Chapter 1617 Collecting Intelligence

Fei Cexian was sent as envoy to Haihan this time. In addition to consulting with Haihan on various disputes that still existed between the two countries, he also had an important task to collect various intelligence information about Haihan.

Organize and restore a relatively comprehensive and true social situation of Haihan and Han Dynasty, write it down and submit it to the court.

This is different from what Jin Yiwei and Dongchang did. The intelligence information Fei Cexian wanted to collect mainly came from public fields and channels, such as daily social life, official announcements from Haihan, and newspapers and other propaganda media.

News, etc. Moreover, because of his special status, he has far more access to high-ranking officials in Haihan than those intelligence agents who hide in Haihan incognito. He also has more opportunities to understand the upper class and ruling class of Haihan society.

And this information may be more useful to Ming Dynasty than how many warships Haihan deployed in a certain place.

The imperial court did not have very detailed requirements for Fei Cexian's mission, because after all, he was not a professionally trained espionage officer. He had been just a diplomat responsible for dealing with foreign envoys for the past ten years. Fei Cexian was at sea

He had a high degree of freedom in his actions during the Han Dynasty, and he could decide all matters on his own, including how to collect military, political, and business-related intelligence about Han Dynasty. As for the specific areas to focus on, it was all decided by Fetzer.

Xian decides on his own.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty gave Fei Cexian this kind of freedom. It was actually a helpless move. After all, Hainan Island is thousands of miles away from the capital. It is impossible to ask his superiors for instructions on everything. He can only give Fei Cexian full autonomy and let him

In the Haihan Kingdom, the situation can be judged and the situation can be carried out on its own. Moreover, Fei Cexian's loyalty to the court and professional ability are also deeply trusted by his superiors. Otherwise, how could he be qualified to undertake such an important task with only a seventh-grade official position?

However, Fei Cexian's intelligence professional ability is indeed only at the level of a beginner, and this is the result of more than ten days of training by Jinyiwei and Dongchang before departure. So for Fei Cexian to be able to work in Haihan

How much valuable intelligence was collected, but Ming did not set a specific goal for him. He just hoped that he could judge Haihan's trend of external expansion based on the changes in the situation in Sanya, especially whether his attitude towards Ming would change.

Although Haihan has not shown obvious hostility towards Ming in recent years, the entanglement in trade and immigration has become deeper and deeper, and the possibility of war between the two countries has become smaller and smaller. However, Ming did not dare to relax its attitude toward Ming.

Haihan’s surveillance. This South China Sea country’s combat effectiveness has become increasingly astonishing in recent years, and its tentacles have even extended to the Liaodong Peninsula, which is thousands of miles away from its homeland. This means that Haihan can project its troops by sea at any time.

Go to any coastline in Daming.

The combat effectiveness of the Haihan Army is not at the level of civilian armed organizations such as pirates and Japanese pirates. Its performance is enough to put regional powers like the Ming Dynasty to shame. And the facts of the past few years have also proved that if the Haihan Army deploys troops to the coast of the Ming Dynasty, it will basically

They all settled down there very smoothly. Not to mention Fuzhou and Guangzhou, which had long been infiltrated by Haihan, the same was true for Zhejiang and Shandong further north. Although the local government and garrison in Shandong also tried to resist and

They drove away the Haihan army, but the results were not ideal.

For the Ming court, the presence of the Haihan army in coastal areas was like a knife on Ming's neck. It was the Haihan people who had the final say whether or not to take action and when. Naturally, Ming Dynasty was not willing to be content with this.

Being in such a passive situation, they don’t want their territory to be encroached by Haihan year by year. However, Ming Dynasty is currently in a lot of troubles, so it naturally doesn’t want to get too stiff with Haihan.

It will be the Ming Dynasty.

However, it was impossible for Ming Dynasty to just sit back and watch Haihan get on top of him little by little. He still wanted to find ways to resolve Haihan's overwhelming military advantage. Islands outside the mainland, including Qiongzhou Island, were lost.

It was lost, and there was no rush to get it back for the time being. However, the areas occupied by Haihan on the mainland made Ming Dynasty feel on pins and needles. Even though it was clear that Haihan would not initiate a war, seeing Shandong, Liaodong and other occupied areas.

