Beiyang Dream

Chapter 69 Within days, Chang Desheng must die!

Three days later, on February 24th, in the morning.

St. George Pier, Penang.

The sky was a bit overcast, and the sea was calm. A steamship with a black smokestack, about two thousand tons in size, was moored at the dock. Its hull was painted white, but there were some rust marks on the edges. A sign hung on the side of the ship: "Guangfu Shipping Company · Hai'an".

Chang Desheng got off the lead carriage, and Zhang Bishi was in the same carriage with him.

The two men stood on the dock, watching the ship. Chang Desheng's gaze swept across the deck; Hessmann and Wolfgang, along with their twenty-odd German mercenaries, were already guarding the deck. They weren't wearing military uniforms, but had changed into civilian clothes, yet their "Germanic air" as German soldiers was impossible to hide.

Hessmann and Wolfgang nodded to Chang Desheng from a distance.

Chang Desheng understood: the munitions needed in Pontianak must have already been loaded onto the ships. Zhang Bishi was reliable.

As he was thinking, he heard the laughter of young women behind him.

Turning around, I saw Luo Jingrou and Qingzi getting off another carriage.

Luo Jingrou wore a pair of trousers that were easy to move in today, and her hair was tied in a ponytail, making her look neat. Qingzi... hey, she changed her outfit today. Instead of wearing a Western-style dress, she wore a light purple kimono with wide sleeves and a cinched waist, and her wooden clogs clicked softly on the wooden planks of the dock. Her hair was styled in a traditional Shimada bun and adorned with a simple beaded flower.

Chang Desheng narrowed his eyes.

kimono.

This female spy actually looks quite pretty in it, and she has that... you know... vibe...

He heard Luo Jingrou say, "Qingzi, I'm sorry to have delayed your schedule."

Haruko said softly, "It's alright, Jingrou-jie. I was just thinking of traveling to Pontianak too."

"Has your family notified you?"

"I've already sent a telegram... Don't worry, I've been studying in Europe for several years, and my family is used to it."

As they talked, they walked toward the gangway. When Qingzi passed Chang Desheng, she gave him a slight bow, her face still bearing that flawless, gentle smile.

Chang Desheng smiled and deliberately glanced at her a couple more times.

He looked up at the dark, gleaming smokestack of the "Hai'an" ship and muttered to himself:

Southeast Asia is my home turf! I'd like to see what tricks you Japanese spies can pull!

Meanwhile, Haruko noticed Wolff. It was he who had rescued Chang Desheng that day in the first-class restaurant of the Britannia! And the foreigner standing next to him looked even fiercer and more aggressive! With these two, there seemed to be at least twenty other people! Haruko was a little uneasy. After Chang Desheng's assassination attempt, she knew that there were German mercenaries around him, but she hadn't expected so many... Could the Xuan Yang Society members in Southeast Asia handle so many foreigners?

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Singapore, in Chinatown.

Deep in the narrow alley, the signboard of "Leshantang" gleamed with the old wood color in the afternoon sun. The shop door was closed, and a cloth curtain hung down.

Four people arrived at the alley entrance.

One of them was wearing a suit, while the other three were dressed in coarse cloth shorts, looking like laborers making a living on the docks. But the way they walked and the look in their eyes made them look like someone you didn't want to mess with! The one leading the group was a young man who was not yet twenty years old. He was not tall, but he had a broad frame and thick shoulders. He had a shaved head and his face was expressionless, except for his eyes, which were full of fierce light and exuded an undisguised murderous aura.

This person is Ryohei Uchida, a junior member of Genyosha.

Behind him were three men, all seasoned veterans of the Genyosha, who had been sent directly from Fukuoka by Hiraoka Kotaro to handle this "dirty work" in Southeast Asia.

Uchida stopped in front of Rakuzendo, but didn't go in immediately. He first glanced at the sign, then scanned the alleyways on both sides—this was his habit; when he arrived at a new place, he would first figure out his escape route and hiding place.

Then he raised his hand, lifted the faded blue cloth curtain, and peeked into the shop.

The shop was dimly lit, with a medicine cabinet against the wall, and a strong smell of dried tangerine peel and angelica. Behind the cabinet sat a person, reading a yellowed thread-bound book by the little light that seeped in through the window.

Uchida cleared his throat and spoke in broken but clear Chinese:

"Excuse me, is Dr. Chang home?"

The person behind the counter, Yamazaki Kosaburo, who used the alias "Chang Zhicheng," looked up at the sound and adjusted his round glasses. His eyes behind the lenses met Uchida's.

"Yes, sir." Yamazaki stood up. "And you are...?"

"I've come all this way just to get treatment!" Uchida said before stepping into the shop.

The three men behind him filed in, their movements light and steady. The last one to enter closed the door behind him. The secret room on the second floor of Leshan Hall had no windows, only a kerosene lamp for lighting. The air was so stuffy it felt like you could wring water out of it, mixed with the smell of Chinese medicine wafting up from the herbal medicine shop downstairs, making one's head throb after a while.

Yamazaki Kosaburo had taken off his long robe, wearing only a white cotton jacket, and was fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, yet he was still drenched in sweat. Opposite him sat Uchida Ryohei, the younger man even more rudimentary; his suit jacket was already tossed on the back of his chair, leaving him in only a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his muscular forearms. On the table lay a map of Southeast Asia, its paper yellowed and speckled with mold.

