Recap / Guangdong Hyperwar

Guangdong Recap:
Index | Suzuki's Guangdong | Yasuda Crisis | Sony's Guangdong | Matsushita's Guangdong | Fujitsu's Guangdong | Lam Haau-cyun's Flashbacks | Opium Trade War | Hitachi Coup | Hitachi's Guangdong | Flavor Events | General Oil Crisis and Guangdong Riots | Imperial Japanese Army's Guangdong

Another day at the office.

"As he struggled to right himself and recover from the shock, fellow workers rushing towards him, he saw the powder. Pouches upon pouches of it, just in that one box, the reddish-brown of congealed blood. Raw opium."

Beneath the neon city lights of Guangdong, a shadow war is being conducted between the Yakuza and the Triads. Murder, extortion, and bribery are carried out by both sides to circumvent the other and trade an illegal drug that has plagued China for centuries: opium. However, not all are content to sit back and let this conflict continue to destroy so many lives. Spearheading the effort to dismantle it is Sergeant Kawasaki Minori, who gets a tipoff on a truck possibly carrying illicit cargo and is linked to Nakamura Yousuke, a man deeply involved in the opium trade.

From this one lead, there are three possible routes for Kawasaki to continue the investigation: a warehouse storing the Yakuza's opium, the informant's background, and a Manchurian-based company used as a front for the gangs. Under Lieutenant Ito's discretion, Kawasaki must carefully choose what leads and clues he decides to follow. If the trail goes cold, the investigation can no longer advance and the case must be closed.

The first route uncovers strong evidence of the Yakuza racketeering opium domestically and internationally. This is further proven when Sergeant Obake leads a strike team on a second Yakuza hideout, getting shot at and finding even more incriminating proof of their drug operations. With the criminal nature of the Yakuza no longer in question, a judge declares anyone involved guilty and sentenced to the maximum possible punishment. The second route makes a similar discovery with Triad operations illicitly importing drugs into Guangdong internationally, especially from the Republic of China. When several of these smugglers are caught red-handed, a court declares all the participating kingpins guilty.

The final route unearths an even more interesting development. The Guangdong police find out that the Kenpeitai have been participating in the opium trade, working with the Yakuza to distribute their products. If caught and specifically persecuted in a court of law, the Kenpeitai's legitimacy will forever be tarnished.

No matter how the situation develops, Miyazaki Kiyotaka will not be pleased that the Kenpeitai's drug operations have been compromised, especially in the scenario where they are definitively proven guilty. In his office, Miyazaki phones his Manchurian allies to recover from the setback and bring the Kenpeitai back into the forefront of Guangdong.

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This event chain provides examples of:

