Chapter 80: Illegal Structures

“This is quite impressive…” Liu Xiang smiled, deeply feeling the deep gap between the officials and the people. This was not something that could be changed overnight. So he did not rush to make all kinds of “people-friendly” gestures: holding an old lady’s hand and asking with full emotion, “How old are you, old lady?” or grabbing a farmer selling vegetables and asking with full expectation, “How is the income this year?”. Instead, he walked along the street very casually. He saw the notices posted by the Comprehensive Governance Office on the walls of the street, and there were many people gathered under the notices, obviously all to see the notices. He felt very satisfied. Our voice must be spread openly and honestly, and it must be spread as far as possible.

Liu Xiang was led by Lin Baiguang and walked along the main street. The commerce here was very prosperous, and there were all kinds of shops along the street. There were all kinds of shops. As he walked, he soon realized why Lin Baiguang had asked him to “come and see for himself”—the illegal structures and random construction of the 17th century were no worse than those of the 21st century.

Except for the government offices on both sides of the street, almost every inch of the street was occupied by sheds built by shops or vendors on both sides. It was said to be a road more than 9 meters wide, but at least half of it was occupied. In the most exaggerated places, only a sedan chair could barely pass through the middle. Tattered rush mats, messy bamboo poles, and fragmented bricks and tiles… these shabby sheds made the entire Chengxuan Avenue look like a dilapidated flea market—to be honest, the flea markets of another time and space were much neater than this.

He noticed that many of the sheds were built by the shops on both sides of the street. At first, they were probably for shade, but gradually they became part of the shops. Some had set up workshops in the sheds, and some restaurants and teahouses simply set up tables and chairs in the sheds for customers. Some shops had even completed the transformation from sheds to houses, properly building houses on the road and treating the encroachment on the road as a fait accompli.

The road surface had obviously not been repaired for a long time, or it had been repaired very hastily. He saw that there were at least two kinds of paving on the street. One was made of green bricks laid vertically in a herringbone pattern. Although it was incomplete, it could be seen that the paving was very fine and exquisite; the overall street surface was high in the middle and low on both sides, which was conducive to drainage. The other was green stone slabs, and the paving was quite rough.

Right now, no matter which kind of paving it was, the damage was very serious. The bricks were missing and damaged, and the stone slabs were broken. It was not known whether there were no drainage ditches or they had been silted up. The drainage on both sides of the road was obviously not smooth, and the sewage discharged by the shops on the street was flowing everywhere. The sheds on both sides also showed their own magic. Some were supported by bamboo poles underneath, and some were simply paved with sand and soil to raise them. The sewage, coupled with the garbage piled up everywhere, made the entire street permeate with an indescribable smell.

Liu Xiang frowned and said, “How many years has this road not been repaired?”

Jia Jue quickly said, “It has been repaired once every two or three years.”

Every time it was repaired, it was when a high-ranking official like the left or right administrative commissioner of Guangzhou took office. The one prefecture and two counties of Guangzhou would routinely repair the road surface. On the one hand, it was to give the new master a good impression, and on the other hand, if the sedan chair bearers stepped into a pit and sprained their ankles or tripped, the local officials would not be able to explain it. The so-called repairs were also very simple. They just mixed sand and gravel and then paved and compacted the uneven parts of the road surface—it was actually similar to the practice of “paving the road with loess.” Naturally, this kind of repair could only fool people for a while, and after a long time, it would be the same as before.

“Why don’t you use bricks or green stone slabs to repair it like when you build a road?”

Jia Jue said with a smile, “Reporting to you, sir: it’s mainly because there is no money. The last major repair of this Chengxuan Avenue was in the 42nd year of the Jiajing reign. The green stone slabs were used at that time.” He said with a smile, “You don’t know, old sir. Repairing bridges and roads all depend on the gentry and merchants. Now that the years are not peaceful, who has this spare money? Repairing bridges and roads is not a small amount of money. You can’t do it without tens of thousands of taels of silver…”

Liu Xiang remembered Yu E’shui’s lecture on “Ming Dynasty Fiscal Policy” and knew that this was also the truth. The local finance of the Ming Dynasty was very weak. Public facilities basically relied on private fundraising and self-management. The government at most played the role of an initiator and supervisor. Otherwise, there would not be so many stories of “repairing bridges and roads as good deeds” in ancient times.

This is really “local autonomy.” Liu Xiang thought. He asked again, “Does this Chengxuan Avenue have drainage ditches?”

“Yes!” Jia Jue answered without hesitation.

“Where?”

“Please look, sir.” Jia Jue led their group to a place on the side of the road that was not occupied by sheds. Liu Xiang saw a section of an open ditch exposed outside. It was more than a meter wide. Although it was filthy, it could be seen that the ditch walls were made of bricks, and it was filled with silt and all kinds of garbage, almost overflowing. The sewage was flowing slowly in the ditch, emitting a disgusting stench.

“Originally, there were open ditches on both sides here. Rainwater and sewage from various households were discharged into them, and then discharged into the six-pulse canal. Now you have also seen it, old sir.”

