"All right, I'll take the job!" Chen Fan leisurely picked up the envelope stuffed with Central Reserve Bank notes.
He lightly thumbed through them. There were sixteen notes in all, each with a face value of five hundred fabi!
Fabi was the government-issued legal tender, not French currency. It was still fairly strong at present; one fabi could still be exchanged for one silver dollar!
Eight thousand, plus the six thousand he already had, was enough to buy the shipment!
Old Knife Handle nodded in satisfaction. This kid really was ambitious-greedy enough, and gutsy enough too!
In the shady trades, greed wasn't the worry; a lack of nerve to be greedy was. After all, problems money could solve were usually the easiest to settle!
"Good, then it's settled." Old Knife Handle reminded him, "Oh, there's one more little requirement I need to tell you beforehand!"
"The other party only accepts silver dollars. No fabi, gold, or pounds sterling!"
"So you'll have to get those ready first!"
Chen Fan's brow tightened slightly. He didn't ask why, merely placing both envelopes in the box containing a thousand silver dollars before turning to leave!
By the time he came out of Shengping Theatre, the sky had already grown mostly dark.
It wasn't yet time to light the gas streetlamps in Zhabei, and the whole of Kingston Road was steeped in a pale gray somewhere between dusk and night.
Holding the wooden box, Chen Fan walked west along the sidewalk.
After taking a long, roundabout route, Chen Fan entered a dead-end alley called Lime Lane on the north bank of Suzhou Creek, west of Laozha Bridge.
At the end of the alley stood an abandoned lime kiln. It had been used to burn lime in earlier years, but production had later stopped because of the fighting.
As time passed, in just a few short months, half the kiln had collapsed, leaving a pitch-black opening facing the riverbank.
The ground here was high, with a broad view. Looking out from the kiln, there were no obstructions along the way; anyone approaching could be spotted at a glance.
When Chen Fan arrived, Ma Xiaotian was already waiting at the kiln entrance.
Seeing Chen Fan approach from the mouth of the alley, he took the cigarette from his mouth and nodded to him.
"Boss Chen."
"Been waiting long?" Chen Fan sat on the stone block opposite him and set the wooden box by his feet.
"About fifteen minutes," Ma Xiaotian answered casually. "I'm used to it."
"Back when I was in the army, I'd wait for most of a day on surveillance. This is nothing."
Chen Fan opened the wooden box and took out two rolls of silver dollars wrapped in red silk, fifty in each roll, a hundred silver dollars altogether, and held them straight out to Ma Xiaotian.
"For your trouble last night. A hundred silver dollars."
"Boss Chen, you didn't ask me here just to give me money, did you?" Ma Xiaotian tucked the silver dollars inside his clothes and spoke unhurriedly!
"Brother Ma," Chen Fan said slowly, "when I treated you to dinner, I told you I had a job that would suit you. Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember," Ma Xiaotian asked in a low voice. "What are you getting at?"
"I want you to help me!" Chen Fan stated his purpose outright!
"Thank you for thinking so highly of me, Boss Chen." Ma Xiaotian sighed. "I'm lucky to be alive. Apart from surveillance and fighting, I don't have many skills."
"Shanghai has no shortage of men who can fight. Pick any man off the docks and he can swing a carrying pole a few times. My little bit of skill is nothing special."
"So I don't know what I could do to help you!"
"Brother Ma, don't be so quick to dismiss your abilities." Chen Fan leaned back a little. "When you were in the army, what was the biggest headache after a battle?"
"Probably wrapping things up," Ma Xiaotian answered without hesitation. "Pulling the men back, counting casualties, clearing the battlefield, and handling captured supplies."
"Exactly." Chen Fan nodded, his eyes fixed steadily on him. "In a place like Shanghai, the operation itself is only the little tip of the iceberg above the water."
"What really determines how long you survive is what's below the surface. After an operation, who's responsible for cleaning up the scene? Who's responsible for destroying the traces?"
"I can't do all of that myself every time in Shanghai."
"Besides, with psychological pressure and other factors during an operation, oversights are inevitable!"
"So I need a team dedicated to handling these things. They don't have to take part in the operation itself, but afterward, they must be able to clean up every last bit of the mess."
"You mean road sweepers?"
Chen Fan gave Ma Xiaotian a surprised look. "Road sweepers? Interesting term. What, you know about this?"
