Spy Wars: Return of the Red Luan

Chapter 165 Guiding the Investigation of the Perpetrator (Part 1)
June 26th was a chaotic day for the entire Northeast.

Although the Kwantung Army Headquarters did not want to get involved, the incident happened on its own territory. The General Headquarters sent a telegram that morning, requesting cooperation with the Navy in the investigation. At this critical juncture, the Army and Navy could not afford any further conflict!
Preliminary investigation revealed that the perpetrator used a Soviet-made semi-automatic rifle, based on the extraction of all bullets from the body and from the wounds of the two survivors.

Based on the angle and speed of the shots, and according to the survivors' accounts, the other side had at least a squad of 10 or more people!
Zhao Jun said definitively, "Because it was getting dark, I couldn't see the other party's clothes clearly, but I felt there were many people. I heard gunshots behind me and knew something bad had happened, so I tried to run away while they weren't paying attention. But I was shot in the chest very quickly and lost consciousness."

The enemy had a clear division of labor: setting traps, pouring oil on the road, shooting, carrying silver coins, and driving cars. With so many silver coins, it would have been almost impossible to complete the task without 10 people!

Moreover, the other party was extremely professional; they even erased their footprints and tire tracks during their retreat! This was no ordinary bandit!

So many silver dollars were not easy to hide, so the Kwantung Army mobilized almost its entire force to inspect every truck, especially those that entered the city after yesterday evening.
-
Dividing line —
On the evening of the 25th, Chen Jiehua, having completed his mission, sneaked back into the safe house, put the supplies he had cleared back into his space, and cleaned up any traces of life.

On the morning of the 26th, before leaving home, Chen Jiehua evenly sprinkled dust on the table, bed, door, doorknob, and lock. Before the train station was sealed off, he bought a train ticket to Tianjin and left Lushun by train.
-
Dividing line —
On the 27th, after a city-wide vehicle inspection yielded no results, the Kwantung Army requested the Northeast Army's cooperation in sealing off the train station and port, which was refused. This led to several small-scale skirmishes between the Northeast Army and the Kwantung Army.

The Kwantung Army expanded the scope of its military police and soldiers' inspections to include residential areas in Fengtian and Lushun, conducting area-by-area searches.

The investigation yielded no results, and telegrams from headquarters kept arriving. The naval leaders were furious and urged the cabinet to send more personnel to investigate.

People who die are dead, and those who are seriously injured will recover eventually. But we must find our silver dollars; they are the hard-earned money of our navy!
On the evening of the 27th, the gunboat Fushimi arrived at Lushun. All the marines disembarked and were personally led by Colonel Masao Shibayama, who had come from Fengtian, to track down the whereabouts of the silver dollars.
-
Dividing line —
On the morning of the 28th, both the Kwantung Army Headquarters and the Military Police Headquarters continued to find nothing; there was no trace of more than a dozen people, nor of the many silver dollars.

Seishiro Itagaki, the head of the 1st Section of the Kwantung Army, and his senior staff officer Kanji Ishihara approached Commander Takashi Hishikari and suggested that they frame the Northeast Army, create chaos, and stuff several boxes of silver dollars into the Northeast Army's Fengtian headquarters compound.

Does it even matter whether the quantity is large or small? If it's large, then you've taken it from elsewhere; if it's small, then you've used some of it.

"Itagaki-kun, you should think about it yourselves. But how are we going to transport so many silver dollars over there?"

“We drove two trucks, each with three boxes of silver dollars, to the headquarters of the Northeast Army in Fengtian. Under the pretext of cooperating with the search, we rushed in to create chaos and took the opportunity to carry the silver dollars in.”

"Are you planning to launch an attack ahead of schedule? Our military strength and weapons are insufficient. Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army still has 300,000 troops, and there are at least 100,000 troops in the nearby Beidaying and Nandaying camps."

"I think this is a rare opportunity. By September 28th, only our army can launch the attack. If we seize this opportunity, we can drag the navy into the fray! We can have the navy charge ahead of us. That Aoki Qiao has sent all the marines from Shanghai!"

"What is the Doihara Organization doing? Why haven't we seen any of their people?"

"Kimi-sama Doihara directed his subordinates to plan land reclamation in North Korea."

"Why hasn't this land reclamation plan been completed yet? What is Doihara doing? He's such a dragger!"

"Commander, have you forgotten? He was delayed by the Aoki Takashi incident, and I heard he was put in solitary confinement when he returned to headquarters to report on his duties."

“He’s still in North Korea right now, so we can’t count on him for this kind of planning. I think it’s too hasty to plan this incident on the spot, and I don’t agree with doing it this way.”

"If you don't agree, we won't do it?" Itagaki Seishiro and Ishihara Kanji returned to the third floor, preparing to frame the Northeast Army, but they didn't have enough silver dollars, so they had to put the plan on hold for the time being.
-
Dividing line —
On the morning of the 28th, Shibayama Masao led a team of marine corps trace-tracing professionals who had arrived from Shanghai the previous night to study the traces at the scene of the incident and reconstruct the event.

Private First Class Kondo Kita crouched in a clump of grass, squinting to check the angle and gesturing with his hands, intently studying the traces. (Kondo Kita, if you don't know who this is, please refer to chapter 122.) In fact, soldiers and military police from the Kwantung Army headquarters had come many times, and the scene of the incident had been completely destroyed. The trace-tracing experts couldn't find any useful information.

When Shibayama Masao was preparing to lead the team back, he saw Kondo Kita over there, meticulously making comparisons in a grassy hut by the roadside.

Who's that over there?

"Oh, that's Private First Class Kondo Kita, an immigrant from Kagoshima to Shanghai. He was selected by the commander during the first round of recruitment because of his excellent shooting performance."

"Yoshi, Kagoshima, from my hometown. Let's go see if he's made any discoveries."

"Sergeant, have you made any discoveries?"

Kondo Kita was so focused that he didn't hear his superior's question.

"Kondo! Colonel Kondo has a question for you!"

"Oh, hi! Good day, Colonel!"

"Sergeant, I'm asking you, have you made any unusual discoveries?"

"Reporting to Colonel, Kondo is recreating the scene, and he has made a surprising discovery!"

"Oh? You've discovered something, tell me quickly!"

"Reporting to Colonel, Kondo studies concealed shooting. Here, here, and there, you see, based on the bending angle of the tough grass and the broken marks on the hard grass, I judge that these three locations should be where the ambushers are hiding!"

"The road ahead is a slope. After pouring oil on the road, normal cars can drive without any problems. But I've read the information, and our navy's escort vehicles are specially reinforced and quite heavy. Moreover, they were transporting a large amount of silver dollars at the time of the incident..."

"There are six large chests of silver dollars. And six soldiers! Yes, there are eight people on the cart. It's too heavy to move here, so we have to get off and push!"

Masao Shibayama filled in the blanks based on Kita Kondo's account, and his filling in the blanks was indeed basically correct!

"Yes! When the six escorting soldiers got off the vehicle and pushed it, their backs were facing these three positions!"

"Yosh! They're using Soviet-made semi-automatic rifles. Each of them can easily kill six of our soldiers with just two shots!"

"Your reasoning is absolutely correct, Colonel!"

(End of this chapter)