Chapter 1684 A strange combination of circumstances

But Qiu Yuan probably didn't expect that the needs of the Spaniards were not just survival, food and housing. After solving the most basic survival needs, little Francis asked the guard, hoping to get in touch with his family, at least to let him know.

He assured his family that they were safe.

Of course, the family that little Francis was talking about was not his father, who is still under house arrest with him, but his wife, Ding Ping'er, and his father-in-law's family. Since his arrest, he has not received any news about his family. Of course,

Indispensable, I have always been thinking about the situation at home, but my wife's family are all Han Chinese, so I don't think she will be persecuted by the Haihan government.

However, little Francis was not willing to believe his father's speculation that his father-in-law's family must be trying to cut ties with them. He believed that his wife's family would not be so ruthless and would still try to rescue his father and son, but he probably couldn't.

It was just a matter of opening Haihan's joints. Of course, he still vaguely thought that people have the instinct to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. If the Ding family did not want to be dragged down by their father and son, it was actually understandable to deliberately keep a distance or even draw a clear line.

behavior.

But the guard did not dare to agree to little Francis's request. Although Qiu Yuan had asked him to try his best to meet the father and son's requests, he never said he would allow the father and son to contact the outside world. If any sensitive information was spread, who would

Can you shoulder this responsibility? The guards can only record little Francis's request first, and then submit it when they report back to the work. The interim management committee will give instructions before putting it into practice.

This is the standard procedure for dealing with prisoners of war, and there is nothing wrong with the guard's approach. It's just that in this way, he missed the part of the intrigue between the Ding family and the Qin family. Otherwise, if Ding Feng got in touch with the Ding family as requested by little Francis, Ding Feng would

Perhaps they were no longer so eager to seek information and hurriedly broke off their relationship with Francis and his son.

The choices made by the old man of the Ding family and the second son of the Qin family are difficult to define as right or wrong. They just stood in their own positions and made the choice that was most beneficial to them - at least in their own eyes.

Ding Feng wanted to clear up the relationship as soon as possible to prevent the Ding family from being implicated by the Spaniards, while Qin Huacheng wanted to seize the Ding family's handle and extort money from them. The two parties could reach a cooperation agreement only because of their own interests.

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The target of their cooperation, little Francis, was completely ignorant of this. For him, since his father had reached an agreement with the Haihan people, he should be released soon, and he could work as a local official in the next two or three years.

Even if he is just a puppet acting for the Haihan people, he can at least maintain a stable life for this period of time. After his term is over, even if he does not return to the country, it should not be too difficult to find another place to stay in the Far East.

.

As for the feelings of the Ding family, little Francis has not been able to completely change his mentality for a while and think too much about them. After all, not long ago, the Ding family was just dependent on his own relatives. Since the marriage of the two families,

, only the Ding family came to ask for help, so little Francis basically didn’t need to consider the Ding family’s thoughts. Because of this, after the accident, he still insisted that the Ding family would try to rescue his father and son, and subconsciously still regarded himself as

He regarded himself as the supporter of the Ding family, but did not realize that he might have become a burden to the Ding family.

In this regard, little Francis's wealth and knowledge are not a little bit worse than his father's, but Francis has no intention of criticizing his son's thoughts. After all, people always need a little hope to survive in desperate situations. Since his son feels that the outside world

Someone will rescue him, so let him think so, which can be regarded as a thought.

The people who are plotting against little Francis outside are not necessarily trying to save him. For example, Qin Huacheng, the second eldest son of the Qin family, is still thinking about how to find out the exact location where little Francis is being held and how to get close to him.

, exchange information with them, or simply silence them.

At first, Qin Huacheng really thought about defrauding the Ding family of the money spent on building relationships and then quitting it quickly, but he soon found that he had thought of things a bit simply, and the Ding family had no intention of delivering it all at once.

Instead of giving him a huge sum of money, he should use the results of his actions as a reference and distribute the money to him in installments. In this way, Qin Huacheng would not be able to earn the money just by lying down as he imagined. But he also

I didn't want the meat in the bowl to fly away again, so I took the initiative to collect information, hoping to get more dry goods that the Ding family would willingly pay for.

