Chapter 263: You Can’t Tell Anyone
Chen Yang opened his mouth wide, his face full of disbelief.
“Haruki-kun, do you mean that Yoshida-kun might have connections with the Red Faction? Is he an active militant influenced by the Red Plague?”
“This is impossible. He’s the Vice Minister of Transportation Department, a senior Counselor of the South Manchuria Railway. How can you expect me to believe it? How dare I believe it?”
“Haruki-kun, could this be a frame-up?”
Haruki Keiin smiled wryly: “It doesn’t seem like it, Mr. Chen. Take a look at these notes. The earliest one is from July of Showa 13.”
“But the last one is from May 28th of Showa 14, exactly one year after Yoshida-kun took over as Vice Minister of Transportation Department.”
“Also, when I arrived, I had Tamura-kun check, and this book was first published in the Dagong Daily in July of Showa 13.”
“From this, it’s clear that the book caught Yoshida-kun’s attention as soon as it was published.”
“Many of the notes here are Yoshida-kun’s reading insights on this book.”
“I feel that without prolonged reading, it’s impossible to have such profound insights.”
“No matter from which angle, Yoshida-kun definitely has some issues.”
“I think this matter needs to be reported to the Military Department.”
“No, absolutely not!” Chen Yang shook his head and immediately stopped him: “Haruki-kun, the South Manchuria Railway is submitting a performance report on Yoshida-kun to the homeland.”
“President Omura wants to establish Yoshida as a model for the South Manchuria Railway.”
“If such a thing breaks out at this time, the South Manchuria Railway side definitely won’t accept it.”
“Moreover, not just the South Manchuria Railway, to ensure the image of the Southern Transportation Department, Minister Oshima also submitted a recommendation letter to the homeland.”
“If such a thing breaks out at this time, Minister Oshima will be in a difficult position in the middle.”
“Although the current railway transportation is mainly led by me, most of the team doing the work below is still from the South Manchuria Railway.”
“If this matter breaks out, I’m worried that in anger, the South Manchuria Railway side will passive work, or even recall the team under the pretext of self-investigation.”
“This would be all harm and no benefit to us, only giving others an opportunity to take advantage!”
“So, Haruki-kun, this time, let’s make the brothers of the Ume Agency suffer a bit. Find a method to suppress this matter, don’t let anyone know!”
“Don’t let anyone know, even keep it secret from Your Excellency Kagesa?” Haruki Keiin hesitated somewhat.
“That’s right, not even Your Excellency Kagesa. Haruki-kun, Your Excellency Kagesa is going to Nanjing, the future of the Ume Agency is entirely in your hands. You can’t be muddled at a time like this?” Chen Yang sighed, slowly saying: “As for this infamy, I’ll take it!”
Haruki Keiin anxiously said: “Mr. Chen, doing this would be unfair to you.”
Chen Yang helplessly waved his hand: “The most important thing right now is still the Nomonhan campaign. The supply transport northbound cannot have any problems.”
“Compared to that, what does personal honor or disgrace matter…”
“Haruki-kun, remember to seal the information. No one can be told!”
Haruki Keiin’s gaze flowed with a look of admiring respect.
“Mr. Chen, rest assured. I know the importance. I won’t tell anyone!”
“Then, I’ll leave it to you,” Chen Yang stood up and slightly bowed.
Haruki Keiin sighed, slightly bowed in return, then decisively took the folder and left the Southern Transportation Department.
Watching Haruki Keiin’s slowly disappearing back, Chen Yang pondered for a moment, picked up the telephone on the table and called Lin Xueyi: “Second Brother, don’t send out that shipment yet. Transportation is tight now, I can’t waste transport capacity. Wait a while!”
“Good, good, let’s do that for now…”
After hanging up the phone, the corner of Chen Yang’s mouth slowly curved into an arc…
Shanghai, Joint Special Higher Police Affairs Headquarters, third floor, Audit Group office…
It was already late at night, but the Audit Group personnel were still verifying the information at hand. The entire room was filled only with the dry rustling sounds.
It could be said that this extremely tedious work had consumed enormous manpower and resources.
The Audit Group needed to request original records from dozens of node units scattered along the long railway line, repeatedly verifying through encrypted telegrams.
The process was slow, but the effects were gradually emerging. Some “discordant notes” initially hidden in the background noise of massive transport volumes began to be sifted out and amplified bit by bit.
