N-A-A Chapter 37 Into the Tiger's Den
Chapter 37 Into the Tiger's Den
Japanese Concession. North Sichuan Road.
North Sichuan Road is even more lively at night than during the day. Neon signs display crooked Japanese slang, and the sounds of military boots pounding on wooden floors and drunken laughter drift from behind the sliding doors of izakayas.
Mo Lanzhi wore a dark blue furisode kimono, her face was covered with a thick layer of white powder, and her lips were painted a bright cherry red. Three silver hairpins adorned her hair, and she walked with a humble and timid demeanor, taking small, light steps, looking exactly like a maidservant girl who had run away from Kyoto.
No one would doubt her.
Because there are plenty of women dressed like that on this street. The officers of the Japanese navy stationed in Shanghai like to have fun here and need a lot of bar girls.
But no one knew that she had a three-inch-long silver hairpin knife hidden in the lining of her belt.
It has been sharpened.
"Sister Gui, has the route been confirmed?"
Mo Lanzhi's voice was very low, and her lips barely moved, as if she were talking to herself.
Three steps behind her, a middle-aged woman in a simple cotton-padded jacket was squatting in front of a wonton stall on the street, eating wontons.
That was Sister Gui, Su Guiying, the former leader of the Shanghai Green Gang.
"Confirmed."
Su Guiying took a sip of wonton soup, her voice muffled. "Chef Wang in the Navy Club's kitchen is one of my men. Go in through the back door, through the dishwashing area, and up to the second floor, turn left and go to the third private room."
"Target?"
"Lieutenant Commander Watanabe of the Third Fleet Staff. Forty-seven years old, an alcoholic, a lecher, who comes every Thursday to get completely drunk. He's already been drinking for two hours tonight."
Su Guiying put down her bowl and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "He always carried a brown leather briefcase with him, never letting it out of his sight. My men said he even took that briefcase with him when he went to the toilet."
"That's it." Moran's gaze swept across the street to the three-story building with chrysanthemum-patterned lanterns hanging from it.
Japanese Naval Club.
Two armed Marines stood at the entrance.
"Sister Gui," Mo Lanzhi's voice suddenly turned cold. "If I don't come out within fifteen minutes..."
"You will come out."
Su Guiying stood up and tossed a few coins into the wonton stall owner's bowl. "There's a rickshaw next to the third trash can in the back alley. The driver is one of my men. It's faster than a car."
Mo Lanzhi didn't say anything more.
She lowered her head and took small steps toward the back door of the club.
back kitchen.
The aroma of cooking oil and sauce wafted through the air. Several cooks in white coats were working hard at the stove, their brows covered in sweat.
A short, stout middle-aged cook saw Moranzhi, nodded slightly, and then pointed with his chin toward the stairs.
Master Wang. Su Guiying's undercover agent.
Mo Lanzhi silently walked through the kitchen and climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor.
The corridor was carpeted in deep red, and folding screens in the style of ukiyo-e hung on both sides. The sounds of drinking games and women's shrill laughter could be faintly heard coming from several private rooms.
Turn left. Third shop.
The sliding door to the private room was ajar.
Mo Lanzhi paused for a second at the door.
A rough, hoarse male voice came from inside, speaking in Japanese. His speech was slurred, clearly indicating he was quite drunk.
"...Pour me another glass! You Chinese women...hahaha...no, not flavorful enough...get me another one..."
Moranzhi took a deep breath.
Then she pushed open the sliding door, knelt down in the doorway, placed her hands on her knees, and bowed deeply at a ninety-degree angle.
"Sir, this is the new waitress. Please take good care of her."
A standard Tokyo accent.
Seated in the private box was a middle-aged officer in a white naval uniform. Rank: Lieutenant Commander. His face was flushed, his eyes unfocused, and two buttons of his collar were undone.
Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe.
Sure enough, there was a brown leather briefcase next to him. The briefcase had a small combination lock on it.
Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe raised his cloudy, drunken eyes and looked Moranzhi up and down.
"Hmm...come here...come here and pour me some wine..."
Mo Lanzhi got up, walked to his side in small steps, knelt down, picked up the sake pot and poured him a cup.
"You've had quite a bit to drink tonight, sir." Her voice was as gentle as a spring breeze in March.
"not enough!"
Lieutenant Commander Watanabe grabbed a glass of wine and downed it in one gulp, then slammed it on the table. "Those bastards! Sending me to my death with the Izumo! So what if it's a 29cm main gun? That bastard surnamed Chen has a 28cm shore gun!"
Mo Lanzhi's eyelashes trembled slightly.
A 28-centimeter shore gun.
This drunkard actually said such things in front of me, and more importantly, he actually knew the caliber of my latest coastal defense artillery and exactly where the problem was.
Thinking of this, she merely frowned slightly, then pretended to be nonchalant.
She continued pouring the drinks, her gentle smile remaining on her face. "Are you an officer on the Izumo, sir? That must be very prestigious."
"So what if it's impressive!"
Lieutenant Commander Watanabe downed another drink. "Do you know how terrifying the Chinese shore artillery is? The Tenryu! The 3,500-ton Tenryu! One salvo and it was gone! My classmate was on that ship! Not even a bone fragment remained!"
As he said this, his eyes suddenly reddened. Alcohol and fear had softened his reason.
"I don't want to die..." he murmured. "I have a wife and children waiting for me in Osaka..."
Mo Lanzhi poured him another glass at just the right moment.
"My lord, there's no need to be afraid. The Izumo is so big and so sturdy, surely the Chinese cannons can't penetrate it?"
"That's true... the Izumo's armor is indeed thick..."
