Canteen System Assistance Notes

"So, we two brothers should just take care of our own affairs here."

"Puleng" used his chubby hand to grab a melon seed from the bowl and cracked it open. "Of course, we have to keep a close eye on this place. If anything leaks out from here, the higher-ups will make sure we don't have enough to eat and will have to bear the consequences."

This place, called Gaojing Restaurant, was considered a stronghold for the CC faction of the Central United Front Workers' Union. It was also a popular spot in Gaojing, making it a natural place for exchanging and transferring intelligence. The duo, Puleng'ezi, would come here regularly, find a place to sit, order a pot of fragrant tea and a pile of melon seeds with their government funds, and stay there all day. At noon, they'd order gourd chicken and some warm shredded pork belly, along with two large bowls of rice.

"Of course, we've been here for so long, we know most, if not all, of the people here," the agent codenamed "Moth" said proudly. "Whenever a new face shows up, I'll alert you."

I have to say that the work attitude of these two low-level agents is quite upright. They slack off in areas that are not under their jurisdiction, but are quite attentive in areas that are under their jurisdiction.

After sitting in the Haojing Restaurant for almost two years, the two of them have become very good at cooperating.

Qi, basically everyone who comes here to eat often is remembered by them.

A certain wealthy boss brought a new concubine here today, a certain stingy old man always wants to get a few more free "circle mints" here, or a certain family won't be willing to come to the restaurant again for a month or so... What "moth" said about reacting immediately when seeing a strange face is really true.

Using this tactic, they once successfully apprehended a group of Military Intelligence Bureau members, who were rumored to have just robbed a Central Intelligence Bureau merchant transport team. For this, the Fuleng Moth team was even commended. "But, Moth, recently our superiors have told us to keep an eye on those with southern accents here, those with Sichuan accents or Hanzhong accents. What do you think is going on? Could there be some Communist bandit trouble over there lately?"

"I don't know about that. The higher-ups' mindsets are definitely different from those of us who just do odd jobs." As he spoke, Ezi glanced around the hotel lobby, noticing no one special, and said, "Aren't the most common people coming from the south the Sichuan-Chongqing merchant gang? They bring Sichuan brocade, inkstones, medicinal herbs, and other things to sell northern goods here... Forget it, why think so much? Time for lunch!"

"Moth" waved to the guy,

"Hey, give me some fish in milk soup, and... some fried crispy pork! Okay, give us some small vegetarian dishes, similar to what we had before, and a plate of flower rolls!"

The delicious pot fish in a white broth and the other side dishes arrived quickly. Pu Leng and E Zi were conscientious enough not to order any drinks, instead tearing apart their steamed buns in their bowls. However, before they could enjoy the delicious fish broth, E Zi, who had a good memory, suddenly stretched his neck and looked toward the restaurant entrance.

"What's wrong?"

Fuleng also became alert. He pretended to be calm and glanced over there. "Is there a stranger? Which one? The one wearing a jacket?" "Not that one. That one is the one on duty at the Traffic Business on East Street. He doesn't come here often, but I've seen him before."

Everyone knew the background of the Yaotong Trading Company, but few dared to publicly reveal its secrets. Furthermore, even if they knew its background, it would be useless—forget the Communist Party, the Military Control Commission, and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Even the 34th Division under Commander Hu had to deal with them. If they simply reported that they had found a Communist Party member, they would end up arresting the wrong person and suffer the consequences.

Agent "Moth" calmed down and analyzed: "The key is the man behind him, he is quite unfamiliar, he looks like I have never seen him before, we need to find out who he is and what he does." He quickly found the man that his accomplice pointed out, he had dark skin, wore a long gown and carried a small suitcase.

But the man's hair was as messy as a chicken coop, and even the flat hat couldn't hold it down.

Under the guidance of the waiter, they found a square table near the door and sat down. Then, the waiter talked to the waiter, as if ordering food.

Soon, the boy who got a little tip was very happy.

Shouting, he went to the kitchen to order the dishes.

