Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 758 The Bait Has Been Laid
"Master, Master, there's a letter from the eldest young master."
"What?! Show it to me quickly. It's been six years and I thought he was dead. Finally there's some news."
It is October 6, 1645, Li Yongfang's seaside villa in Mumbai, India.
Since the Ming Dynasty surrendered when it was forced to withdraw in 1639, at first, both the then commanders Gustav and Wallenstein, and Philip who later came to India to carry out appeasement work, showed enough attention and goodwill to Li Yongfang.
Not only did Philip not harm the Li family's manor, he also gave him the title of Viscount and a lot of land in India. Then Li Yongfang, who originally had no faith, also gave himself a high-ranking caste among the Kshatriyas...
In a short time, the manor expanded, the number of slaves increased, and the new European nobles and the original Indian natives all respected him very much. He lived so comfortably that he repeatedly sighed: I did the right thing by not returning to the Ming Dynasty but staying here.
However, as time went on, on the one hand, the European coalition forces were defeated in Indochina, and the analysis of the Ming army's combat power that Li Yongfang provided to the coalition commander was not very accurate. On the other hand, there was no news about his eldest son, Li Yangeng, who was sent back to the Ming Dynasty to hide. As time went on, Li Yongfang's value in the eyes of Europeans became less.
Indians are very strange, but they still have basic vision. Since the white master doesn't like this fake devil, why should we respect you? So in the past three or four years, the Li family's life has gradually become difficult.
Li Yongfang saw this situation and was anxious: he was already a 70-year-old man, and he didn't know how long he could live. Although he was not well-received now, he still had the title of Viscount. If he was gone, the Li family's current assets would definitely be devoured by the wolf-like European nobles.
Therefore, in order to protect the family business, he must show his value in front of the European masters. And to show his value, he must show his achievements in intelligence!
In the historical plane, Li Yongfang's performance in fighting with real swords and guns can only be said to be unremarkable. But in terms of intelligence warfare, he is really talented. The fall of Shenyang and Liaoyang was related to his contact with traitors in the city. The most brutal one was in Guangning: he first pretended to be nice to Wang Huazhen, the then governor of Liaodong, and said that he had to surrender to the Later Jin. After Wang Huazhen was fooled into believing it, he sent the general Sun Degong to instigate him. As a result, he instigated Sun Degong to rebel. After that, Sun Degong led his troops to scare Wang Huazhen away, and sent people to seal the granary and gunpowder depots, and gave Guangning, the gateway to western Liaoning, intact to Nurhaci. For the first time, the Later Jin had a complete firearms unit, a large number of gunpowder shells and a team of professional and technical personnel, and its combat effectiveness was greatly improved...
But in this plane, because the politics in the Ming Dynasty was clear and bright, it had always been very strong, and the right of public opinion was controlled by the emperor. Under such circumstances, few officials in the Ming Dynasty would be so stupid as to think of becoming traitors. So, although during the Indian retreat, in addition to Li Yongfang, there were also a dozen officials who chose to surrender because they were reluctant to give up their estates and their status as superiors in India. However, this group of traitors headed by Li Yongfang had been jumping up and down for many years, but they did not succeed in inciting any official in the Ming Dynasty to rebel. On the contrary, the few confidants they had from the Ming Dynasty were almost completely lost in the contact and running.
In this way, Li Yangeng's line is almost the only lifeline for Li Yongfang and the team of traitors around him.
God bless you, after more than six years, I finally received a letter.
Speaking of which, it was not easy for Li Yangeng to return to China for more than six years.
As soon as he entered Yunnan, he was controlled by the Jinyiwei and interrogated very harshly. After that, the military also repeatedly examined and screened him. He had always hoped that reporters from the six major newspapers would come to interview him, so that he could become famous for his feat of " killing relatives for the greater good ", and his promotion to military rank did not happen. Instead, after all the interrogations, he was thrown aside and sent to a ghost place called "Indian Returnees Resettlement Office", where he was responsible for writing military analysis reports all day long, writing about why the combat effectiveness of the Indian troops declined and why they suffered a sudden defeat.
This went on for more than a year before Mao Wenlong's son Mao Chengdou finally came and rescued him from that hellish place where he was being resettled.
Although Mao Wenlong lost India and committed suicide to take the blame, he was the son of a general after all, so Mao Chengdou, who was only a lieutenant colonel at the time, still had a group of uncles and brothers who took care of him in the army. Under his operation, Li Yangeng, a lieutenant colonel, was transferred to Zhejiang at the same level and served as the deputy commander of an army regiment stationed in Zhejiang.
Zhejiang used to be a frontline when Japan was not tamed. But now that the Pacific Ocean has almost become the inner lake of the Ming Dynasty? The Zhejiang garrison is mainly responsible for gathering workers from many factories in Zhejiang in batches for military training every year.
Even with such an unremarkable job, Li Yangeng could not do it for long: in the 25th year of the Tianqi reign (1643), Lieutenant Colonel Li Yangeng was fifty years old and was forced to retire from the army because he failed to be promoted to colonel.
After his own application and the approval of the Military Service Bureau, Li Yangeng was assigned to Huai'an Prefecture in Southern Zhili to serve as deputy director of the Military Service Bureau there.
In Huai'an, he reorganized his family, married a martyr's widow, and adopted the two children she brought with her. In 1644, the woman gave birth to another son for him.
At this point, Li Yangeng's desire to be a spy had gradually faded: whether he was a regiment commander in the army or a deputy director of the local military service bureau, he was able to learn about the operations of the Ming Dynasty in recent years through the six major newspapers and the official reports. In his opinion, even if the Ming Dynasty could not fight back to India, the mainland would be completely safe. In this case , wouldn't it be good to be an official in peace and stability until retirement? Although he still has several wives, concubines and children in India, isn't it good to reorganize his family here now? It seems a bit late to start over at the age of fifty, but it is also a brand new life.