Military facilities, who can feel relaxed?

But in order to expel Haihan's army, Ming was unlikely to use force with little hope of victory. He could only settle for the next best thing and see if he could catch Haihan's weak points, or find the right one that Haihan had no time to take care of.

When the time comes, take back these occupied areas. But it is also very difficult to do this. It requires the support of a strong intelligence system, especially understanding of the latest trends of the Haihan Army. If there is a lack of intelligence information in this area, then all

All judgments made are just on paper.

Although the Ming Dynasty also has full-time intelligence personnel lurking in Haihan, they are definitely not as convenient as Fei Cexian, the Ming envoy. Therefore, although Fei Cexian is not a professional, he still takes on the task of collecting all aspects of Haihan intelligence for the Ming Dynasty.

Whether it was Zhang Qianzhi, a tour guide sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the staff at the Guesthouse with whom he had daily contact, Fei Cexian regarded everyone around him as a potential source of information. Although the information these people could provide might not be anything.

It is confidential, but Fei Cexian is convinced that after sorting and analyzing this information, he should get something valuable. For example, from Zhang Qianzhi, Fei Cexian learned a lot about Haihan’s methods of bribing Ming officials, regardless of Zhang Qianzhi

Tell him what his purpose is, but after sorting out this information and sending it back to the Ming Dynasty, the court may be able to find a way to deal with Haihan's corrupt methods.

After seeing it with his own eyes, Fei Cexian had to admit that Haihan's economic and military advantages made it difficult for the Ming Dynasty to catch up. Although Haihan seemed to be a small country with a population of only more than 300,000, its national strength

But it is completely out of proportion to the population, especially the military deterrence that can reach thousands of miles away from the mainland. This is probably only the Ming Dynasty in its heyday could achieve. Fei Cexian was vigilant, but he could not help but feel a little envious and jealous.

, after all, today’s Ming Dynasty is unlikely to have such majesty. During the Liaodong negotiations, even followers like North Korea had their position shaken by the appearance of Haihan.

In addition to the most direct source of intelligence information, which is contact with the Haihan people, Fei Cexian's other main source of intelligence is various local newspapers published in Sanya. This thing is actually not unfamiliar to Fei Cexian, because the Ming Dynasty also

There is also the official Di Bao.

The imperial court even set up a special yamen called the "General Affairs Envoy" for this purpose. There was one person in the third rank of general administration, who was responsible for accepting internal and external regulations and filing reports and refutations.

The internal and external chapters and the subjects' sealed cases of appeal. Below are the official positions such as left and right counselors, experience ministers, governors, etc. Due to the large circulation of the Dibao issued by the imperial court, it has abandoned the method of hand-copied or woodblock printing and changed it to

Movable type printing.

However, there is a completely different difference between the Dibao of the Ming Dynasty and that of Haihan, which is the scope of circulation. The Dibao of the Ming Dynasty is basically not distributed to the public, and the content that occasionally circulates to the public is just copied. The newspaper of Haihan is open to the public.

It is published and can be watched by all the people. Many decrees and policies are even made known to the public through newspapers. There are also many public places in Sanya city with related propaganda activities, and even storytellers in restaurants will inform the public from time to time.

Narrate the contents of the newspaper to ensure that the key information above can be disseminated in the shortest possible time.

The benefits of this are obvious. Official Haihan decrees can be quickly conveyed to the people. Even illiterate people can get information at the first time through a variety of publicity methods. As for whether the issuance fee can be paid through the sale of

In order to make money back, Fei Cexian did not consider this commercial issue. He focused on the political significance of this form and did not care too much about its commercial use.

Like most foreign envoys who first arrived in Sanya, Fei Cexian quickly sent someone to buy a copy of various newspapers on the market. During the day, while supervising the work on the embassy construction site, Fei Cexian made a pot of tea and sat slowly.

Flip through the newspapers. Occasionally there are things that I don’t understand, so I ask Zhang Qianzhi nearby and let him explain.

When he finished work in the evening and returned to the Guest House, Fei Cexian wrote down all the issues he had thought about during the day, and then selected the valuable parts to compile and collect them, and later wrote a memorial and sent it back to Beijing.

