The strange thing is that after Xuan Jun returned to China, Guan Zhuofan relaxed the intensity of the work of intelligence management for a while - at the beginning, even he himself was not clearly aware of this.

It can't simply be said that Kwan Zhuofan doesn't pay attention to intelligence work - how can it change so suddenly?

For example, when the Xuan army entered Lu to suppress the twist, Guan Zhuofan played the card of "military and civilian fish and water conditions", strictly enforced military discipline, strictly prohibited prostitution and plunder, and sent 15,000 sets of cotton clothes to the local people, just to win the hearts of the people and obtain information. This trick is very bright, the common people not only no longer through the twist, but also actively for the official army to ventilate the news, greatly changed the previous suppression of twisting, "the official army is closed to the ears and eyes, twist the son of the well-informed" passive situation.

Under the circumstance that the Xuan army had already won Lai Wenguang's plan to divert the tiger from the mountain, the local polder Pegasus delivered the news to the official army, and Wall was able to change the deployment in time, blocking the road of Ren Zhu's horse team to cross the Xiaoqing River to the north, laying an unshakable foundation for the annihilation of the most powerful army in the east.

In the intelligence work of suppression, Guan Zhuofan took a TG road of "going to the masses" and "mingling with the people". In fact, when he was in the United States, Guan Zhuofan was engaged in intelligence work, and he faintly played this game. This is really because Guan Zhuofan was born and raised under TG, and he was deeply impressed by it when he was a child, and he also had a lot of understanding.

Of course, this is the right thing to do. However, this path has its limitations. The main reason is that ordinary people can only come into contact with the affairs of the lower levels of society around them, and the objects of intelligence work are not only in the market. Guan Zhuofan's opponent is more behind the high wall Zhumen.

The most important thing is that Kwan Zhuofan does not have a clear sense of establishing an independent and efficient secret intelligence agency in peacetime - because at the beginning. He didn't feel the need.

Therefore. The large-scale conquest came to an end. The urgent need for intelligence work in the war disappeared for the time being, and the construction of the intelligence system of the Xuan Army naturally slowed down or even stagnated.

The lack of "institutional soil" is also one of the reasons.

The Qing Dynasty did not have the former Ming Dynasty's Jinyiwei, Dongchang, Xichang and other spy agencies, and the government had neither the awareness and interest in spying on the secrets of the shadows, nor the ability to do so. On the plus side, this is the table of the government zhì Qingming; On the other hand, however, there is a lack of relevant traditions. the ability to process relevant information, which will be affected; The sensitivity to changes in information will also be relatively weak.

After all, Xuanjun grew out of this "institutional soil". In traditional military operations, there is only the practice of "sentinel detectives" and there is no complete and systematic concept of intelligence collection, reserves, sorting, analysis, and judgment.

In "The Art of War", there is the so-called "five rooms" - "countryside", "inside", "anti-room", "life room", and "death room".

"Country" is to use enemy villagers as spies; "Inner room", using enemy officials as spies; "Anti-between". to use enemy spies for our own use; "Shengjian" is to survive after spying on the enemy; "The Dead". Using our spies who infiltrated the enemy to convey false information and deceive the enemy -- after the incident, our spies will inevitably be exposed and executed by the enemy, which is called "death".

These "five rooms" are the Tao, but when everyone learns and puts it into practice, most of them are piecemeal; There are very few that have established an independent body to implement the "five" in a complete and systematic manner.

In the case of An Dehai, Guan Zhuofan suddenly woke up to his "shortcomings" - if you talk about the abundance of resources, how can you be thousands of times more than the dead eunuch? How could he be so late and fall into the hands of a dead eunuch?

Ignorantly, almost counted by eunuchs - shame, shame!

Although resources are abundant, they are not used well, and this is not something that can be explained by "complacency" and "negligence".

The role of intelligence is not to passively respond to changes, but to sort, analyze, and judge on the premise of obtaining a large amount of information over the years, to find out the truly valuable parts, to "foresee the signs," and to control the enemy first. You can't hide in the shadows, so you have to pull the enemy into the spotlight and stare at it with a good eye and control every move.

If the enemy makes any move, I will strike first.

Having learned from the pain, Kwan Zhuofan was determined to establish a completely independent intelligence agency that was directly accountable to him.

In terms of structure, it is only natural that this department should be incorporated into the "military commission" system, and that it should be directly responsible to the "chairman" himself.

What's the name? "Directorate of Survey and Statistics of the Military Commission"? Uh, it's too much of a bad taste.