"I'll go take a look?" He stood up from his chair. "Which side does he look like to you?"

"Don't alert the enemy. I can't tell which side they are from, but when you go over, pay attention to whether they are exchanging anything. If there is something fishy going on,

We just keep an eye on them and report to the higher-ups - after that, it's easy.

Those who go to the theater headquarters are from the Military Control Commission; those who go to Commander Hu’s headquarters are from the 17th Army; those who go to the Eighth Office are from the Communist Party!"

———————―

Agent "Flutter" staggered to his feet, grabbed half a steamed bun on his table, and staggered towards the waiter's counter like a drunk. Agent "Moth" picked up fish from his bowl while staring at the suspicious target.

If I were meeting someone, handing over something, I'd probably just hand over the box. Well, I could put the box on the ground first, so it would naturally change hands when I left. I could open it and exchange it while I was paying. Of course, it's also possible that the item wasn't in the box at all, and the box was just a decoy...

"Moth" chewed his fish while pondering. Meanwhile, his accomplice staggered towards the table. With a shout, like a drunkard meeting a long-lost acquaintance, he embraced them. From there, a flurry of activity ensued until the waiter arrived and sent the "drunk" fellow back.

"How is it?" the moth asked hurriedly, "Is there anything unusual?"

The agent playing the drunk fluttered his body like a drunkard, his head resting on his arms, slumped over the table. A voice rang out from beneath his chubby head: "One is the agent on duty at the trading company, that's right. The suspicious guy you mentioned is probably a merchant. His accent sounds like someone from the northwest..."

"It looks like... there's nothing wrong. Inside that small suitcase are all these small stones of all kinds, sealed in glass jars."

"Did you see what was in the box?"

Moth was very surprised. If those two were really intelligence agents, why would they open the box in public? "What did they say?"

"What did they say? Some lead bullets, some lead ore, etc., all sounded like old scholars, and they also said some foreign code, which I couldn't understand. Oh, in their boxes...

Except for the small stones, there is nothing else but a hammer.

"No." "The suitcase is so small, I can see the bottom at a glance. There's nothing inside except the rocks and hammers."

"Wait, where's my fish? You ate it all and didn't leave any steamed buns for me?"

Just as the dedicated "Fluttering Moth" group was bickering with each other about today's lunch, a woman in simple clothes came out from the roof of a shop next to the Haojing Restaurant with a basin of clothes and started hanging them on the clothesline.

Under the cover of the fluttering floral bed sheet, the woman squatted down and began to work on the wooden box she used as a footstool. She skillfully twisted the enameled wire onto a metal plug.

Then he took out another small box from the box and put the box

The basket, clothesline and small box were connected to erect an antenna.

The small box was neither metal nor wood. The woman pressed the back of the box, and all the green lights on the box lit up and then went out. She looked at it and saw that a string of small lights on the box had lit up, indicating that it was in working order and the signal was very good.

The woman smoothed her hair, pulled out a small flip-top device, connected it to the strange box, and quickly entered a string of code:

“ssh [email protected]”

Chapter 257: Spy (6) Radio, Pigeons and Cats

Since the Gaojing Incident, when the Kuomintang and the Communist Party united to resist Japan, the Eighth Route Army had established their own offices in many places across the country, commonly known as the Eighth Route Army Office. Among them, the Jinjing Eighth Route Army Office in Qixianzhuang, Beixin Street, Gaojing, was one of the earliest and most influential offices.

The Eighth Office in Qixianzhuang was originally a secret liaison station for the Eighth Route Army, established under the guidance of Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai, by Kan Sijun, an intelligence officer who once worked alongside Xiao Liuzi. It was responsible for procuring supplies and providing personnel protection for the Red Army. 37 years later, it became a public Eighth Route Army office. However, in recent years, despite its increasing business, the Eighth Office's status as a "public office" has gradually declined due to the deteriorating situation of the KMT-CCP ​​cooperation. It has now slowly returned to its former semi-underground "intelligence station."

