Chapter 2021

In order to create a credible enough background information for Jose's team, the Ministry of Security and Military Intelligence also worked hard on this. In addition to making up a story that the Spaniards could believe, they also had to

Every detail was meticulously written, including the corpses and related items on the ship, and every piece of evidence was carefully prepared by these two intelligence agencies.

Even if the Spaniards asked professionals to conduct autopsies, they would basically not be able to find any loopholes, because those corpses were really the felons who were executed just before Jose's team set off, and the fatal injuries on their bodies were similar to those of the prisoners.

Jose's experience of escaping from prison and fighting back the murder is completely consistent. This means that Jose's story does not contain any exaggeration or fabrication. Every detail, including the time of the attack, can withstand scrutiny.

The cargo carried on the ship, the personal belongings of the escorts, and the secret letters sealed with fire paint found in their luggage were all designed to make the whole story more authentic and believable. The Spaniards who were exiled by Haihan rose up in resistance and killed

After losing the guard, he successfully hijacked the ship and escaped. The big winner in this incident was undoubtedly the Spanish side. So whether it was Lieutenant Joaquín who first discovered the ship or the city defense commander Fernando who questioned Jose in person,

All the information they received showed that the deeds of Jose and others were heroic, which was a shot in the arm for the passive colonial authorities.

Fernando was very satisfied with the humility shown by Jose in front of him. Although the young man in front of him did not look amazing, he did not appear to be in shock because of the murder and escaped. His speech was still very organized, which showed that his psychological quality should not be bad.

.If all Hispanic young people in the colonies have such qualities, then why should they be afraid of the pressure exerted by the Haihan people!

"You did a great job! This is how our Spanish warriors should react when facing the enemy!" Fernando waved his fist excitedly: "Young man, your heroic behavior should be rewarded, and I want to report this matter to

Report to the Governor, I believe he will be happy to hear such news!"

There is no doubt that the Governor of the Philippines, Aragones, was a staunch militant. Although he suffered repeated defeats, his attitude towards Haihan never softened. And this sailing ship, which was snatched from the Haihan people by Spanish prisoners,

This is rare positive news in recent times. Fernando is sure that this incident will make Aragones very excited, and these brave young people should be rewarded.

Fernando told Joaquin to settle the people on the ship first, while he returned to the city with the secret letter found on the ship, and went to the Governor's Palace to report the good news to Aragones.

As expected, after listening to Fernando's detailed description, Aragones also believed that this was a very inspiring special case.

"We should immediately invite these warriors to the city and hold a grand reception banquet for them to commend their heroic actions. At the same time, we should also use this as an opportunity to warn the weak surrenderers that only by resisting bravely can the evil forces be defeated.

Haihan people!" Aragones' few words had already set the tone for the subsequent handling of the entire matter.

For Aragones, he needed some such inspiring battle examples to guide the direction of public opinion in the colony. Otherwise, if those civil servants who advocated peace talks continued to make trouble, the resistance to the reconstruction of the local armed forces would only increase.

Of course, it is not accurate to classify this incident as a war example. After all, Jose and others are not soldiers, but just ordinary people in Manila who failed to escape in time. Moreover, the entire incident is not a military conflict, but a personal escape for survival.

It's just an act. But Aragones believes that as long as it is done properly, it can have the effect of changing the direction of the wind.

As he said, Fernando immediately sent an order to bring Jose and others to Cebu City. However, such treatment was only provided to the three Spaniards on the ship. As for the other indigenous Filipino crew members, whether it was Aragones

Neither Fernando nor Fernando planned to give them any extra rewards. After all, the colonial authorities had always regarded the local indigenous people as tool people, and they were still the kind with limited abilities. Even if they were given better treatment, they would not be able to perform better.

It has a big effect, so just save these unnecessary expenses and let them do what they need to do.

After arranging this matter, the next step was the secret letter found on the ship. Judging from the header and signature on the envelope, it was an official letter between the top officials of Manila and Star Island, and there was something on the envelope.

The fire seal is very likely to contain some important secrets.

Aragones still had trustworthy Han staff, so he immediately summoned a Han man named Cheng Mu to interpret the contents of the letter for him.

Cheng Mu took the letter, carefully scraped off the sealing seal, then opened the envelope and took out several neatly folded pieces of letter paper. Although Aragones didn't know men, he could tell when he stood nearby and took a look.

The letter was written with a hard pen with a very fine tip, not the kind of writing brush that the Han people were accustomed to. And as far as he knew, this way of writing was also the special habit of high-ranking officials in Haihan, because this kind of writing was called

The writing instrument "fountain pen" is quite expensive, and generally only the dignitaries of the upper class can afford it, which further proves the authenticity of this letter.

After Cheng Mu unfolded the letter paper, he said to Aragones: "The texture of this paper is very good, and it also has a grid printed on it to facilitate writing neatly. This kind of paper has never been seen on the market before.

"

In fact, Haihan worked hard not only on details such as writing tools and paper. Even the content of this letter was specially copied by Qiu Yuan himself.

Possible loopholes are completely avoided in the details. Even if the Spaniards can get Qiu Yuan's previous handwriting for comparison and identification, the conclusions they can get will definitely not be false.

The intelligence agencies spent so much money to convince the Spaniards that the information they received was true. The story of Jose's team was to convince the Spaniards that the secret letter was indeed an official official letter from Haihan.

, and the content of this letter will in turn make the identity and background of Team Jose more credible.

Cheng Mu first briefly read the contents of the letter, and then slowly explained it to Aragones and Fernando word for word.