• Alternative Character Interpretation: In-universe during the live court trial of the Yakuza's drug ring. When Hashimoto Izaya, the first person accused of ties to the Yakuza, is introduced, the broadcaster comments on his displeased look, raising the question if it's because he's remorseful or because he's angry at being exposed.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • An opium delivery in the early morning hours of Tak Shing Street gets ambushed from assailants from both sides of the street, starting a bloody firefight that gets some residents in the buildings get killed. The opium dealer isn't sure if the people he killed were the attackers or innocent bystanders, but doesn't particularly kill, so long as he gets out of there with the goods.
  • At a border checkpoint, a Chinese immigrant is interrogated about possessing contraband or illegal drugs, so the guard has to search him and calls up five policemen when the immigrant hesitates to do so. The reluctance of the immigrant to cooperate raises suspicions, but it is not clarified if he really is an innocent man or a smuggler like the guards think he is.
• Armor-Piercing Response: The arrested Kenpeitai officer shows contempt of court by ignoring the judge's order and claims that they have no authority to charge him because they betrayed the Emperor for profit, demanding a more lenient trial by the peers instead. The judge coldly points out that his so-called peers were the ones who handed him to his court, riling the officer into delivering a Spiteful Spit at him.
• Beyond Redemption: If the Yakuza are directly prosecuted, the judge will be so disgusted by their crimes that he deems them beyond forgiveness and condemns them to the maximum possible sentence.
• Blatant Lies: When a stop and search uncovers a bag of opium, the carrier tries to lie that it's baby powder. The interrogator points out that it's brown, so the suspect contradicts his own story by claiming that it's mixed with chocolate and going to be fed to his niece. Nobody falls for it and the suspect finally confesses when he realizes he's trapped himself in a corner.
• Call-Back: In an early event, a police officer gets kidnapped and killed by Yakuza gangsters while investigating the apartment they use to smuggle opium. If this apartment is raided in a later event, the officer's decaying corpse will be found.
• Category Traitor: A Chinese man caught smuggling opium is questioned and the interrogators make a point to pressure him with his English name, which he adopted while living in British Hong Kong.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: A certain route of choices is required to successfully dismantle the opium trade or prove the Kenpeitai's corruption. Achieving either of these goals may be key to foiling the Hitachi Coup that follows this event chain, specifically by convincing the Kenpeitai and the Army to lose confidence in Komai's scheme and plug support from it, thereby diminishing Hitachi's influence.
• Commercial Break Cliffhanger: Exploited when the Yakuza are being tried in court and the presenter demands a cut to commercials when things go awry on the scene.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The Kenpeitai officer, who can get caught for working with the Yakuza, wears a trenchcoat while discreetly giving instructions on the opium drop-off point.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front:
  • Apartment businesses are used as a front by the gangs to conduct their secret opium trade.
  • The Nurhaci Export and Logistics Concern is a distribution company based in Xinjing and used as a front by the Yakuza to manage their opium trade. More significantly, it reveals that the opium trade is an international ring, based in both Guangdong and Manchuria.
• Crazy-Prepared: If they've kidnapped Yakuza thugs to be trialed, the Police take every measure to ensure that they are not interrupted, setting up defenses in the court, closing the roads, setting up numerous police escorts and Kenpeitai oversight.
• Defiant to the End:
  • If a court trial is held against the Kenpeitai officer caught smuggling opium, he will show open contempt of court, insulting the legitimacy of the prosecution and spitefully spitting on the judge.
  • Alternatively, if the Yakuza are tried, one of the defendants will be outraged at being given the most severe possible sentence and savagely launches himself at the judge in fury. Fortunately, the bailiffs restrain him before anything more can happen.
• Despair Event Horizon: If Kawasaki's investigation goes cold with zero leads to follow, he will be left in abject despair and grief over his failure, wondering how he could've salvaged the situation and dejectedly observing his office as a monument to his failure.
• Developer's Foresight: The tabloid published after the Kenpeitai's exposure will mention the Police Commissioner's desire to sweep through the organization's corruption, with the name either being Tsuchida Kuniyasu or Ōmori Kan, depending on who's in charge.
• Dramatic Irony: If Kawasaki observes the docks, the Yakuza and Kenpeitai member exchanging details of an opium delivery bicker among themselves. They warn each other not to squeal and the Kenpeitai officer boasts that he is not like the "amateurs" in the police force, completely unaware that they are already being spied on and tagged.
