Chapter 196 Intelligence agencies, the key to monitoring When it comes to establishing intelligence agencies at the end of the Han Dynasty, it can be said that no one was more professional than Qin Zhen. In fact, problems with intelligence agencies have existed in all dynasties, but due to limitations in resources and needs, the intelligence agencies of each dynasty have been different. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, judges were appointed to be in charge of state espionage. Until the Warring States Period, when the countries were separated, the habit of supporting scholars led to the rapid development of intelligence agencies. By the Qin Dynasty, a specialized intelligence agency had already appeared, but its name was unclear, so later generations invented a Black Ice Platform. The first intelligence organization with a name in the true sense was the Embroidered Uniform Law Enforcement Organization, which was established during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han to suppress peasant uprisings. In the history of intelligence, Lao Cao pioneered the school affairs system, which was considered to be the first spy agency. Since Cao Cao founded the school, intelligence organizations in each dynasty have become increasingly powerful. There were Houguan in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Chashi in the Tang Dynasty, Huangchengsi in the Song Dynasty, and Jinyiwei in the Ming Dynasty. The system was gradually updated and innovated. When Qin Zhen was under Cao Cao's command, he combined school affairs with the Jinyiwei of later generations to create a comprehensive intelligence agency.

This organization is divided into three parts: the Military Department, the Internal Affairs Department, and the Foreign Affairs Department. The Military Department is similar to the patrol team in the army. Not only does it have nominal patrols, but it also has secret sentries stationed in each army to prevent its soldiers from committing crimes and collaborating with the enemy. The Internal Affairs Department established a large number of branches in their territories and continuously collected intelligence within the forces. The Foreign Affairs Department is responsible for placing intelligence personnel in various places. These people may be farmers, peddlers, or city vendors. In addition, he also has a large number of informants, ranging from high-ranking officials to peddlers. Once they obtain the information, these people will send it to the contact points outside the city through various signals, and then send someone to deliver the intelligence to Xuchang. Therefore, wherever they set up an intelligence point, Lao Cao could receive the news at the fastest speed. The reason why he was able to escape from Cao Cao before was because he had prepared a way to escape in advance; Another reason is that he has the inside information of Lao Cao's intelligence agency and can use it to release various false information. Otherwise, based on his identity, he would probably have been caught before he could escape Yingchuan. And now, in his opinion, Liu Bei's intelligence organization is as good as nothing! If you have to take the initiative to find out any information yourself, then the role of this intelligence organization will be greatly reduced. After learning the details, Qin Zhen called Zhuge Liang and Liu Ye over and worked with Jian Yong to formulate a new intelligence organization structure. It is true that three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang, not to mention that Zhuge Liang is right in front of you, so the efficiency is naturally extremely high. In just one day, a new intelligence organization - the Inspectorate - was born. This Supervisory Office was similar to the institution established by Qin Zhen before. It also combined the intelligence experience of later generations, with the Supervisory Office as the intelligence center and one Chief Supervisory Envoy and two Deputy Supervisory Envoys. Under the command of the Inspector General, there are six departments: inspection, review, espionage, inspection, secret service, and interrogation. Each department has a chief and deputy inspector. Compared with the three departments set up by Qin Zhen before, he added three more departments: investigation, inspection, and interrogation. Chashi is naturally similar to the existence of disciplinary inspection, which is specifically responsible for monitoring corruption in various departments and is directly responsible to Liu Bei. Patrols are set up to target enemy spies, and are specifically designed to patrol each city to prevent enemy spies from infiltrating! Interrogation, as the name suggests, is a special interrogation department that is added to be responsible for interrogating the people under investigation and reported. The candidates for the intelligence organization, except for their spy camp, are all selected from the military.

