What kind of organization is the black room in the TV series "Chongqing Spy"?

In November 1938, the weather in Chongqing was extremely wet and cold, but Chaotianmen Pier was crowded with people. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, refugees from all over the country fled to Chongqing every day to avoid the Japanese invasion. A foreigner carrying a bulky suitcase caught the attention of the soldiers, and they began to check his documents. When the soldiers asked to check his suitcase, they were flatly refused. At this time, two men in plain clothes rushed away from the crowd. One of them took out his ID and said something in the soldier's ear. The soldier was stunned. Then, the two men led the foreigners quickly away from the pier and disappeared into the mountain city. In thick fog.

The soldiers did not know that the foreigner's suitcase contained top-secret information for deciphering codes, and that the disguised fur merchant was tasked with an important mission - to fight with the Japanese army in the mountain city of Chongqing. Intelligence agencies engage in a confusing battle of codes.

On the morning of February 18, 1938, the cryptographers of the code group were extremely busy. An hour earlier, they had intercepted more than a dozen codes sent from Chongqing to the Japanese army. These codes seemed simple and complicated. There is no pattern, leaving cryptographers with rich experience in deciphering helpless. The interception of so many passwords in a short period of time can't help but make people feel an ominous omen.

Half an hour later, nine Japanese aircraft suddenly appeared over Chongqing and began bombing. The air defense forces stationed in Chongqing immediately entered an emergency combat state. However, the intensive anti-aircraft firepower did not pose any threat to the Japanese bombers. The Japanese planes flew away after dropping more than a dozen bombs. This was the first bombing of Chongqing by the Japanese army.

So who can decipher these codes?

Wei Daming, the leader of the secret telegram team, fell into anxiety for a while. At this time, a major officer came to Wei Daming, wrote a line of small words on the paper with a pen, and handed it to Wei Daming. What was written on the note was "Yardley, the father of American cryptography". This man with a handsome face The major is Xiao Bo, deputy military attache of the Embassy in Washington.

Yardley is a native of Indiana, USA. In 1912, the 23-year-old Yardley came to Washington and became a confidential officer of the U.S. State Department, responsible for copying and deciphering some codes and documents. As the work progressed, Yardley gradually became obsessed with this job. From then on, Yardley took deciphering codes as his lifelong goal.

In 1919, Yeardley submitted a memorandum to the U.S. State Department, proposing to hire 50 cryptography experts and confidential officers to establish a cryptography organization. A few days later, both the State Department and the War Department agreed to establish such a cryptographic agency to be responsible for deciphering coded information obtained by the intelligence agencies, and the United States' "black room" was born.

Wei Daming had read the book "American Black Room" written by Yardley a few years ago, and naturally knew a little about this cryptographic genius. However, Wei Daming was also worried about whether this famous cryptographic genius could come to China to help them decipher the codes. Major Xiaobo told Wei Daming that Yardley's current life was not satisfactory and he only made a living by writing.

It turns out that as early as March 1929, the American conservative Stimson took over as Secretary of State. Two months later, the new Secretary of State discovered the "black room" plan, became furious and criticized it. In October 1939, the "American Black Room" was ordered to close by the State Department after 10 years of existence.

In May 1938, Major Shaw quietly came to the United States, found Yardley, and explained his purpose. The arrival of Major Xiaobo made him excited. He understood that the opportunity to display his deciphering talents had arrived again. Yardley knew his value. He asked for an annual salary of US$10,000, and Major Shaw happily agreed.

In September 1938, Yeardley secretly left the United States with several large boxes of information related to deciphering codes, disguised as a fur trader, and embarked on a journey to China. After two months of arduous travel, Yeardley first came to Hong Kong. In order to prevent being plotted by the Japanese, he changed his name to "Robert Osborne". In November 1938, Yeardley finally arrived in Chongqing.

From January 12 to 15, 1939, Yardley and his deciphering team intercepted a set of codes for several days in a row. This set of codes was sent from Chongqing at 6 am, noon and 6 pm every day. Sent from a secret location.

Since no Japanese typewriter could be found at the time, Yeardley copied the codes by hand. During the process of copying, Yeardley suddenly discovered that the codes had striking similarities. Yeardley discovered that these coded telegrams only used 10 Japanese letters, but Japanese has 48 letters. So, why did the Japanese army only use 10 letters and let these letters appear repeatedly?

