Spy Wars: Red Shopkeeper

Chapter 231 Purpose
Here, this is for you.

Gu Yansheng walked into Ding Mocun's office, placed the money box directly on his desk, and went to make coffee.

Ding Mocun had seen the complete set of money yesterday and knew its value. He smiled and opened it, feeling very satisfied. It was around 35,000.

He touched it and asked, "Isn't this too much? Aren't we supposed to deduct that stock investment amount? Aren't you counting it as part of my share?"

Gu Yansheng said in a serious tone, "Even close brothers need to keep clear accounts. If I'm going to do it, I'll let you see how much money I have before I give it to you. These are two separate things."

Ding Mocun scoffed and laughed, "Still playing the same old trick? Here, take it all. After deducting the cost of the medicine, the rest is your investment. Is that enough?"

"Wow, you're so wealthy now, yet you don't keep a single penny for yourself?" Gu Yansheng asked in surprise.

Ding Mocun chuckled, "There's still some used, you know, from the dividends in western Shanghai."

"Oh." Gu Yansheng nodded knowingly, sipped his coffee, and talked about stock investment.

As they chatted, the conversation naturally turned to Li Shiqun's actions the previous night.

Ding Mocun said, "The personnel chief arrested in the Shanghai district of the Military Intelligence Bureau is named Chen Mingchu. He knows a lot of information. He has revealed the names of several important figures in the Shanghai district, including District Chief Wang Tianmu and Deputy District Chief Zhao Lijun."

I know Wang Tianmu. He was a veteran agent with a very deep seniority. The predecessor of the Military Intelligence Bureau was the Special Service Department of the Fuxing Society, which was established by Chiang Kai-shek. Dai Li was in charge of organizing it, and Wang Tianmu assisted in organizing it. At that time, Wang Tianmu was already a key member of Chiang Kai-shek's team, and his seniority was not much less than that of Dai Li.

It's unbelievable that the current district head of Shanghai is him.

"Don't tell me it's your friend again?" Gu Yansheng joked.

Ding Mocun knew perfectly well that Gu Yansheng was alluding to what happened last night, and couldn't help but scoff, "Don't worry, I don't have any friends in the Military Intelligence Bureau. Dai Li would love to see me dead. If his men were to befriend me, he would be cursing them to death if he found out."

That's really the truth. After laughing, Gu Yansheng thought for a moment and said strangely, "There's something I don't understand. If Li Shiqun keeps arresting people like this, he'll drag Yu Xiangqin out sooner or later. Could it be that Yu Xiangqin really isn't his woman?"

"Even if it comes to light, if he wants to protect this woman, do you think he can't?"

Ding Mocun smiled knowingly, “Now that the Shanghai district people have been arrested, even if I go to the Japanese to complain, they can just say that this woman is an informant he left in the Military Intelligence Bureau, and the lie will be covered up, right? Maybe they can even get this woman a position as a section chief.”

Gu Yansheng chuckled, "The first half is right, but the second half is impossible. If you put her in your special agent headquarters, do you want to stage a fight between two women over one man? Wouldn't that cause chaos?"

"Hahahaha." Ding Mocun laughed heartily, but after laughing, he suddenly thought of something and said with a rather serious expression, "Do you think this woman might not actually be Li Shiqun's lover?"

"How so?" Gu Yansheng raised an eyebrow.

Ding Mocun hissed and pondered, "Do you think this woman might be someone sent by the Military Intelligence Bureau to turn Li Shiqun against his cause?"

Ding Mocun suddenly made this connection when he thought about how he had been turned to the enemy the night before.

Gu Yansheng was startled. Sure enough, Boss Dai had actually had this idea. Chen Mo had told him that Boss Dai had sent a telegram asking them to come up with a solution, but he had directly rejected Chen Mo's suggestion.

Trying to turn Li Shiqun against his cause? What a joke! He's at the height of his power right now. Who would want to be turned by you? You'd have to find the right time to do it.

But if the Shanghai district receives the telegram but doesn't deny it, and does as Boss Dai instructs, then...

They found Yu Xiangqin, an old acquaintance of Li Shiqun, and tried to win him over by appealing to his emotions.

Then Li Shiqun used a counter-strategy, following the clues to uncover the entire Shanghai area.
"Hiss," Gu Yansheng sighed. "If that's really the case, then Boss Dai is simply crazy; he's too impatient."

Ding Mocun analyzed, "Look, Yu Xiangqin was captured by my men and had no choice. If she were Li Shiqun's woman and brought to No. 76 by my men, she would know she wouldn't die and could have come along."

However, when Li Shiqun's men appeared later, she took the opportunity to run away, which was very unusual.

If Li Shiqun really was working for the Military Intelligence Bureau, and this woman had already run away, there seemed to be no need to arrest this personnel section chief.

"That's not right either. If Li Shiqun doesn't arrest any of them, how will he explain it to the Japanese? He arrested the personnel section chief, allowing Yu Xiangqin to continue infiltrating the Military Intelligence Bureau?"

Ding Mocun began to doubt himself again, frowning as he pondered.

But Gu Yansheng no longer doubted it; the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Yu Xiangqin was there to persuade Li Shiqun to defect.

The Shanghai region was somewhat wronged this time; it was too obedient and ended up selling itself out completely.

The remaining 10-20% probability is actually a point of doubt.