Unfortunately, not long after he came up with this idea, he was visited by a businessman.
At present, the business community of the Ming Dynasty generally supports the emperor, but there are also those who are dissatisfied with or even hate the emperor. Among this group, the ones with the highest hatred are the former Lianghuai salt merchants.
When Zhu Youdong was still the grandson of the emperor, he implemented salt policy reforms and auctioned off a large number of salt fields, allowing the output of private salt fields to enter the market smoothly. While allowing the court to obtain more salt taxes and the people to eat high-quality and cheap salt, it also caused the interests of the Lianghuai salt merchants who had made a fortune by controlling the salt permits to be severely damaged. Although Zhu Youdong also allowed them to buy several salt fields. However, they used to eat alone, but now there are so many competitors. How can they be satisfied?
When Emperor Tianqi ascended the throne, especially after Japan and Siam were conquered, the country's maritime ban policy was completely ended. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, anyone who had the courage to go to sea to beg for food, did business legally, and paid taxes on time would be protected by the country. This caused the Lianghuai salt merchants who were previously unable to go to sea and the few who could go to sea to do business with Europeans to suffer heavy losses...
In short, Zhu Youdong's reforms did not completely cut off the livelihood of Lianghuai salt merchants. It just introduced market competition into the areas where they used to eat alone. But even so, it was enough to make this group have strong hatred and disgust towards the emperor.
Therefore, when the Spaniards sent assassins to kill Zhu Youdong, it was the Lianghuai salt merchants who stepped in to help. When Li Yongfang waited for many years but still had no news about his eldest son, he naturally thought of this group of merchants.
After the EU coalition forces took over India, in order to completely reverse the EU's trade deficit with China, Philip used his naval advantage to blockade the Bay of Bengal and cut off the Ming-Malacca-India-Europe route.
However, from the perspective of economic laws, as long as both parties have a demand for transactions, even if the state will prohibits transactions, there will definitely be smuggling of varying scales to complete the transaction.
For the Ming Dynasty, the trade of silk, porcelain and tea is a bloody profit. As long as you can smuggle it out, we will fully support it. As for the EU, it is true that ordinary people can no longer buy silk, porcelain and tea, but there are so many nobles in Europe, so how can they just say no?
Therefore, the Ottomans opened the Silk Road on land, using the long border with the European Union for official smuggling and earning the difference as middlemen. On the sea side, there were actually small-scale smuggling activities. It seems inaccurate to say that it was smuggling. In fact, the goods on this route were often directly supplied to the Spanish royal family. Philip's Queen of France personally sent people to supervise the matter. And what about Philip himself? On the one hand, he also needed peace in his backyard. More importantly, this limited right to smuggle trade was one of the most important bargaining chips he used to collude with the Lianghuai salt merchants of the Ming Dynasty and exchange interests.
In short, thanks to the efforts of all parties, Li Yangeng's connection, which had been broken for six years, was reconnected.
After hesitating for a long time, Li Yangeng did not choose to report the businessman who came to make the connection, but wrote a reply letter to Li Yongfang. In this letter, he briefly reported his experiences in the past few years. Then he made it clear that due to the limited position of his position, the intelligence he could obtain was also extremely limited. However, it is a fact that the Ming Dynasty is carrying out a full mobilization, and it is also a fact that the Zhejiang Military Service Bureau has received a task to recruit 50,000 net soldiers within two years. The clothing factories in Zhejiang Province have received a large number of orders from the Ministry of National Defense, and the private shipyards have received a large number of orders for transport ships... It is also a fact.
That’s all there is to it. This is really the best information a provincial deputy director of military service can provide.
What Li Yangeng did not expect was that a handwritten copy of this letter, which did not contain any top-secret content, was delivered to the desk of Jinyiwei commander Tian Ergeng not long after he sent it out.
"Commander, I used some aphrodisiac at night to make the merchant sleep soundly, then I sneaked into the room, took out the original document and copied it, and later sent it back intact. The merchant who delivered the letter will never know."
"Very good. Alas, Captain Ma, you have worked so hard these past six years."
"No, I am lucky. I have been following this guy for six years and finally caught him. So I have made some achievements. Many of my brothers have been following their targets for their whole lives but have never found anything."
"That's true. For those of us who work in intelligence, loyalty, carefulness, and patience are indispensable."
"Commander, what should I do next?"
"Hmm..." Pulling his beard, which had turned a little gray due to his age, Tian Ergeng smiled and said, "Isn't this guy finally willing to provide information to Li Yongfang? Then let's help him. Alas, the information that a mere deputy director of the Military Service Bureau can provide is really too little. So, I will go to see the emperor later and ask for his permission to transfer this guy to a more important position under a less conspicuous excuse."
…
On October 7, 1645, the day after Li Yongfang received Li Yangeng's reply in India, the Ministry of National Defense and the General Administration of Military Service of the Ming Dynasty jointly issued a document: Because the court has recruited a lot of soldiers in recent years, the troops have certain difficulties in management and coordination. Therefore, retired and transferred officers from various provinces are requested to take the initiative to apply, re-enlist, and go to the newly established troops to assist the existing chief officers in their work. This requirement is not mandatory and is purely voluntary. After the retired and transferred officers submit their applications, they will be reviewed and approved by the General Administration of Military Service and re-assigned. Among them, retired officers under the age of 60 who are engaged in national defense-related work at the local level will be given priority...
