Chapter 43: Ming-ification

To enhance the practical experience, a visit to the county yamen was also organized—except for the inner yamen, they toured the entire place, with a yamen runner providing a special explanation at each stop.

Master Wang Zhaomin was also occasionally invited to hold “symposiums.” He was on a higher level than the “reformed” yamen runners and clerks, and his status was more delicate. To prevent him from becoming suspicious and unwilling to speak in depth when facing a large group of people, Xiong Buyou usually invited him to the office for a chat under the pretext of “drinking tea and wine.”

A small courtyard was set up in the county office, slightly tidied up and repaired, with some flowers and trees. The environment was quite elegant. It was specially used for liaising with the county officials. The atmosphere here was relaxed and the environment was quiet, making it convenient for conversation. To foster relationships, the county office also held occasional tea parties and banquets here.

Master Wang’s “lectures” were held here. However, he didn’t know he had this “honor.” While he was having a lively conversation with Xiong Buyou, he was actually surrounded by people—this place had been specially modified. It seemed that there was no one around, but in fact, the trainees were all sitting in a dark room listening to their chat.

Master Wang was very willing to come to the county office for recreation and chat. Originally, he was bored sitting in the county yamen—Lingao was a place with “light business,” and with the Australians constantly intervening in county affairs, he had nothing much to do besides “following orders” to circulate official documents and write official documents for the county. Moreover, the simple court established by the Australians had taken away a large part of the master’s main business of “criminal law.”

Now that someone was inviting him for a chat, Wang Zhaomin naturally came every time he was invited, drank every time he came, and then held forth with a lively conversation. So much so that Xiong Buyou had to prepare the topic of conversation in advance each time, to prevent his conversation from becoming boundless when his enthusiasm was up.

But the content of his casual chat was very valuable to the transmigrators. As a master, his observation and understanding of the officialdom were deeper and more comprehensive than those of the clerks and yamen runners. And masters traveled far and wide, were well-informed, and had a much broader perspective than the yamen runners and clerks in a small county town. Moreover, they had contact with the upper, middle, and lower classes of society. Li Yan’s request for the county office to invite him to hold “symposiums” was largely intended to broaden the horizons of the dispatched personnel and increase their understanding of the social conditions of the Great Ming.

Wang Zhaomin’s symposiums were recorded in their entirety—to be reviewed and compiled into materials afterward—but there was no on-site interpretation. He spoke in the official language, and Li Yan required everyone to retell what he had said in a report afterward. This first tested the dispatched personnel’s mastery of the official language, and secondly, it trained their ability to “restore” the content of intelligence.

Another major native instructor for the lecture on Ming society was Zhou Shizhai, a consultant at the police headquarters. He taught various tricks of the trade in Ming society and the various rules and risks of traveling.

Traveling in ancient society was both exhausting and dangerous. Both the rich and the poor faced great risks when traveling. Zhou Shizhai had worked as an escort and a guard, and he had extremely rich social experience.

“…When traveling far, remember to soak your feet every day and not wash your face,” he passed on his experience to everyone one by one. “As long as conditions permit, you should soak your feet to pick blisters and relax your muscles and bones, but you don’t need to wash your face.”

Not washing one’s face was to prevent the facial skin from chapping. The roads were dusty and the sun was strong, making it easy to get sunburned and chapped. The ancients had no sunscreen and had to use dust as a cover.

As for the things to be careful about on the road, they were as numerous as the hairs on an ox. Zhou Shizhai focused on how to avoid staying at “black inns,” which places were likely to be robbed by thieves, and how to arrange for sleep at night to avoid being stolen from…

“…Once you are on the road, never show your wealth,” Zhou Shizhai taught earnestly. “There are many people along the way who will be tempted by wealth. Besides bandits, there are many villains among the boatmen, innkeepers, and porters who are waiting for an opportunity.” He then told a story about a time when he was escorting goods and crossing a river. The boatman saw that they were escorting a lot of goods and had a sudden evil intention to rob them. The escort agency had a hard time protecting the goods and escaping.