• False Reassurance: Giving instructions to his subordinates on a walkie-talkie, Lieutenant Ito assures them that there is no need to worry about engaging the Yakuza, since most of their members would not publicly start a firefight, so they should just focus on acting tough. However, Ito knows that this is no guarantee and sits in silent worry and doubt, until he receives confirmation that the Yakuza members have been arrested.
• Five Stages of Grief: The five stages of grief are used symbolically to describe a potential police raid of the truck carrying opium. At first, the drivers vehemently deny any criminal activity. Next, the suspects furiously demand the police to show search warrants before rummaging through their belongings. Then, they attempt to bargain with the cops, telling a sob story about needing money for a disabled aunt or vehicle insurance. Depression, however, was replaced with a fist fight that the police easily won, though acceptance emerged when the gangsters surrendered and revealed the truck had already unloaded its cargo at a different warehouse.
• Heel–Face Turn: Averted, if Kawasaki raids the warehouse front and tries to investigate the source behind the opium. During his investigation, Kawasaki notes how the Yakuza will likely not use the places marked in their books and recorded by the police, but not because they're going to turn a new leaf; it would just be pragmatic to switch locations every once in a while.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Opium drop offs are disguised as routine deliveries that most onlookers wouldn't even suspect. The only way someone would know is if the deliverer contacts someone on where to pick it up.
• Horrible Housing:
  • An apartment used by the Yakuza is part of a complex full of tiny apartments, with a dimly lit stairwell that violates building regulations. The apartment itself has trash bags left outside of it, a testament to its poverty.
  • A Yakuza safehouse can be raided by the police, which is crammed with so much furniture and opium that Kawasaki and his team have to scurry about and move objects to get about. They even repeatedly bump into one another while trying to collect evidence on where the opium is going.
  • Another Yakuza hideout is full of narcotics, ripped shelves, and soiled clothes.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: If Kawasaki discovers the Yakuza using a Manchurian company to ship their opium, he calls the Kenpeitai captain to inquire about a possible international ring of drugs being shipped to Guangdong. The captain tries to shrug it off as the Yakuza working with Southeast Asian criminal organizations and using fake labels to hide their trail, mentioning that he's unaware of any opium smuggling routes from Manchuria. The only way to not come up to a dead end is to point out that Kawasaki never said anything about Manchuria, hinting at the Kenpeitai's dishonesty and ties to the opium trade.
• It's What I Do: Exploited. After getting a lead to a possible drug operation by Nakamura Yousuke, Kawasaki thanks the informant as he's let go. The informant returns the sentiment and remarks that he's just doing his part for the community. However, Kawasaki highly suspects that Makamura is being disingenuous with the gesture, thinking that he gave the tip as part of a grander scheme.
• Jerkass Has a Point: If the Kenpeitai officer participating in the opium trade is directly prosecuted, a tabloid will jump on the topic, spreading juicy headlines about the organization engaging in corrupt practices. While attention-seeking, their accusations are legitimate.
• Kick the Dog: When Kawasaki and Ito are invited to Yip's funeral, they bemoan how the funeral will be in Cantonese and mock Yip by claiming there is no word for "backup" or "common sense" in Cantonese. They can further rub it in if Kawasaki uses Yip's death to insult Chinese people as stupid and cites the egregious smuggling across their checkpoints as "proof".
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • If the Kenpeitai are exposed as participants in the opium trade, Miyazaki will have to phone his partners in Xinjing and beg for their help in cleaning up the mess, even when it means getting insulted by them for his failure.
  • After tracking down an opium operation in an apartment the police run into armed Yakuza thugs and start a skirmish. Most of the Yakuza members violently resist, sacrificing their lives or getting injured, but one member chooses to surrender, placing his hands on his head when the gunfight ends.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After years of committing murders across Guangdong to keep up their drug trade, the kingpins can put to death themselves, if their opium smuggling operations into the country are uncovered. Kawasaki notes the irony and smiles to himself about it.