Ma Xiaotian rose from the stone roller and took a couple of steps. "Of course I do."
"Back when I worked escorting shipments, the escort agency had people who specialized in this."
"Before an escort convoy set off, someone would scout the route. If anything happened to the shipment along the way, someone would negotiate with the bandits. If blood was spilled, someone would clean up afterward-bury what needed burying, burn what needed burning, and pay off whoever needed paying off."
"Those people were called 'road sweepers.' My father told me a good road sweeper was worth more than ten skilled escorts."
"Because an escort could keep one shipment safe, but a road sweeper could keep the whole agency safe."
"Boss Chen, are you saying you want me to be this road sweeper?"
"It's not that simple." Chen Fan stood shoulder to shoulder with him. "Road sweepers clean up afterward, but what I want is a rapid-response team, not just an after-the-fact cleanup crew."
"For instance, if something unexpected happens halfway through an operation, someone needs to step in immediately and plug the hole, ensuring the main operation isn't affected."
"Or if I'm being watched, I need someone to fabricate a scene and draw the pursuers' attention in another direction."
"You're well suited to these tasks, because your caution and thoroughness convince me you're better suited to working in the shadows."
"Brother Ma, if you work with me, I can't promise you'll never run into trouble. But I can promise one thing: those children won't go hungry."
Ma Xiaotian fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Boss Chen, what makes you trust me?"
Looking at the dark green dot showing fifty points of favorability on the system panel, Chen Fan smiled. "I'm not wrong about people!"
"Brother Ma, don't employ someone you doubt, and don't doubt someone you employ. I know you're a smart man. You should know what choice to make!"
"You have experience in this area, so I'll put you in charge of the rapid-response team!"
"We can discuss any problems whenever they come up. If you run into any difficulties, tell me, and we'll find a solution together!"
Ma Xiaotian was taken aback. After all, this was only his third meeting with Chen Fan.
At the same time, he also felt this young man had boldness; otherwise, he wouldn't have agreed to work for him.
Yet after only a few meetings, he dared to give him free rein over something so important!
Ma Xiaotian truly didn't know what to say! Being trusted like this felt like so much pressure!
He isn't even afraid I'll take the money and run...
"What's on your mind, Brother Ma?" Seeing his hesitation, Chen Fan asked mildly!
"Nothing. A man will die for someone who appreciates him. Since you're willing to trust me, Boss Chen, I won't let you down!"
Chen Fan nodded, took out two small gold bars, and pressed them into Ma Xiaotian's hands. "These are operating funds. Tell me if you need more. I have other things to do!"
"Oh, and I don't like the name road sweepers. From now on, your team will be called the Cleaners..."
Shanghai, Hongkou District...
The Military Police Headquarters dormitory was housed in an inconspicuous gray three-story building at the end of Dixwell Road in Hongkou...
From outside, it looked no different from an ordinary apartment building for Japanese residents, with gray exterior walls and a few pots of cold-resistant holly on the windowsills.
There were sentries at the entrance, two guards on duty on either side. There might not have been many of them, but the military police barracks were just around the corner. Once the alarm sounded, they could seal the entire street tight within two minutes.
There were two dormitory buildings behind Military Police Headquarters. The easternmost room on the third floor of the left-hand building was the quarters of Colonel Yoshino Takehiko, head of logistics.
The room wasn't large, but it was kept meticulously tidy.
Plain cushions lay on the tatami, and a scroll reading "Everlasting fortune in war" hung on the wall.
On the desk by the window stood a brass lamp, beside it a frame holding a family photograph...
A letter lay before Yoshino Takehiko, sent from the homeland.
His wife, Mikuko, had written it.
In the past, Mikuko's letters had mostly contained only a few brief lines, reminding him to take good care of himself while he was away.
This time, however, her letter was completely different.
The letter mentioned his daughter, Sakurako.
Sakurako had reached marriageable age, and a matchmaker had recently come to arrange a match for her.
Normally, something like this required Yoshino Takehiko's approval.
But this time, because he was in China, Mikuko had described the other family's background in detail in her letter.
On the surface, the other family's standing was entirely suitable for Mikuko, and the prospective groom was also a university student.
In this era, a university education carried considerable weight.
Yoshino Takehiko was very satisfied, but then came the question of the dowry.
Japanese marriage customs were much like those in China. The groom's family provided betrothal gifts, and the bride's family had to prepare a dowry-and no small one, either.