Haihan didn't seem to be eager to start diplomatic negotiations with Fei Cexian during this period. Except for Ning Qi who occasionally came to the construction site to take a look, other senior Haihan officials never visited him again. However, Fei Cexian thinks this

It's not surprising. He is a seventh-ranking official in the Ministry of Etiquette, and it would be really unreasonable if high-ranking officials from Haihan came to visit him every three days.

On the other hand, envoys from other countries stationed in Sanya came to the Guest House to visit Fei Cexian one after another. Even Annan, who had always had a rift with the Ming Dynasty, also came to see him. Fei Cexian only knew after meeting several people.

This is also one of the traditional activities of foreign embassies, that is, taking turns to visit new envoys to promote understanding between countries. Fei Cexian feels that this is a good arrangement, and at least it can have a certain positive effect on maintaining regional peace.

, of course, it would be better if the organizer of this event was not Haihan - this kind of leading brother role should have been played by Daming, but now all the limelight has been stolen by Haihan.

But Fei Cexian also knows that Haihan has extremely high authority and influence in the South China Sea. The so-called South China Sea Business Alliance is actually an international political organization led by Haihan, and many of them have already cooperated with Haihan.

A military alliance was concluded. The role played by Haihan in the South China Sea region was to replace the international political functions that had been handled by the Ming Dynasty in the past. Considering that in recent years, very few vassal states from the South China Sea have come to Beijing to pay tribute, Fei Cexian

It is not difficult to imagine the role Haihan played in this.

But from Fei Cexian's point of view, although he is dissatisfied with Haihan's actions, there is no sufficient reason to accuse Haihan of doing something wrong. After all, it is precisely because Ming Dynasty has been in decline in recent years that it gave Haihan

The opportunity for Han to rise on the shores of the South China Sea.

After contacting envoys from other countries, Fei Cexian also noticed that not all countries are aligned with Haihan. For example, Western countries such as the Netherlands and Portugal claim to be Haihan's trading partners, but they have little regard for Haihan.

However, Han is the most vigilant, especially in terms of control of key waterways and competition in the shipping industry. These countries, which are as good as Hai Han in expanding their sphere of influence through the sea, are not only Hai Han's trading partners, but also their opponents.

In the process of communicating with the envoys of these two countries, Fei Cexian could clearly feel that they were uneasy about the situation of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Ming Dynasty, Hainan and Han Dynasty, because these two countries are first-rate powers in the Far East, with a vast territory and a large population.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between two countries with strong military strength and good economic and trade operations may not be a good thing for countries outside the region.

But compared to these Westerners with deep eyes and high noses, Fei Cexian feels closer to Haihan. After all, the citizens of Haihan are all descendants of Han people, and they are even immigrants from the Ming Dynasty. Haihan officials have always said

Emphasizing that oneself and the Ming Dynasty share the same roots and share weal and woe is undoubtedly a very popular approach.

Therefore, Fei Cexian carefully avoided the topic when envoys from Western countries tried to build relations during the conversation. Although the envoys from both countries expressed that they could provide military assistance to the Ming Dynasty, Fei Cexian knew very well that both countries had

He was once defeated by Haihan, and the same military assistance was provided by Haihan, which was of course more reliable and reliable. What's more, Haihan had several well-equipped military bases on the coastline of the Ming Dynasty, which could be used in a short time.

Delivering combat troops to the Ming Dynasty via sea transport is a condition that Western countries simply cannot compare with.

The Ming Dynasty also counted on Haihan to delay Hou Jin's march south in Liaodong. If he bypassed Haihan and chose other military cooperation partners at this time, it would undoubtedly make the Haihan people dissatisfied. Offending Haihan was not among the political options of the Ming Dynasty.

Fei Cexian would not make such a low-level mistake, so even though the envoys of the two countries even hinted that they could give him some personal benefits in exchange for Ming Dynasty opening trade ports to him, Fei Cexian ultimately did not accept the offer.

Only then did Fei Cexian begin to realize that his mission to Haihan was not just to deal with the Haihan people, but also to deal with various countries to obtain more benefits for Ming Dynasty. But Ming Dynasty can currently obtain

There are really not many conditions in exchange for taking action, and Haihan's feelings have to be taken into consideration, so it will probably be difficult to win over other allies in a short period of time.
Chapter completed!