Much of the knowledge and tips that Zhou Shizhai explained were accumulated by the escort agencies over a long period of time. They were of great practical value to the dispatched intelligence personnel. Not only did the intelligence bureau invite him to give lectures, but the police headquarters also specially collected and compiled his lectures as reference materials.

Liu Gang, who had been selling private salt for the Ministry of Colonial Trade for a long time, was also invited. He had made his fortune by trafficking private salt for the transmigrator group. This time, he was quietly invited to talk about commerce and illegal trade in Ming society, especially how a small and medium-sized merchant could do business in Ming society.

As for He Xin, who was rescued by Lin Biguang, he was specially recalled from Qiongshan to give a series of lectures on Ming Dynasty brothels. This lecture also included many ways and methods of entertainment and recreation in the Ming Dynasty. They learned the rules, jargon, scams, consumption standards, and taboos of high-class brothels.

When He Xin heard that he was going back to Lingao, he was scared out of his wits, thinking he was going to fall into the hands of that devil Fu Youdi again. Unexpectedly, after he came back, he was teaching a group of strange people how to visit brothels, drink with courtesans, and play fan-tan…

Natives of various professions under the control of the transmigrator group, as long as their knowledge and experience were considered useful, would be “invited” into a sedan chair at night and quietly carried into the training center. Then, he would have a face-to-face conversation with several chiefs across a thick curtain, teaching the chiefs everything they wanted to know. No one knew what was behind the curtain, but smart people probably guessed that there were also Australian chiefs sitting behind it, because when someone’s local accent was too heavy, a chief would repeat what he said in the Australian official language.

To enhance the dispatched personnel’s sense of immersion, Yu E’shui conducted life-scenario drills, with native personnel playing different roles. Each time, he would specify a life scenario and then assign the dispatched personnel to play one of the roles. The natives would play the other one or several roles. When the dispatched personnel went to check into an inn, the natives were the owner and the waiters; when they went to buy a maid, the natives were the brokers; when they were negotiating business, the natives were the business partners; when they went to the government office, the natives were the doorkeepers, yamen runners, masters, and county magistrates…

The natives used in each performance were as much as possible those who had had such professional experience, in order to be as accurate as possible. To encourage the natives to make things difficult for the dispatched personnel, Yu E’shui would score each performance, and the native who performed best in making things difficult for the dispatched personnel would receive an extra reward.

After each performance, everyone would gather for a playback-style analysis. Yu E’shui specifically required the dispatched personnel to remember the jargon and slang used by various characters, and to understand their thinking patterns and ways of doing things.

“Don’t have a ‘I’m a superman’ feeling. You can’t afford to lose out at any time,” Yu E’shui mercilessly criticized them in class. “You were a petty citizen in the 21st century, and you won’t become a big shot in the 17th century. Without the transmigrator group as a whole, you are nothing. Unless necessary and approved by the general bureau—otherwise, don’t be eager to show your uniqueness, broad knowledge, and outstanding talent anywhere. And don’t go around spouting nonsense about ‘democracy’ or ‘one country, one party, one leader.’ We are not sending you to the Great Ming to be scientists, politicians, or any other ‘ists.’ Your task is just to be ‘like a common person of the Great Ming’.”

To ensure they were “like” them, it was necessary to enhance their sense of immersion. Every so often, the dispatched personnel would go out for an internship in the identity of a person of the Great Ming. The content of the internship ranged from simple things like buying things and hiring servants at the beginning, to trying to do some small business on their own… Everyone had to make sure that others could not recognize their identity.

The action department of the Political Security General Bureau would track and monitor the dispatched personnel to see if they were discovered by the natives. Li Yan believed that the natives of Lingao were the people who had the most contact with the transmigrators. If they could deceive them, it would not be a problem to go to the mainland.

Later, this kind of action was developed into a confrontational exercise. The two sides would set a location and number of people, and then the trainees of the intelligence bureau and the Political Security General Bureau would identify and capture each other.

