Chapter 1052 Chapter 1052 Role Playing

From the moment the sailboat left Dinghai Harbor, everyone on the ship said goodbye to the identity of Hai Han. Each of them would be transformed into a temporary identity of Ming in the next period until the end of this operation. Gong Shiqi and Takahashi Nan got a twenty-day operation period. They must complete the lurking, investigation, planning, implementation of operations and evacuation in Hangzhou during this period. Although the time seems sufficient, considering that the target of this operation is all court officials, and if one of them is in trouble, it will inevitably cause a chain reaction, which may cause a local government to use the power of a government to pursue them, and the risks and difficulties they will face are really great.

After leaving Dinghai Harbor, the four ships on the joint operation team quickly distanced the distance. The four ships carried different operation teams, and there would be differences in the places where they landed in Hangzhou and entered Hangzhou from different routes. After arriving in the city, they would gradually reorganize through agreed contact means to avoid exposing their actions and attracting attention when they arrived in Hangzhou.

Takahashinan was sitting in the cabin, holding a stack of information about Hangzhou City, including a map of Hangzhou Prefecture. Although he had seen it several times before, the voyage to Hangzhou was about 100 nautical miles, and he would look out for review on the way. Before this, he studied the history and geography of a certain place in similar ways, and before Hai Han sent troops to attack the place, Takahashinan was a means for the commander to understand the target area. But this time the situation was quite special. Hai Han would not have plans to attack Hangzhou for a period of time to predict. The purpose of understanding these information was only to better play the new identity of the present.

Hangzhou established a county seat after the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, called Qian Tang. There are also records of Qin Shihuang's parade here in "Records of the Grand Historian: The Annals of Qin Shihuang". The name Qian Tang was preserved during the Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. Until the ninth year of Kaihuang in the Sui Dynasty, the Qiantang County established by the previous dynasty was abolished and renamed Hangzhou, and it was under the jurisdiction of Qiantang, Yuhang, Fuyang, Yanguan, Yuqian and Wukang. In the sixth year of Daye, the Jiangnan Canal was opened to navigation, and it passed through Zhenjiang through Suzhou and Jiaxing to Hangzhou. Hangzhou became the starting point of the Jiangnan Canal, promoting the rapid development of local economy and culture.

In the Tang Dynasty, Hangzhou's jurisdiction changed several times. In order to avoid the taboo of the country, the place name "Qiantang" was also changed to "Qiantang". The prefecture was expanded to eight counties and gradually became a distribution center for goods in this area. By the Kaiyuan period, the official population of Hangzhou was nearly 600,000, and it was ranked along with Yangzhou and Guangzhou as one of the three major trading ports in ancient times. In the second year of Changqing, the poet Bai Juyi was appointed as the governor of Hangzhou. During his tenure, he dredged the West Lake on a large scale, built dikes and gates, and built water conservancy, making West Lake famous all over the world since then.

By the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hangzhou became the capital of Wu Yue. King Qian Li of Wu Yue built a palace in Fenghuang Mountain in Hangzhou as a national capital, and built a "Luocheng" with a circumference of 70 miles on the outside, as the defense line of the capital.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the area under Hangzhou increased to nine counties, becoming the largest prefecture and county in Jiangnan, and was also one of the four major commercial ports in the country. In the fourth year of Yuanyou, Su Dongpo became the governor of Hangzhou and organized the dredging of West Lake again and built the Su Dike across the north and south of West Lake with the excavated lake mud.

By the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou also ushered in its heyday. It was promoted to Lin'an Prefecture in the third year of Jianyan, and ten years later it was designated as the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. The city walls of Hangzhou were also expanded on a large scale. By the Xianchun period, the population of Hangzhou had increased to more than 1.2 million.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the government was changed to a road, but Hangzhou still became the regional economic and cultural center as the capital of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province. In the Ming Dynasty, the road was changed to a road. At present, Zhejiang Cheng announced that the government and the Criminal Censorate Department, the three major power institutions, the capital of the commander commander, were all located in Hangzhou Prefecture. Among the three goals of this joint operation team, two were from the two important yamen, the Criminal Censorate Department and the Commander Commander.