Yardley, who had been idle all day, suddenly remembered that in order to increase the speed of sending messages, the Japanese used 10 letters with abbreviations to represent 10 numbers. Will the Japanese army do this this time? Also adopt this method? Yeardley converted all intercepted telegrams into numbers.

Yardley began to study these regular numbers carefully, and finally discovered that they were coded meteorological telegrams. Yardley speculated that the contents of the eight coded telegrams were probably about Chongqing's cloud height, visibility, wind direction, Wind speed, etc.

Who leaked the Chongqing information to the Japanese army accurately and promptly? He discovered through the direction finder that the coded telegram was sent from the south bank of Chongqing, so Yardley sent his trainees with the direction finder to secretly sneak into the Nan'an area. At 12 o'clock at noon one day, the direction finder indeed captured the signal again. This time the source of the signal was only a few hundred meters away from the searchers. Yeardley ordered the searchers to outflank the Japanese spy who sent the weather telegram.

But just after the Japanese spy was executed, Yardley intercepted a more secretive and esoteric coded telegram... Only then did Yardley realize that the spy they captured was not a master of ciphers. , the real crypto spy is still hidden in this mountain city.

At 9 a.m. on May 3, 1939, 45 medium attack aircraft of the Japanese Naval Air Force took off from Wuhan Airport and headed straight for Chongqing. According to investigation statistics, on May 3, Japanese military aircraft dropped more than 100 bombs, killing and injuring more than 1,000 people. What Yardley didn't expect was that the next day, more than 20 Japanese bombers attacked urban Chongqing again. This time, more than 5,000 people were killed or injured in the bombing. This is the famous "May 3rd" and "May 4th" bombings in Chongqing's history.

These two tragedies deeply shocked Yeardley. He blamed himself for not catching the spy who provided the password for the Japanese plane in time. He vowed to catch the mysterious spy hiding behind the scenes.

However, there was one thing that puzzled Yeardley. How did the Japanese bombers escape the intensive firepower of the Japanese air defense forces?

The bombing continued, and Yardley's deciphering work made no progress. He became depressed and depressed, and drinking and playing cards became his only pastimes. One night, Yeardley broke away from the soldiers tasked with guarding him and wandered into an inconspicuous pavilion.

The teahouse owner’s name is George McKay. He is a Eurasian and speaks fluent English. At the teahouse, through George MacKay, Yeardley met an officer called "The One-Armed Bandit," a battalion commander of the *** Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, who told Yeardley that his arm was Lost in battle.

The one-armed robber not only spoke fluent English, but also talked to Yardley about everything. Sometimes he even took Yardley to visit his artillery unit during air raids. When Yardley When asked why the anti-aircraft guns never hit the target, the "one-armed bandit" just smiled in surprise.

Only by deciphering the mysterious code can the answer be known. Yardley discovered that the intercepted passwords were all a group of four numbers, such as: 1349, 5727, 7234, and the passwords did not change much. Not only that, the intercepted password telegrams also had other characteristics: each telegram had a Each group consists of 5 English letters: mifto lofed, followed by numbers. What do these 5 different letters represent?

Yardley believed that if he could decipher the letters, he could find a way to decipher the text. Yeardley wrote down the deciphered letters in monophonic order and rearranged them. To his surprise, three words "her light grain" appeared.

Why is the result like this? Yeardley suddenly realized that the source of this new type of code that would never be repeated was probably an English novel. If he could find this novel, he could follow the clues and find the spy hidden behind the scenes.

At this time, the Technical Room of the Military Commission told him a piece of news that left him dumbfounded: During the investigation by the Technical Office of the Military Commission, there was one person who aroused their suspicion, and that was Yardley's friend. , an officer of the Japanese anti-aircraft artillery unit, the "one-armed bandit". Could it be that the "one-armed robber" is a spy hiding behind the scenes? Yeardley decided to wait for the opportunity to test the "one-armed thief".

Not long after the incident, the "one-armed robber" called Yardley and said that one of his girlfriends came to see him from Hong Kong and invited Yardley to have dinner that night. You can bring a few more friends. Yardley believed that this was a rare opportunity. The "one-armed thief" could speak fluent English. He must have a lot of English reading materials at home, and perhaps one of them contained the three deciphered words. However, trying to find these three words in so many books is like looking for a needle in a haystack. To take on such an important task?

