Chapter 1263 - The Intelligence Bureau's Plot
"Indeed—the blood of a samurai flows in his veins," someone whispered admiringly.
TĹŤ TarĹŤ took a sip of wine. Now that it was confirmed Fusong was safely detained in Camp Alpha, the next step was to work out how to extract him.
The first hurdle was getting him out of the camp—an immense difficulty. Sneaking in for a conversation was one thing; smuggling a boy past the sentries was another matter entirely. The Vagabond guards inspected incoming and outgoing goods with exacting care. Any cargo packaging large enough to conceal an eight-year-old was sealed with wax or lead. No tricks could be played there.
Assuming they found a way to extract him, the second step was escaping to the mainland overnight. Kinmen Island lay close to the coast—Tō Tarō and his men could swim across without flotation aids—but an eight-year-old could not. They would need a boat.
Yet every boat on the island was now in Vagabond hands. No one could obtain one, and even if they did, Australian patrol boats circled the waters day and night. Those vessels belched smoke and fire and moved with terrifying speed. Discovery meant certain death.
Neither problem admitted an easy solution. TĹŤ TarĹŤ reflected that his group could escape readily enough on their own; the difficulty lay in bringing the child.
"We can find a way to rescue him," Tō Tarō said. "But crossing the strait requires a boat—we have no boat, and even if we did, we couldn't get across."
"I can swim with Fusong on my back," one of his mercenaries offered. "My hometown is an island. I used to swim between islands with my little brother on my back. The distance here is greater, though, and my brother was only three or four at the time..."
"Tie bamboo tubes to your body—that will conserve strength," someone suggested.
The plan felt unreliable, but no better alternative presented itself.
Still, the method for extracting Fusong remained elusive. Camp Alpha on Kinmen appeared lax, yet its external defenses were formidable. They devised several schemes but found no way to get Fusong out. With Ning Liujin's access, they could enter; they could not bring anyone out.
"It's a pity Fusong isn't a teenager—I could swap places with him," a young mercenary remarked.
"Swapping is a good idea, but where would we find a boy of the same age and build as the Young Lord?"
"We could find one if we looked," TĹŤ TarĹŤ said. "But such a child wouldn't have the resolve to die for the Young Master. He'd be exposed in moments."
Silence fell over the group. Until now, every action they had taken had been precise, safe, and effective. They had accomplished everything they set out to do, breeding in these shrewd and daring mercenaries the illusion of omnipotence.
Yet at the decisive moment, they discovered themselves utterly helpless at the most crucial juncture. The mesh of the net was wide enough for minnows to slip through easily—but the big fish could not pass.
"...That is the situation, Chief," the Political Security Bureau officer responsible for Kinmen's internal security reported.
"Very good. You may go." Xu Ke set down the document in his hands. "Instruct the operatives to continue monitoring their movements. Do not alert the targets."
"Yes, Chief."
Xu Ke watched the naturalized cadre's back vanish through the doorway. Zheng Zhilong's subordinates still possess some loyalty, he thought.
Through informants planted in the prisoner camp by the Political Security Bureau, Xu Ke had tracked the entire sequence of Tō Tarō's activities on the island. Initially, their purpose was unclear—their behavior appeared more deliberate than a simple escape—so he had opted to observe. Only when reports indicated they were asking about a boy named "Fusong" did he grasp their true objective.
That someone would secretly attempt to rescue Fusong was somewhat unexpected. By his reckoning, with the Zheng family in chaos and Zheng Zhilong's fate uncertain, none of his subordinates should have been thinking of the boy.
Some speculated that this clandestine rescue effort was proof Zheng Zhilong had survived. Xu Ke disagreed. He believed the activity actually suggested Zheng Zhilong was dead. If he had escaped alive to the mainland, rescuing Fusong would hardly be his priority. Fusong was not that important to him—Zheng Zhilong was only thirty, and producing heirs posed no difficulty. Fusong was merely a child, one who had not yet demonstrated any extraordinary virtues. After the crushing defeat, with the organization's very foundations shaken, a surviving leader would focus on reorganizing his forces and managing the crisis, not diverting energy to rescue a son.
Only if Zheng Zhilong was already dead would his former subordinates desperately try to recover Fusong—either to stabilize the group or to advance themselves by controlling the Young Master.
Capturing Zheng Sen was undoubtedly a great victory. Yet this prisoner was also a hot potato. Word of his capture had sparked fierce controversy among the Senators the moment it reached Lingao.
