Under One Person: The Sea Emperor Who Shattered Heaven and Earth

“Mark them down,” Jiang Zhen said.

Uchida picked up the list with trembling hands. His pupils contracted sharply after just one glance. It was densely covered with names, each followed by an old military rank, encompassing almost all the mid-to-high-ranking members of the original invasion team.

“Mr. Jiang… many of these people have already retired from the military and returned home; they are now just ordinary civilians…” Uchida still wanted to make one last attempt.

"civilian?"

Jiang Zhen's lips curled into a very faint smile as he glanced at Zhao Yuan.

Zhao Yuan grinned and swiftly brought down his knife.

One of the ears flew off.

"what!"

Uchida rolled on the stone slab, clutching his ears, his screams echoing through the ruins for a long time. When he finally caught his breath from the excruciating pain and looked up, Zhao Yuan's knife was raised again.

Uchida screamed and fell face-first to the ground, pressing his forehead against the stone slab.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll mark everything!"

He shakily pulled a pen from his pocket, leaned over the map, and began to underline the names on the roster one by one.

"I only know a few..."

Jiang Zhen glanced at the markings on the map and raised an eyebrow: "Oh, they're so close. They're really lucky."

Half an hour later, squads of elite members of the Canal Gang dispersed from the high platform, like a pack of wolves released from their cages.

On the outskirts of Nagasaki, in a courtyard situated on higher ground.

The owner of the house was named Sato, a former colonel in the invasion expeditionary force. At this moment, he was wearing a loose-fitting kimono, sitting at the dining table with his wife and son. Although Nagasaki had just experienced a devastating tsunami, his house, located on higher ground, was not severely damaged.

A simple meal was laid out on the table, and Sato was about to pick up his chopsticks to comfort his still-shaken family.

"boom!"

The courtyard gate was as if it had been struck by a battering ram; the entire wooden door flew into the courtyard, smashing the stone lanterns under the eaves.

Sato suddenly stood up, but before he could even reach for the samurai sword hanging on the wall, more than a dozen burly men in black rushed into the house.

"Sato Ichiro?" The leader was named Zhao Yuan. He stared coldly at the pale-faced old man, comparing his map with the one marked by Uchida.

"Who are you? This is a private residence! This is trespassing!" Sato Mamoru shouted at his wife, his voice trembling with fear. His grandson cried loudly in terror, while his daughter-in-law cowered in a corner, shivering.

"Take him away." Zhao Yuan didn't bother with any more words.

Two men rushed forward, grabbing Sato's arms like eagles snatching chicks.

"Chinese language? You are Chinese?"

"Let me go! You bunch of thugs!" Sato struggled desperately, his kimono coming undone in the struggle, revealing his old and wrinkled skin.

He looked at Zhao Yuan and shouted frantically, "We've surrendered! We signed an agreement! We're under General MacArthur's protection! Protected by international law! You're committing a crime!"

Zhao Yuan stopped and turned around, walking back to Sato.

The family members who were crying and shouting instantly fell silent, staring in horror at the man with a murderous look on his face.

Zhao Yuan stared at Sato for a while, then suddenly raised his hand and slapped him hard across the face.

"Snapped!"

The slap was powerful and heavy, and half of Sato's face swelled up instantly, leaving him somewhat dazed.

“International law?” Zhao Yuan sneered, his tone full of sarcasm. “That’s what you signed with the United States, it has nothing to do with our boss.”

He leaned down, close to the old Japanese man's ear, his voice low but each word sharp as a knife: "The boss said, that's your own accounting. You lost and became dogs for the US—that's your business. Now, we're settling our own score."

He straightened up and glanced at Sato's trembling family members behind him.

"Tsk tsk tsk, how come you never thought of international law before, but you remember it now? I think it's not a change of conscience, but a fear of death."

"Drag him out and chop him up!"

Zhao Yuan waved his hand, turned around, and strode out of the courtyard.

......

