Chapter 41: Cooperation
However, this matter could serve as a wake-up call to the other Executive Committee members, especially Wu De, the president of the Planning Yuan. He could certainly foresee the impact on the Planning Yuan, as the direct successor to the Planning Committee, if the “Yi Fan-Chen Ce” system were to be adopted.
Ma Qianzhu rang the doorbell at the end of the corridor. A small window immediately appeared on the iron-clad door, revealing a pair of alert eyes.
“Pass.”
He handed over his pass.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and the guard came to attention and saluted, “Hello, Chief.”
“Good, good,” he mumbled, took back his pass, and casually asked, “Is Xiao Zishan in?”
“Yes.”
Ma Qianzhu looked at the small blue-brick building in the courtyard. Xiao Zishan’s office was at the top of the second floor. If he looked down from the window, he would be able to see him—and according to his usual practice, he would definitely come over to socialize. Thinking of this, he quickened his pace to get out of his line of sight.
The General Office lounge was in the backyard of the General Office. Xiao Zishan had asked Li Xiaolü to create a landscape design, building a pavilion-style pseudo-ancient building and transplanting many flowers and trees around it—the jasmine was in full bloom, with small white flowers covering the branches, and a fragrant scent filled the air.
This was a place like a tea house, with a bright and spacious room, furnished with rattan chairs, much like the tea houses Ma Qianzhu had visited in Suzhou and Hangzhou. With a gentle breeze, it was a good place to rest and talk. However, there were no waiters here. Tea, hot water, and drinks were all readily available, neatly packaged and placed on a low cabinet. You could bring your own cup or use the ones here. There was a sink along the wall, with brushes and small packets of bleach powder provided. A piece of paper was pasted on the wall: “Please wash your tea set yourself after use!”
Ma Qianzhu made himself some tea and waited leisurely for a few minutes before Si Kaide hurried over.
“Hello, State Secretary,” he greeted. In fact, he was not very familiar with Ma Qianzhu, having only seen him a few times at the expanded meetings of the Executive Committee.
“Just call me Ma Qianzhu, Comrade Si Kaide.”
“Okay.” Si Kaide nodded. This person was about thirty years old, 175cm tall, with a standard build and a common face. According to the political appraisal of the Political Security General Bureau, this person was a chauvinist, hated Britain and the United States, and his ideal was to establish a colonial empire and enter the third industrial revolution in his lifetime. On this last point, Ma Qianzhu believed that he still had common ground with him.
Ma Qianzhu introduced the plan for the Foreign Intelligence Bureau’s deployment to him.
“…Jiang Shan’s idea is that the current deployment on the mainland should basically be a system where intelligence and commerce are handled by the same people. This can maximize the efficiency of using people, money, and materials, and avoid redundant construction.”
“You mean, a model similar to the Guangzhou Station.”
“Roughly so. But these sites may not reach the scale of the Guangzhou Station.”
“The investment and operation will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Colonial Trade, which will also be responsible for supporting the intelligence personnel. Is that what you mean?”
“Of course,” Ma Qianzhu nodded. “But I have to correct one point. Strictly speaking, all investments are provided by the Planning Yuan and the General Finance Directorate.” He smelled a hint of bargaining and quickly shot down that possibility.
“Yes,” Si Kaide nodded. “What I mean is, if our department is responsible for business operations, then the selection of these sites will have commercial considerations, not purely for intelligence gathering. Some locations may be considered important by the intelligence bureau and require a permanent post, but from a commercial perspective, these locations may not be able to generate enough profit, or even enough to maintain the operation of the site itself.”
“If there are such locations, the intelligence bureau will be solely responsible for them,” Ma Qianzhu said very directly.
“In that case, I agree to cooperate. But I hope the intelligence bureau can provide a list of the locations they wish to deploy, so that the ministry can conduct a comprehensive assessment.”
“No problem,” Ma Qianzhu said. “I will tell Jiang Shan to find you—you must keep this list of locations confidential.”