"Uchida-kun," Yamazaki pointed with his palm-leaf fan to a spot on the west coast of Borneo, "Pontianak, the former site of Lanfang, is now the residence of the Dutch garrison. Chang Desheng and his party departed from Penang this morning aboard Zhang Bishi's 'Hai'an,' and will arrive at Pontianak Port no later than three days later." Uchida Ryohei leaned forward, staring at the small black dot, his brows furrowed.

"Pontianak? What's he going there for?"

"A marriage alliance." Yamazaki uttered two words, drawing a line on the map with his finger. "Chang Desheng's fiancée, Luo Jingrou, whom he met in Berlin, is the eldest daughter of Luo Zhenxing, a Kapitan from Lanfang. The Luo family are descendants of the Lanfang governor and operate tin mines and rubber plantations in Pontianak. They have several hundred men and guns under their command and are prominent figures in the local Chinese community."

He paused, then added, "Luo Jingrou's uncle is Zhang Bishi, the Qing Dynasty's consul in Penang. He was the richest Chinese merchant in Southeast Asia, with assets reportedly exceeding fifty million taels. Zhang Bishi owned his own shipping company, so Chang Desheng will likely take a Zhang family ship directly from Pontianak back to the Qing Dynasty and may not come to Singapore again."

Ryohei Uchida remained silent for a few seconds.

His face grew increasingly grim. The guns of the Beiyang Army, the money of the Nanyang Army. If these two things fell into one person's hands, given time… He raised his head: “We must deal with him in Pontianak! Can we do it?”

Yamazaki put down his palm-leaf fan, wiped the sweat from his forehead, pondered for a dozen seconds, and then slowly nodded: "It's worth a try."

"A trial?" Uchida stared intently at Yamazaki. "Yamazaki-kun, for the samurai of the Empire, there is no 'trial,' only 'death'!" "Uchida-kun," Yamazaki smiled bitterly, "our forces in Pontianak are weak. There are only two 'loan houses' there—one of which is our brothel, with a dozen or so Southeast Asian women and four or five ronin to guard it. That's all. Luo Zhenxing, on the other hand, is a Kapitan, with no fewer than four hundred men under his command. In a head-on confrontation, we have no chance of winning."

"Isn't there any other way?" Uchida leaned forward, his aggressive tone making Yamazaki feel a little suffocated. Yamazaki took a breath: "There is... a way."

"explain!"

"We can lure the snake out of its hole." Yamazaki pointed to the edge of the Chinatown in Pontianak Port. "There's a block here with several Japanese goods shops, and our 'Pine Leaf House' is nearby. If we can lure Chang Desheng out of the Luo family's manor and into this block, our people can set up an ambush."

Uchida: "How?"

Yamazaki adjusted his glasses: "Haruko! Luo Jingrou trusts her a lot. She'll have a way. As long as Luo Jingrou goes, we'll have a chance to lure Chang Desheng out!"

Uchida didn't immediately agree. He thought for a moment and then asked, "Is there only one option? What if Chang Desheng is wary and doesn't go personally, or brings too many people?"

Yamazaki frowned even more deeply: "There's a second option... but it's riskier and more complicated to execute."

"speak!"

"Using a borrowed knife to kill, using the knife of Sultan Abdul Rahman of Pontianak!" Yamazaki's voice was even lower. "The Sultan and the Luo family have long been at odds over land, mines, and taxes. Last month, the Sultan even threatened to massacre the Chinese plantations if the Luo family didn't come up with one million taels of 'atonement money.'"

Uchida's eyes lit up: "How exactly do we do it?"

"Assassinate the Sultan." Yamazaki's voice was even lower. "No need to actually kill him, just frighten him... The Sultan will be furious at the assassination attempt. He has a thousand-man guard and several thousand more tribal soldiers he can mobilize. He will definitely send troops to attack the Luo family manor. At that time..."

Uchida continued, "At that time, Chang Desheng will either die in the chaos of battle or be assassinated by our people in the confusion."

"That's exactly right!" Yamazaki agreed.

"Alright! Let's do it both ways then." Uchida looked at Yamazaki: "How long does it take to get to Pontianak by the earliest ship?"

Yamazaki mentally estimated: "The passenger ship to Pontianak runs once every five days. There's a 'Borneo' ship three days later, the fastest... it should arrive on February 28th."

"Then we'll depart in four days!" Uchida nodded, grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair, and said as he put it on, "I brought three top-notch men from Fukuoka this time, all of them the best marksmen in the Genyosha. Yamazaki-kun, go and gather all the available men in Singapore immediately, and bring them with you. This assassination must be a one-hit kill; we don't have a second chance."

A hint of hesitation flashed across Yamazaki's face: "Uchida-kun, the Genyosha's influence in Southeast Asia isn't strong to begin with. Their most capable people are concentrated in Singapore maintaining things here. If we transfer them all to Pontianak, what if things go wrong here..."

"There can be no 'what ifs'!" Uchida interrupted sharply. "Chang Desheng's value is equivalent to ten Singapore strongholds. Killing him will be a great achievement for us with the General Staff, and the Genyosha's expansion in Southeast Asia will have both money and manpower. Failure... no, we won't fail! Starting from March 1st, Chang Desheng must die within ten days!"

He paused, then said, "Hurry up and get ready!"

Intimidated by the young man's imposing manner, Yamazaki instinctively straightened his back and said, "Hi!"