Fifty nautical miles away, the USS Atlanta, a light cruiser of the US Seventh Fleet.

Inside the command center, the beeping of radar and the noise of radio mingled together; Supreme Commander MacArthur had arrived.

"General, the enemy's actions are extremely decisive. Starting from Nagasaki Port, they have split into dozens of groups and are advancing inland." The adjutant held a hastily compiled intelligence report in his hand, his face showing some shock. "The target is very clear: several retired military officer settlements around Nagasaki. According to feedback from low-altitude reconnaissance aircraft... the enemy is conducting 'targeted elimination.' The scene is horrific... extremely shocking."

The man sitting in the captain's seat, dressed in a crisp military uniform, had an expressionless face. He was MacArthur, the retired emperor of the East.

He held an unlit pipe in his hand, his eyes fixed on the flashing red dots on the monitor.

"Sir, should we intervene?" The adjutant gritted his teeth and whispered, "The Belgian government sent three interrogation telegrams half an hour ago. The president and chief of staff are asking why we allowed an unidentified armed force to carry out such a large-scale killing on our territory, which seriously damages the credibility of the United States."

MacArthur put down his pipe, his tone becoming flat and indifferent.

"Return the telegram to the Crown Prince. The person who came was Jiang Zhen. His reason for not taking action was that the Nagasaki region had experienced severe and unpredictable crustal instability due to the tsunami. The crustal vibrations caused magnetic field disturbances and large-scale ground collapses. Our military is currently conducting routine evacuation maneuvers to ensure the safety of our ships."

The adjutant was stunned: "Unstable earth crust? Sir, that's an excuse..."

"That's the truth, and they understand it."

MacArthur interrupted him decisively, "At least in our reports, it was a geological disaster. As for the deaths of those Japanese officers, let's just say they died from secondary disasters following the tsunami."

He paused, then continued, "First, seal off all signal channels within 50 nautical miles of Nagasaki. Second, strictly prohibit any media from approaching this area. Third, if any reconnaissance aircraft attempting to take photos without authorization—regardless of its nationality—shoot it down immediately. Report it afterwards as an accident caused by magnetic interference."

After giving these orders, MacArthur stood up and walked to the porthole.

He looked at the dark sea in the distance, and on the other side of the horizon, there seemed to be faint traces of blood-red firelight.

“Also, send a secret encrypted message to the Pentagon and the military.” MacArthur’s voice became low and hoarse. “Tell them that we may be witnessing an extremely terrifying organization, a special force with absolute individual military power, rising in this sea.”

As the adjutant watched MacArthur's retreating figure, he felt an unprecedented pressure.

"Yes, sir."

The night in Nagasaki is darker than ever before.

The tsunami destroyed all the power supply systems. The only light in the entire city came from the fires rising from the burned-down mansions and from the area around the high platform where Jiang Zhen was located.

On the high platform, Fifth Master Feng and Bai Fu were reporting on the progress of the first phase.

"Boss, everything in the Changqi area has been cleared on-site." Bai Fu held a new ledger in his hand, looking somewhat excited. "In addition, we found quite a few good things in the residences of several officers. The gold alone was transported in three trips, as well as some ancient paintings and porcelain that were taken from us back then."

"Boss, what's next..." Fifth Master Feng asked tentatively.

"Pass down the order."

Jiang Zhen stood up, his eyes blazing.

"Let the brothers rest in Nagasaki for one night. Starting tomorrow, we will use Nagasaki as a base to expand throughout Kyushu."

"understand!"

Master Feng and Bai Fu responded in unison.

Below the high platform, ten thousand men from the canal gang erupted in a suppressed yet earth-shaking roar.

Chapter 96 Directly Aiming at Tokyo

The next day, groups of men dressed in black drove trucks and armored vehicles they had acquired from various places, setting off from Nagasaki and spreading throughout Kyushu.

Each team leader carried a photocopied roster in their arms.

