Chapter 1804 - Educating the Next Generation
Before leaving Lingao, Zhang Yunmi had earnestly asked Liu Xiang what serving as an administrative head was actually like in practice. She remembered only that Liu Xiang had looked profoundly troubled at the question, staring at her for an uncomfortably long while before finally formulating an answer.
"Administrative work roughly divides into civil service functions and political appointee responsibilities, though our current organizational structure and territorial scope blur this traditional distinction considerably. But one thing can be stated with absolute clarity: if someone genuinely wants to do their job well, that romantic image of 'newspaper and clear tea for a whole day'—lounging comfortably about the office—is utterly, completely impossible."
Liu Xiang had possessed no idea how to meaningfully explain the reality of governance to someone like Zhang Yunmi, who had absolutely zero practical administrative experience and relied entirely on idealistic imagination. Finally, out of sheer pedagogical helplessness, he had silently installed a maritime trade simulation management game on her laptop, then assigned her what he described as a "purely masochistic" difficulty objective: achieving "Full Maritime Trust" across a 24+2 city network.
"If you can genuinely achieve full maritime trust across twenty-six cities entirely on your own effort, you'll probably understand roughly one-tenth—one-tenth—of the actual workload facing a reasonably responsible regional administrative head," Liu Xiang had told her in a tone balanced between absolute seriousness and smug satisfaction. "I've included a very useful modifier tool for you. Even using the modifier isn't shameful, because trust relationships fundamentally can't be modified into existence through cheats. You have to earn them through competent management."
After overcoming her initial visceral aversion to the game's dated graphics and clunky interface, Zhang Yunmi had devoted virtually all her "spare time" in Hong Kong to this self-imposed challenge after departing Lingao. After roughly a month of competing obsessively against herself, she had finally managed to establish a genuinely self-sufficient small trade network across six Baltic ports without employing any modifications whatsoever—only to discover with growing horror that solving initial problems merely revealed vastly more complex troubles waiting beneath.
Winter halted agricultural production entirely, and sea ice randomly locked ports shut for unpredictable durations.
When a city's population demanded expanded fish and meat supplies, hard-earned experience dictated against simply building new fishery facilities immediately. First, lumberyards had to be expanded at distant timber production bases and hemp plantings substantially increased at dedicated hemp cultivation sites—otherwise the entire intricate industrial supply chain would catastrophically collapse under cascading shortages.
Military blockades devastated agricultural production outside city walls while simultaneously generating massive refugee populations that required emergency provisioning. Without sufficient stockpiled material reserves to weather military disasters, economic production across the entire regional trade network would suffer systemic collapse.
Facing a neatly organized stack of documents two palms high on the desk before her, Zhang Yunmi shook her head ruefully and pulled her wandering thoughts back to immediate present reality. "It really is remarkably similar!" she couldn't help thinking with grudging admiration for Liu Xiang's pedagogical instincts. "But actual administrative work is far, far more complex! There's no convenient universal data-viewing plugin like the Paradox Interface mod in real life."
Zhang Yunmi's document summaries only extracted what administrative subject each piece of correspondence concerned and what specific requirements or requests it articulated. The detailed underlying data and comprehensive situation reports had to be read and analytically processed by Liu Xiang himself. Many documents merely vaguely mentioned difficulties and stated resource requirements without properly explaining the actual operational situation on the ground. If these weren't strictly returned to authors for mandatory rewriting—requiring clear explanatory standards—then administrative personnel would have to be physically dispatched for costly in-person field investigation.
Her gaze drifted to several documents she'd deliberately separated and placed to her right. Visible disgust crossed Zhang Yunmi's face. "The submissions from these particular people keep getting stylistically uglier and more manipulative. I absolutely must tell the boss." Stretching with a lazy, completely informal motion that disregarded proper decorum, she gathered the organized document stacks under her arm and rose from her chair.
Knock! Knock! Knock! "Uncle Liu!"
"Come in!" Liu Xiang responded in a weary voice that suggested he'd been reading bureaucratic prose for far too long.
"Uncle Liu, this batch is finished and organized. The documents placed horizontally on top are completely beyond my analytical capacity to summarize." Zhang Yunmi set the substantial pile of correspondence before Liu Xiang with a plaintive, slightly helpless expression.
"Fine, let me examine them first. Copy these specific ones right here using good paper. Add a notation to this particular document, then file it properly—my private memorandum collection." Liu Xiang handed Hong Huangnan's "private official letter" directly to Zhang Yunmi without further explanation.
