Upon hearing Wang Hanmin's words, Ning Zhiheng looked at him in surprise, thinking to himself that something had indeed happened, no wonder Wang Hanmin was in such a hurry to see him.
Ning Zhiheng asked in a deep voice, "Station Chief, did you run into trouble on your way here?"
Wang Hanmin said with a sense of helplessness, "Yes, just yesterday morning, at the last checkpoint into Shanghai, my three team members were detained by the Japanese garrison!"
Upon hearing this, Ning Zhiheng was startled and quickly asked, "What's the reason? Has your identity been exposed?"
“No, they were forcibly requisitioned by the local garrison!” Wang Hanmin said, shaking his head.
He began to recount the events in detail. It turned out that Wang Hanmin had selected fifty headquarters agents to go to Shanghai to take up their posts. They disguised themselves as employees of a trading company and mingled in a trading company's convoy. The journey went smoothly, and they passed through several checkpoints safely. However, an accident still occurred when they were about to cross the Jingshui Bridge in Shanghai.
Jingshui Bridge is a bridge located on a main road in western Shanghai. It was destroyed by Japanese planes during the retreat from the Battle of Shanghai. It was repaired after the war. Because it was located on a major transportation route and had an important geographical location, the Japanese set up a checkpoint here, guarded by the Shanghai garrison. Its main purpose was to inspect the flow of goods between Shanghai and the interior.
Ordinary pedestrians and goods can pass through, but if suspicious persons or smuggled goods are found, the goods will be seized and the suspicious persons will be arrested immediately.
Because the caravan where Wang Hanmin and his group were hiding was heading into Shanghai, and the Japanese did not conduct strict inspections of caravans entering Shanghai, the preceding convoy passed through smoothly.
But just as the convoy was about to pass through, an officer suddenly arrived and ordered the requisition of a number of personnel and vehicles to help them build a military camp.
The military had ordered the reinforcement of the garrison at the Jingshui Bridge checkpoint, so the temporary military camp here needed to be expanded.
This left the rest of the convoy in trouble. All their vehicles and personnel were forcibly requisitioned, including three special agents from headquarters.
Later, the head of the business went to plead with the Japanese and even bribed them with a lot of money, but it had no effect at all. He almost didn't even make it back. In the end, he was beaten on the head with a rifle butt by the Japanese and kicked out of the military camp.
Wang Hanmin was also helpless. At this time, all military and political power in Shanghai was in the hands of the Japanese. The Military Intelligence Investigation Department had no connections in Shanghai that it could use. He could only lead the other team members to enter the Shanghai Concession first and personally go to Ning Zhiheng's door to seek help and find a way to rescue the three team members.
Ning Zhiheng pondered for a moment after hearing this, then asked, "Does the person in charge of this trading company know your identities?"
Wang Hanmin hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, “He is also one of our people. This Fengmao Trading Company was originally set up by our Military Intelligence Department. Its purpose is to open up the transportation channel between the inland and Shanghai. This is also part of the force that the Director entrusted to me. I didn’t expect that there would be a mistake on the first time we entered Shanghai.”
It seems that the director has done a lot of work for Wang Hanmin and has increased his efforts considerably. Ning Zhiheng couldn't help but sneer inwardly. Unfortunately, this was in Shanghai, and the director couldn't help but make some assumptions.
"When he went to negotiate, he didn't ask clearly when the Japanese would release the people?" Ning Zhiheng then asked.
"I asked, and the Japanese said they would release people after the military camp was built, which would take at least twenty days!"
Ning Zhiheng was puzzled. Since the identities of the three team members had not been revealed, and at most they would be forced to work as laborers among the Japanese for twenty days, why was Wang Hanmin so nervous?
"Station Chief, there are some things you need to clarify with me, otherwise I won't be able to arrange a rescue operation. Is there something wrong with the identities of these three people?" Ning Zhiheng asked directly.
Knowing he couldn't hide it from Ning Zhiheng, Wang Hanmin had no choice but to tell the truth: "One of the team members is named Zhang Yong, who is my head of the telecommunications department!"
Ning Zhiheng immediately realized what was happening and urgently asked, "Is the codebook on him?"
Wang Hanmin nodded helplessly; this was why he was in such a hurry to rescue the person.
If Zhang Yong is left imprisoned in the military camp for such a long time, who can guarantee that the Japanese won't discover the codebook on him?
Once discovered, Zhang Yong and his associates' identities would inevitably be exposed, leading to a series of arrests. The newly established Fengmao Trading Company and Wang Hanmin's intelligence station would be exposed to the Japanese.
More importantly, it's this codebook! It turns out that in the past two years, the Telecommunications Section of the Military Intelligence Investigation Department has developed rapidly. The secretly formed code-breaking team has made a major breakthrough. Not only have they deciphered Japanese military telegrams multiple times, but they have also designed a new codebook for themselves. The completely new editing and calculation formulas have raised the level of security of the Chinese military's codes to a new level. Now, the Japanese intelligence agency has been unable to decipher the Chinese military's telegrams for a long time.
The several encrypted codebooks that Ning Zhiheng seized played a very important role in this.
Just as the Military Intelligence Investigation Bureau tried every means to seize the Japanese codebooks, the Japanese are now making great efforts to find the latest codebooks of the Chinese military in hopes of finding the decryption patterns.
The current whereabouts of the codebook are unknown. This serious situation has made Ning Zhiheng uneasy. If the codebook is captured by Japan, although it is unlikely that the Japanese will find a way to decipher the Chinese military radio code because of this incident, it could provide a blueprint for Japanese cryptography experts. No one can estimate how much loss this would be.
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