Thousands of miles away in the Straits of Malacca, Penang.

Founded in 1786, this freeport has a history of 93 years. From just over 50 residents to nearly 60,000 now.

There are the Great English Studies that teach English, the Wufu College where Confucianism is taught in Chinese, and even the Wufu Hall in Penang for some years.

British, French, Germans, Italians, and almost all Western European countries can find traces here, and Christian churches are naturally indispensable, but the Buddhist temple and the snake temple [originally a Qingshui Shizu Temple, named Qingyunwei. The name of the snake temple is that after the temple was built, several green snakes came to live in it. And whenever the Patriarch of Qingshui is born, there are countless green snakes pouring into the temple from the back mountain, becoming a great spectacle, so the "Snake Temple" is famous all over the world. Even the traditional ancestral halls of the Chinese are not lacking. Of course, the local indigenous Malays also have traces of their culture.

This is a typical colonial seaport city, as long as it can bring wealth, the British do not suppress the power and development of the Chinese and natives. Compared with the Chinese under Spanish and Dutch rule, the Chinese under British rule are undoubtedly much safer.

Although with the Qin army's horizontal stab in Lanfang, whether it is Jakarta or Manila, the status of the Chinese has taken a big step forward. However, the two declining colonial empires, the Spaniards and the Dutch, secretly set up more and greater obstacles to the development of the Chinese.

The Penang station is only a third-level intelligence station under the Nanyang Division after the reform of the Military Intelligence Department, and in the past, there were only five people in the entire Penang station, and their position in the Nanyang Division was omitted. And today. A sense of responsibility pervades the hearts of these five people, and they receive a direct telegram from the headquarters of the Military Intelligence Service.

Three of the five were businessmen. One is a teacher, and the other is a porter who earns a living. He is fluent in English and a little French and German.

Except for the stationmaster who was in charge of the Penang station, the other four people were all active in the port for a long time, and it was very simple to monitor the movements of the six Japanese warships entering the port.

Soon, not only were the six warships firmly watched by the Penang station, but even their photos fell into the hands of the stationmaster.

The Japanese troops had to rest at Penang Station for two days to replenish fuel, fresh water, fruits and vegetables, grain, and meat. The food of the Japanese Navy is a comprehensive study of the British style, and compared with the treatment of the army, it is really a rich man and a common man.

Japanese sailors ate polished rice, while the Japanese Army and many ordinary Japanese people only ate brown rice that had undergone a husking process, and was also called "brown rice" because of its brownish-yellow color. This kind of rice is that after the rice has been milled to remove the glume husk, it still retains some cortical tissue (also known as "bran"), including the aleurone layer and germ. Therefore, it takes a longer time to cook, and it does not taste as good as refined white rice. However, brown rice is much higher in minerals, vitamins, fiber, and other nutrients than white rice.

In ancient Japan, only a few aristocratic daimyo were able to eat polished rice that had been processed many times. and a first-class samurai (a close confidant of the daimyo). For this reason, polished rice was also known as "silver grain rice" or "silver relic" in ancient Japan, and only nobles and princes could often eat refined white rice that had been processed three times. During the Genroku period (1688-1704), Japan had bumper harvests year after year, and there was too much rice to eat. As a result, the low-level civilians also began to grind brown rice into white rice to eat, which tasted very delicious. As a result, among ordinary samurai and ordinary citizens, they also developed the habit of eating "silver relics". However, due to the fact that only white rice is eaten and the range of non-staple foods is limited (Japanese non-staple foods are usually just dried vegetables, plums, and pickled vegetables), this is a surprise. It's the beriberi epidemic.

This phenomenon is rare in the Japanese Army, which is still in difficulty, but it is common in the Navy, which is no longer treasured by the Tokyo authorities.

In 1882, Japan's relations with Korea deteriorated, and three warships were urgently dispatched to Incheon and Jemulpo (before the Imwu Mutiny). However, during the forty days they were stranded here, the Japanese sailors suffered from beriberi, and the three warships were almost incapacitated. Of the 330 men on board the Ironclad East, 195 fell ill with beriberi. The Japanese Navy waited until 1884, when Kanehiro Takagi conducted experiments on the ship Tsukuba, adding barley to the staple food of Japanese sailors, and distributing milk, vegetables, fish, vinegar and other non-staple foods to the sailors, resulting in a sharp decrease in the number of beriberi attacks during the voyage. After that, the Japanese navy changed its food supply method, from rationing vegetable money to distributing in-kind food, and replaced refined white rice with 20% barley (semi-brown rice with coarse bran and part of the germ layer left) as the staple food of sailors, and beriberi gradually disappeared from the navy. Takagi himself was later awarded the title of baron by Emperor Meiji for his achievements in nutrition, and was known as "Baron Mai Rice".