Although the border area rarely needs to purchase controlled materials through the Eighth Office now, the enemy's surveillance here has become increasingly strict - not to mention Yan Xishan of the Military Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Second, First, Third and Tenth War Zones all have their own people around, and there are even some Japanese.

Those who were determined to climb the ladder of advancement in the intelligence sector, those who wanted to seriously oppose the Communist Party, or those who were simply arranged by their superiors, all looked for places to hide in the surrounding areas and carried out a thorough and thorough monitoring of all people and things in Qixianzhuang - after all, this was one of the few places where the Communist Party was confirmed to be present, and it was really hard to find Communists in other places.

Therefore, when the Eighth Route Army personnel working in the Eighth Office were interviewed by the New China Daily in the border area, they all joked: If you go out to buy a steamed bun,

There will be about six or seven people from three or four forces tailing them.

People would be on guard against each other and try to trip each other up; then, about a dozen people would spend a whole day studying the newspapers they used to pack their steamed buns before finally giving up.

However, the 1939 here wasn't the 1941 of the original time and space. Frightened by the Eighth Route Army's might on the battlefields of North China, Guo Su didn't dare to directly attack the staff of the Eighth Office. Furthermore, due to the abundant supplies in the border region, life in the Eighth Office in Gaojing had a certain feel of later Djibouti—in the fortified Qixianzhuang, the Eighth Route Army staff cultivated a small vegetable garden, planted vegetables, raised chickens, and, with their staple food largely shipped from the border region, they worked in a semi-isolated environment.

So soon, various forces began to shift their monitoring of Qixianzhuang to technical means.

The first was the classic radio intercept station. The Military Control Commission, well-versed in this field, had acquired a small courtyard two streets south of Qixianzhuang and set up a monitoring station there. They erected a wire antenna on bamboo poles, pretending to hang clothes out to dry, and began deploying personnel to monitor the radio station in Qixianzhuang 24 hours a day.

Then, the Military Intelligence Bureau's specialists donned monitoring headphones and listened to white noise day after day, but couldn't hear anything. Occasionally, they picked up a few beeping noises, which some of them transcribed with great enthusiasm, but they couldn't decipher anything, or even discovered they were from another intelligence system. In the end, they could only write something like, "We recently received a batch of quilts from the border area. They're excellent and very warm. Please purchase more."

No, I'm the Military Control Commission, how could we not intercept a Communist Party radio message? Not being able to decipher it is one thing, that's because the Communists are cunning and keep changing codes. It can only be said that we are unlucky, not that our professional skills are poor. But now, we can't even intercept the Morse signal of the telegraph. This is too damn shameful!

But although people can do many things when they are extremely angry, the Eighth Route Army's signals were inaudible. From 37 to 39, the Military Control Commission tried many methods but could not intercept the Eighth Route Army's radio signals.

"Brothers, is there a possibility?"

The head of the intelligence station, surnamed Wu, had recently lost a lot of hair from monitoring the Communist Party. In the station's conference room, he stood up, his hands resting on the table. "What if the Communist Party doesn't have a radio station? We can't intercept the signal, not because we can't, but because the signal doesn't exist?"

But the Eighth Route Army still has to send messages to pass on information, right?

Everyone present grumbled. Actually, the Military Intelligence Bureau had suspected the Eighth Route Army of using a radio, but they had secretly found a place to run a telegraph line. To do this, several of their agents even posed as plumbers and paid someone to dig drains in the surrounding neighborhoods, hoping to find the hidden wire. They toiled for over a month under the scorching sun. The drain was repaired, but they didn't find a single hair.

Not only that, but the Eighth Route Army soldiers from Qixian Village even came out to comfort them and treated them to watermelon. It was truly humiliating.

"I know what happened before," the Fifth Station Master coughed twice, seemingly sensing the distrust in everyone's gazes. "What I mean is, what if they didn't send a telegram at all, but used some other method to transmit the signal?" "Then what other method could they use? We checked everyone who came in and out of Qixianzhuang, even the German dentist. But Station Master Wu, we really didn't find anything."