The Censorate Office is in charge of criminal names and litigation, and also exercises supervision power for local officials. The Censorate Office is the Chengxuan Government Office and is also the highest commander of a province. The Chief Command Office is a local military command organ, which belongs to the Central Five Army Governor's Office, and is responsible for the command and coordination of the local garrison troops. These two yamen and the Chengxuan Government Office, who is in charge of administration, are called the "Three Divisions" and are not affiliated with each other and are only responsible to the central government. However, when there are major military and political affairs in the local area, the Three Divisions will generally discuss and seek solutions to the problem together.

Within Zhejiang, these three yamen are symbols of the highest local authority. The nature of the assassination of officials serving in these yamen is self-evident. If handled accidentally, it may cause trouble. Failure to act or secondly. It is really troublesome to arouse the hostility of the Ming government towards Hai Han. Therefore, before the action was launched, Takahashi Nan was also trying his best to make up for his shortcomings and reduce the possibility of mistakes in the action.

There are ten city gates in Hangzhou, namely Qingbo Gate, Yongjin Gate, Qiantang Gate, Houchao Gate, Genshan Gate, Qingchun Gate, Qingtai Gate, Fengshan Gate, Wulin Gate, and Yongchang Gate. Among them, Fengshan Gate is the southern gate of Hangzhou City, and is named after its proximity to Fenghuang Mountain. Fengshan Gate is divided into two gates, the water gate, which was built in 1359, connects two water veins, the Jiangnan Canal and Qiantang River, and can be regarded as one of the throat areas of water transportation in Hangzhou.

The Southern Song Dynasty once built an imperial city on Fenghuang Mountain. Fengshan Gate was the southern end of the Imperial Street, which was the location of the three provinces and six ministries. The Wansongling generation outside the city gate was a place for people in Hangzhou to go out for a walk. Although most of the ruins of the previous dynasty are no longer there, the area near Fengshan Gate is still very prosperous. There are large docks on the Qiantang River bank to the south, gathering a large number of merchant ships and civilian ships from surrounding prefectures. Every day, people and goods entering and leaving Hangzhou City are endless.

Not far from the Qiantang River bank is a spontaneous town. Many merchants who travel from the water to Hangzhou City will choose to settle here. Businesses with larger businesses will buy land and build houses here to save the storage and accommodation costs of bulk goods during the transfer and sale period. They rent housing and warehouses out of their homes and act as trade intermediaries, which is also an income. In addition, these types of merchants will also eat some goods sold by passing merchants nearby depending on the market conditions, and earn the difference by re-sale.

Chengfengxing is such a storehouse. The three-in-one yard can be stacked and housed. There is also a horse shed that can accommodate more than ten pack horses outside the back door. It is said that this place was built during the Wanli period. The owner has changed several times over the years, but the storehouse has been barely operating. It is said that the current owner is a marine merchant in Ningbo Prefecture, but he has not shown his face here. Currently, a shopkeeper named Wan and four or five men are maintaining the operation here.

Compared with ordinary inns, Chengfengxing can provide more abundant services in the trade field, which is much more convenient for merchants than staying in inns. However, among the more than 20 shops on the river bank outside Fengshan Gate, Chengfengxing's business scale and hardware facilities are only medium-level, and the location is not particularly good. Generally, repeat customers come here to book a room, and the business is still stable, with a daily check-in rate of at least 50% to 70%.

However, the guests who came to Chengfengxing to ask about the booking on this day were all disappointed, because the place was full for a long time. Of course, the full customer might be a bit inaccurate. In fact, Chengfengxing was booked and could not accept other customers.

Wanfa lowered his eyebrows and explained the reason to another merchant who was visiting the door, and asked the client to take him to another nearby store with a similar price. Then he asked the other clients to close the door and hang up the full signs so that no one would come to the door to inquire. Wanfa checked the cleanliness of each room, and then went to the kitchen to see the fresh fruits, vegetables, chickens, ducks, fish and meat purchased today. He still felt uneasy, so he asked the chef to boil another pot of boiling water and clean all the kitchen utensils and tableware again, and not leave any stains and oil marks. The guests Cheng Fengxing was going to receive this time were his Wanfa's immediate boss, so there must be no low-level omissions.

After Wanfa checked the preparations, he returned to his room and took out a small wooden box three inches long and one inch wide from the secret wall under the bed, and opened it gently, and inside it was a small striped object wrapped in satin. Wanfa put it on the table and slowly opened it. It turned out to be an ivory waist card, with only the character An in the official script engraved on the front, but when flipped over, there was a string of strange symbols that were not Chinese characters engraved on the back. If it was someone who had dealt with Hai Han, it might be able to recognize it. This is a special word used by Hai Han to count.

