Chapter 1621 - The New Posting

"Before, I said there were too many radishes and too few pits. Now that the branch bases are opening up, it's actually too many pits and too few radishes." Liu Xiang shook his head and decided to make a list to organize his thoughts.

Vietnam. Looking at it now, its main function was as a coal base and rice supply depot. However, since the Grand Library had specifically provided materials on the southern war, going there would probably mean engaging in armed colonization. With the population explosion reaching this point, whether for food or fuel, the transmigrator community's demand had become a suddenly erupting black hole. The previous sentimental trade with Vietnam could no longer satisfy the Senate's stomach—or its boilers. Judging from recent issues of the "Two Journals and One Newspaper," the call for more direct measures against Vietnam was strong; phrases like "Recapture the Jiu Zhen and Ri Nan Commanderies of our Great Han Realm" appeared frequently.

Ryukyu. After reading the Grand Library's Historical Research, Liu Xiang roughly understood that this historical period was the time when the Ryukyu question—the "since ancient times" territorial issue—had originally gone wrong. The Satsuma Domain was using force to compel the Sho Dynasty to pay tribute to Satsuma and effectively control Ryukyu. From this moment forward, Japan began the process of Japanization, colonization, and localization of Ryukyu. Although Ryukyu continued professing allegiance to the Ming and later the Qing, it had actually become a Satsuma vassal.

Setting aside this fresh historical flashpoint, Ryukyu was an important maritime landmark for the Northeast Asia route in the entire East Asian region—excluding the Senate, which possessed its own charts. From the topographical map, trade ships from Fujian sailed north along the Ryukyu Islands, using islands and reefs along the way as navigation guides and supply points; it was a central hub for East Asian navigation. Controlling Ryukyu meant little to the Senate, which could navigate by charts alone, but indirectly controlling the Sino-Japanese trade routes of other maritime merchants meant monopolizing trade with Japan was just around the corner. The sulfur on several of Ryukyu's volcanic islands was also an industrial raw material the Senate urgently needed. So the goal of going to Ryukyu seemed clear as well.

However, compared to Vietnam and Guangzhou, Ryukyu was insignificant—a strategic side move. Taking it or not didn't matter much. As a long-serving local administrative official, sending him there would be "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."

"Guangzhou—" Liu Xiang began muttering again. This was the hardest to puzzle out. Speaking of Guangzhou, everyone in the Senate knew it was East Owner Guo's turf, the base of the Guang-Lei Faction. Especially with the Great World project's first phase nearing completion, this impression was only reinforced.

"Could it be a cadre rotation? To prevent any faction from becoming too powerful?" This question surfaced in Liu Xiang's mind again. Judging from the Executive Committee's consistent policy, whether it was political factions or Senators' personal political speculation, as long as they didn't cross certain lines, free activity was generally allowed. But allowing any faction or individual to become too powerful was absolutely forbidden.

From the perspective of local factions, the weakest was Hainan's "Island Faction." Even the Sanya Grand District where Engineer Wang personally presided was completely dependent on the center. As for the expatriate teams in Vietnam, Hangzhou, Jeju Island, Shandong, and Taiwan, though some possessed considerable strength, their dependence on the center remained extremely high.

Only the Guang-Lei Faction controlled the Senate's largest and most important trade gateway. Even after the Hangzhou Station opened up the Shanghai trade channel, more than seventy percent of the Senate's trade with the Great Ming still flowed through this portal. Moreover, Leizhou's sugar industry functioned as the Senate's money printing machine. Its importance was self-evident.

Personnel restructuring of the Guang-Lei Faction to prevent the tail from wagging the dog was only natural for the Executive Committee to consider.

However, this matter wasn't simple to implement. Although Liu Xiang looked forward to displaying his skills in Guangzhou, his enthusiasm quickly cooled. The situation there was different; it wasn't like Qiongshan, where a transfer order could swap out the County Office Director. If just anyone replaced Guo Yi, internal management might be straightforward—Guo Yi would never defy organizational orders—but the transfer would cause a massive shock in Guangzhou's local business circles.

Would those who frequented the Purple Brand recognize the new owner? Liu Xiang had been a local official for years and understood native mentality all too well. The philosophy of "rule by man" was truly deeply rooted. Although everyone in Guangzhou knew Guo Yi represented the "Australians," East Owner Guo's transfer—regardless of whether it was perceived as a personal "fall from grace"—would mean "governance ceasing with the person's death." Policy changing with the official was the norm. This was the 17th century, but even in the 21st century, when a street office or county changed leadership, predecessors' debts routinely went unrecognized.

Even if he took office, the silver temporarily deposited at the Purple Brand counter would probably be withdrawn within days—after all, commercial credit in this era was built on individuals, not legal entities. If this happened, leaving aside whether it constituted a major incident, it would be too embarrassing.