No, that's because we overlooked something. Think about it, if they can't pass on intelligence, what are these people at the Eighth Route Army Support Office doing? Just sitting around doing nothing? They must have found some other channel. "The stationmaster pointed to the sky in a mysterious manner," he said.

“Like, pigeons!”

Carrier pigeons are a traditional yet timeless method of information transmission, with documented large-scale use dating back to 425 AD. Their use declined after the advent of radio, but with the advent of nuclear weapons, this biologically-based communication method continues to retain a place in military communications.

The stationmaster's suggestion made everyone in the intelligence station suddenly feel enlightened. Before, everyone had been competing with the Communist Party at the advanced technical level and had never succeeded. Maybe the Communist Party really didn't use radios at all, but used pigeons to send messages! In this way, no matter how hard you monitor, you will naturally not be able to find any signals.

"I've observed that there are indeed birds flying over Qixianzhuang!" Stationmaster Wu said confidently, "As long as we find a way to catch the Communist Party's pigeons, we can intercept their intelligence! With this new train of thought, the pillars of the Party and the country have room to play, and all kinds of opinions were put forward.

"Why don't we just go in and search their pigeons?" someone thought more rashly. "We can just use the excuse that military pigeons flew in, and we'll probably find something." "That won't work. If we could find a reason to go in, why would we have delayed it until now? Isn't it because everyone is watching the Eighth Office now, and no one dares to go in openly?"

"Then sneak in?"

"They sneaked in. Last time, those two unlucky guys from the Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics were tied up, gagged, and left at the gate of the garrison's military police station the next day. Again, if we could have sneaked in, we would have done it long ago!" When one plan failed, another came up with another. Someone proposed a new plan: "What if we get some people to lie in ambush near Qixianzhuang? Once the bird takes flight, we can shoot it down with a single shot from a bird gun."

"You idiot! You can fire a gun in the city, do you think you are the commander? Who will protect you when the higher-ups blame you?"

Everyone was immediately in distress. Unexpectedly, a tiny pigeon had become such a headache for the powerful Military Control Commission. How could they catch a pigeon without alerting anyone else? Stationmaster Wu pondered over it, and suddenly, a strange image emerged in his mind. The image was slender, with a fluffy tail, light steps, and bright eyes.

"Got it, cat! We got the whole cat!"

The conscientious and resourceful stationmaster quickly devised a plan. The plan was simple: train a few military cats, send them over the wall, sneak into Qixianzhuang, capture the military pigeons inside, and then deliver them back.

After all, cats can catch birds. Their agility can awaken the feline's hunting instinct. Catching a stupid pigeon is not easy!

The Military Control Commission's Gaojing Station quickly approved the branch's plan, though they refused to approve a single cent—after all, it looked ridiculous and highly suspicious of being a funding scam. However, this didn't faze the resourceful and adaptable Station Chief Wu. He quickly reported 100 kilograms of grain as "rat damage" from the monthly report, then sold this "off-book" grain for cash.

Because of the recent rise in food prices, he had a lot of money left over after paying for the cats and training, which he put into his own pocket. Next, several assistants from the Military Control Commission began training cats at the station.

Compared with dogs, which are very obedient, cats are more independent and lively, and more difficult to train. Although there are many cases now of cats learning to shake hands, sit down, respond and even perform actions, at that time, it was really a pipe dream for a group of Military Control Commission cadres without theoretical guidance to expect such "masters" to sneak into the location of the Communist Army, catch pigeons, and send the pigeons back to you.

Helplessly, after a period of useless efforts, the training goal of the Military Control Commission became: let the cat go out to catch birds and bring them back.

This is relatively simple, as many cats have the habit of going out to hunt and then bringing their prey home.

Then we "requisitioned" some dried fish and brought them back. Training also began at night.

Let the cats out, wait for them to come back, and reward the cats that bring back the birds.