This ivory waist card is the identity symbol of Wanfa. The content engraved on it is the number number he used in the organization of the external agents of the Ministry of Security. In fact, when he contacted his peers, he always confirmed his identity through a code. He did not need to show this waist card. Its function was more to allow the agents lurking in the Ming society to maintain a sense of identity and not to be confused by lurking in the Ming Dynasty for a long time. The ivory used for this carving comes from Annan and other places, and is made by craftsmen with the best craftsman in Haihan. It is also of great value, and it also wants the wearer to feel the importance he receives.

Wanfa was born in Jinhua Mansion, adjacent to Hangzhou. In his early years, he was sentenced to exile in Yazhou for committing an injury case. During his sentence in Yacheng, he was recruited by the Haihan Security Department and has been serving Haihan for several years. Last year, he was sent to Zhejiang, and the pseudonym Wanfa took over the store outside Fengshan Gate, Hangzhou. Before that, the owner of Cheng Fengxing was said to be a businessman from Xu Xinsu, Fujian. Otherwise, the Haihan Security Department would have to spend some troubles to put such a venue quietly here.

Wanfa’s task here is to collect various intelligence from Hangzhou City, from city defense deployment to city rumors, in short, how much it is collected, and it is sent back to Zhoushan regularly through sea boats to summarize. The reason for this kind of hungry intelligence collection method is that Wanfa knew that this was a forced arrangement. The security department deployed too few agents in Hangzhou were deployed in Hangzhou, so he could only collect it in a hurry, and he did not have enough ability to do targeted work for the time being.

Although he didn't know how many peers there were inside and outside Hangzhou, it was obvious that this number was very limited, because he was the only one in the store he was responsible for running, who was affiliated with the Ministry of Security, and the others were all locally employed by the staff and had no idea about the store. If the department had enough staff, at least he had to be assigned a deputy or partner.

Four days ago, when Wanfa went to the dock to hand over the intelligence with people from Zhoushan, he was notified that Director Gong Shiqi, the head of the Ministry of Security in Zhejiang, was about to come to Hangzhou to handle official duties in person. The Chengfengxing where Wanfa is located, will be responsible for the early reception work and must cooperate with the action. This news made Wanfa, who had been like a salted fish all year round, suddenly excited. If he could perform well in front of his immediate boss, he might be transferred from this boring position as soon as possible or receive some important tasks.

Although he didn't know why Gong Shiqi came to Hangzhou, Wan Fa still dedicatedly found out the records he had made over the past year, recalling the various intelligence he had collected bit by bit, and screening out some valuable information he thought was worthwhile. Because he knew very well that Gong Shiqi's identity would not come to Hangzhou to inspect the work, but it must be that some people or things here attracted him, so he took this opportunity. Wan Fa also knew that Gong Shiqi was an agent from the field team before, and was good at directing tasks such as kidnapping. When he thought about it in this direction, it was not difficult to guess Gong Shiqi's purpose.

Although Wan Fa is just a small shopkeeper who manages the store by the Qiantang River, his special identity has kept him extremely politically sensitive. He has always paid more attention to Hangzhou's political affairs and especially the attitude of local governments towards Hai Han. He is also very clear that the voices of anti-Haihan in the officialdom of Zhejiang are almost all concentrated in Hangzhou. This time, Gong Shiqi came to Hangzhou in person, probably because this situation is related to this situation.

"Do you want to fight Hangzhou?" Wanfa rubbed the waist card in his hand while thinking about his boss's intentions. However, he immediately denied his guess. Even if Hai Han wanted to attack the mainland, he would definitely attack Ningbo Prefecture, which was closest to Zhoushan, first. How could he jump over Ningbo and Shaoxing Prefecture, which was separated by Ningbo and ran to attack Hangzhou two hundred miles away? Even if Hai Han's navy is invincible, it is unlikely that he would make such a combat plan that goes against common sense.

So he immediately thought of another possibility, that is, Gong Shiqi was going to Hangzhou to personally preside over the command of the operation to solve some Ming figures standing opposite to Haihan. The more Wan Shan thought about it, the more he felt that this possibility was extremely high. He began to think about who was so unlucky that he would be listed as a target by Gong Shiqi.

(End of this chapter)
Chapter completed!