“Of course,” Si Kaide said. “I am currently drafting a report to increase the number of overseas stations. Since the intelligence bureau also has considerations in this area, we can jointly draft this report with the intelligence bureau.”
“You can discuss this matter slowly with Jiang Shan,” Ma Qianzhu said casually. “How do you plan to arrange your deployment?”
Si Kaide grinned. “The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Light Industry are also anxious about the large-scale deployment. They all want to expand the mainland market.”
Ma Qianzhu knew that this was because the silver reserves had been declining recently, and the transmigrator group’s largest source of income, the Leizhou sugar pressing season, had not yet begun. Meanwhile, the consumption of industrialization did not stop for a minute. As the main departments for earning “foreign exchange,” the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Light Industry were understandably anxious.
“We’ve discussed it. First, we’ll deploy in Jiangnan—Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. These four places have the most commercial value. Our high-quality industrial products will have a good market there. It would be best to have one or two points in Fujian as well.”
Fujian was an important production area for export porcelain. Most of the Kraak porcelain came from this region. There were also the rich local tea resources. Both were important sources of export goods. As for the transmigrator group’s own needs, kaolin and tea were much-needed resources.
Secondly, Beijing and Zhangjiakou.
“Zhangjiakou? It’s not easy to get money out of the Shanxi merchants.”
“Zhangjiakou is a major trading town for Mongolian goods. Furs and horses, doesn’t the Executive Committee want them?”
Of course they wanted them. Furs could be re-exported—Europeans had a great passion for furs. As for horses, the transmigrator group was most in need of them. Although the people in the Agricultural Committee looked down on Mongolian horses, considering them short and small, these horses were hardy and could be used as draft animals if they could get a few hundred of them. At least they were better than the slow-moving oxen. Besides, the army also had a strong demand for horses—Zhang Bolin had complained countless times that using soldiers to pull cannons instead of animals was a barbaric and backward military system.
“How do we transport the Mongolian goods? The distance from Zhangjiakou to any seaport in the interior is not short.”
“This is where the intelligence department needs to find a way. First, we need to get the generals of the garrison troops on our side, and have them handle the procedures. Otherwise, the horses can’t even get on the road. Secondly, we need to get a seaport in the northern coastal area to load the goods traded from the north onto ships nearby.”
“Are these all the deployment points considered?”
“Yes, the commercial deployment in the Jiangnan region can be denser. For example, we can also deploy in Zhenjiang and Shanghai, but for now, let’s stick to these. If there are too many points, the investment will be insufficient.”
“Very good.” Ma Qianzhu jotted down the key points in his notebook.
Si Kaide didn’t know if this “very good” was a praise for his good work or a signal to “stop here.” He coughed.
“Besides the mainland, I propose setting up a point in Macau as well.”
“There’s a… in Macau.”
“Huang Shunlong,” Si Kaide reminded him. “This person is our agent in Macau. But he is not very active in business. His business is nothing more than buying stolen goods and selling contraband. His value to us is getting smaller and smaller—he can’t satisfy Lingao’s appetite. We need a sales window that can directly face the Portuguese.”
“Isn’t there a Li Huamei acting as an agent?”
“This person,” Si Kaide said, “is very suspicious. You should know that she is probably not reliable.”
“If that’s the case, we can consider setting one up.”
“Finally, there’s the deployment in Vietnam,” he said. “Initially, it will be in Tonkin. This is the source of our rice and coal. It is very necessary to set up a trading post there.” With a trading post, there would naturally be intelligence work.
“Setting up a point in Tonkin is a major event. It will probably require the coordination of all departments. The northern court may not allow it. We must be prepared for military struggle.”
“How about we test the waters first?” Si Kaide had been planning this for a long time. Last time, Chang Shide from Leizhou had made a special trip back to Lingao to discuss this issue with him: the Leizhou Station and the Guangzhou Station were preparing to establish a trade company with Vietnam, not only mining coal in Hong Gai, but also engaging in trade activities.
