Chapter 112: Difficulty
Shanghai’s news is very timely.
The next day as soon as he started work, Liu Xiaolou asked, “Division Chief, have you read the newspaper?”
“What does it say?”
“The matter of counterfeit military scrip appearing has been reported, and foreign media newspapers say our vault lacks foreign currency. When I was having breakfast, I heard passersby say that early in the morning, people went to the Finance Bureau to block the gate demanding immediate exchange.”
“What’s the use of blocking the Finance Bureau’s gate? Block the mayor’s gate, block the new government’s gate, block the consulate’s gate—that would be useful. They don’t even know to be clever about getting money.”
Liu Xiaolou couldn’t respond to that. “There’s another thing. A newspaper called this morning inquiring if we arrested a British person yesterday and what reason we used to arrest him.”
Gu Yansheng put down his clothes on the coat rack, turned back with a frown, and looked at him. “Who arrested the person?”
“Economic Department. They said a British person came to exchange money and was detained on the spot by the staff.”
“What does that have to do with us? Whoever arrested the person should explain.” After Gu Yansheng said that, he thought about it and realized he really couldn’t say it that way. Arrests are under judicial control. The Economic Department detaining someone was improper and damaged the Judicial Department’s reputation.
“Where is the person now?”
Liu Xiaolou shook his head. “I don’t know that. Do you need me to ask?”
Gu Yansheng walked over, picked up the phone, and called the Economic Department office: “Hello, this is Gu Yansheng. Did you detain a British person yesterday?”
“Yes, Director Gu. A British person and two Chinese. They came to exchange money but used counterfeit military scrip.”
“Where is the person now?”
“They’ve already been taken away by Agent Headquarters.”
“Agent Headquarters?” Gu Yansheng frowned. “How did the person end up in their hands?”
“At first we wanted to hand him over to the police station, but before the police arrived yesterday after work, they came. They said they received an order from Gendarmerie Headquarters to investigate this matter. Not only did they take away the three people who came to exchange scrip, they also took our supervisor and several persons in charge, along with the staff responsible for exchanges these past two days.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Gu Yansheng was about to hang up the phone when the person on the other end asked something.
“Director Gu, they… won’t have any trouble, right?”
After all, it was Agent Headquarters doing the arresting, which sounded scarier than the police station.
“If they didn’t do anything wrong, they won’t have trouble. Just do your own job well.”
Gu Yansheng hung up the phone, thought for a moment, and said, “If anyone else asks about the British person, say he was taken away by Agent Headquarters. Those guys are heavy-handed. Don’t let them beat someone to death and make us responsible.”
He also needed to let foreigners know the right place to demand people.
Liu Xiaolou nodded. “Understood.”
Gu Yansheng had barely had time for a cup of coffee when the Secretariat called to convene an emergency meeting.
It was emergency indeed. The strategy just decided at yesterday’s meeting was now in the newspapers. The Finance Bureau gate was blocked by people, and there were many citizens and enterprises demanding exchange. The Japanese’s phone calls were probably urging several times already.
Now the plan to transport military scrip to Suzhou was also scrapped. Although the newspapers didn’t say they were transporting it to Suzhou, now who didn’t know there were piles of counterfeit military scrip circulating outside? To implement it again, they’d have to force Suzhou citizens to exchange at gunpoint. Why exchange then? It would be simpler to just rob.
The morning meeting discussed no solutions. Now foreign merchants were pressing, the vault had no foreign currency. No matter what ideas they came up with, they couldn’t drive away the foreign merchants outside the Finance Bureau.
The situation continued to expand. More and more people were blocking the Finance Bureau gate, and outside City Government was no better. Ordinary people who had been swindled out of their family fortune launched a wave of protests. Numerous reporters set up their cameras, waiting to interview City Government personnel.
And in Hongkou, the consulate gate was similarly surrounded by reporters from various countries, demanding that Hase Jinagawa give an explanation.
Ring ring, ring ring. The consulate was now flooded with nonstop phone calls. Hase Jinagawa didn’t dare answer the phone at the moment. With tightly furrowed brows and an indignant expression, he paced back and forth in the room.
According to what he knew of the situation, the reality was far more serious than what the newspapers said!
At worst, he could treat it as being bitten by a dog and endure it first. Foreign enterprises wanted to exchange money; at most, they could cover it themselves first, exchange for the foreign merchants, and ease the situation.
As long as the foreign merchants backed off and stopped making noise, the ordinary people side would be easy to handle. A mob like that could be suppressed. If not, arrest a few, and they would naturally disperse.
The counterfeit currency could be slowly recovered and destroyed later, and the matter would be resolved.