It was finally designated as the "Investigation and Liaison Office of the Military Commission", at the regimental level.

The director of the "Investigation and Liaison Office of the Military Commission" is a young man of the same age as Guan Zhuofan, whose name is Chen Yicheng.

Interestingly, the name "Yicheng" was chosen by Guan Zhuofan for him.

Chen Yicheng, formerly known as Chen Jinghao, is a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang. He was born into a wealthy family, and when he was a teenager, he was sent by his family to work as an apprentice in a foreign firm in Shanghai. He was both intelligent and studious, and after he became a teacher, he became a comprador in just a few years.

is proud of the spring breeze, but something big happened at home in Hangzhou.

The Chen family started a lawsuit with someone for a "tooth card" for buying and selling silk, which is a business license. The opponent is called Wang Zuochen, and he is a gentry who is registered with Ding Wei. The tooth card was originally in the hands of the Chen family, and the Wang family wanted to take it away. The Chen family is rich and occupies Li'er; But the Wang family is powerful, and the county, government, province, and even the province can't help but sell Wang Zuochen's face, and this lawsuit will not be clear for a while.

The lawsuit couldn't be fought, so Wang Zuochen was anxious first.

To buy and sell silk, you must buy it before you can sell it. The business of buying silk is based on the season. Every year in March and April, the spring silkworm spins silk, after this point, even if you get the tooth card, you have to wait until next year to collect silk from silkworm farmers. Chen Jiaya card in hand, naturally dragged out; Wang Zuochen borrowed a lot of silver from Qianzhuang, if he couldn't get the tooth card and couldn't receive the silk, he would be eaten by Qianzhuang for nothing, so he couldn't be delayed.

Although this person was born as a jinshi, he was a ruffian in his bones, and he had a rampage attack, carried a foreign gun, and rushed into Chen's mansion with his family and a group of idle ruffians and hooligans, and smashed them indiscriminately.

The two sides scuffled, and in the chaos, the foreign gun went off fire and hit Chen Jinghao's father, Chen Dongcheng, in the chest. The bullet pierced through his chest, and Chen Dongcheng died on the spot.

Wang Zuochen caused a big disaster, but he did it up and down, and the result of the government's investigation was actually "the evil slave of the Chen family started first, grabbed the foreign gun, and then hit Wang with the handle of the gun, triggering the mechanism, and mistakenly hit Chen", Yunyun.

As a result, Wang Zuochen not only did not fall any responsibility, but the government instead demanded that the Chen family "hand over the evil slaves who caused the trouble" and "strictly interrogate and bring them to justice".

Chen Jinghao rushed back to Hangzhou, his family was miserable, and the clansmen were gossiping, some said that they wanted to "find the old man surnamed Wang", and some said that they wanted to "go to Beijing to sue the emperor".

Chen Jinghao was very calm and said, "It's useless. Wang Zuochen and He Zhijun of Liangjiang are in the same year, and our Wang Futai of Zhejiang was pulled up by He Zhijun - these two are both popular officials, and this lawsuit cannot be won no matter how it is fought. ”

He Zhijun was He Guiqing, the governor of Liangjiang at that time; Wang Futai was Wang Youling, the governor of Zhejiang at that time.

Chen Jinghao kowtowed to his mother and said: "The revenge of killing my father is not shared, and I am ashamed of being a son of man, and I can't help but repay it." ”

The mother stared at her son for a long time, then closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face, but she said nothing.

Chen Jinghao dismissed the servants, sold the family property, and sent his mother and sister to the countryside.

The "tooth card" for buying and selling silk finally fell into the hands of Wang Zuochen.

Wang Zuochen is complacent!

However, this year's silkworm season is coming to an end, he seized the time, took a boat, and came to Huzhou from Hangzhou to see how much good silk he could receive - Huzhou's silk is of the best quality, known as "Lake silk clothes the world".

As soon as he landed on the shore, a young man greeted him with a smile and said, "Master Wang, do you know who I am?" ”

Wang Zuochen was stunned, this person was sent by the local partner silk company to greet him? But the two sides made an appointment in advance, and went directly to the silk store to meet after arriving at the port, and did not greet this? Besides, how can anyone ask such a question?

Wang Zuochen frowned and said, "Are you Boss Xiao's person?" ”

The young man's face suddenly changed, and he shouted: "I am Chen Jinghao, the son of Chen Dongcheng!" ”

Before the words fell, a snow-bright sharp knife was turned out in his hand, and it went straight to Wang Zuochen's chest!

*(To be continued......)