It must be said that Qin Huacheng was very lucky. After he invited friends from all over the world for several days, someone finally revealed to him a piece of news that seemed unrelated, but was quite interesting if he thought about it carefully.

The man who gave Qin Huacheng the news is named Jin Bo. He has been Qin Huacheng’s friend since childhood. Although he has a Han name, he is actually half of his ancestry from the local natives of Luzon Island. However, Jin Bo has been in a Han circle since he was a child.

Growing up, I have mastered Chinese characters very proficiently. Except for my darker skin color, I look just like ordinary Han people.

Similar to Qin Huacheng's situation, Jin Bo can be regarded as one of the locals who took advantage of the situation after the war. He was recruited by the military into the logistics department as a scribe who counted the spoils of war and registered the status of prisoners of war. If nothing else, he would soon

You can obtain Haihan military status as a civilian soldier. Not only can you get land in the northern plains of Manila Bay, but it is said that you can also apply for Haihan nationality earlier than ordinary people. This is undoubtedly a great opportunity for Jin Bo, who was born as a civilian.

An opportunity to leap over the dragon's gate.

A few days ago, Jin Bo came into contact with a piece of news in his work. It happened that Qin Huacheng had been desperately inquiring about things related to Spanish prisoners of war for the past two days. He thought that this matter was related to it, and it might be possible to help Qin Huacheng, so he was drinking and warming up.

At that time, he informed Qin Huacheng of the news.

"You said that the Haihan people want to set up a yamen and let Spaniards serve as officials? Interesting!" Qin Huacheng did not understand what Jin Bo said at first, but simply thought it sounded incredible. The Haihan people finally survived the war

The original ruler here was driven away by various means, but why did he invite the Spaniards back to serve as officials? Could it be that Haihan had no one available?

Jin Bo saw that he did not understand what he said, so he shook his head and explained: "You don't understand, this yamen is not ordinary. It is specially used to manage the local Spaniards."

"Use barbarians to control barbarians?" Qin Huacheng raised his brows, seeming to understand the special meaning: "This is looking for a puppet... Then the officials appointed by the Haihan People's Association may not be ordinary civilians, right?"

This time Jin Bo nodded and said: "That's right. The news I heard is that Spanish officials who are familiar with local people's conditions and have a certain reputation among the people should be selected from prisoners of war to serve. You are not inquiring about Spanish prisoner-of-war officers.

Well, maybe someone from among the officers will be selected to take the blame."

For safety reasons, Qin Huacheng did not specifically mention the names of Francis and his son to others, so even Jin Bo thought he was just inquiring about relevant information, but did not expect that there was actually a specific target person. But Qin Huacheng himself was open-minded

, if there really is this yamen mentioned by Jin Bo, then Francis will probably be a very popular candidate. But if it is really such a coincidence that the Haihan people picked Francis to be the leader of this puppet yamen, then he will take over.

The job at hand is a bit tricky.

Qin Huacheng knew very well that the Ding family did not spend money to inquire about information to rescue Francis and his son. If there was a chance to take action, they might be ruthless and pay for the murder to completely separate the relationship. But if the Francis and his son had not been killed by Haihan

A harsh sentence would give him a chance to make a comeback from a desperate situation, so the Ding family's tactic of jumping up and down would seem redundant and embarrassing.

Of course, if the Ding family is informed of Francis' comeback in advance, they will definitely get the Ding family's gratitude afterwards. However, Haihan pardoning Francis and giving him an official position is currently only a theoretical possibility. Jin Bo has no more precise information here.

Qin Huacheng did not dare to go to the Ding family to ask for credit and reward with this piece of gossipy news.

"Why is it so difficult to do something?" Qin Huacheng returned home with some resentment. But when he saw his brother Qin Huaming, he suddenly felt that maybe he had ignored this important source of information.

Qin Huaming's current position is an officer under the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of Haihan. Although it is only a temporary establishment, he is not a small player in Manila at this time. At present, almost all the information registration of Manila residents is handled by him, which is related to

Whether most people can be naturalized smoothly in the future can be said to be a very important task. However, at this time, ordinary people have not yet realized how much nationality will affect their future lives, so there are very few people who come to Qin Huaming to burn incense.

