reserves are completely exhausted.

It sounds beautiful and simple to think so, but this matter must be resolved!

Who made him the Consul General in Shanghai?
Things had come to this point, and no explanation from him was of any use. If he wanted to maintain the credit of the military notes, he could only take out money to exchange with foreign merchants. However, tens of millions had already been exchanged by the scammers, and there must be a gap in their money. If they continued to exchange it, they would not be using military notes to harvest foreign currency in Shanghai.

Instead, they used their own foreign currency to fill the holes left by the fake military notes.

It’s a loss!
He asked the military police headquarters what they thought about this matter.

The Military Police Headquarters now has only one thing to say: it is impossible to give money. It doesn’t make sense to not make any money but also lose money.

Catch the mastermind behind this and wait for the investigation at the Secret Service Headquarters to be completed.

"Sir, the British Consul General is here and wants to visit you."

He didn't answer the phone, but someone came to his house. "If you don't see me, just say I have a heart condition and I'm sick."

Hasegawa Ingawa is now unable to communicate with the outside world at all, and can only hope that the Special Agent Headquarters can catch the person behind the scenes.

The pressure is put on the agent headquarters.

Li Shiqun accepted the task and began to investigate. In fact, this matter was not difficult. Once the person was caught, he could track him down and find out who was behind the scenes.

The only trouble was, this man was British.

After questioning for a whole night, the British man insisted that he didn't know anything and that he had received the money normally. He obviously would not tell anyone unless he was tortured.

As for the two Chinese, they were ordinary employees of Sassoon & Co., and it was obvious at first glance that they were small-time people who knew nothing.

With one call after another from the Military Police Headquarters urging him, Li Shiqun decided to take action.

"Mr. Wilson, if you don't tell me, I'm sorry. Maybe you don't know where this place is." Li Shiqun waved his hand and had Wilson tied from the chair to the torture cross.

"Mr. Li, you have to think clearly about what you are doing. I am a citizen of the British Empire. If you dare to torture me, the British Empire will not let you go, and the Japanese will also abandon you at that time." Wilson was very tough.

Li Shiqun smiled slightly and said, "I hope your British Empire can bless you. Let's start."

Under Wilson's incredulous gaze, Wu Sibao took action himself and began the interrogation.

"How dare you hit me? Ah! Ah~"

Screams of pain were heard from the interrogation room. After only ten minutes, Wilson surrendered with a look of exhaustion on his face.

"I said, I said, stop hitting me."

"who is it?"

"It's Sassoon."

"Sassoon & Co.? Who?"

"An assistant manager of Sassoon & Co."

"Assistant Manager." Li Shiqun nodded. "Why didn't you say so earlier? You've suffered so much in vain. Did the British Empire bless you?"

After saying that, Li Shiqun walked out of the interrogation room.

The subordinate reported, "Somehow the reporters found out that we have Wilson in our custody. Now the place is surrounded by reporters and foreigners, demanding that we release Wilson."

Li Shiqun frowned, "What do you think this place is? Just tell them to leave. If you want to stand here, then stand here."

Li Shiqun went upstairs and called the military police headquarters to report the results of the interrogation.

The investigation revealed that the person was from Sassoon Company. If they wanted to continue, they would have to enter the concession to arrest people. The people they arrested were from Sassoon, who was very influential, so they needed authorization from the gendarmerie headquarters.

The Military Police Headquarters told him not to move for the time being and directly gave the news to the consulate.

Hasegawa finally has a card in his hand.

Go out and speak to the reporters immediately.

"Don't worry, we will naturally be responsible for the military notes we issued, but I will have to wait until the matter is thoroughly investigated before I can give you a reply.

Now the matter has had preliminary results. Yesterday, we arrested a person from a counterfeit banknote company who came to exchange the counterfeit banknotes. According to his account, the mastermind behind this incident was the assistant manager of Sassoon & Co., and we cannot rule out the possibility that the whole incident was related to Sassoon & Co.

In view of the legal agreement between SH city and the concession, we hope that the Municipal Council can extradite the assistant manager of Sassoon & Co. to us in accordance with the extradition treaty.

I also hope that everyone can urge the Municipal Council to complete the extradition as soon as possible. Only in this way can we complete the entire investigation and complete the exchange for everyone as soon as possible."

"The investigation is your business, I just want to exchange it!" Opposing voices immediately came from the crowd.

"That's right. Regardless of whether it's fake or not, according to your promise when you launched the military notes, as long as we want to exchange them, we can exchange them! You are delaying and you haven't kept your promise!"

"We don't care about Sassoon, we just want our money back!"

The scene was chaotic and the situation was pressing.

Hasegawa Inkawa managed to maintain a forced smile as he ended the press conference.

Although the problem was not solved, it was at least possible for the Municipal Council and Sassoon to share the firepower with them.

But Sassoon was not willing to accept this opportunity to divert the trouble away.

An hour later, Sassoon held a press conference at the Sassoon Building to denounce Japan's nonsense.

"How ironic! This is what a consul said. Sassoon & Co. has been in Shanghai for so many years, and I wouldn't say its profits are exceptional. But speaking of industry, it's not an exaggeration to say that Sassoon's industry is among the top three in Shanghai.

Why do we need to engage in the counterfeit money business? Is it hard to make money?

The Japanese themselves did not keep their promise, causing losses to all Shanghai industrial and commercial enterprises, and now they want to use Sassoon & Co. as a shield.

I advise the Japanese side to release my employee immediately. He is not a spy and there is no reason for him to be brought into the spy headquarters!

If you don't release my employees today, I, Sassoon & Co., will completely withdraw my investment from downtown SH! I mean what I say!
As for today's slander, I have arranged for my lawyer to file a lawsuit with the Municipal Council Court. The Japanese Consulate must apologize publicly!

As soon as Sassoon spoke, the Municipal Council stood up and urged Japan to quickly release the detained British citizens.

The consulate responded, "Wilson has admitted his crime. He is a criminal and will naturally be tried by the Shanghai court."

Sassoon fiercely counterattacked, responding angrily, "You inhumane demons, you must have tortured him! You forced him to admit to something he didn't do!
I've known for a long time that you are inhumane, but I never thought you would even dare to torture citizens of the British Empire. You are so horrible!

You locked him up in the secret service headquarters, used torture to extract confessions from him, framed our Sassoon Company, and plotted to steal our wealth. You are so disgusting! Let him go!
As long as he has no scars on his body and admits that it was me who ordered it, my Sassoon Company will bear all the losses!
But if he has even a scratch on his body, I will never forgive you for this! Let him go! Let Wilson out! "

The scarred man will definitely not be released. Sassoon claimed that the interrogation was to force a confession, which was an attempt to forcibly seize the wealth of Sassoon & Co. to make up for the Japanese's own losses. The Municipal Council would definitely stand on his side in this statement.

As time passed, the Japanese consulate stopped responding, and Wilson was not released, so the possibility of Wilson being tortured became extremely high.

Otherwise, Sassoon had said that as long as Wilson was not injured, he would bear all the losses of the Japanese, and the Japanese would definitely be willing to let Wilson show up.

But now, it has been confirmed that the Japanese must have carried out inhumane torture.

For a moment, the crowd was excited and more foreigners flocked to the secret service headquarters and consulate.

Huge protests broke out outside both locations, demanding the release of the prisoners.

Hasegawa was extremely worried. He had never thought that Li Shiqun's confession was obtained through torture. How could he use this confession?
(End of this chapter)