Chapter 81: The Big Thresholds

Back at the municipal government, Liu Xiang and Lin Baiguang began to arrange for the demolition of the sheds on Chengxuan Avenue.

“To start demolishing immediately is called punishing without teaching. We should issue a notice and set a deadline for them to demolish it themselves,” Lin Baiguang said.

“Then give them 24 hours and set a deadline for demolition tomorrow. Then we will go and demolish it,” Liu Xiang looked at the latest troop deployment schedule. The logistics troops of the South China Army were still assembling on Hong Kong Island. “Xi Yazhou told me that the troops need to act quickly now and can’t waste too much time on military parades. So it was decided to only arrange for the several battalions and the military directly affiliated troops that landed later to participate in the city entry ceremony. The troops that have already landed will not enter the city and will quickly deploy in their respective directions.”

“This will also reduce our pressure,” Lin Baiguang said. “If all the troops are stationed on the outskirts of Guangzhou, arranging logistics is also a complicated matter.”

“Let’s arrange the urgent matters at hand first,” Liu Xiang said. “The first is to assign houses and distribute offices and housing to various agencies. This is very urgent—Wen Zong’s provincial party committee office… the grand area office has not yet entered the city, and the South China Army headquarters also needs houses. These are all under the responsibility of our Guangzhou Military Control Commission and must be done as soon as possible.”

The new urban area of Guangzhou has been planned to be built on Henan Island. Now is naturally not the time for large-scale construction. First, we must let the relocated ministries and commissions have a place to live.

Lin Baiguang said, “I have already inspected the various yamen inside and outside Guangzhou. There are enough houses, but many of them are severely damaged and need to be repaired. The workload of clearing garbage and cleaning is not small.” He opened the map and said, “The arrangement is roughly like this…”

In addition to the Guangzhou Municipal Government, which had already clearly occupied the Guangzhou Prefectural Yamen, and the two district governments of Panyu and Nanhai, which occupied the two county yamen, Lin Baiguang’s arrangement was for the Guangdong Grand Area organ: the Guangdong Provincial Administration Commission yamen; the Guangdong Command of the National Army: the Guangzhou Guard yamen; the court and the procuratorate: the Provincial Surveillance Commission yamen; the Municipal Police Department: the Lingnan Circuit yamen; the Monopoly Bureau and the Tax Bureau: the Salt Monopoly Office; the Propaganda Department: the Provincial Education Commission yamen; and the Political Security Bureau: the Guangdong Censorate yamen of the Censorate.

The advantage of this arrangement was that all the agencies were close to Chengxuan Avenue, which was convenient for communication.

Lin Baiguang nodded, “I’ll have someone arrange this. There are actually many empty official houses, but they are a bit dilapidated.”

“Cleaning is the business of each agency. Repairing houses can be contracted out to the carpenters in the city first. Ziji has been in Guangzhou for so many years, and there should be many carpenters they have dealt with.”

“The second thing is the census. Logically, this is a top priority…” Liu Xiang smiled bitterly. “But we don’t even have police stations yet. The yellow registers in the household registration office are there, but the data in them is definitely problematic. The most fatal thing is that there are no house numbers in this city yet.”

“We can do these two things together,” Lin Baiguang said. “First, find the pao-chia heads in various places. They are very familiar with the situation in their sections. Let them lead the way, investigate and register the households one by one, and at the same time, put up the house numbers and street signs. As for the police stations, we don’t even have a police department now, so it can be postponed. Let’s build the three police departments first, manage the major matters, and then we can talk about it slowly later.”

Although Lin Baiguang expressed his unwillingness to be the police chief, he had his own ideas about the public security work in the city. The establishment of police stations was not an urgent matter. First, they did not have so many native police officers. Second, how to set up the police stations and the size of their jurisdiction also had a certain scientific basis. It might not be appropriate to set them up without detailed population data.

“There are only two main points of police work: maintaining public order and checking household registration,” Lin Baiguang said. “Everything else can be postponed for the time being. The recruited detective team will be led by native police officers to patrol daily. The patrol locations must cover all residential areas, at least to ensure the public security within the city walls and in the various suburbs, and to create a sufficient sense of security for the residents.”

After Lin Baiguang left, Liu Xiang called Zhang Yunmi and handed her a note, “Classmate Zhang, you immediately draft a notice for self-demolition within a time limit. The content is mainly these three points.”

Zhang Yunmi’s official title was now the Secretary-General of the Guangzhou Municipal Government, which was actually Liu Xiang’s secretary. When notifying Liu Xiang of this appointment, Xiao Zishan specifically reminded him, “Pay attention to the influence, and don’t have too many ideas.”

Zhang Yunmi looked at the note in her hand, “Shouldn’t this kind of notice be written by Lu Yizhong? I can only write in vernacular.”

“This is for the masses to see. There is no need for classical Chinese. Besides, we also need to let the masses get used to our writing style and literary style.”

Zhang Yunmi nodded and went out to draft the document with the note.

Lin Baiguang returned to his office. The main staff of the former Guangzhou Urban Work Department were all waiting for him here. These people were all backbone cadres he had selected and trained himself. Through these twenty-odd people, he controlled about two hundred staff members of the Urban Work Department, and at the same time, there were hundreds of peripheral “informants.”