• Mood Whiplash: If the smuggling routes are directly targeted and the drug kingpins are proven guilty, Kawasaki will celebrate the good news and his promotion with his wife, seemingly ending the subplot on a happy note. Unfortunately, matters get suddenly depressing when Kawasaki's wife calls the nearby Chinese maid a "bitch" and threatens to send her to a whorehouse, if she doesn't work faster.
• Multiple Identity IDs: The former Kenpeitai agent involved in the drug trade is named Awano, but he goes under numerous names when switching between Chinese and Japanese identities.
• No One Could Survive That!: If one of the Yakuza's hideouts are targeted for investigation, Sergeant Okabe, the leader of the raid, will get shot point-blank after shooting his own gun at the door. Okabe miraculously survives this and just has to go to the hospital, to the surprise of his fellow officers in the firefight.
• No-Sell: During the Yakuza trial, the judge will nearly be attacked by one of the defendants for being given the maximum sentence. However, the judge is completely unfazed by the assailant as he's being restrained by the bailiffs and he resumes his verdict as if nothing happened.
• Not Helping Your Case: If the Kenpeitai's connection to the opium trade is exposed, Miyazaki will denounce all involvement and claim that the officer caught was a rogue agent. However, a tabloid points out that this now makes him look incompetent, unable to control his subordinates and ruining his reputation anyways.
• Not Me This Time: If Kawasaki looks into how opium shipments are reaching Guangdong, he discovers a photo of a Kenpeitai officer, named Awano, helping smuggle drugs into the country. He gets instantly suspicious because Awano has multiple IDs to do jobs throughout the underworld and Kawasaki remembers Awano in some of those identities. Another Kenpeitai member tries to dismiss this as a dishonorably discharged officer who's fallen into drug problems. Surprisingly, he's actually telling the truth and taking the investigation elsewhere is key to avoiding a dead end.
• Patience Plot: After raiding a Yakuza safehouse and calling in the calvary, Kawasaki gathers enough evidence to establish a patterned, international trade of opium, but not enough to act on anything. The most he can do is patiently wait for someone to make another move and pick up from there, even if it wears on him to do so.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Most Yakuza gangsters will not shoot cops in open daylight because they want to keep their crimes discreet.
• Prank Call: Among the various calls Miyazaki gets when the Kenpeitai's opium trade ties are revealed, he is subjected to prank calls from trolls who have the influence to get his phone number.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: If the source is being investigated or the Yakuza is being directly prosecuted, the police will conduct a raid on one of their hideouts. When the Yakuza guard angrily asks for their search warrant, Sergeant Okabe responds "Right fucking here!" before shooting through the letterbox.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • While moving crates of raw opium, one of the loaders accidentally drops one of the crates and unveils the pouches of the drug, covered in congealed blood, introducing the criminal and often-violent opium wars that are waged between the Yakuza and the Triads.
  • One border guards comments on the Guangdong passport's lack of imagination, having the bare necessities of a seal and outlines of territory and government buildings, but nothing else. It befits its status as an artificial colonial state.
• Sarcasm-Blind: When Kawasaki and Ito investigate the Port Shōri warehouse and theorize it is a Yakuza front, Kawasaki comments that it is a strong possibility because "our dashing knights have been heeding the call of the king in the north". Ito is briefly confused, until he figures out that Kawasaki is talking about Manchuria, since the country has a monarchy.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • If the Kenpeitai officer and his Yakuza collaborator are caught and arrested for smuggling opium, Kawasaki may reject a prosecutor's idea of just trying the Yakuza and expand the court case to judge both organizations involved in the trade to ensure that no one escapes justice. The prosecutor himself agrees that the evidence is irrefutable to try both, but he warns about the blowback this will generate.
  • If the source is being investigated, a gangster will be caught carrying a bag of opium, but he tries to weasel out of it by offering to spill information in exchange for not being sent to prison. However, the officer can choose to reject the deal and handle things by-the-book. Notably, picking the honorable decision continues the investigation, while accepting the deal provides no further leads.
  • If the Yakuza thugs are brought to court, the judge calls them Beyond Redemption and disregards the status of their race to deliver the maximum sentence possible.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Caught in an ambush and seeing his brother in the passenger seat killed, the driver of an opium truck pushes down on the accelerator to get out of there with his life.