"Hurry up! Don't miss a single name on the list." Zhao Yuan ordered his men from the roadside. "No need to capture them alive. Confirm their identities and dispose of them on the spot."

Saga Prefecture. A quiet little village.

Tanaka, a retired military officer who had been out of the army for five years, was working in the field when two expressionless men in black dragged him off the ridge. Tanaka's wife knelt in the mud, frantically kowtowing until her forehead bled and her voice was hoarse from crying.

"We have surrendered! I am a civilian! You cannot kill people in the surrender zone!" Tanaka struggled and roared desperately, trying to evoke even a shred of pity from the other side.

"A commoner?" The man looked down at him. Suddenly, he let out a cold laugh.

The machete on his back swung through the air in a pale, semi-circular arc.

"The gang leader said—if you don't pay back the debts from back then, you won't be able to be reborn as a commoner in your next life."

A minute later, the truck started again. Tanaka's head was hanging on a telephone pole at the village entrance.

This purge, like a black plague, began in Nagasaki and spread throughout Kyushu. The military and police systems in Nagasaki, Saga, Oita, and other areas were completely paralyzed after Jiang Zhen personally intervened, unable to even mount any semblance of resistance. Names on the roster disappeared one by one.

……

Tokyo, Nagata-cho.

The air in the emergency meeting room of the Prime Minister's official residence was so heavy it seemed almost oppressive.

The mingled smells of various tobaccos filled the air, and the eyes of every cabinet minister were bloodshot. On the table before them lay the latest reports from all over Kyushu.

"This is aggression! This is blatant aggression!"

The Foreign Minister pounded his fist on the table, his voice shrill and distorted with anger and fear: "He's carrying out a vigilante justice on our territory! He's trampling on international law! This is a blatant challenge to a sovereign state! If the world order still exists, that man named Jiang Zhen should be hanged!"

Prime Minister Koiso sat in his chair with a grim expression. "Did you get through to General MacArthur?"

“We’ve made contact.” The intelligence officer’s face was deathly pale, and his voice was barely audible. “But General McGee said that a serious ‘crustal instability’ has occurred in Nagasaki, and to ensure the safety of the Allied forces, the Seventh Fleet has withdrawn to the deep sea. He suggested that we… handle the internal security issues ourselves.”

"Internal security?" The Prime Minister jumped to his feet. "That's an armed force of ten thousand men! And that man is more terrifying than an entire fleet!"

He surveyed his cabinet ministers, his eyes flashing with a deathly ruthlessness: "We can't just sit here and wait to die. What about the Self-Defense Forces? Those few units secretly kept in the mountains—transfer them all there! We must keep them at bay on Kyushu Island no matter what!"

“Your Excellency the Prime Minister,” an old general in the corner spoke slowly, his voice as dry as sandpaper, “reports say that Jiang Zhen only needs to stomp his foot and glare at us and all our men will be gone. This is not a conventional war, we… have no idea how to fight.”

The meeting room fell into dead silence.

"What can we do? Just watch him wipe out Kyushu Island?"

"Three methods, implemented simultaneously." The leader gestured:

"First, continue to put pressure on the United States. Use all available connections. Tell them that if they don't stop Jiang Zhen, Japan will completely collapse—their shield in the Far East will be gone."

"Second, contact Jiang Zhen. Send your most reliable person to Nagasaki to find him. Ask him what he really wants. Does he really want to go to war with a country?"

“Third…” the Prime Minister’s voice was extremely low, as if he were reciting a secret incantation, “Mobilize all the supernatural sects in the country. Shintoism, Yin-Yang Masters… tell them this is a national crisis. If that monster devours Kyushu, Tokyo will be next. Kill him, no matter the cost, whether in Sasebo or anywhere else.”

……

The cabinet imposed an extremely strict cover-up on the truth about Nagasaki. All newspapers carried the same headline on their front pages—"Local earthquake strikes Nagasaki, rescue efforts underway." The printing presses ran day and night, printing lies into lead type.