It was not difficult to set up a trading post or warehouse in Tonkin. As long as there was money to be made, the small court of North Vietnam would welcome everyone to do business—many Ming merchants already had warehouses and trading companies there. The difficulty was in the coal mining in Hong Gai. This matter was more tricky. It was hard to imagine that the small court of North Vietnam would turn a blind eye to a group of strange overseas people digging for coal.
Si Kaide’s plan was that if Ma Qianzhu did not object, he would first start on a small scale in Hong Gai. Anyway, he had manpower and resources at his disposal.
“This matter still needs to be submitted to the Executive Committee for discussion. It involves foreign relations,” Ma Qianzhu said. “Tonkin is not a Southeast Asian chieftain. They have an army of hundreds of thousands. If we strain relations now, it might not be easy for us to deal with.”
A few days later, the proposal for the joint deployment of the intelligence bureau and the Ministry of Colonial Trade on the mainland was passed by the Executive Committee and then passed three readings at the Standing Committee of the Yuanlaoyuan. As for the deployment in Tonkin, the Executive Committee and the Yuanlaoyuan “passed it in principle,” agreeing that a small-scale team could be sent for a tentative deployment—on the premise of “avoiding military conflict as much as possible.”
Si Kaide felt very frustrated—colonization should be bloody. How could it be called “colonial development” without the music of cannons and muskets?
“We have to be so timid even with the Vietnamese,” he grumbled in his office, then picked up the phone. “Connect me to the Organization Department… Yes, is this the Organization Department? This is the office of the Ministry of Colonial Trade. I need to check the files of a few people… No, the transfer procedures are not being processed for now… Yes, the first one is named Bei Kai…”
Li Yan stared at the mycelium under the microscope—this was the biological laboratory of the Agricultural Committee. It was crowded with seven or eight people. A group of Ph.D.s and masters in 21st-century cutting-edge sciences like molecular biology and stem cells were all studying various practical fungi under the leadership of Huang Dashan. This was one of the two choices for people who studied biology. The other choice was to go to the biological laboratory of the Ministry of Public Health, which specialized in viruses and vaccines.
He wrote down his observation results on the clipboard—this kind of work was both boring and tedious, but fortunately, he was used to it. Following a plan had become a part of his life.
Li Yan handed the microscope to someone else and walked out of the crowded laboratory. Walking from the stuffy laboratory to the outside, the air felt incredibly fresh. He took a deep breath—compared to other places, the air at the farm was still good.
He had already received his transfer order and would be working at the Foreign Intelligence Bureau tomorrow. Working in the library, doing retrieval and translation, was too unchallenging. He was used to tedious work, but not simple work. Intelligence work was right up his alley.
Li Yan did not intend to be a 007, nor did he want to be M. He wanted to be a planner in the office. Preferably a trainer, specializing in teaching various conspiracies, tricks, and traps, as well as his beloved IEDs—although it was still doubtful whether there would be a possibility of using them.
A few days later, the first dispatched personnel training class began. The reason it was called the first class was that the students in this class were different—they were all council members who were dedicated to intelligence or trade work. They had all voluntarily submitted applications, requesting to work on the front lines on the mainland.
There were more than a dozen of them, of all shapes and sizes, with one exception—they were all male. It wasn’t that no women had submitted applications; several ladies were willing to devote themselves to this high-risk work. But after analysis, the intelligence department believed that the scope of activity for women in the Ming-controlled areas was not large, unless she was willing to mix in with the lower class society or go all out as a socialite like PIPE.
Fortunately, almost all the women in the transmigrator group had boyfriends or husbands, which saved Jiang Shan from facing excellent female agents who intended to infiltrate the inner circle of Chongzhen or the inner circle of Huang Taiji and Dorgon, preparing to lurk in the enemy’s bed through court intrigue. This was something he had always been worried about. The remaining few persistent activists also withdrew after Yu E’shui pointed out the various inconveniences of life that would be faced when conducting intelligence activities on the mainland.
“Never mind the girls, I think even these men might not be able to take the hardship,” Yu E’shui said, crossing his legs. “Everyone thinks it’s as leisurely as Guangzhou and Leizhou, with maids, concubines, and servants surrounding them—where would you find such a good deal?”