After this was decided, Qin Zhen brought the organizational structure to the mansion for Liu Bei to see, and recommended two people to Liu Bei. These two people were Dong Qian, a former retainer and adviser to Liu Xun, and Zhou Tiao, a minor official. After Liu Xun was defeated, the two men joined Qin Zhen as minor military officials. However, after observing for a period of time, Qin Zhen discovered that Dong Qian and Zhou Tiao were very careful and were good candidates for being intelligence officers, but he had never had the time to employ them before. Now that we have started to build an intelligence agency, it is natural that we need to employ people. After Liu Bei looked at the structure of the intelligence organization, he met Dong Qian again and was quite satisfied, but he was also a little worried. "I have seen the idea of ​​setting up an inspection department, it is indeed feasible!" "But after this unit is established, I'm afraid everyone in my army will be afraid of it!" As a ruler, he naturally hopes to find out the detailed situation of his subordinates. But he doesn't like to be suspicious of his subordinates, and he is also afraid that his subordinates will become disloyal. When he saw that the departments set up by Qin Zhen included inspection and review departments to monitor his own people, he worried that it would cause dissatisfaction among his subordinates. After all, the school affairs established by Lao Cao did not have a very good reputation. In Cao's army, there was even a saying: "I am not afraid of Cao Gong, but I am afraid of Lu Hong. Lu Hong is okay, but Zhao Da will kill me." This shows the fear of his generals. If he sets up such an institution, will it affect the opinions of his subjects? When Qin Zhen heard this, he knew what Liu Bei was thinking, so he said to him: "I know that you are kind and merciful, and do not want to be suspicious, but in troubled times, severe punishments are needed!" "The people currently in charge of our army, such as Liu Yuanying, Yuan Yaoqing, Sun Gongyou and others, are all honest people, so there is no need to worry." "But now our army spans five prefectures and more than sixty counties, and there is no guarantee that all the people we recruit are honest and can be used." "It is important to know that it is not easy for our army to gain a reputation for benevolence. For example, the actions of the inspectors inspecting the counties are bound to lead to corruption, which may cause the officials under their command to commit crimes." "My Lord, now that the affairs of the prefectures and counties are complicated and it is difficult to see the suffering of the people, you must set up a supervisory department to ensure the integrity of the lower levels." "I don't ask you to take even a grain of rice, I just hope they won't damage the reputation of our army!" "If not, we live here, and I don't know what the lower-level officials will do. If this continues, it will become a big problem!" Although their territory is not particularly large now, the Central Plains is densely populated and the population under their command has exceeded million. As power grows, it will inevitably be gradually decentralized. They can guarantee the integrity and efficiency of upper-level officials, but they cannot guarantee the same for lower-level officials. As the saying goes, a prefect who wipes out a family, a county magistrate who ruins a family, this is no joke. There are so many refugees now, if the government cooperates with the gentry to hide the population, it will lead to their power becoming weaker and weaker. Therefore, while intelligence is important, supervision is equally important. We should do a good job of supervision now, and wait until the overall situation is stabilized in the future, so that we can rely on this force to fight corruption and check and balance the aristocracy. Liu Bei listened to his words, thought for a moment, and then nodded: "The military advisor is right. The system of inspectors and county inspectors is indeed outdated. Setting up this department is the right thing to do." If Qin Zhen used other reasons, Lao Liu might have something to say, but when it came to the Inspector's county inspection, he was speechless.

Because the Inspector had indeed lost his proper functions. Otherwise, Liu Bei would not have whipped the Inspector in anger. With Liu Bei's nod, the Supervisory Office under his command was officially established. In order to ensure the smooth establishment of the Supervisory Office, Qin Zhen personally served as the first Supervisory Commissioner, with Jian Yong and Dong Qian serving as Deputy Supervisory Commissioners respectively. Under his command, a large amount of resources were invested in it. Jian Yong was responsible for sending spies to major cities to set up intelligence networks. Dong Qian was responsible for recruiting and selecting personnel and establishing an internal intelligence network. Qin Zhen used the newly established inspection department to begin clearing out spies in Shouchun. Years of intelligence work have given him an extremely sharp eye. He can tell whether ordinary spies, such as those sent by Yuan Shao, Sun Ce, Lu Bu and others, are genuine or fake with just one glance. The only