His brother Qin Huacheng didn't realize how much power he held before this.

"Brother, I have something to ask you." Qin Huacheng took the initiative to find Qin Huaming, called him out of the room, and then asked him if he knew that Haihan had recently established a puppet government specifically to manage Hispanic people.

"How did you know this news?" Qin Huaming was a little stunned when he heard the question, but his rhetorical question undoubtedly confirmed Qin Huacheng's answer to this question.

"There is no airtight wall in the world." Qin Hua realized that the news was indeed true, and said proudly: "How can such a thing be hidden from a well-informed person like me?"

Qin Huaming said disapprovingly: "It's no use even if you know. It's impossible for you to be transferred to that yamen as an errand. Just be your security policeman! Although this new yamen is also under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it is not the same group as ours.

People."

Qin Huacheng said: "Brother, I have misunderstood. I don't want to work in that yamen, but I want to find out who will be selected to be in charge of this yamen?"

Qin Huaming shook his head and said: "Your eldest brother, I am just a small officer. This is a secret that can only be mastered by senior officials of the Interim Management Committee. There is no definite information on the candidate."

Qin Huacheng still asked unwillingly: "Then what is the name of this yamen and when will it be made public? I should have some clues, right?"

Qin Huaming did not doubt that he was there, so he told him frankly: "The name of this yamen is quite long, it is called the 'Manila Area Hispanic Affairs Bureau', and the superiors call it the 'Western Bureau'. As for when it will be announced, I guess it will have to wait for the official

After the officials are selected."

"Western Management Bureau?" Qin Huacheng repeated the somewhat awkward name of the yamen softly, and continued to ask: "Does this yamen have real power?"

"The real power...should be there, right?" Qin Huaming was not very sure about this, and his tone was a bit hesitant: "Hispanic people must have a government office to manage them, and the higher-ups set up this organization for this purpose.

However, if a Spanish official is appointed as the director, he will probably be used as a puppet to avoid too much resistance from the Hispanic people."

After listening to this explanation, Qin Huacheng finally had a preliminary understanding of the structure and functions of this yamen. Haihan needs to establish a civil affairs agency specifically to manage the Hispanic people, and then in order to make the Hispanic people feel at ease, he will appoint a Spanish

As the chief officer of this organization, this lucky person is very likely to come from a certain senior Spanish official who was detained as a prisoner of war. Even if it is just a puppet position, for the prisoners of war, its significance is no less than rebirth.

.

But as for who the Haihan people will choose to sit in this seat, it seems that there will be no definite news before it is officially announced, which makes Qin Huacheng quite frustrated. Without this crucial information, he cannot determine who will take the seat.

What to do next, whether Francis makes a comeback, the Ding family needs to adopt two completely opposite attitudes. If he messes up this matter and prevents the Ding family from taking corrective measures in time, then in the end the Ding family will be in trouble.

Maybe the blame will be put on his head.

Although Qin Huacheng does not need to fear the power of the Ding family because of his status, he does not want to offend this local snake. After all, the Ding family is one of the top wealthy Han business families in the local area. The current low profile is only due to the situation. If he really wants to take action, Qin Huacheng cannot

He could withstand it. Qin Huacheng suddenly felt that the money he got from the Ding family was a bit hot. He secretly regretted that he shouldn't have been too meddlesome and talked too much. Now that he was involved in it, even if he wanted to turn down this job, he would probably

The Ding family will not agree easily.

For the current plan, Qin Huacheng can only take one step at a time. If the establishment of the Western Management Bureau by the Haihan people can be announced in the near future, it will be easy to handle. He can still claim that he was too short for time and did not get detailed information.

Shirking. But if it drags on for ten days and a half, the Ding family will definitely urge me to get the news to hand over, so I don't dare to talk randomly, otherwise once the Western Management Bureau announces the candidate for the chief officer, it will be blown out.

The cowhide will be punctured immediately.
Chapter completed!