After it was generally believed that they would not have any problems and their disguise was very good, the dispatched council members would be secretly escorted by the Special Reconnaissance Team to take several long-distance land trips, either alone or in groups. The destination was generally Qiongshan County. The dispatched council members, like all natives, would travel with simple luggage and a small amount of money, either on foot or in a sedan chair. This kind of travel would give them a personal feel for the environment they would be in in the future—Lingao had been “modernized” and was very different from the real 17th-century world.

In Qiongshan County, they could operate for a few days to half a month under the secret protection of the Qiongzhou Station to experience the social conditions under the rule of the Great Ming. After this trip was considered qualified, the dispatched council members would have the opportunity to go to Guangzhou to see the scene of a big city in this era.

Besides the disguise courses, the council members also had to learn all the knowledge that might be needed for intelligence work. They learned tracking and counter-tracking, fighting skills and the use of daggers; mastered simple surveying and map drawing; learned to accurately judge the number of people, the size of objects, and the length of distances just by eye; learned to use radios, encryption and decryption—before there were reliable native telegraph operators, all of this had to be done by the council members themselves. Radios were precious and limited in number, so most of the time they had to use encrypted letters. The intelligence bureau developed a secret writing method: it was actually writing with rice water and developing it with iodine. Besides the transmigrators, there was no iodine in the Great Ming, so confidentiality should not be a problem.

They also mastered a set of simple special code words: “center” was the intelligence bureau headquarters; “swimming” was traveling; “sick” was being arrested; “wet work” was assassination; “legend” was a fabricated false identity and experience; “wine” referred to the secret writing potion; and “pipa” was the radio; “neighbor” was the Political Security General Bureau; a peddler was a courier…

Finally, they were sent to the field exploration team and spent four weeks of wilderness survival training under the guidance of Liu Zheng and others, to ensure that they could use it if they needed to escape.

While the Intelligence Training Center, Section B, was undergoing intensive training, the native intelligence personnel in the Intelligence Training Center, Section A, were also stepping up their training. Their courses were more numerous and intensive than those of the council members, and the content was mainly focused on intelligence business. This group of personnel would be dispatched as attendants to the council members. This batch of attendants were all men—it was very inconvenient to take women on the road before they were settled.

One day, Li Yan gathered everyone and announced a piece of news:

“Everyone pack up. We’re going to Fangcao Di now.”

Only after arriving at Fangcao Di did they know that they were there to choose their “life secretaries.” Li Yan announced that the selected life secretaries would receive additional intelligence training in Section A. After everyone was stable at their work locations, they would be gradually sent to their respective sides to carry out intelligence work.

“The leadership is really considerate of us,” someone said with tears of gratitude.

Some people were not so appreciative. “Didn’t you say we can buy women ourselves? Why do we need to bring life secretaries?”

“A life secretary is safer than the women you buy outside, isn’t it?” Li Yan said. “And she can also help you with intelligence work. It’s killing two birds with one stone. What’s not to like?”

With that, everyone was relieved. After reading the materials, everyone chose the girl they wanted. Most people just spent the amount of the maid subsidy to buy a C-class maid. Some people had their eyes on higher-level ones and could only register and wait for the subsequent lottery. Anyway, the maids would not be in place soon—according to the “center’s” plan, they would be sent out at least three months after they had settled down locally.

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Near the headquarters of the cooperative in Dongmen Market, there was a large house. This house was one of the few traditional-style houses in Dongmen Market. It had a large front yard for parking vehicles and sedan chairs, and the two wings were warehouses for storing goods.

The main building was the counter room. The wooden counter was polished with raw lacquer and tung oil to a mirror-like shine. The variety of goods inside was numerous, but unlike the cooperative, what was sold here were all goods from the mainland: cloth from Songjiang, silk and preserved fruits from Suzhou and Hangzhou, porcelain from Jiangxi, tea and citrus from Fujian… all kinds of goods from the north and south. To have such a large shop with such a complete range of goods in Lingao would have been unimaginable if the population hadn’t multiplied several times in recent years and everyone had some spare money.