difficulty was the spies of Cao's army. These people had received spy education from Qin Zhen and would blend into the homes of refugees and ministers. In response to this, Qin Zhen did not conduct a large-scale investigation, but instead first investigated the workers in the workshops. It would have been better if he hadn't investigated. Once he did, he found that Shouchun had been infiltrated by Lao Cao's spies. Almost every workshop’s peripheral personnel are spies of Cao’s army. In the first round of investigation alone, Qin Zhen arrested more than 20 people, including assassins and assassins. This result not only shocked Old Liu, but also Qin Zhen. I thought to myself, Guo Jia, you are such a mean guy. You just sent some spies to get information and steal some technical tips. What's the meaning of arranging assassins and death squads here? Are you planning to assassinate Lao Liu, or me? We were good brothers before! Therefore, after discovering this, Qin Zhen arrested these spies and interrogated them one by one. In this era, torture still used various sticks, but Qin Zhen's interrogation was different. He used various punishments such as water torture and the tiger bench. Eventually, more than seventy spies lurking in Shouchun City were arrested and brought to justice. Among them were not only servants from the mansions of various high-ranking officials, but there were also spies infiltrated into Liu Bei's mansion. Only Qin Zhen was spared because there were not many servants in the mansion. After knowing this, every high-ranking official who discovered the spy came to Liu Bei to apologize. Liu Bei tried to comfort them one by one, saying that it was okay as long as the person was captured. Having said this, he became quite fearful in his heart, and thus secretly strengthened the defenses in the city. On the other hand, after the news of Qin Zhen's inspection reached Xuchang, Guo Jia sighed and reported the news to Cao Cao: "Now Qin Zixuan has personally established the Supervisory Office to patrol and eliminate our spies. It will be difficult to get news from Shouchun in the future!" When Cao Cao heard this, he also sighed, thinking that Qin Zhen was becoming more and more ruthless! All kinds of conspiracies and intrigues are fine, but now all the spies hidden in Shouchun have been busted. But he had no way to deal with it because Qin Zhen was an intelligence expert. If Qin Zhen wanted to sow discord, unless Guo Jia arranged it personally, with all the intelligence personnel under his command, who could be a match for Qin Zhen? While thinking, he sighed to Guo Jia as usual: "If I had known this, I should have followed Cheng Zhongde's advice and assassinated him first. Even if it was impossible, I should have tried it." "Now they are all unused, what a pity!"

In fact, those assassins and death squads were not sent by Guo Jia, but Cheng Yu wrote a letter to Cao to give suggestions. Ever since Qin Zhen escaped that day, Cheng Yu has never given up the intention to kill Qin Zhen. So after learning that Qin Zhen had joined Liu Bei's army, Cheng Yu wrote to Cao Cao: "I heard that Qin Zhen has joined Liu Bei's army. He will become a threat to our army in the long run!" "He is a skilled soldier, and it is difficult to capture him. We might as well send someone to kill him, and perhaps we can get rid of him once and for all." Upon seeing this, Cao Cao personally selected assassins and swordsmen from his own army to go to Shouchun to hide. It's a pity that he was very cautious in defending himself. Since his identity was exposed, he was basically driven around by cars. Even when he went out, he was accompanied by a group of guards, which resulted in them never having a chance. Unexpectedly, before the opportunity came, these people were wiped out by Qin Zhen. You have to know that these death warriors are extremely valuable and require a lot of money to train. One less death means one less. If you act directly regardless of whether there is an opportunity or not, at least you can create opportunities! Now that he had been captured and wiped out by Qin Zhen, even Cao Cao felt a little painful. When Guo Jia heard this, he secretly thought that if Qin Zhen was so easy to kill, he would have died in Yingchuan long ago. Cheng Yu’s idea was good, but assassination was ultimately an inferior method. After thinking about it secretly for a while, he asked Cao Cao for instructions. Now that Qin Zhen was being held tightly under his control, he planned to temporarily withdraw the spies around Shouchun. After hesitating for a long time, Cao Cao decided to withdraw the spies around Shouchun first. Otherwise, if they are taken down by Qin Zhen again, they will suffer a great loss! With his order, a large number of spies from around Shouchun were evacuated. At the same time, spies from various families left one after another. Suddenly, Shouchun City was clean and no longer as leaky as before. Time has come to July, and Shouchun City has also welcomed two happy events. The first one was that under Hua Tuo's treatment, Liu Bei's wives Mi and Gan both became pregnant; The second thing is that a man named Qin in Shouchun City has ushered in his second spring and is finally going to marry Erqiao home. (End of this chapter)