Chapter 55: Plotting Against the Little Japan Fleet, Su Changqing's Murderous Intent: The Little Japan Fleet Buried in the Yangtze River

Deploying Zheng Yaoxian to leverage Lan胭脂's friendship with the traitor Huang Jun's daughter in order to expose Huang Jun's treason and his leakage of the Jiangyin Fortress defense plan was merely Su Changqing's first step.

As far as Su Changqing was aware, an imperial Japanese spy network was deeply embedded in the national capital.

The infamous female Japanese spy, "Nanmo Yuko," constituted a crucial node of this imperial Japanese espionage ring in Jinling.

This Japanese woman had mastered shooting, horseback riding, singing, and dancing since her early youth.

At the age of thirteen, Nanmo Yuko was dispatched back to the Kobe Spy Academy, where she underwent rigorous training in espionage techniques including Chinese, English, shooting, demolition, makeup, and poisoning.

During this period, the aggressive Japanese spy ringleader Doihara Kenji held her in high regard and personally subjected her to specialized training.

Four years later, Nanmo Yuko graduated and was deployed to the Great Xia.

In 1929, Nanmo Yuko was transferred to the capital of Great Xia, operating under the alias "Liao Yaquan." Using the cover of a destitute student, she infiltrated the Tangshan Hot Spring Hostel of the Ministry of Defense under the Nationalist Party, working as a receptionist.

Gifted in singing and dancing, and possessing a captivating charm, Nanmo Yuko used her physical allure to draw in a cadre of high-ranking Nationalist military officers, thereby pilfering numerous vital military secrets concerning Great Xia: she stole the military facility report on the expansion of the artillery batteries compiled by the Shanghai Wusong Garrison Command for the Ministry of Defense, intelligence that the Japanese invaders later utilized with devastating speed to annihilate the fortress when they attacked Shanghai.

Following the outbreak of the War of Resistance in July 1937, the Nationalist authorities experienced a series of severe intelligence leaks, which not only plunged Nationalist forces into an immensely passive operational posture.

Even the supreme military commander of the Nationalist regime narrowly escaped assassination by Japanese spies.

Subsequent intensive investigations by the Nationalist authorities led to the unearthing of a massive espionage ring operating within their own ranks.

More shockingly, the mastermind behind this spy network was a young Japanese woman, a mysterious female operative—Nanmo Yuko.

As for the arch-traitor Huang Jun, he was merely one of Nanmo Yuko's devoted captives.

At present.

War was on the verge of breaking out in Songhu.

Su Changqing understood profoundly that the greatest hazard to any military force never stemmed from external threats.

Instead, the danger arose from within the ranks.

It emanated from the network of Japanese spies lurking inside Great Xia.

If this network of Japanese agents could be eradicated in one fell swoop.

Then the Japanese invaders would be rendered both blind and deaf.

And the armed forces of Great Xia would suffer correspondingly fewer casualties.

Bidding farewell to Zheng Yaoxian and Lu Hanqing, Su Changqing used the pretext of interacting with top military brass to establish contact with Zhou Haoyu, a staff officer lurking within the Capital's Military Commission.

"General Su!"

"Is everything you said true?"

Similarly, Zhou Haoyu, an ace operative himself, felt an overwhelming wave of shock upon realizing that Su Changqing had penetrated his true identity.

At the same time!

He never anticipated that the intelligence provided by Su Changqing would carry such monumental weight.

"Your mission assigned by the organization is to monitor Shadow, while simultaneously utilizing Shadow's connections to infiltrate the Japanese intelligence agency."

"However!"

"The Military Statistics Bureau has already detected the presence of a suspicious mole within the staff officer corps."

"Consequently, they have resolved to execute you secretly tonight."

"When the time comes, Shadow, yourself, and others will be dispatched to the banks of the Yangtze River for reinforcement duties, only to be ambushed by gunfire and pursuit on your return journey..."

"Naturally, this also presents your optimal opportunity to make a clean break."

Possessing a thorough knowledge of the plot's trajectory, Su Changqing addressed Zhou Haoyu directly.

"General Su!"

"What do you need me to do?"

Zhou Haoyu looked straight into Su Changqing's eyes and asked.

"Huang Jun has an adjutant, and in that adjutant's possession is a walking cane, which is Huang Jun's exclusive personal item."

"An identical cane."

"Already exists in the hands of the Japanese."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Haoyu grasped the situation instantly.

Huang Jun's method of transmitting intelligence relied precisely upon that walking cane.

