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Chapter 535: Spy and Counter-Spy

Before Wulong entered the city, he went to the soldiers and horses near the north gate and returned them. Then he checked the documents and entered Jilin City after checking the documents.

The commission forged by the North Navy Intelligence Bureau was scanned and PSed according to a genuine document provided by Naqitai. Even the paper was specially processed paper provided by Naqitai, so there was no problem when checking through the city gate.

Since the arrival of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, in order to maintain the operation of huge state machinery, the paper for the court and court official documents was generally tribute paper. This included the paper for the lifting, hair-headed paper and paper-sentence paper transported to Beijing by Shanxi, Fujian and Jiangxi, as well as the tribute paper for Li Chao and Ryukyu. These special papers are generally stored in the pigment library of the Ministry of Revenue. If the paper stored in the pigment library cannot meet the needs, you can also buy it in Beijing, such as going to the "Baizhufang".

In short, from the imperial edicts and imperial edicts used by the emperor, to the imperial examination list, to the official documents and tax bills exchanged between the imperial court and local governments, the paper used for different purposes is completely different, and ordinary people cannot buy it on the market. Therefore, even if someone can carve radish prints in this era, if you can’t get special processing paper, it would be like a fantasy to forge the imperial court’s appointment documents.

Entering the city, there were five people in the Eight Banners soldiers carrying tokens, ropes and punishment staff everywhere on the streets to inspect. These were all "house-stacked soldiers" under the jurisdiction of Jilin's deputy commander.

Different from the various places in the pass, because there was no concept of "police" before the late Qing Dynasty, the public security in cities outside the pass was maintained by the Eight Banners soldiers stationed in the city. The place where these Eight Banners soldiers rested for a short time was called "House Houses". There were many in Jilin City, and their functions were similar to those of the public security booths in later generations.

These "house-stacked soldiers" were ordered by Fu Kang'an to patrol the green camp soldiers in the city. When they saw Wulong's official uniform and then looked at their appearance, they instinctively excluded him, said hello in Manchu and passed by.

When he arrived at West Street, Wulong first found an inn, showed his waist card and registered, and followed his friend to the guest room. After washing up, he changed into casual clothes and asked the friend about the fun in the city, saying that he wanted to buy something for his family.

The guy said that if you buy things for women, Cuihua Hutong is the first choice; if you buy things for male elders, then go to North Street.

Cuihua Hutong is famous for selling various paper flowers, including those worn on women's heads and furnishings indoors. It is also a frequent visitor by many high-ranking and noble women.

As for North Street, it is located on the north side of the General's Mansion, and it is located at the west entrance of Lao Jinlong Hutong. There is a archway at the entrance. I saw a plaque with blue land and gold characters hanging on it, with four big characters "Gongjin Tang" written on it. There are many business names on the east and west of the road in the north Street, and almost half of the street with the name of "Sheng" is occupied. For example, Yuanshengqing, Hengshengdian, Yongshengdian, Qingshenghou, etc., these are all the industries of the local rich man Niu family.

Wulong rewarded the guy with a few coins, and then he looked leisurely and went to North Street. After entering the archway door, he walked past seven or eight shops. A sign at the entrance of a medicine shop called Jishitang appeared in front of him. A ginseng tree was painted on the flag at the door, indicating that the medicine shop was mainly engaged in ginseng. After raising his feet into the shop, a ginseng fragrance with a slight earthy smell floated in the house, mixed with the smell of other medicinal materials.

There were no customers in the store at this time. There was only a guy in his thirties behind the counter who looked like a shopkeeper who was sorting out bags of medicinal materials. When he saw the visiting customer, he looked up and greeted, "Brother, are you going to buy medicine? Are you here to buy ginseng?"

Wulong looked around and said to the man: "No, I have a good ginseng plant, I want to ask about the price."

The man stopped in his hand, then looked up at Oolong and said, "Oh! Please sit down, I'll have someone make tea for you."

"No hurry, I'll ask the price first. How to collect second-class ginseng?"

The man smiled and said, "The current market is really second-class ginseng, at least 300 taels, and the extra ginseng is a thousand taels. The specific quality depends on the quality. Brother, do you come from the north? It is rare to see good ginseng now. Please wait, I will pack up the things at hand before checking the goods."

After a while, a friend served tea and then stepped down. The man who looked like a shopkeeper had finished packing up his things. He washed his hands first, and then came over to Wulong and said, "I'm the next surname Wu, and I'm the shopkeeper of Jishitang."

