The main enemies of China were never the Beiyang Bloc and the Manchu court, and it was the Western powers in the Far East that did not want to see the rise of China and had the ability to stop it.

In London in early spring, Captain Mansfield Cumming of the British Royal Navy walked out of his apartment, and the bread and milk for breakfast made him feel a little swollen in his stomach, and it would be better if there was a little more cod jelly, forbidden aunt tofu, and poop bread, but breakfast should not be eaten too much! patting his abdomen, he was in a really good mood for a while, which led to a big increase in the amount of food!

Even though the street was brightly lit, visibility was still poor, and Cumming looked closely, and there was a tram about ten meters away, but it was impossible to see any further. And there was a pungent, spicy smell in the air, which made Cumming a little worried about the food in his stomach - would he vomit out of it?

In the past, Cumming would complain about the weather in London and curse the countless factories in the suburbs, but now he didn't want to spoil his good mood because of the fog. Because, at the age of 40, he became the head of Britain's newest intelligence agency, the "Secret Intelligence Service", responsible for overseas espionage, often known as MI6, or MI6.

In recent years, Britain's intelligence work has repeatedly made mistakes, especially in the Far East, and it can be said that a large part of Britain's predicament in the Far East is caused by the failure of intelligence to keep up. In addition, as the contradictions between Germany and Britain intensified, people with lofty ideals realized that war was inevitable, and that a more efficient military intelligence organization should be established as soon as possible to replace the bland and unsuccessful secret service. (The original space-time was established in 1909, and due to the pressure of the Far East, it appeared early, so don't spray.) ）

It was Colonel Cumming who proposed the creation of a new military intelligence organization, who believed that the German Navy would inevitably challenge the position of the British Navy. There must be a group of battleships under construction at shipyards such as Hamburg. In order to ensure the supremacy of the British Navy, it was necessary to obtain detailed information on the plans, progress, and service status of the German Navy's warships, so the establishment of a naval intelligence organization was proposed to the superiors, and this proposal went all the way to 10 Downing Street. Coincidentally, with inevitability, the new Secret Intelligence Service was authorized to be formed and led by Cumming, and there was also a Secret Security Service. He is responsible for counter-espionage and internal security, which are not subordinate to each other, but are closely linked.

Arriving in a building south of Westminster Bridge in a car exported from the United States, raising his wrist and looking at his Swiss watch, Colonel Cumming was in a trance, damn it, why are there so many foreign industrial products in Britain, which led the industrial revolution?

Shaking his head, now is not the time to think about those things, the time is seven forty-five in the morning. There were fifteen minutes left before the morning meeting he had arranged, and there was still enough time for him to walk to the office, have a cup of coffee, and then sort out his thoughts for the meeting.

Fifteen minutes later, Cumming entered the morning meeting on time, and thirteen department heads focused their eyes on him. Cumming smiled slightly and nodded to indicate that these people were the key to the success of the Secret Intelligence Agency, and the average age was thirty-five years old. There is no old man's decay, full of energy and vitality. The most important thing is that they are very obedient, because they have found these people from lowly positions.

"Stephen, have you sorted out the materials?" Cumming demanded that every person in the Intelligence Bureau be orderly and effective, just as he had when he was the captain of a cruiser, and every order could be answered at the first time.

Stephen, the head of the archives department, said: "It's done. In accordance with the requirements of the colonel, the subordinates organized the focus of the work of the intelligence bureau during this period into the following parts. The first is to dispatch intelligence personnel to Germany to collect intelligence on all aspects of the navy, army, administration, industry, agriculture, and resources; the second is the improvement of the intelligence bureau and the purchase of equipment, which requires a lot of financial support; the third is the training of intelligence personnel, as well as the formulation of training programs; Fourth, it is necessary to carry out overseas intelligence work. In other areas, the United States, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, Turkey, Spain, and Austria-Hungary will be the focus of our work, and in addition, China in the Far East also needs our attention. It can be said that our Russian task is quite arduous. ”

Cumming concluded: "For the German side, we should also pay attention to the collection of intelligence at every high level, whether it is the political arena or the military, and not only focus on the equipment, but also the role of people is even greater than the equipment." There is no problem with the funding of the intelligence bureau, as for the equipment, I will keep an eye on those research institutes, it is not easy for Germany to say, China in the Far East can be sure that it has intelligence equipment ahead of us, including bugs, etc., we need to hurry. Overseas - "