Suddenly, a woman's figure appeared in Yardley's mind. Perhaps only she could be qualified for this important task.

This young woman is called Xu Zhen, whom Yeardley met at George MacKay's teahouse a few months ago. Xu Zhen can not only play the piano well, but also speaks English very fluently. , it is said that she once had a close relationship with Wang Jingwei.

Yardley and Xu Zhen had a very good chat together, and Xu Zhen also regarded Yardley as a close friend. Yardley found Xu Zhen and told her true intention. Yardley only asked her to find a book. Although Xu Zhen had concerns, she still agreed to Yardley.

On a Tuesday evening, Yeardley and Xu Zhen arrived at the residence of the "one-armed thief" as scheduled. The "One-Armed Thief" prepared a sumptuous dinner to entertain Yardley and Xu Zhen. Just as the "one-armed robber" raised his glass to toast Yardley, suddenly, the air raid siren sounded. The "one-armed robber" left the table, put on his military uniform, and went to perform air defense missions. Opportunity once again came to Yardley.

The sirens became louder and louder, and the lights suddenly went out. A servant brought some candles and placed them at the dining table. Yardley winked at Xu Zhen, and Xu Zhen understood and excused herself from the table. Xu Zhen sneaked into the study quietly. There were various books in the bookcase. Xu Zhen had to find the book with those three words in these books as soon as possible. She flipped through nervously. Although it was only the first 100 pages of a book, she could not miss every line. Finally, she found those three words in a book called "The Earth". "The Good Earth" is a book written by the famous American writer Pearl Buck that reflects the life of ordinary people in China in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Xu Zhen found the three words on pages 17, 18, and 19 of the book "The Earth", and these three words all had traces of strokes.

The "One-Armed Thief" is the code spy Yardley is looking for. Afterwards, Yardley and Xu Zhen quickly left the "one-armed thief"'s villa on the pretext that they had something urgent to do.

What they didn’t expect was that when Xu Zhen was searching for words in the book, a pair of gloomy eyes outside the door were always watching her every move from the crack of the door. That person was the "one-armed thief" "A servant in the house.

Yardley returned to the office and luckily borrowed the English version of "The Good Earth" from a university professor. Together with his students, Yardley began to decipher hundreds of copies of "The One-Armed Thief" Coded telegrams sent there.

The password of the "One-Armed Thief" is actually very simple. He hid the password in the book "The Earth". Both the sender and the receiver have this book. When decrypting, the person who receives the code telegram only needs to hold this book. The password can be unlocked by reading the book. He adds the number of months to the date of dispatch, the number of days, and then adding 10 to find the page number where the password is located.

The coded telegrams were deciphered one by one, and the results surprised everyone.

It turns out that the "one-armed thief" is Wang Jingwei's eyes and ears in Chongqing. He reports to Wang Jingwei every day through his hidden liaison officer in Shanghai. What shocked the decipherers even more was that some coded telegrams were sent to Chiang Kai-shek's artillery adviser Weber, who had been bribed as a spy by the Japanese army a few years ago.

After Weber received the code from the "One-Armed Bandit", he forwarded it to the Japanese air raid force. The main content of the coded telegram was to keep the Japanese bombers at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet, because the highest range of the Japanese anti-aircraft guns was 10,000 feet. ft. This was the main reason why anti-aircraft guns failed to hit during Japanese bombing raids.

The code mystery surrounding Yardley was finally solved, and the "one-armed robber" was arrested and shot soon after. After the incident, the German consultant Weber disappeared.

Under Yardley's persuasion, Xu Zhen was about to leave Chongqing and go abroad. Unfortunately, on her way to the airport, Wang Jingwei's secret agent killed her. It was Xu Zhen who exposed her identity. The servant in the house of the "One-Armed Thief". Yeardley was devastated by the news, his health deteriorated, and by this time Yeardley's true identity was an open secret.

In July 1940, Yardley left Chongqing, where he had lived for more than two years, and set out to return to China. After his long career as a codebreaker, Yeardley opened a restaurant in his hometown, but the business was bleak and he had no time to take care of it.

In 1945, he wrote his legendary experience of breaking codes in Chongqing into a book: "China's Black Room - Adventures in the Spy Sea".