Finally, the results were borne out. After numerous rounds of selection, a ginger cat, trained by Stationmaster Wu himself, finally took on the important task. It caught birds three times in a row during its "mission," and on the fourth day, during its "overtime" work, it even caught a pigeon—a homing pigeon!

Oh, although it was eventually discovered that the pigeon was in the hands of Yan Xishan's spies—Yan's men had somehow managed to find out and ask the Military Control Commission cadres if they needed a pigeon, saying they could sell it to them at a high price—the station even launched a "strict investigation into Yan's faction" within the Gaojing Station. But this didn't stop our great station chief from being ecstatic. He specially named this loyal and patriotic orange cat "Emei Peak," after the Chairman's poem, hoping that this pillar of the Party and the country would be victorious and capture the Communist Party's cunning pigeon.

On the first night, we returned to Mount Emei without success.

Then, the next night, "Emei Peak" disappeared.

That day, at Qixianzhuang, Luo Qing, the head of the Eighth Route Army Office, squatted on the ground, watching with great interest as his partner, comrade, and admirer, Miss Du, placed her hand on the belly of a ginger cat, stroking it back and forth. The cat swayed lazily, not resisting the tummy-enhancing caress, its eyes fixed on the "toothpaste" in the girl's other hand, desperately reaching for it with its claws, its expression adorable.

"Whose gold quilt and silver bed is this? It looks so familiar?" Luo Qing asked. "Is it from the opposite side in the south?"

"I guess they can't get away." Miss Du raised the cat strip, and the orange cat's upper body stood up like a catworm. "It made such a big noise, but it couldn't stop the cat strip at all." Luo Qing couldn't help but smile: "If they can't hear the 'bull mooing', can't they think of moving to another place?"

"How can our cows' mooing be so pleasant?" Miss Du, who manages the radio station here, said confidently as she squeezed a little nutrient paste into the cat's mouth. "Forget about the cows' mooing. Our cowshed is a Yagi, pointing to the north. They want to hear it, but how can they hear it from the south?"

Hahaha! The two laughed easily, and the cat with orange back and white paws ate the delicious cat noodles while chewing and licking them, and also made a comfortable purring sound.

Chapter 258: Non-War Undercurrent

"The Sichuan-Shaanxi Highway has increased the proportion of grain transported, and the amount of grain entering Shaanxi has increased." "Grain prices in Guanzhong have risen, making it difficult for citizens to buy grain."

"Line chart of the prices of coarse flour, rice, and corn in Gaojing over the past 15 days."

Liu Helian sat facing a wooden wall, surveying the intelligence summaries, charts, newspaper clippings, and telegrams, clutching a box of thumbtacks and a spool of red yarn, lost in thought. After a long pause, he pulled out a thumbtack and used the yarn to connect two charts in the corner: "Jinniu Ice House Sales Statistics," "Jianchaping Labor Tea Stall Sales Statistics," and "Transportation Trading Company Bulk Logistics Statistics." He then strung them onto the "Monthly Monitoring Chart of Laborer Prices on the Sichuan-Shaanxi Highway."

Liu Helian pressed the red woolen thread with one finger and pressed the second thumbtack on top, causing the woolen thread to turn in one direction and finally point to the possible target - the two staple foods.

He turned around and, along with the other staff officers who were nervously analyzing various intelligence reports, unanimously stated the most likely conclusion:

"The grain prices in the northwest and southwest are going to fluctuate significantly."

--——----

In the small lecture hall on the fourth floor of the cafeteria, several groups involved in intelligence analysis gathered together, including Minister Deng, Staff Officer Zuo, Political Commissar Wang, as well as the steward of the border area's economy, Accountant Chen and others, who attended the lecture together.

Compared to the historically divided intelligence system of countering the enemy and defending the interior, this time-space's border region intelligence network features an additional economic intelligence line, derived from the economic sector. This line, driven by scattered transport convoys and the torrent of "northern goods," spreads throughout the southwest and northwest. Powered by advanced radio systems, this economic sector feeds back vast quantities of data, which, under the analysis of "Mr. Shuguoer," forms a series of intelligence summaries.