Equipment like photocopiers had been classified as "non-essential electronic products" from the very beginning of the transmigration enterprise. Apart from transporting a single unit to serve as a reference template for potential future manufacturing, none had been brought through the wormhole at all. Document reproduction meant either laboriously typing wax stencils in the government printing room or hand-carving steel plate duplicators. When particularly important documents with extremely restricted circulation required archiving, secure backup copies, or confidential distribution to other officials, genuine old-fashioned "hand-copying" remained the only viable option. And meticulous transcription of classified correspondence between Senators could only be performed by "politically trustworthy" personnel—such as life secretaries bound by absolute personal loyalty to their Senator patrons, or, even more extravagantly secure, by the Senators themselves.
"What the absolute hell is even written here!" Liu Xiang opened one of the problematic documents Zhang Yunmi had flagged as "beyond normal handling capacity." The elaborately structured four-six parallel prose format immediately assaulted his eyes with its ornate classical pretensions—and that was before he'd even attempted to parse the actual semantic content.
Examining it with painful care, he counted over four hundred meticulously brushed characters. Excluding approximately twenty to thirty "artistic characters" whose overly elaborate calligraphic forms completely defied practical identification, the remaining marginally readable classical text labored to express essentially this: rare snow had fallen across Guangzhou Prefecture last winter, which the local gentry interpreted as an auspicious celestial sign of Heaven and Earth celebrating the triumphant return of the Great Song Dynasty to rightful governance. Yet this same providential snow had severely disrupted normal peasant daily life and agricultural rhythms. The rural populace lacked sufficient stored grain reserves while simultaneously bearing the burden of providing "Reasonable Burden" taxation to support military operations. The locality therefore respectfully petitioned for complete tax exemption during the approaching summer harvest season.
Liu Xiang expended considerable mental effort laboriously "deciphering" even this superficial paraphrased meaning, but his experienced political instincts sensed something deliberately concealed beneath the florid surface. Certain specific word choices and classical literary allusions felt jarringly, conspicuously inappropriate for their ostensible context.
For instance, when praising the recently distributed government-supplied farm tools as exceptionally easy to use, the text employed the peculiar phrase "Labor of bending the body, undertaken by women and children, looking up to the beauty (mei) of the plow." Ordinary grammatical and semantic logic absolutely demanded the character for "benefit" or "advantage" (li), and whether judged by direct meaning or by classical rhyme scheme and tonal pattern conventions, mei (beauty) simply should not have appeared in that syntactic position—yet there it was, glaringly deliberate.
Liu Xiang paused, analyzed the pattern more systematically, and suddenly recognized the embedded trick.
"After everything, they're still playing elaborate 'hidden tail character poems' games with official administrative documents!" Liu Xiang couldn't suppress a bark of surprised laughter, startling Zhang Yunmi into glancing up from her transcription work in bewildered confusion.
"Teacher Liu—what's going on? What did you find?"
Liu Xiang's particular pedagogical instincts activated instantly, like a reflex he couldn't control even if he wanted to.
"This ornate document ostensibly from Xinning County reports that the local landlord class has collectively organized a formal petition, politely requesting that we 'practice benevolent government in the manner of sage rulers' and grant exemption from summer harvest taxation. Their explicitly stated justifications are, first, that it actually snowed last winter—highly unusual for this region—and second, that they already paid a substantial round of 'Reasonable Burden' contributions under the previous ad hoc system." Liu Xiang methodically explained the surface-level reasoning first. "But that's not the genuinely interesting point. The real message is encoded here." He indicated specific characters positioned at the ends of certain lines, deliberately skipping exactly two lines between each selected example.
"Mei (beauty), Qin (celery), Yu (desire), Xian (present), Tai (great), Shou (governor)..." Zhang Yunmi obediently followed Liu Xiang's indicating finger, silently reciting the sequence of characters, then stared up at him with wide eyes flickering with complete incomprehension.
Liu Xiang's natural urge to deliver an impressive lecture surged to maximum intensity.
"The classical phrase 'Mei Qin' (Beautiful Celery) originates from the Liezi, specifically the chapter titled Yang Zhu. In its original philosophical context, it meant that a gift, though materially meager as the proverbial goose feathers, nonetheless represents profound sincere intention and respect. But when deliberately applied to us as supposed 'righteous descendants of the Great Song Dynasty,' it carries an entirely different coded meaning." Liu Xiang paused for dramatic pedagogical effect. "To save the tottering Song Dynasty from catastrophic collapse, the famous poet-general Xin Qiji once composed an elaborate policy essay titled 'Ten Presentations of Beautiful Celery.' The educated person who crafted this document is explicitly comparing himself to Xin Qiji, a loyal official offering sophisticated strategic counsel to new rulers—he wants to climb the political advancement ladder by demonstrating his classical erudition and administrative utility!"