These randomly built sheds that encroached on the road surface basically covered the open ditches with wooden boards or stone slabs and then built on top of them. The original “open ditches” became “covered ditches.”

It should be said that covered ditches are much more sanitary than open ditches. The problem is that the “illegal structures” on both sides of the road have completely covered the ditches, and even if the government wants to dredge the ditches and clear the silt, it can’t be done.

“The ditches have not been dredged for many years, and they have long been silted up. It’s better these days when there is not much rain. When the south wind blows in a few more days and the rain increases, the ditches will overflow, and that’s when it will be ‘unbearably smelly’,” Jia Jue said.

“Why don’t you dredge the ditches? Is it also because of lack of money?”

“Reporting to you, sir: dredging the ditches doesn’t cost much money. You can just ask the people from the four townships to dredge them, and you don’t even need to pay much for labor—the smelly mud they dredge out can be taken back by them as fertilizer. But you have also seen it, old sir,” Jia Jue pointed at these sheds. “How can you dredge the ditches like this?”

“The shops build sheds over the ditches. Although the place is bigger, the stinky water flows everywhere, and they are the ones who suffer.” Liu Xiang was very confused.

“Sir, it’s true that they suffer because of their own actions, but this has already become the situation. Who would be willing to tear down their own sheds to let the government dredge the ditches? Besides, tearing down one or two houses is useless. You have to tear down all the sheds on both sides of this street. There are hundreds of merchants here, and everyone has their own thoughts, so the matter has been discussed many times, but it has never been done.”

Liu Xiang said, “These sheds originally did not have land deeds or house deeds. The merchants encroached on the road and official land. Why didn’t the government tear them down?”

Lin Baiguang smiled, “You don’t have to ask this question. Tearing down illegal structures has always been very difficult—the interests involved are too great.”

Jia Jue said with a smile, “Master Lin is right. Which of these shops doesn’t have a big backer behind it? Some of them, let alone the county magistrates of Nanhai and Panyu counties, even the prefect may not be in their eyes. As the saying goes, cutting off someone’s source of income is like killing their parents. When they get anxious, they will do anything. In the early years, a certain Prefect Hu wanted to tear down the sheds. The shopkeepers spent money to get through the connections, but it was useless. So they spent money to bribe the people of the Guan Di Temple and got thousands of beggars to rush to the yamen gate to shit and piss, sing lotus songs, and act crazy and curse on the street. After a few days of torment, they forced Master Hu to withdraw his order.”

“Are the beggars so powerful? The yamen is full of torture instruments and prisons. Arrest all those who come to make trouble, and then execute a few of them in standing cages. Can’t you deal with them?”

“The beggars are all people who have nothing. Even their rotten lives are precarious. This can’t scare them,” Jia Jue smiled. “Besides, how big can the prison be? How many people can you arrest? The yamen can’t provide food for them, so they still have to be released. If the matter gets big and the opponent gets a handle on it, the four words ‘inciting a popular uprising’ will immediately ruin the master’s career.”

“That’s really impressive.”

Lin Baiguang smiled, “Even the most prominent gentry and large households in Guangzhou, when they hold weddings and funerals, if they don’t pay them ‘protection money’ in exchange for a sticker to put on their door, they will guarantee that you can’t get things done. Even if it gets big, a petition is sent to the government, and at most they will get a few scapegoats to go to court. They can be beaten or killed as they please. Anyway, they have plenty of lives to use.”

“It seems that this mayor of Guangzhou is really not easy to be,” Liu Xiang touched his forehead. “Qiongzhou Prefecture is after all just a small place. It can’t be compared.” He turned his head and asked Lin Baiguang:

“How much do you know about the situation of these lower classes of society?”

“Not much. The social conditions here are dozens of times more complex than on Hainan Island,” Lin Baiguang said. “Our Urban Work Department is small and weak, and we mostly take the middle and upper-class route. We know very little about the bottom of society—but the Qiwei Escort Agency should know something. Old Master Sun has also sent me a calling card, wanting to see you.”

“I’ll see him tonight,” Liu Xiang said. “We need people like them now.”

“Don’t have too high hopes. Although the people the escort agency deals with are from all walks of life, they only ‘deal with’ them, not ‘collude’ with them. They don’t necessarily know all the ins and outs.”

“You are showing me the difficulties,” Liu Xiang said with a smile. He realized

“Not at all, not at all,” Lin Baiguang said. “The three religions and nine streams in and out of Guangzhou are still quite afraid of us—this is all thanks to the credit of the special investigation team back then. I don’t think it’s very difficult to tear down the illegal structures. We have just entered the city. Tearing down the illegal structures on Chengxuan Avenue is also expressing our determination to get rid of the old and establish the new to the citizens of Guangzhou.”

“Yes, not only that. We also need to do a few practical things to let them know that we are different from the corrupt and declining Ming Dynasty,” Liu Xiang said. “My first impression after entering the city is that the streets are dirty and messy, and sewage is flowing everywhere. We should mobilize the troops and agency personnel to carry out a comprehensive cleanup, clear out the garbage in the city, and also dredge the sewer system of Guangzhou. These are all practical things that are beneficial to the common people.”