Liu Helian stood at the podium, using a slide projector to play the results of everyone's work and explaining them to the senior predecessors.

"After the Japanese launched the July 7 Incident and launched a full-scale invasion of China, the preserved fruit retreated all the way to the southwest. According to common sense, most people, including me, would have thought that with a large influx of people into the southwest, with limited food and a large population, food prices should have risen. However, in reality, according to the data..."

He pressed the remote control in his hand and brought out a line graph - on it, it showed that since 37, the grain prices in the entire southwest, Guanzhong and even northwest regions had gone against the norm and were actually on a gradual downward trend.

This is mainly due to several reasons: First, in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the flow of funds from across the country did not follow the northwest and southwest regions, but mostly fled through Shanghai, Wan Chai and other places, and the purchasing power of the entire southwest region did not increase.

"Secondly, with the relocation of industry from the southeastern coast, a large amount of grain was also concentrated in the southwest along with fleeing merchants, landlords, and other groups. Furthermore, the harvests in the grain-producing areas of the entire southwest were quite good in 37 and 38, which led to an increase in food supply."

"After all, in 37 and 38, Guo Jian's orders were that if grain couldn't be confidently transported to the rear, it would be destroyed and confiscated by the Wartime Food Administration and the local garrisons to prevent it from aiding the enemy. Of course, everyone knows the actual effect." At this point, Liu Helian habitually sneered at Guo Jian. "But, after all, the southwest region is facing a shortage of food and a large population. The low prices on the market can't last for long. Once the wealthy merchants settle down and the transferred grain disappears from the market, prices will inevitably rise again."

Although China was nominally experiencing a "golden decade" at this time, it was still essentially a poor, agricultural nation. And in an agricultural nation, grain prices are a seesaw that's incredibly difficult to balance: high grain prices hurt the people, while low grain prices hurt farmers. Countless feudal dynasties, guided by the laws of historical cycles, practiced this deadly balance with their own lives.

Our Chiang Kai-shek, who was well versed in the art of classical emperorship, naturally would not ignore this point. He was very far-sighted and foresaw the harm that the falling price of staple food would cause to farmers. He then prepared to allocate money to do the purchase and storage work, and then sell it at a low price when the price of grain rose to regulate the price of grain.

This was a good idea, and the concept was sound. However, when the autumn harvest of 39 came around, Chiang Kai-shek saw that Sichuan Province had a good grain harvest that year, and he felt that storing grain would be very expensive, so he stopped the project. When grain prices began to rise at the end of 39, he seemed to regret it and allocated funds to purchase and store grain, which in turn fueled the surge in grain prices.

What's even more terrible is that Chiang Kai-shek directly copied the "real-life collection of land tax" method of Yan Jingbo, the Minister of Economic Affairs of Fujian Province, that is, purchasing farmers' grain at the unchanged price of the 1935 legal currency, directly ignoring the over-issuance of legal currency and inflation in recent years, and clearly plundering wealth.

Finally, because this method could not be sustained, the collection of preserved fruit was changed to the collection of grain in kind in 41. Every dollar of legal tender was converted into 2 shidou of rice or 1 dou 5 liters of wheat. In 42, the conversion rate was raised to 4 shidou of rice or 2 dou 8 liters of wheat per dollar of tax, an increase of nearly 100%.

In this case, how can the actual food prices not skyrocket?

Considering the subsequent rounds of miraculous operations on preserved fruits, Liu Helian had reason to believe that the surge in grain prices that was originally expected to occur in 1940 would occur earlier.

"However, from the perspective of the border areas, although we are still purchasing large quantities of grain from the Kuomintang-controlled areas, unlike before, this grain is mainly coarse grains in exchange for RMB. Thanks to the support of the agricultural benefit grain zones, the self-reliance movement, and new agricultural machinery and practices, the border areas and the base areas are basically self-sufficient in food grains. This means that we cannot completely stop purchasing feed grain for livestock."