The second courtyard was the main hall, which looked very grand. The floor was paved with square bricks, with fine Guangdong rosewood tables and official hat chairs, large porcelain vases, and a large carved screen standing in the middle of the hall. Eight wind lanterns with the words “Quanfu” written on them hung under the eaves—logically, this was against the rules. But the south had always been far from the emperor, and no one would care. In Lingao, there was even less need to be scrupulous.

Such a grand style, at first glance, was a traditional, well-established business. Everyone knew that this business was Lingao’s number one “imperial merchant,” the property of the Australian’s comprador, Master Lin Quan’an.

Inside such a lavish shop sat the designated supplier of the Ministry of Commerce, the director of the Dongmen Market Business Association, Master Lin Quan’an.

Three years ago, everyone who knew this Lin Quan’an, including himself, would never have dreamed that one day he would be called “Master,” let alone that he could accumulate such wealth and power.

He sat in the counter room behind the main hall, surrounded by business documents and large account books. Master Lin was about thirty-five or thirty-six years old, but his skin was already dark and full of wrinkles, making him look like he was in his early fifties. He was a man from a humble background. He had spent nearly twenty years of his life as a peddler, carrying a pole and selling goods from village to village, living from day to day.

At this moment, he was wearing a robe of Nanjing fragrant cloud silk bought from Guangdong, and a pair of straw slippers from Chenqiao, Kaifeng, on his feet. He was concentrating on the account book. Master Lin was a merchant who dared to be the first in the world. In his early years, he could neither read nor use the abacus. Later, when his business grew, just like when he was the first to do business for the short-hair thieves, he did not hesitate to participate in the literacy class run by the Australians. He learned to read, use the abacus, and keep accounts—this kind of accounting was the Australian style, and even the numerals were Australian style. This made him very happy—because this way, no one could understand it.

A quill pen was stuck in the ink bottle on the table. Lin Quan’an could not write with a brush. He had learned this method of writing by dipping a pen from the Australians.

He was examining the pages of this large account book before him; each page had horizontal and vertical lines printed on it, with liabilities recorded on the right and assets on the left. On the first page of the account book, it was written in large characters: “Third Year of Chongzhen, Gengwu Year.”

After Lin Quan’an finished examining the last account item and carefully corrected a mistake on it, he leaned back in his chair, feeling a little tired and worried.

The business in the shop was not bad, and the gross profit was about thirty percent. But the volume of goods sold this way was too small—he was used to selling goods in large batches. He was no longer used to doing business in such a piecemeal way.

He had gotten used to doing big business smoothly in the past two years. Lin Quan’an recalled that three years ago, he was just a small peddler who carried a pole and walked through the streets and alleys. His capital was only four or five strings of cash. By purchasing vegetables, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks for the short-hair thieves—the Australian masters—from village to village, he had made a fortune in one year and opened this Quanfu Trading Company. Then, under the instructions of Master Xiong, he gradually expanded his footprint to the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture, purchasing all kinds of goods for the Australian masters. He made so much money that his hands were sore—his house and shop had been renovated twice in three years. He had even installed glass windows, porcelain toilets, porcelain bathtubs, and running water used by the Australian masters, not to mention small items like thermoses and crystal mirrors. Not only could he afford a wife, but he had also taken two concubines.

All of this came from the Australians who came on iron ships. The Australians were his lucky stars and his god of wealth.

Recently, he felt that the light of this lucky star was a bit dim. The account book showed that his largest client—the Australians—had less and less contact with him in the past six months. He had only done a few big deals in timber, and although he had sold a lot of goods from the north and south, the quantity was not large.

Now, the Australians were supplying their own vegetables, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks. They even made pickles and salted vegetables from the vegetables they grew that they couldn’t finish eating. As for pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks, they were even able to give their militia a meat meal once a week recently. The ships under the Australians’ command continuously transported the things they needed from various places, leaving less and less business for him.