• Smug Snake: If Kawasaki calls the Kenpeitai for information regarding a captured opium dealer, the counterpart on the other end purposely waits thirty seconds before answering the phone and smugly chuckles when Kawasaki says he needs some assistance. The overconfidence may prove to be his undoing when he accidentally leaks that Manchuria is behind the opium trade.
• The Social Expert: The judge sentencing the Yakuza members has been in the position for twenty years and seen the worst in humanity. He's observed that people often look disheveled, even if they try to present themselves otherwise, when give a sentence.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Kawasaki can lead a raid on a junkyard outside of Kowloon, capturing most of the low-level criminals working there, but failing to catch the cargo or any material evidence, besides a shipping label indicating the opium is coming from a small warehouse from Port Shōri. However, Kawasaki deduces that the opium supply is too large to come from the warehouse or even Guangdong itself, taking the first steps to realizing that it's coming outside the country: Manchuria. Following up on this, Kawasaki unravels that the shipping company is based in Manchuria and the Manchurian government has a monopoly over opium trade within their borders, hence the sheer volume of it moving into Guangdong.
• Story Branching: There are numerous paths to take that can either lead to tangible conclusions or a dead end:
  • After receiving a tip-off on a possible truck carrying illicit drugs, Kawasaki can either send a unit to investigate or suspect the witness' intentions of a larger plan at play.
  • If the truck is raided, not much will be uncovered, besides a shipping label and reveal that the drivers had criminal backgrounds. The original cargo had been dropped off at a warehouse, in which the police can either raid it or investigate further into the source behind the larger opium trade plaguing Guangdong.
  • If the warehouse is raided and Kawasaki further inquires about the Manchurian connection to the opium trade, he can either survey the Kenpeitai HQ or a dock drop-off point to investigate. Watching the former is a dead end, but watching the latter will confirm the Kenpeitai's ties with the drug trade.
  • The source of the opium trade can also be further scrutinized for leads. The first clue found is a ledger with the address of a Yakuza hideout, the same one tipped off by the informant. The police can either raid this address or dig even further to uncover that the informant is actually a Japanese immigrant from Manchuria, not a Chinese local like he seemed to be. This leads to a second branching choice of either searching for a different clue or looking into the discrepancy, with only the latter not ending in a dead end.
  • If Kawasaki further scrutinizes the conflicting identities of the witness, the police raid a Yakuza apartment and uncover documents on how opium is being distributed across the country. From here, the investigation can be continued by either examining how these deliveries are coming in or cracking down immediately on the trade. The former discovers the Kenpeitai's involvement in the opium trade, leading to a second branching choice between dropping the case at the Kenpeitai's implorement or continuing the investigation.
• Sworn in by Oath: Anyone entering Guangdong has to give an oath acknowledging the nation's independent status.
• This Cannot Be!: When Kawasaki discovers the piling evidence of Manchurian and Kenpeitai involvement in the opium trade, he has to pause and rub his temples in disbelief, wishing that he's gone crazy and fearing the risky, but necessary action of conducting surveillance on the Kenpeitai.
• Tragic Mistake: A police officer, desperate for a promotion, thinks that he can only get fame and glory if he plays a big role in tackling the opium trade. Unfortunately, this leads him to posing as a plain-clothed officer and walking right up to a Yakuza apartment, defying his chief's warning. This results in him being kidnapped and killed for not being on the list of visitors.
• Understatement: While interrogating a Chinese man smuggling opium into the country, the cop asks him if he has any "business in the Republic". The captive mentions that he does do a little work, which the interrogator fires back as a massive understatement, noting the thousands of tons of opium he's carrying across the border.
• Volleying Insults: The opening event shows dock workers hurling insults at one another, accusing the other of sleeping around before accidentally discovering that one of the crates is filled with bags of opium.
• We Have Become Complacent: Subverted. After discovering the Kenpeitai's facilitation of the Manchurian opium trade, Kawasaki suspects that watching the Kenpeitai headquarters could yield more clues because they would arrogantly think that they are invincible and immune to spies. This turns out to be a bad call because, however smug the Kenpeitai are, they still are not stupid enough to leave any obvious clues from their front door.
• Wrong Side of the Tracks: While major central parts of the cities are landmarks are constantly active during the night, other parts are denoted by rampant darkness, a strong sign of how dangerous these parts are.

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