What first caught Nantian’s attention was a batch of “Type 79 rifle ammunition” transported to the Nomonhan Front.
The outbound list from the Coordination Headquarters clearly stated “300,000 rounds, whole cases, case numbers from A-107750 to A-108049”.
However, on the receipt from the supply officer of a regiment in the 23rd Division at the front line, the quantity had become “298,300 rounds”.
There was a line of small print in the remarks column: “A total of 17 cases were damaged to varying degrees en route, scattered ammunition recovered and counted, actual received as above.
Missing portion handled as transportation loss.”
A discrepancy of 1,700 rounds, relative to the total of 300,000, a loss rate of about 0.57%, seemingly within an acceptable “reasonable range”.
But Nantian Yangzi had her subordinates retrieve the temporary storage records for this batch of ammunition at the Shenyang marshalling yard and Qiqihar transfer station, and both stations’ records showed “cases intact, no abnormality reported”.
Where did the damage occur? Why were there no more detailed damage records and responsible person reports?
Immediately after, the verification result for another item, “special drugs for field hospitals”, was sent to her desk.
The list specified “high-grade medical sulfanilamide injection, 2,150 vials, dedicated transportation”. However, the receiving records from the main field hospital at the Nomonhan Front showed only “1,745 vials”, with the reason again being “temporary failure during transport, causing 405 vials of medicine to become ineffective”.
Nantian immediately followed up: “Which car? When and where exactly did the failure occur? Where are the reports from the onboard medical staff or escorts?”
The Logistics Department receiving personnel still answered vaguely, finally brushing it off with the reason that the medicine was damaged and inoperable.
Similar situations began to appear one after another:
·A batch of “high-octane aviation gasoline” transported north, with a discrepancy of several tons between the listed quantity and received quantity, explained as “natural evaporation and pipeline residue”.
·Several carloads of “special alloy steel” for repairing tanks and heavy artillery, actual delivered weight several percent lighter than shipped weight, attributed to “systematic error in measuring instruments and cutting loss”.
·Even some “military canned food” and “winter cotton overcoats” had similar seemingly negligible shortages.
If any single discrepancy was viewed in isolation, it could be brushed off with “harsh wartime transportation conditions, inevitable losses”.
But Nantian Yangzi ordered her subordinates to categorize, summarize, and perform trend analysis on all discovered abnormal transportation records by three dimensions: material type, transportation route, and occurrence time.
When a huge trend chart marked with dense abnormal data points gradually took shape on the wall of her office, a chill crawled up Nantian Yangzi’s spine.
Pattern one: Routes highly concentrated. Over 95% of the “abnormal losses” occurred on a few main supply lines to the Nomonhan direction, especially the two most critical arteries via the Jinpu Line transferring to the Jingha Line, and from Dalian Port northbound via the Hada Line.
While materials transported to Central China, South China, and other directions had much lower loss rates, even many batches with zero loss.
Pattern two: Category value tendency.
Materials with significant “losses” were mostly high-value, high-demand, strictly controlled military supplies.
For example, ammunition, medicine, fuel, precision parts, special metals.
Those ordinary, lower-value military supplies, like regular food, coal, construction timber, had relatively normal loss rates.
Pattern three: Time window correlation.
Nantian Yangzi carefully compared the time points when these abnormal data began to appear and gradually became more frequent and larger in scale.
She was shocked to discover that the rise of this trend had a great deal to do with Vice Minister of Transportation Department Chen Yang.
From his initial intervention in transportation scheduling as coordinator of materials, to fully taking over power after Yoshida fell ill, the “evaporation” speed and quantity of these “phantom materials” seemed to synchronously “increase”!
Nantian Yangzi sat at her desk, the desk lamp’s halo illuminating her pale face from lack of sleep, but her eyes burned with the excitement of spotting prey’s traces.
She picked up a red pencil and heavily circled key nodes on that trend chart.
“This is absolutely not simple management negligence, nor petty graft by the rank and file!” Her voice trembled slightly, not from fear, but from excitement approaching the truth. “This is a… systematic, meticulously designed theft! Someone is utilizing the Empire’s northbound lifeline for large-scale, organized smuggling of materials!”
She pushed aside the abacus and a pile of forms, took out a white paper, and began deeper deduction:
What is the motive?