Zhang Yunmi frowned, genuinely puzzled now. The acting director of the Xinning County administrative office—naturalized cadres currently served as acting county magistrates pending permanent appointments—was a naturalized citizen whom she distinctly recalled as possessing a former rich peasant class background from Chengmai County. Though his previous routine administrative correspondence had exhibited numerous problems with proper formatting and bureaucratic style, nothing had ever approached this level of elaborate parallel prose sophistication. That rough-mannered fellow simply lacked the deep cultural classical foundation necessary for such literary gymnastics.
When she raised this obvious contradiction as a question, Liu Xiang merely sighed with evident political weariness: "The counterattack strategies and subtle infiltration methods employed by the old entrenched class forces truly exceed our initial operational expectations!" But after releasing that heavy sigh, he offered no further elaboration, simply burying his head in examining the next document awaiting his attention.
Zhang Yunmi was left mentally holding a head absolutely full of unanswered question marks. Observing that Liu Xiang seemed genuinely disinclined to elaborate further on the political implications, she prudently didn't press the sensitive issue, returning instead to her laborious transcription work.
Zhang Yunmi resumed meticulous copying, and Liu Xiang continued systematically processing documents. In truth, the elaborate parallel prose mystery had been merely a brief intellectual amusement; the Political Security Bureau had already confidentially notified him of the specific underlying situation and the individuals involved. Liu Xiang was currently awaiting the conclusion of more thorough covert investigation before he could authoritatively set the political tone for subsequent administrative action. But that was tomorrow's concern; far more immediately pressing practical matters demanded urgent attention today.
The most critical priority was naturally the imminent new currency issuance. Fortunately, now that several genuinely capable senior officers from Wudaokou had finally arrived to directly manage the complex technical effort, Liu Xiang needed only to provide administrative support and ensure governmental cooperation. Ultimate decision-making authority for the currency transition resided with Chen Ce and his specialized Finance and Economics team.
Next in urgency came comprehensive urban governance reform. This work involved a thousand tangled threads and was exceedingly far from simple execution. An entire heap of serious structural issues remained fundamentally unresolved, but at least the municipal police force had been successfully assembled and trained, and grassroots neighborhood governance systems were beginning to show initial encouraging results.
For Liu Xiang's administrative vision, the police apparatus represented the absolutely critical institutional network through which the Senate's policy directives could penetrate deep into Guangzhou's complex grassroots social fabric. Nearly all significant civil administrative functions had to be executed practically through the police system and the nested baojia household registration system operating under direct police management and supervision. The police actually bore operational responsibility for gathering essential baseline social intelligence and popular sentiment as well.
Therefore, Guangzhou's emerging municipal administration model was fundamentally structured as "administrative policing"—civilian governance implemented through law enforcement infrastructure. And the upcoming major initiative of "comprehensive rectification of the prostitution industry" represented yet another substantial undertaking that would fall primarily under police operational jurisdiction.
As Liu Xiang was mentally considering exactly how to frame specific work assignments in his upcoming discussion with Police Chief Mu Min, Zhang Yunmi suddenly asked with careful casualness: "Uncle Liu, is the sensitive matter you and the other officials have been discussing recently about systematically organizing and regulating Guangzhou's brothel districts?"
Liu Xiang visibly started, caught off guard. Though this particular policy matter hadn't been specifically concealed from Zhang Yunmi's awareness in her secretarial capacity, he had deliberately never discussed it directly with her in any detail. After all, the subject was inherently somewhat awkward and potentially offensive when discussed between a male superior and female subordinate.
"Indeed it is," he confirmed simply.
"I have a question I've been wanting to ask. Since we formally entered the city and established administrative control, there have been literally a thousand urgent matters competing for attention and limited resources. Surely many critical governance issues are considerably more urgent than comprehensively rectifying brothels and systematically registering prostitutes? So why deliberately start major reform initiatives with this particular industry?"
Liu Xiang coughed, buying a moment to formulate a pedagogically useful response. "That's actually an excellent practical question about administrative prioritization strategy. Let me test your analytical thinking first—why do you think we chose this specific issue as our initial institutional entry point for comprehensive urban reform?"
"If you claim it's primarily motivated by women's liberation ideology and gender equality principles, I don't think that's entirely accurate as the core driver," Zhang Yunmi replied with a slight knowing smile. "Is it fundamentally about expanding the city government's fiscal revenue base through taxation and licensing fees?"
Liu Xiang nodded with genuine approval at her pragmatic instinct. "That's certainly one significant reason, yes."
"And the second reason?"
"We came to Guangzhou ostensibly to perform conventional administrative governance work. But in fundamental truth, we're engaged in the far more profound work of social revolution." Seeing Zhang Yunmi's expression begin to shift into an eye-rolling "here we go with the revolutionary rhetoric again" look of barely concealed complaint, Liu Xiang recognized with mild dismay that the intensive political education curriculum at the Transmigrator Academy apparently hadn't quite taken deep ideological root in this particular student.
(End of Chapter)