"So it's the shopkeeper Wu, I've been looking forward to it for a long time!" Wu Long hesitated after hesitating for a moment, and suddenly said, "Jiaqi should not be in the spring mountains, it should be the six ginseng leaves."

Manager Wu smiled and shook his head and said, "Young man is wrong. At most, there are only five leaves in Haogan."

Wulong shook his head and said, "My one is from Liuye!"

"Oh, I wonder where this good ginseng is produced?"

"Border of the Huntong River, in front of the Yongning Monument!"

Hearing Wulong speak the code completely, Manager Wu smiled and bowed to Wulong and said, "Please, brother, I have to check such good ginseng."

"It's easy to say."

When he arrived in a wing room in the inner courtyard, Manager Wu took the newly sent telegram codebook from Wulong, he couldn't help but be amazed and wondered why he had sent a half-old man from above. When Wulong told him that the trafficker had an emergency, he felt relieved.

Wulong stayed in the backyard of Jishitang for only half an hour before leaving. After leaving, he went straight to the tobacco shop next door to buy two kilograms of tobacco leaves, then went to Qingshenghou Gold Store to buy a pair of silver bracelets, then ran to Yuanshengqing and pulled a few feet of silk, and returned to the inn with a large bag.

All the things that should be done have been done, and Wulong didn't want to stay in Jilin City any longer. On the morning of the third day, he found a reason to settle the bill, then left the city from the West Gate, and boarded a boat to Melgen City to pull timber at Sandao Pier. At this point, his first field mission was successfully completed.

In fact, the work of the North Navy Military Intelligence Bureau is not only about conveying intelligence and spying on information, but also their main work. For example, Xu Funan, who was trained by Zhao Xin, has been taking people from the Immigration Office and the Public Security Police Station to review the newly arrived immigrants since the beginning of last year.

From the 55th year of Qianlong's reign, that is, 1790, 500,000 immigrants from the pass flocked to the city, most of whom came from Zhili, Hubei, and Sichuan. The identification problem was very complicated.

Refugees of men and women were all depressed when they got off the boat; hungry, poor, and ragged clothes were all visible. When they first arrived at Whale Bay, these hungry and cold people were shocked to see many different scenes in Beihai Town than in the pass. Sometimes they became terrified and shouted just because of the cars passing by on the road.

Beihai Town, which is in urgent need of a large number of labor, cannot keep these people closed and wait for door-to-door review before letting them out. Therefore, the Immigration Office can only register first, issue identity cards, assign work residences, and then verify them in batches based on the registration situation; if the explanation is unclear or doubts, it will be subject to separate review.

The Beihai Town Immigration Office did a very detailed job in the preliminary work. They recorded videos for each immigrant and conducted preliminary inquiries based on a fixed questionnaire with thirty questions. The video was recorded, and the questionnaire was combined with the contents in the registration book to basically understand the entire life of each immigrant before coming.

The refugee wave has long passed, but the review work has not stopped. This year, the establishment of the North Navy Intelligence Bureau has increased the number of originally insufficient reviewers from fifteen to more than fifty. Among these fifty people, the 16-year-old Xu Funan has been engaged in counter-espionage work under Zhao Xin's order two years ago, which is considered a "old qualification".

On the morning of May 24, Xu Funan appeared in the yard of the Immigration Office of Boli Town as usual, which was the place for review of immigrants. These days, ordinary people were afraid of seeing officials. If they were arranged in the Public Security Police Station, many people would probably not dare to come.

The review is usually conducted in the form of conversation. Usually starting at 8 a.m., Xu Funan meets one person every half an hour, and almost 15 to 20 people a day.

Contact with new immigrants is not so much a systematic preparation as a result. All examiners have been trained in advance, and the trainer is Zhao Xin’s personal disciple in practical psychology - the Beihai Town Public Security Police Department’s feature Bingwei.

Katabui told all examiners that when you first contact the examiner, you should speak a kind and polite tone. In addition to admiration, you should never express doubt, surprise or excitement.

Those remarks that are lying or bragging in nature should be encouraged and must not blame them when they hear them. The duty of the examiner is not to argue with the subject of the review, nor should he blame them. If a person's explanation is inconsistent with the video content of the previous immigration registration, you should ask carefully about this issue. You should know that the more unreal the explanation, the greater the loophole. Once you argue with the other party, he will be wary of his own explanation being suspected.