“Everyone, please sit down,” Lin Baiguang looked at the group of men and women who still maintained the attire of the Ming Dynasty. They had made indelible contributions to the occupation of Guangzhou. However, it was still unknown whether they could adapt to the work under the new system. Except for a few who were native people sent from Lingao, most of them were recruited locally in Guangzhou. Although they had all been sent to Lingao for training, they had worked in Guangzhou for a long time, and their words, actions, and mentality were very different from those of the cadres of the Qiongya detachment. He was very worried about this: he did not want to repeat the “anti-localism” storm that was eventually caused by the conflict between the southbound cadres and the local cadres.

“Now that the army has entered the city, according to the orders of the superiors, the Guangzhou station will be withdrawn after the handover of affairs is completed, and our urban work department will also be disbanded,” he looked at the faces of the crowd, which all seemed a little panicked. Lin Baiguang continued, “The achievements of everyone’s work are obvious to all. The bloodless opening of Guangzhou this time is a great contribution from everyone—the Senate has also seen it.

“As for everyone’s future work arrangements, most of them will be transferred to the comprehensive governance office with me. Those who were originally responsible for intelligence will be taken over by the ninth section of the general affairs department of the national police system. The new director will take office in a few days, and you will report to him. Old Bi!”

The person called Old Bi quickly stood up, “Chief.”

Old Bi’s full name was Bi Defan. He was originally a “white member” of the soap shift. He was originally the shopkeeper of a small shop. Because he could not bear the extortion of the local ruffians and yamen runners, he spent money to get the identity of a yamen runner.

He was an honest person and was one of the people in the clerk team who still had a conscience, so he was valued and developed by the Urban Work Department very early on. He was the main intelligence personnel of the Urban Work Department in the soap shift.

“None of your people should reveal their identities. Now Chief Liu has reorganized you into a detective team. You will continue to work in this capacity and report the movements inside at any time. The contact point will remain unchanged.”

Lin Baiguang did not intend to let these intelligence personnel, who were originally distributed in all walks of life, surface, but arranged for them to continue to lurk. According to the resolution made at the security joint meeting in advance, the original intelligence personnel of the Guangzhou Urban Work Department and the informants under their control would be taken over by the ninth section of the general affairs department of the national police—the ninth section of the general affairs department was the department of the national police that corresponded to the Political Security Bureau. Their reception was conducive to the sharing of intelligence between the two sides.

Lin Baiguang then began to arrange for the demolition of illegal structures. When Bi Defan heard that they were going to demolish the sheds on Chengxuan Avenue, he couldn’t help but be startled and said, “Chief, this is not easy to handle!”

“What’s not easy to handle? Aren’t they just some big thresholds?” Lin Baiguang smiled. “Now it’s a change of dynasty. These big thresholds are all busy taking care of themselves. How can they have time to take care of them!”

“No, no, there is another reason for this,” Bi Defan said. “The master must know about the Wenlan Academy.”

“I know. It’s a big academy with many industries. It has made great achievements in educating people,” Lin Baiguang nodded. “Although they have a high reputation among the gentry, they are still scholars. Can’t they understand this simple truth?”

“That’s the headmaster and the students of the academy. They only care about sitting and talking about the Tao. The academy’s property is managed by someone else—this person is not easy to mess with.”

“Oh? Tell me in detail.” Lin Baiguang was suddenly interested. The Guangzhou station had no contact with the Wenlan Academy, so naturally they had not investigated its background.

Bi Defan said, “The current head of the academy is named Mo Rongxin. His father was a minor official in the capital and became the godson of a eunuch. After he retired and returned to his hometown, he relied on the eunuch’s power to drive away the academy’s director and took control of the academy himself. Because he had a eunuch to back him up, this father and son have been in control of the academy’s affairs for decades and have embezzled countless academy properties—just the rental fields, sand fields, oyster ponds, and fish ponds under the academy’s name are several thousand mu, and the silver handed over to the academy every year is only a mere one hundred taels.”

Lin Baiguang thought to himself, so there is a big household here! In the few years he had been in Guangzhou, he only knew that the Wenlan Academy was famous and rich. He didn’t expect that there was such a story behind it.

He asked, “His father became the godson of a eunuch—this eunuch probably died long ago. Can’t others do anything about him?”

Bi Defan said, “Both the father and son have official titles. His father is a juren, and he himself bought a student title. He is also considered a person in official robes. The Mo family is very good at being perfunctory. Not only do they make friends with the gentry, but they are also very good at winning over the scholars in the city, with constant small favors. The most important thing is that the Mo family still has power to rely on.”

“What power?”

“It’s the people of the Guan Di Temple.”

Lin Baiguang nodded. No wonder this Bi Defan said it was not easy to handle. But it was really unexpected that the Wenlan Academy would collude with the beggar gang.

“Mo Rongxin married his youngest son to the daughter of the head of the Guan Di Temple, and they became in-laws. So no one dares to touch his power in the academy.”

Hearing this, Lin Baiguang couldn’t believe his ears. The head of a dignified academy actually became in-laws with a beggar chief. This was too incredible. But on second thought, it was also very normal. In this time and space, the power and wealth of a beggar chief in a big city were far from what an ordinary large household could compare to.