Cumming paused at this point and looked at Benjamin, the Minister of Intelligence, who took over the conversation: "According to the information we have, we can be sure that the Germans sent a large number of spies to infiltrate British territory, the exact number of whom is unknown, but it is certain that they could not have infiltrated our country without any purpose, or that there were German spies lurking in our country a long time ago. Of course, the counter-espionage mission is MI5, and we just need to get the information after they capture the spy. But the most shocking thing is our intelligence leakage in the Far East. ”

"First of all, in 1900, the Allied forces transported a huge amount of wealth from the north of the Qing Dynasty to London, England, and this wealth was loaded with the wealth shared by the Allied forces, but it disappeared miraculously in the Far East in the waters of Taiwan. At that time, we organized a large-scale search, but to no avail, we had to give up. Looking back now, it is very likely that this incident was done by the Zhenguo Party, we don't know when they had the super battleship, we don't know when they had the kind of armored cruiser called the 'Nanhai class', if they had that kind of warship at that time, they would have the strength to do this. This is also due to the lack of information from the Secret Service, which led to the fact that we did not find out about the problem at the time. ”

"Secondly, around 1901, a Chinese revolutionary organization called the Zhenguo Party appeared in the Far East, which became known to the outside world after launching an armed uprising, but unfortunately the Secrecy Bureau at that time did not pay attention to this organization, and even the British officials in the Far East did not pay attention to it, until they occupied Canton and spread the revolution to the whole territory of Guangdong, and tried to gather information about this organization. The information obtained was very rudimentary, there was no detailed structure about this organization, there was no information about the armed forces under its control, and most importantly, it did not grasp the situation of the coastal fortifications it had arranged in Canton, which led to heavy losses for our Far Eastern Fleet, and thus lost the best opportunity to intervene. ”

"Third, the independence uprising that broke out in Burma has not yet been extinguished, and the British Empire has to invest tens of millions of pounds a year in Burma to ensure the security of India. I can't say that there are generals such as Haig leading the army, and I believe that they will be eliminated. Speaking only of intelligence, it is now certain that the Free Army of Burma was single-handedly supported by the Chinese in order to hold back our forces in the Far East so that the Chinese could freely intervene in the Russo-Japanese War. Their purpose was achieved, the British Empire suffered great humiliation, and from the intelligence point of view, if we had discovered the transportation route between China and Burma from the beginning, we would have been able to extinguish the war in Burma in the shortest possible time. ”

"Fourth, and the biggest lack of intelligence, China's intervention in the Russo-Japanese War, No. 10 Downing Street did not receive the slightest warning, which was the direct reason for the dissolution of the Secret Bureau. At that time, the report submitted by the Secrecy Bureau was that Hua Guo would concentrate his forces on the Northern Expedition, so Downing Street's work was also around stopping Hua Guo's Northern Expedition, of course, this was a strategic fraud, and we were fooled! From a tactical point of view, China has super warships and advanced armored cruisers, which is the biggest variable in the war, and we know that there is no kind of warship in the world that can compare with Huaguo's super warships. Obtaining detailed information on the super-battleship, including its source, performance, quantity, etc., is a task given directly to us by the Prime Minister. ”

Benjamin took a sip of water from his cup and said so much information about Huaguo in one breath, which was also instructed by Colonel Cumming. Strategically speaking, Germany is the primary target of the Intelligence Bureau, but from the present point of view, the focus of the Intelligence Bureau's work should be on China in the Far East.

Cumming rubbed his forehead, Huaguo is really difficult to deal with, not to mention those terrible warships and 500,000 army, just Huaguo's elite intelligence department is a headache!

There is a consensus in the Western intelligence community that China has an elite and powerful intelligence department, and this can be traced from China's previous operations. For example, when the Japanese sent troops to Guangzhou, this was also supported by Britain behind the scenes, but unexpectedly, Hua Guo actually accurately grasped the location of the Japanese army's landing, and made corresponding arrangements based on this information, so that the Japanese army was defeated and lost, and once again lost a good opportunity to interfere with the Zhenguo Party's grasp of power. Another example is the Russo-Japanese War, China not only accurately grasped the situation of Japan and Russia in the Northeast Theater, and chose the best time to participate in the war accordingly, but also knew that Britain's naval strength in the Far East was not enough to challenge the Pacific Fleet of China, and finally confidently and boldly joined in. The most incredible thing is that the Chinese Navy ambushed the Japanese naval fleet at the exact time and place, and if this coincidence is explained only by naval reconnaissance warships, it would be too serious to take naval warfare seriously! (To be continued.) )