But now Ling Xianwen, responsible for Economic Department affairs, called him with a bombshell.
A foreign enterprise called saying the military scrip they just exchanged from the Economic Department turned out to be all counterfeit military scrip upon inspection.
According to the Economic Department’s process for exchanging military scrip, foreign enterprises bring silver dollars or foreign currency to the Economic Department to exchange for military scrip. The Economic Department naturally takes military scrip from the warehouse to complete the exchange for them.
Economic Department gets foreign currency, foreign enterprises get military scrip.
But now the foreign enterprises’ foreign currency was exchanged away by counterfeit military scrip, and the counterfeit military scrip they brought was handed to the foreign enterprises by Economic Department people.
The Economic Department actually acted as the middleman for counterfeit military scrip, and for free at that.
The foreign enterprises never imagined the military scrip handed out by the Economic Department itself could be fake.
After Ling Xianwen finished saying this, he reminded him of the biggest pitfall in this matter!
“Mr. Hase, the biggest problem in this matter isn’t that foreign enterprises have the counterfeit military scrip we exchanged to them.
It’s that the source of this matter might very well be the foreign enterprises’ doing. If it really is them, do you think paying to keep exchanging for foreign enterprises would help? It wouldn’t at all!
We have no way to judge whether the counterfeit military scrip they currently hold was really exchanged from us or produced by them themselves!
If you say you’ll exchange for them, and foreign enterprises bring another pile of counterfeit military scrip, do you exchange or not?
Not exchanging means no credit. They’ll insist it was from us. How do you explain?
If you do exchange, once the floodgate opens, what if billions in counterfeit military scrip come?”
Hase Jinagawa listened with eyes bulging wide, his whole body tingling like he’d been electrified.
What a huge pit!
If Ling Xianwen was right, this matter was unsolvable. It was impossible to exchange for foreign merchants. This floodgate couldn’t be opened even a crack.
Otherwise, even exhausting their foreign currency inventory couldn’t solve the problem.
He thought that way, it sounded good and simple, but this matter had to be resolved somehow!
Who made him Shanghai’s top consul!
With things at this point, no explanation would work. To maintain military scrip credit, he could only take money out to exchange for foreign merchants. But tens of millions had already been exchanged away by swindlers. There must be deficits in their funds. Continuing to exchange would mean not using military scrip to harvest Shanghai’s foreign currency.
But using their own foreign currency to fill the hole from counterfeit military scrip.
Subsidizing at a loss!
On this matter, he asked Gendarmerie Headquarters’ opinion.
Gendarmerie Headquarters now had just one sentence: Giving money is impossible. No profit and still subsidizing? No such reason.
Catch the mastermind behind it. Wait until Agent Headquarters’ investigation ends.
“Sir, the British consul is here, saying he wants to visit you.”
He wasn’t taking phone calls, but people were coming to the door.
“Don’t see him. Say I’m having heart discomfort and am ill.”
Hase Jinagawa now had no way to communicate with the outside world and could only hope Agent Headquarters caught the mastermind.
Put the pressure on Agent Headquarters.
Li Shiqun took the mission and started investigating. Actually, this matter wasn’t difficult. With people in hand, tracking down would reveal the mastermind.
The only trouble was that this person was a British person.
After questioning all night, the British person insisted he knew nothing, that the money was normally received by him. Unless torture was used, he clearly wouldn’t talk.
As for those two Chinese, their identities were ordinary staff of Sassoon Firm. They were obviously small fries who knew nothing.
Gendarmerie Headquarters was calling one after another to urge. Li Shiqun decided to act.
“Mr. Wilson, if you don’t talk, I’m afraid I can’t be polite. You might not know what kind of place this is.” Li Shiqun waved his hand, and men tied Wilson from the chair to the interrogation cross.
“Mr. Li, think carefully about what you’re doing. I’m a citizen of the British Empire. If you dare torture me, the British Empire won’t let you go. Even the Japanese will abandon you then.” Wilson was tough.
Li Shiqun smiled faintly. “I hope your British Empire can protect you. Begin.”
Under Wilson’s incredulous gaze, Wu Sibao personally acted, and interrogation began.
“You dare hit me? Ah! Ah~”
Painful screams came from the interrogation room. In just ten minutes, Wilson was exhausted and surrendered.
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk. Stop hitting.”
“Who?”
“Sassoon Firm.”
“Sassoon Firm? Who?”
“A manager at Sassoon Firm.”
“Manager.” Li Shiqun nodded. “Why not say it earlier? No need to suffer physically. Did the British Empire protect you?”
With that, Li Shiqun walked out of the interrogation room.