Given the Yoshino family's background, they weren't poor to begin with, and what they provided had to meet the proper standards.
That wasn't even the main issue. Apart from the details of his daughter's wedding, there was his son, Taro.
The military academy had a number of places available for advanced study in Germany, to learn about modern warfare.
For Yoshino Taro, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but fully government-funded study abroad was essentially impossible.
They could only send the students overseas. The military would allocate funds for their studies, but they had to cover their own living expenses.
There were no scholarships now. Without money, this opportunity would go to someone else.
Looking at the letter on his desk, Yoshino Takehiko unconsciously furrowed his brow into deep creases.
Mikuko hadn't mentioned money once in her letter, yet every word was about money.
Money-that wicked, all-powerful money.
Yoshino Takehiko let out a long sigh.
The sky gradually darkened, and night was falling over Hongkou outside his window.
A row of dim yellow streetlamps lit up along North Sichuan Road in the distance.
In the courtyard below, two logistics clerks were loading crates of documents onto a handcart, muttering complaints he couldn't make out.
Yoshino Takehiko sighed, carefully folded the letter, and put it back in its envelope, then solemnly placed the envelope in a drawer.
He had served in the army for a full thirty years, rising from a second-lieutenant candidate during the Russo-Japanese War to a colonel overseeing the logistics and supply system of Military Police Headquarters.
The military supplies that passed through his hands were worth millions. The grain, cloth, ammunition, and medicine he allocated could fill the entire Huangpu River.
Yet now, standing by the window, he couldn't even scrape together three thousand yen in savings.
This was nothing unusual.
An army colonel's salary looked substantial on paper, but prices had soared over the years, while the military's various compulsory savings schemes and "patriotic donations" took cut after cut...
His actual take-home pay was barely enough to support his family. Faced with two major expenses-marrying off his daughter and sending his son abroad-the shortfall suddenly gaped wide.
There was a knock at the door. Three raps, short and rhythmic.
Yoshino Takehiko straightened his uniform collar before answering, "Come in."
The door opened, and a field officer in his early thirties entered. He was of medium build, on the thin side, with naturally upturned corners to his mouth that made him look as though he always wore a faint smile.
He wore a crisp army uniform, with a major's star insignia on his collar tabs and logistics branch markings on his shoulder boards.
After entering, Yoshino Tomokazu first stood properly at attention and saluted, then relaxed and gently closed the door behind him.
"Uncle, I'm sorry to disturb you so late."
Yoshino Takehiko responded gently, "It's all right. It isn't time for me to rest yet, anyway. There's been a great deal to attend to at Military Police Headquarters lately."
"By the way, why haven't the supplies Yamada seized been inventoried and placed in storage yet?"
"Tomokazu, you're a veteran. I shouldn't need to remind you about this sort of thing."
"Uncle, that's precisely why I've come to see you," Yoshino Tomokazu said respectfully.
At Yoshino Tomokazu's words, Yoshino Takehiko's expression grew somewhat strained. Some things needed no explanation; everyone understood what was going on.
"Tomokazu, I must remind you that you are a soldier of the empire."
Before Yoshino Takehiko could continue, Yoshino Tomokazu bowed slightly. "My loyalty to the empire can withstand anyone's scrutiny."
"But soldiers need to eat too."
"Uncle, I just received a letter from Taro back home."
"He received one of the military's nominations and wants to go to Germany."
"But he can't cover his living expenses in full. Uncle, I know your principles, so there are certain things you shouldn't get involved in."
"Not get involved? You're planning to lay your hands on the logistics department's supplies?" Yoshino Takehiko's expression shifted slightly.
"It isn't that we want to target the supplies. Uncle, you should understand the empire's situation very well."
Yoshino Tomokazu said gravely, "Do you remember how long the Battle of Shanghai lasted?"
"Three months. From August 13 to November 12, Showa 12. Three whole months."
"Before the war, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office planned to take Shanghai in ten days, then advance along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway and force the National Government to surrender within three months."
"And what happened? Shanghai alone took three months."
"Even now, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office doesn't dare release the real casualty figures back home. Publicly, they say forty thousand."
"But the reality? You're in logistics. You know perfectly well."
"Actual casualties approached seventy thousand, including more than twenty thousand killed."
"Do you know how many divisions the defenders had on the Shanghai front at the time?"