Therefore, beriberi in the current Japanese Navy is quite severe. Heihachiro Togo and others led thousands of Japanese sailors to sail six warships across the ocean to Penang, and during the four-month voyage, more than 20 percent of the Japanese sailors suffered from beriberi, and more than 30 of them died. That's a lot more than the number of sailors who died during the voyage due to mistakes for various reasons!

The Japanese navy, which has now arrived in Penang, is in extremely bad condition. But on the surface, of course, the Japanese would not show it, and the Japanese sailors were 'strictly forbidden' to disembark, which did not cause any impact on the security of Penang at all. did not leak his own shortcomings, and gave everyone in Penang a message that the Japanese army was disciplined.

The Penang station knew from the records left by the Japanese in the port that the fleet was going to stay in the port of Penang for two days, but in fact they stayed for five days.

Let the special operations team prepared by the MI in Singapore almost flash in the waist!

……

"In the morning, the steamship came, led the ship, turned left and traced the river, and the scenery of the people on both sides of the strait was no different from Shanghai, China. …… Before noon, we arrived at the port of Singapore, which was the first in the Far East, and thousands of merchant ships and warships of the Europa countries were moored. On the land, the Zhubang commercial hall is a thousand feet of powder, like a city pavilion, its vast and severe, can not be pen and paper. …… Dusk returns to the dwelling, and it is also a tall place. Climb to the top, the polar eyes are in all directions, the sound of the boat is corresponding to the sound of the warship's cannons, and its scenery is like the scene of the Tobu fire, which is really a pleasant place. At night, the lights and shadows on both sides of the strait swim in the waves, and the scenery is picturesque. ”

Goro Fujita wrote down his impressions of the port of Singapore. When he came here, he had already abandoned the feeling of suffering from gains and losses, and also put away the guilt that was originally hidden in his heart. Completing the task became his only belief!

His Excellency Saigo has abandoned all his honor, what can he not sacrifice?

In the final analysis, the group of Japanese who came to Singapore this time agreed with the views and political views of the top leaders of the Southwest Army. China has awakened and risen, and little Japan cannot be an opponent of big China. The Tokyo government thought that relying on the European and American powers, expanding its military ranks, and being hostile to China would sooner or later drag the whole of Japan into the abyss.

If you want to save Japan, you don't want to drag Japan into ruin with the gang in Tokyo, but first crush the group of self-defeating and greedy and unstoppable guys in Tokyo.

The strength accumulated by the Southwest Army is already enough, and the Southwest Domain is indeed unable to support it. Money, funds, and materials deeply troubled the heavily burdened Southwest Domain. It's time to fight!

The big things you do will be a very good excuse to go to war. If successful, it will not only severely damage the morale and sharpness of the Tokyo government army, but also win greater and more support from China for the southwestern feudal army.

Fujita Goro knows the value of himself and others. Fifteen people came to Kagoshima from China on three cargo ships, which were loaded with 50,000 quintals of rice, 1,000 tons of steel, 10,000 single-shot guns and corresponding bullets, 20 75 guns, and a large number of shells.

Of course, Fujita Goro knew that it was impossible for his fifteen lives to exchange so many materials, and this was just a reassuring word from above. The two sides must have made an agreement, which is China's strong support for the Southwest Domain.

But Goro Fujita was still very pleased. Because one of these materials must have belonged to the fifteen of them!

Fifteen dead soldiers, plus Beppu Shinsuke, who later came out to 'confess' to the British colonial government, this is all the manpower dispatched by the Southwest Domain. MI thought it was enough!

The small boat carrying the fifteen dead soldiers, the simple oxygen cylinders, the powerful ladder and the Enti water bomb, the medicine pack, the passage for the sixteen people to secretly enter the port of Singapore, and their subsequent accommodation and food, all arranged by the Nanyang Division of the Military Intelligence Department.

Fifteen men against six warships, two in a team, and three mending knives. After calculating the power of the explosives and powder packs, the Military Intelligence Service considered it sufficient.

And it doesn't have to be completely destroyed by six warships, it can sink three wooden-hulled battleships, and then sink one of the three Kongo-class cruisers and seriously injure two. If you eat it all, it will be too ugly on your face. Liu Xian only needs to ask these warships to appear in the Japanese naval sequence before his two Saxony-class warships return to China next year.

If a warship is badly damaged, it should have a period of honesty when it goes to the dock for further study and repair. Although this is very much trying to cover up, it will make Britain and France and other countries seriously dissatisfied, and these powers will definitely intervene again. Even the British will be aware of the existence of the military intelligence department, and Liu Xian also thinks it is very worthwhile!

Today, the Japanese warship has arrived in the port of Singapore. The time has come for Goro Fujita and others to die, and a new page in Japanese history is about to be opened...... (To be continued......)