When the first review is over, if the examiner believes that the other party's explanation is true and the plot is dull, he should ask various questions so that the ins and outs of the matter will be clearer and more complete. After clarification, it is confirmed that the suspect is innocent, the second review will be unnecessary, and this person has passed the test.

Xu Funan was "very unfortunate" today. His first subject was a bachelor who was assigned to a pig farm. Whenever he talked about the previous events in Beihai Town, Brabra spitted everywhere. After listening for a long time, he was really annoyed, so he changed the subject and asked: "What's the matter with the scar on your forehead and eyes?"

"The villain was nicknamed "Sanbangzi". He was so poor that he couldn't survive. He gritted his teeth and thought about going to a brothel to "get one". You don't know that according to the rules of the world, if you want to earn this money, you have to let others fight to death. As long as you endure this beating, the shopkeeper has to carry it into the store to recuperate. When the injury is healed, he will get a portion of money in the store. This is called "take one". We were flirting with an axe, but a grandson took a damn attack and hit it here, almost blinding the villain."

"Oh, so your name is Jinsan."

"It's yours!"

"The pig farm report says, you work hard, don't plan to marry a wife?"

"Li Tou is a righteous man, and he is not unfair to food, clothing and wages. Don't look at me as a street man, but you have to be loyal, brave, courtesy, righteous, and trustworthy! People treat us as brothers, so we can't lose our chains. As for my wife, Li Tou asked me for my family and said that it was from Sichuan..."

Jin San started talking again, but fortunately, a few minutes later, the alarm ring on the table rang, interrupting his depiction of his future life.

"Okay, you can leave." Hearing Xu Funan's words, Jin San first got up and bent down at Xu Funan, then put on a felt hat and left the house.

After coming to Beihai Town these days, Jin San felt that it was really good not to kneel down and kowtow to others. Although the environment in the pig farm was almost the same, it was always good to live by relying on an axe and a knife. When he thought of going to propose marriage to someone from Sichuan tomorrow, the yellow-flowered daughter would become her own wife. He was happy and couldn't stop talking:

"Silly boy, sitting on the door, crying and making a fuss to ask for his wife..."

After humming a few words, Jin San, who walked to the yard, looked back curiously and saw a man wearing a blue cloth jacket and a simple-looking face walking into the room he had just gone to with his back.

When Xu Funan saw the man coming in, he didn't get up. He pointed to the chair opposite and said to the man, "Sit down."

"Hey!" The man was a rogue, bowed and sat down with a cramped look on his face.

Xu Funan smiled and said kindly, "Some situations I want to verify with you, don't be nervous." After that, he asked the security police in casual clothes to pour a glass of water for the other party.

"Why!"

"Your name is Duan Kui? From Zhili?"

"Hey! I'm from Guangping, Zhili."

More than ten minutes later, Xu Funan had asked half of the questions, and Duan Kui also answered questions and didn't talk much nonsense. This person was calm when he spoke, his narrative was simple and clear, reasonable, and gave people an inexplicable favor.

According to the archives, this man is 45 years old and has a wife and son and daughter at home. He used to do small business around the streets and alleys, and he had learned to punch and kick for several years. In the 53rd year of Qianlong's reign, he was in trouble and could not survive. He had to take his family to Tianjin. As a result, when he entered the city, he was tied up by the government with a rope and sent it to Dagu. After coming to Beihai Town, the Immigration Office arranged his family to Boli. Now he himself was a small foreman on the railway construction site, while his wife was taking care of the children at home.

However, the more Duan Kui did this, the less careless Xu Funan dared to be. He remembered that Zhao Xin once told him that the more sophisticated the spy was, the better the impression it would give.

When Zhao Xin was reading a book on practical psychology, he was deeply impressed by one of the cases in it. A world-renowned criminologist said that the person who left his best impression was a woman who poisoned all his children to get an insurance premium; while the person who left his worst impression was a philanthropist.

Xu Funan looked through the registration information of the immigration office. Among the items he took, he keenly noticed that there were two gold bracelets, a gold ring and a small box similar to a jewelry box. How could a person who is doing a small business have such expensive things?

When asked about this, Duan Kui said it was passed down by his ancestors. Xu Funan instinctively did not believe the other party's words. The so-called people leave their hometowns and are humble. This is not that they cannot survive in this year and no one wants to move. Since there is gold, even if the hometown is water and bracelets and rings are used as bracelets and rings, they can buy rice and grain. Why bother to escape to Tianjin? Isn't it good to go to the capital?

