Chapter 137 Chinese Occupied Area

While Melles is easily fond of everything, Dai Li still excels in his journey to the occupied regions of China.The Japanese may have controlled major lines of communication and towns during the day, but at night they were often surrounded by armies of smugglers, pirates, local resistance, and refugees providing information and funding to the military command.In the vast majority of villages and towns, local law enforcement authorities ostensibly supported the puppet government of Wang Jingwei, but their police chiefs were often members of the military system, or they were people who knew the military system through the police training courses organized by Dai Li before the war.

Especially in East China, Dai Li had his own "Loyalty and Nation Salvation Army", whose commander relied on him for supplies and equipment.When Japanese spies learned of the presence of Nationalist troops and Western observers in the vicinity, Dai Li always got wind of it in time to move to another safe position along the coast. South of Xianxialing, Pucheng in southern Fujian, across the Zhejiang border from where Dai Li's hometown Baoan town was located, the Japanese nearly captured them.Japanese planes began bombing the town, forcing Dai Li and the others to abandon their camp and hide in a rice field under the cover of night.After the bomber flew by, Dai Li turned to Liu Zhenfang and asked him to make a suggestion to Melles, whose Chinese name is Mei Shendong.

Tell Mei Shendong that I want him to arm my 50,000 guerrillas and train them to fight the Japanese.Can he do it? ...America has much need of China—Northwest weather reports for navigation of your planes and ships at sea—Information on the intentions and actions of the Japanese—Mines in our canals and bays—We are on the coast for ships Observations - and the stations that send these intels... I have fifty thousand good people... They are selected from among those who hated the Japanese invaders the most, but they only have homemade or captured weapons, and most of them have none trained.But if we can meet your needs, then your operations are protected, and you are short-staffed.So, if my men can be armed and trained, they can not only protect your operation, but also serve China.

Melles (who rejected Dai Li's offer to give him a Chinese rank) was intrigued. Dai Li is tantamount to proposing the establishment of a Chinese guerrilla force of more than 50,000 people to be jointly commanded by China and the United States.Luthor was skeptical, advocating caution and seeking Washington's approval before conspiring with Chiang Kai-shek's notorious spy chief.But Melles believes that his order to "harass the enemy" includes this kind of mutual cooperation, and Dai Li is neither an assassin nor "a Chinese OGPU (former Soviet national political Security Bureau, also known as "GPU") head".So Mellors decided to start the project.