If just for profit, sporadically selling these weapons and medicine on the black market carries extremely high risk and low efficiency, easily traceable.
Why risk execution by continuously targeting the highest-risk northbound military trains?
What is the channel?
How do these materials “disappear” under the tight railway network and layered checkpoints? There must be insiders, a set of secret operational methods hidden under legitimate transportation processes.
Perhaps swapping during the chaos of shunting at marshalling yards?
Or secretly unloading at some “reliable” intermediate station under pretext of “temporary maintenance” or “marshalling operations”?
Or utilizing some unknown branch lines or abandoned stations?
Where is the endpoint?
Where do these stolen “phantom materials” ultimately flow?
Capable of digesting such quantity and quality of weapons and materials, it absolutely cannot be small bands of bandits or local forces.
In North China, who lacks weapons, ammunition, medicine, fuel the most, and most desperately wants these supplies?
One answer was almost self-evident: Communist Party military and their bases!
Moreover, likely not just the Communist Party, even Chongqing’s military is active on this supply line. He is using the military trains for blatant smuggling of materials!
This is aiding the enemy…
This deduction made Nantian Yangzi feel a palpitation. If true, it means the Empire’s transportation system, this massive network seen as the lifeline of the “Holy War”, is not only hollowed out by parasites, but using its own flesh and blood to continuously feed the most threatening enemy!
This is more destructive and far-reaching than ten Military Statistics Bureau assassination teams!
She immediately compiled an extremely detailed preliminary analysis report, not using any public document format, but personally writing it with code symbols and secret code understandable only to a very few.
In the report, she listed the most representative data anomaly cases, clearly showing the three patterns, and explicitly raised the serious accusation of “systematic and organized smuggling of materials, suspected aiding the enemy”. Although not directly naming Chen Yang, the timeline and authority connections between the lines already pointed the greatest suspicion at him.
Besides this information, Nantian also combined the information Yasuda Nobuo found in the material warehouse and the murder of Aoki Tomoshige.
All matters’ arrows pointed to that man responsible for leading transportation!
Carrying this heavy report, Nantian Yangzi secretly met the highest person in charge of this Special Higher Police Affairs audit operation, Colonel Fujita Tsuyoshi.
Fujita listened to her report, looked at that report full of red marks and analysis charts, his face going from initial doubt to shock, finally turning iron-blue.
He knew well what scale of earthquake this matter would trigger once exposed!
This was not just about rooting out a few parasites, but a major political scandal and strategic blunder that could shake the ruling foundation of the entire Shanghai, even Central China and North China occupied areas!
“Nantian…” Fujita took a deep breath, his voice dry, “How confident are you in your judgment?”
“Colonel Fujita, data doesn’t lie.” Nantian Yangzi said firmly, “Although currently lacking direct human evidence and physical evidence pointing to the final recipients, the regularity and tendency of the material anomaly flows are already sufficient to explain the problem.”
“This is absolutely not accidental! I request immediately launching the highest-level secret investigation, focusing surveillance on those few abnormal lines, conducting the strictest background checks and action surveillance on all handling personnel, especially those who gained scheduling authority after specific time points!”
Fujita Tsuyoshi was silent for a long time, his fingers unconsciously tapping the desktop. Finally, he made up his mind, a ruthless glint flashing in his eyes: “This matter, classify as ‘Top Secret’! Scope strictly controlled within you and me, and at most two absolutely reliable assistants you designate.”
“I will make a separate report to General Doihara. You immediately formulate a detailed secret investigation plan. Remember, loose on the outside, tight on the inside, absolutely do not alert the target! We need to play a long game, find irrefutable evidence, and uproot the entire network!”
“Hai!” Nantian Yangzi stood at attention and accepted the order, preparing to leave.
But Fujita Tsuyoshi suddenly called her back: “Wait a moment!”
“Section Chief Nantian, have you heard? Your Excellency Kagesa will take over as Chief Military Advisor of the New Government Military Advisory Group at the end of July!”
Nantian showed a complex look in her eyes, “I heard. Your Excellency Nanjiro is negotiating with Mr. Wang on Hong Kong Island, demanding he must return by the end of July!”
Fujita Tsuyoshi said slowly: “With Your Excellency Kagesa leaving, the candidate for the next Head of Ume Agency…”
“Section Chief Nantian, in life, ability is secondary, opportunity is most important. Now is a good opportunity, you must grasp it well!”