“I have to protest this. We had a very hard time in the early days of developing Leizhou!” Chen Tianxiong objected to the lumping together of Guangzhou and Leizhou. In his view, the difficulty of developing Guangzhou was much smaller than that of Leizhou. Guangzhou had the help of Gao Ju, a powerful and influential local snake, to manage things. Leizhou was developed by their own group, braving hardships and fears. How could the two be compared? Not to mention anything else, the so-called “enjoyment” of the Leizhou Station was just that everyone got a few women ahead of time. It was not at all on the same level as the living standards of the people in Guangzhou.
“Alright, let’s see if we need to eliminate anyone,” Jiang Shan said to Li Yan—the latter had just been promoted to Deputy Director of the Ming Department and concurrently Director of Intelligence Training. This director title was created by the intelligence bureau itself; the Organization Department only recognized the position of Deputy Director of the Ming Department.
“If we eliminate them now, it will be difficult to recruit again in the future,” Yu E’shui said. “Now everyone thinks that being sent abroad is like Guangzhou. Once they are sent out, they will cry foul. When they come back and talk about it, everyone will lose interest.”
“Alright, we’ll have a brief interview. We can’t take someone who is really unsuitable,” Li Yan insisted on the interview.
“Okay, as you wish.”
…
“Xu Ke—” the person in front of him was wearing a naval uniform. “You are a naval officer, and an active-duty lieutenant. Why are you here?”
“It has always been my wish to do naval military intelligence…”
“Then you have to retire first, and then come. We are under the Central Government Council system and do not accept active-duty military personnel.”
It was obviously a bit much to ask this person to retire and then come. Xu Ke blinked his eyes. “Can’t you make an exception? Don’t you need naval military intelligence personnel? The Foreign Intelligence Bureau also collects military intelligence, right?”
“That’s right, but your establishment is in the navy! If you come here, you won’t even get your salary, and the navy will count you as a deserter—”
“This problem—” Xu Ke scratched his head. The salary was not a big deal, but being a deserter was a serious problem.
“If you really want to come, you have to apply for retirement from the navy, transfer your file back to the Organization Department, and then submit an application.”
“I really want to be an intelligence officer! A naval military intelligence officer.” Xu Ke was still very insistent on his ambition. “Why don’t you help me communicate? There must be a way.”
So the telephone switchboard and transfer desk were in a flurry. Ming Qiu didn’t know how to handle this either. Logically, the navy should have its own intelligence analysis room or something similar. After some emergency consultation, it was decided that Xu Ke would work at the Foreign Intelligence Bureau as a naval military intelligence officer, considered a dispatched worker from the navy—his salary would be paid by the navy, and his allowance would be paid by the Foreign Intelligence Bureau. He would be specifically responsible for the collection and analysis of naval military intelligence at the Foreign Intelligence Bureau.
“This, is it appropriate to let the navy get a foot in the door now?” Wang Ding asked Jiang Shan in a low voice. “From the looks of the navy and the army, it’s certain that they will set up their own military intelligence bureaus in the future. They will probably each have one. Aren’t we working hard for others to reap the benefits?”
“If we’re making a wedding dress, then we’re making a wedding dress. This is cooperation. Don’t be so petty,” Jiang Shan said with a grand air. “One of the tasks of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau is to provide intelligence preparation for the army’s future continental conquest operations. It’s not inappropriate for the navy to send someone to be responsible for naval intelligence. Besides, we will have to rely on the navy for support in many of our future activities. With such a person here, won’t coordination be easier? Director Wang, we still have to look at the big picture.”
“Fine, I’ll listen to you.”
“Next—”
“Cheng Nifeng. You want to be a dispatched worker?”
“Let me be a human trafficker—I have experience in this…”
…
After a simple interview, all of them were accepted. Li Yan had them sign, take photos, and fill out forms. After the procedures were completed, Wang Ding appeared before them with a serious expression:
“The comrades here are all preparing to be dispatched to the mainland to engage in intelligence and trade activities. Some comrades will stay and work at the general bureau, but it’s inevitable that they will also have to travel on business.”