The controversy centered on how to handle this future "Koxinga" of the old timeline. The question was sensitive and troublesome enough that Senators participating in Operation Overlord half-wished Ying Yu's shells had been more accurate—a glorious death in battle would have spared everyone considerable difficulty and psychological burden.
People of this timeline could never comprehend the Senate's complex feelings toward Zheng Sen. His status as a national hero in the old timeline was universally acknowledged among the Elders. Though these events had not yet occurred in this timeline—and now never would—disposing of him felt utterly unacceptable to many. The Huaxia Society had even put out word that they wished to reform him, to mold him into a "New Man" under Senate rule. Others proposed various rehabilitation schemes.
Yet a large contingent of Senators, Xu Ke among them, had no patience for this "Reformation Theory." If Zheng Sen were still an infant or very young, reform might have been possible. But he was already aware of the world, and his composure upon capture had been striking. Moreover, the Elders knew that Zheng Sen already held the status of "Heir" within the Zheng organization.
Then there was the attack on Xiamen. Whether or not it had truly killed his father, it had certainly killed many members of the Zheng clan. The entire organization had suffered a devastating blow at Senate hands. Nor was this the end—in the future, the Senate would publicly brand his father and other pirate lords with the crime of "hindering the development of productive forces." They would organize the masses to "recall past bitterness and appreciate present sweetness," recounting Zheng family evils and expressing gratitude for Senate benevolence. Operation Overlord was another outstanding military victory; from common soldiers to Elder officers, everyone would take pride in their participation. Countless veterans would recount it as conversational fodder. How could anyone expect little Zheng, growing up in such social conditions, to be won over?
Senators who shared Xu Ke's views were numerous, and some Elders had privately demanded Zheng Sen's execution—some wanted him finished off in secret, others preferred a public execution, still others proposed entrapment. Yet killing a captured eight-year-old child solely because of blood ties was a psychological barrier many found insurmountable.
Amid this controversy, the Executive Committee and the heads of the major enforcement departments had refrained from expressing specific opinions. In truth, there was already a concrete plan for handling Zheng Sen.
This plan had been proposed at the meeting by Jiang Shan, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau—naturally, it was the product of joint deliberation by the Bureau and the Great Library think tank.
In essence, the Senate did not need this hot potato. They could simply let Zheng Sen go.
Zheng Sen was not a decisive figure, Jiang Shan had argued. He was merely an eight-year-old child; his life or death had negligible impact on the Zheng organization's strength. Furthermore, if Zheng Zhilong had survived, then Zheng Sen would inevitably remain an insignificant "Heir"; if Zheng Zhilong was dead, then Zheng Sen's return would introduce additional variables into the already precarious organization.
Theoretically, Zheng Sen was Zheng Zhilong's eldest son—the unquestionable heir. In practice, whether the power brokers within the organization saw it that way was another matter entirely.
In the other timeline, after the Qing army coerced Zheng Zhilong into leaving Fujian and he lost control of the group, Zheng Sen—though already an adult and nominally the heir—received no support whatsoever from the organization's power figures.
The moment Zheng Zhilong was taken away, the entire organization fragmented into leaderlessness. The Zheng Lian brothers seized Xiamen, controlling most of the overseas trade and main military forces, while Zheng Zhifeng occupied Kinmen; each consolidated his own power base.
After these two major blocs carved up Zheng Zhilong's assets, not a single person invited Zheng Sen to assume his role as heir. When Zheng Sen raised his standard in Anping, he commanded a mere ninety men and had no foothold at all. Were it not for the death of the Nan'ao defender Yue Jin—whose territory sent envoys requesting a replacement general—Zheng Sen would never have absorbed those few thousand troops to serve as his starting force. The true attitude of the organization's power brokers was unmistakable.
Currently, the Zheng organization's situation had not yet developed to the heights it reached before Zheng Zhilong's abduction, let alone having absorbed such a devastating blow. The Foreign Intelligence Bureau estimated that if Zheng Zhilong was indeed dead, the organization would splinter even more severely than in the old timeline. The surviving members of the Eighteen Chi would inevitably fight over Zheng Zhilong's legacy, incompatible as fire and water.
The Intelligence Bureau's analysis was unambiguous: Zheng Sen's return would not add cohesion to the Zheng organization. On the contrary, it would furnish fresh pretexts for the already fracturing faction to quarrel. Every power bloc would vie to control Fusong in order to claim "righteousness" and "orthodox" status.
The already fragmented Zheng organization would face even greater storms with the introduction of this chess piece.
(End of Chapter)