The letter began with Qiu Yuan's greetings and daily greetings to Roger, and then told the other party the contents of the supplies shipped to Xingdao this time. He also mentioned the three Spanish people on the ship who were exiled to the local area. The reason why he wanted to send this

The three of them were sent to Xingdao for exile because the local area needed people who knew how to raise horses to be responsible for raising military horses. Although the crime for which Jose and others were exiled was that they poisoned the military horses in Manila, Qiu Yuan believed that these three people were still

It is not hopeless, and I hope that a change of environment will make them repent, realize the mistakes they have made, and start a new life on Star Island.

Of course, the most important reason is that these three people have many years of experience in raising horses, which may temporarily alleviate the local demand for professional grooms. However, if these three people still do not want to repent when they arrive locally, Qiu Yuan's suggestion is to give them the death penalty decisively.

as punishment.

"They obviously underestimated the courage and determination of the Spaniards. These young men will not work for the evil Haihan people!" Fernando heard this and couldn't help but mock the misjudgment of the Haihan senior officials. At the same time, he became more convinced that Jose and others

It is very necessary for people to resist on the ship. If they don't find a way to escape, they may be pulled out and shot within two days after arriving at the local area.

Aragones felt that this high-ranking Haihan official was too benevolent. He could still be forgiven for a crime like poisoning an army horse. If the camps were reversed, he would definitely not forgive the criminal and would have ordered him to be sent to prison.

Go to the gallows. Of course, the behavior of Jose and others was a serious crime for Haihan, but it was a brave act of resistance to Spain. Now they have killed several Haihan people on the ship, and they will be killed again next time

If the Haihan people catch him, I'm afraid there will be no possibility of forgiveness.

However, this content once again provided a guarantee of trust for the people on the ship. The self-reports of Jose and others can all correspond to the content of this secret letter. From the perspective of Aragones and Fernando, it is just right

It means they really didn't lie.

But these contents are not the real focus of this letter. The contents that Cheng Mu translated next made the expressions of the two senior Spanish officials become serious.

Qiu Yuan mentioned in the letter that unidentified armed men have appeared in many places in the north recently, equipped with relatively advanced muskets, causing considerable trouble for Haihan. He reminded Roger to be careful about similar attacks in the local area.

situation, especially small groups of troops patrolling outside, they must beware of sneak attacks.

"Have our measures worked?" Aragones was cheered up: "I didn't expect it to actually work!"

As one of the few senior generals of the colonial authorities, Fernando naturally knows the inside story of this, and he immediately echoed: "It seems that the multi-point flowering strategy formulated against Haihan was right.

If the place is set on fire, they will not be able to take care of it!"

Compared with Haihan's information transmission speed, the Spanish's grasp of external information is undoubtedly much lagging behind. They only have a rough plan of action, but the specific implementation status and whether the progress is smooth, and the speed of getting information feedback is extremely slow. This is

More than ten days have passed since Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing's actions in Yangzhou City, but there is still a long way to go before the local news reaches Cebu.

Haihan's strategy is to temporarily paralyze the Spanish colonial authorities through the content of this letter, making them think that their practice of providing military assistance to many parties overseas has been effective. After they relax their vigilance, they may further increase their efforts.

The intensity of military output to these areas will give Haihan more opportunities to catch the tail of its partners.

Of course, the most likely place to find clues is actually Cebu. What the Haihan Intelligence Department can confirm is that no matter who is cooperating with the Spaniards, they will definitely station personnel in Cebu to communicate in a timely manner. And they can

Whether we can dig people out of Cebu depends to a certain extent on the performance of Jose and others.

Jose was actually still in a very nervous state at this time. He didn't know whether there were any loopholes in his performance after arriving at the Port of Cebu. If Spanish officials noticed something was wrong, they might do something wrong next.

They had to line up to go to the gallows.

Regarding the content of the secret letter, his boss did not tell him, which was one of the reasons that made him feel uneasy. Before leaving Manila, he tried to ask Fang Peng, but Fang Peng only said that the letter was their life-saving charm.

, if the content is known, it may affect his performance, so the content needs to be kept confidential from them.

Fang Peng made such an arrangement because he was mainly worried that the content of the secret letter would cause Jose to inadvertently mention some information that he should not have revealed when recounting his experiences, such as that they were spared the death penalty and were exiled.

The real reason for Xingdao, etc. Since the person performing the task is a newcomer like Jose, a little detail error may lead to the failure of the entire operation. Fang Peng and Ran Tianlu are not worried about it, so they can only try to minimize possible problems.

links.

Jose only knows the information he needs to know, so that he will not be affected by his mentality, emotion and experience and say the wrong thing. This arrangement is indeed very wise, because Jose is indeed very nervous when talking to Spanish officials.

But fortunately, the plan arranged by the intelligence agency was almost seamless. As long as Jose and others did not take the initiative to announce it, it would be difficult for others to regard them as spies sent by Haihan.

According to Fernando's order, Jose and others were temporarily accommodated in a small hotel next to the port. Due to the war, the scale of Cebu's trade has also been greatly reduced. There are not many foreign merchant ships in the port, so the business of this small hotel has also been reduced.

It was extremely deserted. When Jose and others checked in, there were very few guests in the entire hotel. But this was good, they could take this opportunity to discuss how to proceed with the next plan.

According to the estimates of the intelligence agency, if the Spanish can be deceived in the first step and make them believe in the experiences of Jose and others, then there will be two possibilities. One is to use the deeds of Jose and others to create hype and encourage local people.

anti-Haihan sentiment, so Jose may immediately become a guest of the upper class of society. Another possibility is to be treated coldly and just treat them as immigrants fleeing from Manila, allowing them to settle there, but not giving any

Special treatment.

Regarding these two possibilities, the intelligence department has also prepared corresponding action plans. But no matter which situation occurs in the end, it will be a big test for the fledgling Jose and others.
Chapter completed!