A subordinate reported, “Reporters somehow found out the person is in our hands. Now outside is full of reporters and foreigners demanding we release Wilson.”
Li Shiqun frowned. “What do they think this place is? Have people drive them away. If they like standing, let them stand.”
Li Shiqun went upstairs and called Gendarmerie Headquarters to report the interrogation result.
The investigation revealed it was Sassoon Firm people. To continue, they needed to enter the concession to arrest. And it was influential Sassoon people. Needed Gendarmerie Headquarters authorization.
Gendarmerie Headquarters told him to hold off for now and directly passed this information to the consulate.
Hase Jinagawa finally had a card in hand.
He immediately went out to speak to the reporters.
“Everyone needn’t worry. We naturally take responsibility for the military scrip we issued. But the matter definitely needs the investigation to be clear before I can reply to everyone.
Now the matter has preliminary results. Yesterday, we caught a counterfeit currency enterprise personnel who came to exchange. According to his confession, the mastermind behind this is a manager at Sassoon Firm. This whole matter cannot be ruled out as related to Sassoon Firm.
Given the legal agreement between Shanghai urban area and the concession, we hope the Public Works Bureau can extradite Sassoon Firm’s manager to us according to the extradition treaty.
I also hope everyone can urge the Public Works Bureau to complete the extradition quickly. Only then can we complete the full investigation and quickly complete exchanges for everyone.”
“The investigation is your business. I just want to exchange!” Opposition voices immediately came from the crowd.
“That’s right. Regardless of counterfeiting, according to your promise when issuing military scrip, if we want to exchange, we can exchange! You’re delaying. You haven’t kept your promise!”
“We don’t care about any Sassoon. We just want our own money back!”
The scene was chaotic, using momentum to pressure.
Hase Jinagawa smiled insincerely, maintained his smile, and ended the press conference.
Although the problem wasn’t solved, at least he could make Public Works Bureau and Sassoon share the fire with them.
But this wave of diverting disaster eastward, Sassoon didn’t buy it.
An hour later, Sassoon held a press conference at Sassoon House, fiercely denouncing the Japanese side’s nonsense.
“Too ironic. This is actually what a national consul said. Sassoon Firm has been in Shanghai for so many years. We dare not claim unparalleled revenue, but for industries, saying Sassoon’s industries in Shanghai are top three is not excessive at all.
Do we need to do counterfeit currency business? Is money hard to earn?
The Japanese themselves don’t keep promises, causing losses to all Shanghai industrial and commercial enterprises, and now they want to pull Sassoon Firm out as a shield.
I advise the Japanese side to immediately release my employee. He is not a spy and has no reason to be taken to Agent Headquarters!
If my employee isn’t released today, Sassoon Firm will completely withdraw capital from Shanghai urban area! Mark my words!
And for today’s slander, I have already arranged for my lawyer to file a lawsuit in Public Works Bureau court. The Japanese Consulate must publicly apologize!”
As soon as Sassoon spoke, Public Works Bureau backed him, urging Japan to quickly release the detained British citizen.
The consulate responded, “Wilson has admitted his crime. He is a criminal, naturally to be tried by Shanghai court.”
Sassoon struck back fiercely, responding angrily, “You inhuman devils definitely tortured him! Forced him to confess to things he didn’t do!
We long knew you had no humanity, but didn’t expect you’d dare torture British Empire subjects. You’re too terrifying!
Locking people in Agent Headquarters, using torture for forced confession through torture, framing our Sassoon Firm, coveting our wealth—you’re too disgusting. Release him!
If he has no injuries and admits I instigated it, Sassoon Firm bears all losses!
But if he has even a single injury, I absolutely won’t forgive you on this matter! Release him! Let Wilson out!”
A person covered in injuries definitely couldn’t be released. Sassoon insisted on torture for forced confession. This was forcibly seizing Sassoon Firm’s wealth to compensate the Japanese’s own deficit. Public Works Bureau would definitely side with him on this narrative.
As time passed, the Japanese Consulate stopped responding, and Wilson wasn’t released. The possibility that Wilson was tortured was directly maxed out.
Otherwise, Sassoon said that as long as Wilson had no injuries, he’d bear the Japanese losses. The Japanese would definitely be willing to release Wilson to show his face.
But now, it instead confirmed the Japanese definitely carried out inhumane torture.
In an instant, public outrage boiled. More foreigners surged toward Agent Headquarters and the consulate.
Huge protest denunciations erupted outside both locations, demanding release.
Hase Jinagawa was worried to death. He hadn’t expected Li Shiqun obtained the confession through torture. So how could this confession be used?