Of course, if Guo Yi's team could stay on, that would be ideal. But this simply wasn't something he could decide.

Not to mention internal issues, three major troubles loomed in Guangzhou Prefecture alone: the bureaucrats of Guangzhou, the Portuguese in Macau, and the Senators in Hong Kong.

The prefectural city was where the provincial bureaucrats resided. If the Senate sent people there to run an underground government or a shadow shogunate, high-ranking officials in the city would certainly not cooperate as background props like Wu Mingjin had. Guo Yi had spent years building relationships; if he left, could Liu Xiang pick them up?

Macau currently existed in a state of "legally leased land" with the Great Ming government. If they ran an underground government, should they recognize the colonial status? Emotionally speaking, they shouldn't. Although this colony differed from the "Five Ports Trading" and various land cessions extracted by the Qing—legally constituting normal land leasing—a large portion of the Senate still refused to recognize other countries' colonies on Chinese core territory, regardless of form. The call to drive out the Portuguese and reclaim Macau had always existed, and it wasn't small.

But viewed from the perspective of practical interests, Liu Xiang saw that Macau remained the most important trading port between the Senate and the Portuguese. Especially Indian goods imported by the Senate—most still came through the Portuguese channel. Driving out the Portuguese would yield no practical benefit beyond satisfying national pride. Besides, the Portuguese without a motherland were now extremely submissive to the Senate, far easier to handle than the unruly Dutch.

The most troublesome situation was actually Hong Kong. If they controlled Guangzhou, what relationship would they have with Hong Kong? Liu Xiang knew that Senators in Hong Kong intended to do something significant. However, the possibility of Hong Kong becoming the Pearl of the Orient in this timeline no longer existed. Since the Senate could rule Guangzhou directly, why use this small island at the Pearl River's mouth, scarce in resources in every regard? Occupying Hong Kong and establishing a base originally served to monitor Guangzhou. Once Guangzhou fell under Senate control, Hong Kong's value would vanish accordingly.

Currently, Hong Kong's industries had achieved a certain scale of shipbuilding development almost entirely by relying on primary labor cooperation provided by handicraftsmen backed by Guangzhou Prefecture. Beyond this, its industrial limitations were significant, and its military character strong: the few agricultural processing enterprises built by the light industry system almost entirely served the Logistics Headquarters, and they still depended on the Pearl River Delta's agricultural product supply.

In other words, current Hong Kong—apart from its function as a port—completely depended on the mainland for everything else. And the port function held no trade significance apart from being meaningful to the Navy: since they could directly rule and use various ports of Guangzhou, why bother detouring to Hong Kong?

After taking office, how would he get along with the Senators in Hong Kong? Should he propose that Hong Kong be incorporated as part of Guangzhou?

Just thinking about it made his brain hurt...

Opening the Compilation of Local Conditions, Liu Xiang decided to focus his attention on local sentiments first.

After years of Senate intervention, the economic and social structure of Guangzhou Prefecture had undergone earth-shaking changes, so the Grand Library hadn't participated in compiling the Local Conditions this time. This important social survey document was mainly compiled by the Guangzhou Station, with the Intelligence Bureau providing full data support. Precisely because the data was detailed, it suited Liu Xiang's reading habits better than the historical document compilations scraped together by the Grand Library.

Liu Xiang scanned the various data again, scribbling on paper, clustering and reclassifying at coarse granularity according to his own understanding—making it more suitable for his method of political economy analysis.

"Hmm, calculating by POPs, the situation looks like this now!" Liu Xiang followed the classification mode of Victoria among the "Paradox Four Cuties," dividing the population into major types: gentry, bureaucrats, farmers, coolies, laborers, technicians, handicraftsmen, military households, and so on. Then he pulled out a printed administrative division map of Guangzhou Prefecture and marked different areas with different tags and numbers. He busied himself for two solid hours before filling in this map—then pulled out another that was already filled in for comparison. This one was generated by a program he'd written in his spare time over recent months while studying the three "gift" documents. The processing flow was similar to the manual one; only the calculation was entirely left to the computer.

Comparing them, sure enough, considerable differences existed between the two maps...

"I'm wasting my effort!" Liu Xiang decisively abandoned the results of his two hours of work and resolved to use the computer-generated map for analysis. As for going back to check—Liu Xiang simply gave up. The laptop was already packed, and rummaging through boxes wasn't convenient now. Anyway, it was only a sea journey of slightly over 60 kilometers from Haikou to Lingao. This regular tugboat with its turtle speed would arrive by dark. However, the data had passed through his brain after all; he understood it better than just looking at the computer-processed map. Many ideas emerged at a glance.

(End of Chapter)