According to Ding Mocun, Wang Tianmu was an extremely experienced veteran spy. In that case, even if he sent Yu Xiangqin to persuade Li Shiqun to defect, he should have been prepared to cut off the connection if Li Shiqun turned against him.

In other words, first make everyone Yu Xiangqin knows cut off contact with her, and then let Yu Xiangqin carry out the defection. In this way, even if Li Shiqun turns against her, the losses can be minimized.

How did Ding Mocun end up finding Yu Xiangqin's subordinates, and Li Shiqun end up finding this personnel section chief?
The head of the personnel department could also be explained by the fact that the discovery did not occur through Yu Xiangqin's line of work.

Gu Yansheng couldn't find a reason to explain the few of Yu Xiangqin's men that Ding Mocun found. It was like giving them away for free, unless the upper echelons of the Military Intelligence Bureau gave them all to Li Shiqun as expendable pawns.

It's too abstract. I have no idea what the Shanghai branch of the Military Intelligence Bureau is up to. Ding Mocun hadn't figured it out yet. He frowned and thought for a long time, feeling that the logic was all jumbled up. Li Shiqun's behavior was also very strange. What exactly was his relationship with Yu Xiangqin? No matter how he thought about it, something seemed wrong.

"What do you think?" Ding Mocun asked, casting a puzzled look at him.

Gu Yansheng showed little interest, saying, "What's the point of you guessing about this? There are plenty of possibilities."

Just wait for Li Shiqun to arrest people.

Whether Yu Xiangqin was sent here or not, someone in the Shanghai region's senior management must know.

"If Li Shiqun can capture the district head and deputy district head, then you can just go and ask them directly; you'll find out if they've been recruited."

Ding Mocun sighed; that was all he could do.

However, if Li Shiqun really catches him, it's uncertain whether he'll be allowed to question him; they might end up arguing again.

"Alright, you go ahead with your work, I'm leaving."

"Not going to sit anymore?"

"Why are you sitting down? There's a ton of work to do." Gu Yansheng stood up and said, "Haven't the Wang faction been giving speeches and doing publicity in Shanghai lately?"

"Ok?"

“We wanted to put up slogans promoting peaceful nation-building. It was fine in the Chinese-speaking areas, but there were a lot of protests in the concessions. We put them up for two days at first, and now they have all been taken down.”

The Municipal Council has banned the posting of advertisements, and the publicity campaign is about to be banned as well. We now suspect that Chongqing may have sent a telegram to the Municipal Council to stop the publicity.

Ding Mocun frowned. "So what are you going to do?"

“Let’s talk.” Gu Yansheng shook his head and sighed helplessly. “Let’s build connections, the Green Gang, influential people, the British and Americans. Fu Xiao’an and I are both building connections right now, but if Chongqing puts pressure on us, it will be really troublesome.”

“It’s troublesome.” Ding Mocun nodded. “The Municipal Council is on Chongqing’s side, which makes it difficult for our 76th Division to operate in the concession. You wait, I’ll help you figure out a way to deal with this. Sooner or later, we’ll make those British guys pay.”

"What can you do?" Gu Yansheng asked in surprise.

Ding Mocun smiled and said, "Our methods are not exactly respectable, but generally speaking, we either don't do them at all, or if we do, they will definitely have some effect."

Gu Yansheng thought for a moment and nodded, "Don't go too far. After all, the new government still has to deal with all sectors of society, and it has to maintain appearances."

"What kind of business is this?" Ding Mocun scoffed. "Now that things are like this, they won't even let us do any publicity. Do you think this is how we're supposed to deal with you? You're just fooling yourselves."

"Stop disgusting me." Gu Yansheng rolled his eyes and waved his hand, "I'm leaving."

After leaving No. 76, Gu Yansheng drove to the foreign concession to find Chen Mo.

Chen Zhai.

Gu Yansheng then shared his analysis.

Chen Mo asked incredulously, "No way? The Shanghai region is really going to try to turn people against their own side? Isn't that just throwing them away for free?"

“I don’t want to believe it either, but the possibility is very high. Everything that has happened so far supports this conclusion.” Gu Yansheng waved his hand. “Let’s not talk about speculation for now. Did you notify the Shanghai area last night?”

"The notification has been sent." Chen Mo nodded. "We only have one communication channel with the Shanghai region. I was worried that the person receiving the message might have problems, so I had headquarters forward it directly. The Shanghai region doesn't only have one radio station, so this way the notification will reach a wider audience."

"Hmm." Gu Yansheng thought for a moment and said, "Don't contact the Shanghai region for now. We should keep our distance until this matter is cleared up."

"I know."

Gu Yansheng got down to business, "I came here this time with a suggestion. See if you want to use it."

"You said."

"Find a public phone and call the military police headquarters."

The content states that Li Shiqun has been turned and that he secretly concealed information about high-ranking Kuomintang officials during the operation.

"Okay, I'll take care of it right away." Chen Mo agreed first, then asked, "What's the purpose? To make the Japanese suspicious of Li Shiqun?"

Gu Yansheng nodded. "I guess so."

Do you know how many clues Li Shiqun has? You don't know, I don't know, and even the Japanese don't know. Right now, the biggest threat to the Military Intelligence Bureau's Shanghai branch is Li Shiqun.

"By removing Li Shiqun, who knows everything, and replacing him with Ding Mocun, who knows nothing, we can buy time for the Military Intelligence Bureau to retreat, and we can also find out what exactly happened."

(End of this chapter)