Chapter 083: Building the Framework

This, too, had been a joint decision reached after Aoki Kyo consulted with Old Zhao and Miyu and then sought approval from the organization, which in turn gave its assent.

Rather than allowing the Japanese to keep infiltrating in the shadows, with so much of that work taking place in darkness—where both the Special Service, and later the Central Bureau and the Military Intelligence Service, had suffered countlessly—it would be better to make them transparent.

Why bother with a whole tangle of covert agencies like the Orchid Bureau or the Bamboo Bureau? Better to have only one Aoki Bureau. No others. A single Aoki Bureau in the open, while the hidden side remained firmly in the hands of their own people. That was far better than a mess of intelligence organs buried entirely in the dark.

Your Japanese intelligence officers gather information and collate it; our comrades need only lie hidden among them, and what is yours becomes mine. And what is mine remains mine.

At once, everyone’s gaze toward Aoki Kyo changed. What had been contempt, disdain, envy, and the like gave way to gravity.

You have now earned the right to speak with us as an equal.

Thus the colonel’s insignia on Aoki Kyo’s shoulder no longer seemed so glaring.

“Uncle Aoki, come, tell us your thoughts in detail! Miyazaki, go and close the door! Post guards outside. No one here is to let even the slightest word of this meeting leak out!”

Miyazaki Shuichi, excited, hurried off to summon the guards, then returned to shut the door himself. To his surprise, he had been able to ride on Aoki Kyo’s coattails and enter the circle of planners and decision makers.

“Three uncles, here is what I think. We can follow the model of Grandfather Aoki’s bureau and first establish a new Aoki Bureau in Shanghai, combining the Aoki Bureau and the Aoki Chain Drugstores into one!” Aoki Kyo said as he spoke, gesturing with his hands.

“I will handle the expansion and supply of the pharmacies, while Miyu will be responsible for assigning tasks to intelligence personnel and for collating and analyzing the reports.”

“Each pharmacy will have two managers, one public and one hidden. The public manager will oversee daily medicine sales and the financial accounts. The hidden manager will handle task assignments for the swift intelligence personnel and the collection of intelligence; all gathered intelligence will be promptly sent to the headquarters store, which will report to the main base every day.”

“The public managers can be drawn from our own people in the Fujiwara, Shimazu, and Saito families, as well as from the households of all the uncles present.”

Here Aoki Kyo was flattering them a little, offering each of them a benefit. In other words, they could arrange for promising young men in their families to join in. He would bring them along to make money. Best of all, they would both earn money and win merit, killing two birds with one stone.

Everyone’s eyes lit up. Excellent! So many idle nephews at home could finally be put to use. Across all of Shanghai, and even across all of East China, how many managers would be needed? Once the relatives had been placed, why not arrange for people from the local neighborhoods as well? It would be only right to earn a little handling fee.

“Aoki has put real thought into this!” Nagata Tetsuyama was very satisfied. And perhaps because he had heard that Aoki Kyo had not forgotten to include the Saito family, the resentment Nagata had felt toward him had largely dissipated.

“Having spoken of the public managers, let us turn to the hidden managers. These hidden managers will need intelligence skills, so their assignment can only come from the main base. The Army University, especially graduates of the Army Officers’ School, should be considered first.”

“And finally there are the swift couriers. I originally thought to use soldiers from each unit, but that would be too obvious, and the Nationalist government’s military and police might take offense.”

“So I think this level only needs people from the lower orders—able to run, and not to talk too much. They could be recruited among the overseas Japanese, or arranged through the Nationalist gangs. For instance, the Green Gang in Shanghai. In this way, the gang power in Shanghai can also be brought under imperial control!”

“Excellent! Aoki, this is truly a genius design! We must organize it at once and report it to His Majesty the Emperor and the Cabinet, so that it can be implemented as soon as possible!”

As Okamura Neiji listened, he grew more and more excited. During his time in Shanghai, he had already built good relations with some Green Gang bosses, and now those connections could be used as well. The plan was perfect.

“Why don’t we give this plan a name—how about the Medicine Plan?”

“Uncle, do not get ahead of yourself. Aoki has not finished yet! The last piece is the protection of the entire pharmacy network and its intelligence personnel. When I was in Shanghai, I saw quite a few ronin without work. We could recruit imperial ronin to serve the country, responsible for guarding imperial property and ensuring the safety of intelligence operations.”

“As for the name of the plan, you three uncles can think of one. As for the bureau, I want to keep the name of Grandfather Aoki’s bureau. I want to carry on Grandfather’s bureau and continue serving the Empire!”

When Aoki Kyo finished speaking, his eyes rested on Obata Toshishiro across from him, while in his mind he thought, That damned Tojo bastard, I’m going to stand against you and not let your Tojo Bureau set foot in Shanghai. I’ll also erode you step by step and seize your share in North China.

“Ronin in Shanghai? Do those ronin not work? When you saw them, what were they doing?”

Nagata Tetsuyama’s words sent a wave of excitement through Aoki Kyo. It had come at last. My little setup was not wasted. He knows what the ronin were doing.

“I saw them in the imperial Japanese residential district in Hong Kong. It seemed like none of them had jobs. Uncle Nagata, do you know them? Ah, if it was a secret mission, then never mind—if you can’t say, don’t say it.”

“It is nothing much. The Navy shipyard sent them to Ningbo in China to look for shipbuilding workers, but they were still lingering in Shanghai!”

Aoki Kyo had nothing to say to that. But at least two things had been revealed. First, their mission had nothing to do with him. Then their leader, Togo Naomichi, was very likely that ronin from the Jigen-ryu school.

He must have spotted me by accident. Somehow I exposed myself, and since Togo Naomichi was so confident, he intended to kill me outright.

Second, the Japanese Navy may be planning a major move—building large ships or undertaking shipbuilding on a large scale—so they were going to Ningbo to find shipbuilding experts or to recruit more shipbuilding laborers to Japan.

He could not take that opening, and he could not ask any further. To ask more would be to pry into naval affairs.

“Three uncles, Miyazaki-kun, please continue refining the plan. I’ve only just returned and came straight to headquarters without first going home to report. I should go back now and inform the duke that I’m safe.”

“Excellent! So it is the duke after all, and yet you still call him ‘the duke,’ haha!”

“Ha ha, pardon me.”

He had to withdraw quickly.

Back at his father-in-law’s house, Aoki Kyo briefly reported his ideas to Duke Fujiwara. The duke now looked at his son-in-law with ever greater delight.

I must report this plan to His Majesty before the Army Ministry does.

Chen Jiehua thought it over, then decided that perhaps they should all go together. When the Emperor convened Shimazu and the other families for discussion, it would save him from having to run from house to house and explain everything one by one until his mouth went dry.

In the end, the Emperor summoned the Cabinet, the great families, and the principal officials of the Army Ministry, Navy Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and others to deliberate, and the plan and its direction were settled on the spot.

First, the plan was named the Imperial Medicine Plan and placed under the joint jurisdiction of the House of Peers and the Cabinet.

There had been a long dispute over this assignment of authority. The Army Ministry argued that Aoki Kyo came from the army and that the whole plan centered on him, so it should naturally fall under Army Ministry control.

The Foreign Ministry argued that foreign economic strategy fell squarely within its remit, and therefore should naturally be under its jurisdiction. The ministry had its own intelligence apparatus and did not need the Army Ministry.