"No!" Xu Funan's face changed, he slapped the table with a palm, and said sternly: "Duan Kui, I'll give you another chance, you have to think it through before you can talk about it!"

Faced with Xu Funan's sudden change of face, Duan Kui hesitated and finally explained: "Okay! I didn't tell the truth, I stolen this thing."

Immediately afterwards, Duan Kui began to hesitate and talk about how he met a businessman on the way to Tianjin, and how he stole a bag from the other party, which contained these things.

If this were replaced by other censors, it would be easy to believe Duan Kui’s explanation. After all, he revealed his own shortcomings and had no flaws in his statements. These days, when a thief would be extremely looked down upon and lose his ancestors and family.

However, Xu Funan is Zhao Xin's personal disciple after all, and he remembers every sentence Zhao Xin warned him. Zhao Xin once specifically reminded him that in the case of counter-espionage, one should be careful about the "stories in the story".

"Funan, when you think after great efforts, you feel that you have destroyed the suspect's resistance, then if the other party starts to tell a story that damages your image, remember, don't trust this! As long as someone does this, he is definitely a very dangerous person!"

Duan Kui did not return home smoothly like Jin San, and he was detained. Following that was his wife and two children were also taken back for interrogation by the public security police.

Two days later, the honest guy finally revealed his true identity after being fed by the interrogator and even spurted out blood.

This person is Duan Wenjing, the head of the Zhili Bagua Sect who had gathered more than 50 people to attack Daming Mansion, robbed prisoners in Daming and Yuancheng counties, shocked the Qing court and the people, and had been absconding for five years.

Duan Wenjing was from Zhangmeng Village, Guangping County, Zhili. He once became the leader of the Zhen Gua, and once studied boxing sticks. He once served as the Zaotou in the Daming Yamen. Since the 1940s, this person has been preaching in the Daming area. In order to expand the teaching situation, he formed the Li Gua, Zhen Gua and Xun Gua from Daming, Guangping, Shandong Guan County, Guantao and other areas. In order to attract people to the teachings, he called on "treat diseases and seek blessings" and "learning boxing sticks", and respected Liu Hong, Shanxian County, Shandong as the leader, and used his banner to deceive and teach disciples to make money.

On the night of July 14, 51st year of Qianlong, Duan Wenjing led his men to light incense and kowtow, and each wrapped his head in red and white silk cloth, and pushed the wall next to the Daming Mansion Daotai Yamen. Daming Daoist Xiong Enfu heard the sound and came out of the hall to shout ban, and called for someone to capture it. Duan Wenjing took the lead in chopping Xiong Enfu to the ground, and the others came up to finish the knife. Xiong Enfu escaped back to the central hall, fell to the ground and died. His family and the yamen runners started to resist, eight were killed and eight were injured.

Later, Duan Wenjing led the crowd to open the treasury, but when he saw that more and more yamen runners were supporting, he rushed to Daming and the two counties of Yuancheng to kill officials and rob prisons. Then the Qing army stationed in the garrison came to support and used muskets. Then the fox and dog parties of the Bagua Sect fled one after another.

After this incident, Qianlong was extremely angry and issued a series of edicts to strictly investigate the case, urging the then governor of Zhili, Liu E, governor of Henan, Bi Yuan, and governor of Shandong, Mingxing, to pursue fugitives and spread a large network in the three provinces.

The governments of the three provinces took more than half a year to arrest more than 50 regular offenders involved in the case, and the areas they pursued were expanded to Shanxi, Anhui, even Jiangnan, Huguang, along the canal, and the coast of Shandong. In addition to the regular offenders, countless relatives and people from the same religion were arrested.

Although the Qing government has spread widespread eyewitness and offers rewards to arrest him, the first criminal Duan Wenjing has not been captured. Qianlong even expanded the scope of investigation to the Shaanxi-Gansu region, the coastal areas of the eastern province and the Shengjing area. Until this year, Qianlong still repeatedly scolded local officials for their slackness and negligence in their edicts.

However, no one expected that Duan Wenjing had been hiding in Tianjin for many years, and took advantage of the opportunity of the Beihai Army's troops coming to Dagukou to seek refugees and sneaked into Beihai Town. The worst thing was that this person had developed more than a dozen backbone elements among the island workers and Han foremen who built roads in the past year and began to make money.
Chapter completed!
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