"I understand!"

"General Su, I guarantee the mission will be accomplished."

Su Changqing nodded, offering no further elaboration.

Although he had instructed Zheng Yaoxian and the others to gather evidence of Huang Jun's treason and intercept the outflow of intelligence.

Yet, even the most meticulous plans can harbor oversights.

Huang Jun had already obtained the detailed contents of the Jiangyin Fortress plan yesterday.

He would undoubtedly resort to every possible means to transmit this intelligence outward.

However, given the tense situation in the capital at present, transmitting intelligence was no simple task for Huang Jun.

According to the system's prompts, the Japanese invaders were still unaware of the Jiangyin Fortress plan.

Meanwhile, another prompt from the system revealed the specific method Huang Jun had chosen to transmit the intelligence.

Should Zheng Yaoxian and his team manage to neutralize the associated threats before Huang Jun could transmit the intelligence.

That would naturally be the ideal outcome.

Should Huang Jun choose to make a desperate final struggle, having his adjutant carry the intelligence to the Japanese.

Then Zhou Haoyu would serve as Su Changqing's backup plan.

Naturally!

Should necessity dictate, Su Changqing did not mind inserting himself directly into this operational scheme.

To thoroughly obliterate that intelligence dossier, which carried the power to ruin the Jiangyin Fortress plan.

He would ensure this intelligence never fell into the hands of the Japanese invaders.

Throughout the entire War of Resistance, the Great Xia Navy possessed a mere 25,000 officers and enlisted personnel, alongside some 70 vessels with a total tonnage of under 60,000 tons, mostly consisting of light cruisers, gunboats, and torpedo boats, a significant portion of which were antiquated relics remaining from the late Qing Dynasty.

In contrast, the Japanese navy alone boasted 127,000 personnel, 285 naval vessels, and a total tonnage exceeding 1.15 million tons, equipped with advanced warships, aircraft carriers, light and heavy cruisers, and destroyers, supported by over 800 aircraft.

Beginning in August 1937, to shield the 70,000 Great Xia troops on the Songhu battlefield and halt the Japanese advance westward along the river, the Great Xia Navy scuttled 8 warships and over 20 civilian vessels (later augmented to 43 ships, totaling over 60,000 tons) in the waters of Jiangyin to construct a defensive blockade line.

This constituted the renowned Jiangyin Fortress defense plan.

Yet this strategic scheme was completely unraveled due to a traitor's leak.

In the ensuing warfare, mainstay capital ships of the Great Xia Navy, such as the *Ninghai* and *Pinghai*, were sunk amid fierce engagements with Japanese aircraft. Naval officers and men offered heroic resistance, shooting down numerous Japanese planes, yet ultimately suffered catastrophic losses.

During the intense battle at Jinkou in Wuchang, *Zhongshan* warship commander Sa Shijun and over twenty officers and men fought heroically until every last one of them perished, and the warship sank into the Yangtze River.

The *Zhaohe*, a cruiser belonging to the Guangdong-Guangxi regional navy, sustained damage during an engagement with Japanese vessels in the waters off eastern Guangdong, only to be subsequently bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft.

The First and Second Fleets were virtually wiped out during the Battle of Jiangyin.

To impede the Japanese advance, the Third Fleet scuttled itself at Qindao.

Following the Battle of the Xi River, the Fourth Fleet was annihilated in its entirety.

By this juncture, virtually all the assets of the Great Xia Navy had been expended.

The Great Xia Navy possessed no remaining ships capable of fighting; the entire service had been wiped out.

Su Changqing was acutely aware of the tragic heroism of the Great Xia Navy, knowing the bloody price these heroes paid for the War of Resistance.

Therefore!

Su Changqing was all the more determined to keep the Japanese in the dark regarding the Jiangyin Fortress plan; he would ensure that not a single naval vessel of the arrogant and aggressive Japanese invaders, who roamed the Yangtze River of Great Xia with unbridled impunity, was allowed to escape!

The Yangtze River!

Would become the watery grave for this Japanese fleet.

The traitor Huang Jun and his accomplices must die!

Nanmo Yuko, the female Japanese spy lurking in the capital, along with all the Japanese agents centered around her network, must die!

The Japanese naval fleet that roamed the Yangtze River basins of Great Xia without restraint, treating Great Xia's sovereign waters as their own inland lake.

Must likewise perish!

Su Changqing raised his head to gaze into the distance.

At this moment, his eyes were suffused with an unprecedented, towering aura of murder.