Lieutenant Commander Watanabe mumbled, his right hand unconsciously touching the briefcase beside him. "As long as our escort formation isn't disrupted, the Izumo can safely flatten their fortifications one by one from outside firing range..."
Escort formation.
Mo Lanzhi's heart skipped a beat. But her expression remained unchanged.
"You're really amazing, sir."
She leaned forward and used a handkerchief to wipe the wine stains from Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe's lips. "Then your trunk must be full of important documents, sir?"
Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe instinctively pulled the briefcase closer to him. "This...you can't look at this..."
Then his gaze fell on Moran's neck.
The alcohol burned away his last bit of self-control.
He reached out and grabbed at Moran's collar.
"Come here... let this old man take a good look at you..."
Mo Lanzhi's eyes changed in that instant.
It wasn't fear. It wasn't panic.
It's ice.
With incredible speed, her right hand pulled the three-inch silver hairpin from her hair bun.
Without hesitation. Without wasting words.
The silver hairpin pierced Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe's throat.
It enters through the left carotid artery and exits beside the right cervical spine. Not an inch off.
Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe's eyes widened suddenly. He opened his mouth to scream, but only warm blood gushed from his throat. His hand was still in the position of reaching for Moran's collar, but he had lost all strength.
Mo Lanzhi covered his mouth with her left hand and pushed the silver hairpin in half an inch further with her right hand.
Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe's body twitched twice, then went limp.
The whole process took less than three seconds.
Silent. Clean. Deadly.
Moranzhi released her grip, letting the body lean against the wall, looking as if it had been drunk and was sleeping.
Then she picked up the brown leather briefcase.
Combination lock. Three digits.
She flipped up Lieutenant Colonel Watanabe's collar and, sure enough, found a three-digit number written in ballpoint pen on the back of his neck.
These Japanese officers' sense of security was rotten to the core.
Click.
The box was opened.
Inside was a stack of nautical charts drawn in blue ink. The title of the top chart was clearly visible—
Izumo Escort Formation Duty Roster (Confidential)
Moranzhi glanced at it quickly.
Six destroyers were positioned on either side of the Izumo, 400 meters apart. However, between the second and third destroyers on the left flank, a light gray area was marked – “Very Shallow Waters, Minesweeping Warning Line, Large Vessels Prohibited from Passing.”
Extremely shallow water.
Large ships cannot get in.
What about the smaller ones?
For example, torpedo boats?
Mo Lanzhi's lips curled slightly.
She folded the nautical chart and tucked it into the lining of her kimono's obi (sash). Then she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and carefully wiped away her fingerprints from the sake bottle, sake cups, and briefcase.
Finally, she wiped the silver hairpin clean with a handkerchief and put it back into her hair bun.
Push open the sliding door. Step out of the private room.
The corridor was deserted. The sounds of drinking games from the next private room were deafening.
Mo Lanzhi hurried downstairs, passed through the kitchen, and disappeared into the night on North Sichuan Road through the back door.
From entering the door to leaving the door.
Eleven minutes.
Back alley.
The rickshaw was indeed still there. The driver, a lean middle-aged man, immediately grabbed the handlebars upon seeing Mo Lanzhi.
"Walk."
The rickshaw disappeared into the depths of the alley.
Su Guiying ate another bowl of wontons at the wonton stall.
Then she looked at her pocket watch. Eleven minutes.
Such fast hands.
Shanghai Command Headquarters. 2:00 AM.
Chen Zijun is still awake.
The nautical chart in front of him was now covered with dense red markings—the distribution of minefields, the angles of searchlight illumination, and the crossfire pattern of the 88mm guns.
But right in the middle of that nautical chart, there was a big question mark.
There was a knock on the door twice.
Moranzhi walked in. She had changed out of her kimono and was now wearing the dark gray Zhongshan suit that the Military Intelligence Bureau wore.
Her face was expressionless.
But she now held a blue nautical chart in her hand.
"Young Marshal." She unfolded the nautical chart on the table. "Izumo escort formation rotation battle plan. Classified."
Chen Zijun looked down for three seconds.
His gaze settled on the gray area marked "very shallow water".
"Here." He pointed to the gap on the left flank. "A place the destroyer can't get in."
"Yes," Moranzhi said. "The water depth is no more than two meters. Large destroyers have too deep a draft to cover it completely. The Izumo has a nearly 600-meter-wide blind spot on its port flank."
Chen Zijun remained silent for five seconds.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't a happy laugh. It was the laugh of a hunter who had discovered the weakness of his prey.
"A blind spot of 600 meters. Two meters of water depth," he murmured. "That means only torpedo boats can squeeze through this gap and plunge directly under the Izumo's hull—"
"So, the British must have guessed the Japanese tactics from the beginning? That's why they delivered those four torpedo boats to me at such a convenient time?"
"Heh, interesting. It seems the Anglo-Japanese alliance is nothing special after all."
Mo Lanzhi looked at him.
"The young marshal is right."
Chen Zijun didn't answer. He picked up a red pencil and drew a circle on the gray area. He wrote two words next to the circle.
Wolf pack.
"Lanzhi." He put down his pencil. "Well done. Go back and rest."
Moranzhi gave a military salute and turned to leave.
She had just stepped out the door.
Hurried footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.
Shen Li kicked open the door to the operations room. He was covered in sweat, and one of the buttons on his uniform collar had popped open.
"Young Marshal! Something's happened!"
Chen Zijun frowned.
"On the Jiangsu border! Qi Yingcai's remnants, for some unknown reason, have led over three thousand men and are heading towards our Shanghai arsenal!"
Chen Zijun's expression remained unchanged.
He glanced at the clock on the wall and said something casually.
"Perfect. Zang Keping hasn't even tried out those new gadgets yet, has he? Let him take them out for a spin."