Chapter 89: Guangzhou Special Municipal Police Department

Jia Jue couldn’t find this Wang Daniao—that was originally his nickname, but over time it had become his name. He asked the neighbors, who said they hadn’t seen anyone coming or going from there for several days.

Jia Jue cursed silently. The Chief placed so much importance on the matter of dredging and clearing the canals, yet he, as a clerk of the household department, couldn’t find the key person. Wouldn’t this leave the Chief with the impression that he was “ineffective”?

He should have known to keep a close watch on this Wang Daniao as soon as the Chief entered the city—he had come to register during the roll call.

Since he couldn’t find him, Jia Jue had no choice but to return and report the truth to Liu Xiang.

In fact, this Wang Daniao was still in Guangzhou. After the incident where the fish-scale registers were confiscated through torture, he worried that the Australians wouldn’t let go of the canal map he possessed. This canal map was a treasure! Although he hadn’t committed any major crimes or angered the heavens, this map was his family’s ancestral money-making tree. His family’s comfortable life and the livelihood of his descendants for generations to come all depended on this map. If he handed it over, he would have nothing left, right? He would have to bend over and dig mud out of canals himself—his family hadn’t done that for generations.

The demolition of Chengxuan Avenue made him realize that the Australians would sooner or later need the canal map he held. He was unwilling to hand it over, and he knew the Australians had ways to make him. The thought of suffering the torture of the three-stick clamp terrified Wang Daniao, and he quickly fled with his family.

Wang Daniao had a small estate in the countryside, but he didn’t hide there—it was no secret to the people in the yamen, and someone would surely report him.

Fortunately, he had another way out. He was sworn brothers with a high-ranking member of the “Guandi Temple Gang” in the Dabaimen Gate district. Many of the laborers used for clearing the canals were temporarily recruited from among the beggars, and he was very familiar with them. So he took his whole family to seek refuge with his sworn brother and was now hiding in a residence outside the city walls.

When the Australians were at their wits’ end, they would naturally send someone to negotiate with him. It was dangerous to pull chestnuts out of the fire, but fortune favors the bold. He knew that without this canal map, the Australians wouldn’t be able to find all the open and hidden canals in the city. So what if their ships were sturdy and their cannons powerful? They couldn’t possibly tear up the whole city of Guangzhou, could they?

Upon receiving the report, Liu Xiang immediately instructed Lin Biguang to mobilize the police and detective squads for a city-wide search. Wanted posters with his likeness were posted at all the city gates, and Wang Daniao’s country estate was also searched, but not even a shadow of him was found.

Without the canal map, it was difficult to know the specific distribution of the city’s canals. The entire process would have to rely on manual inspections and mapping, which was a huge amount of work.

Liu Xiang was helpless. He deeply felt that managing a 17th-century city was far more complex than he had imagined. Since the shortcut was blocked, he had no choice but to use force. He immediately shifted the focus of municipal work to the household survey. Fortunately, Mu Min arrived at this time.

There had been some discussion within the National Police about who should be the police chief of Guangzhou Special Municipality. It was clear that the so-called Guangzhou police chief was also effectively the head of the Guangdong Provincial Police Department, a major figure in the police system. Unlike being a department head at headquarters, this position came with not only great power but also greater responsibility. If done well, the future prospects were immeasurable.

Originally, Ran Yao had intended to send a male senate member—Guangzhou was a newly occupied territory, and the workload for the head of a powerful agency was imaginable. However, the Executive Committee’s opinion was to send Mu Min. The official reason was that Mu Min’s work experience was very comprehensive: she had worked in public security, as a criminal investigator, and had spent a year in the political department, making her well-suited to handle the complex new environment of Guangzhou. However, it was rumored that the real reason was to “promote gender equality.”

Thus, Mu Min came to Guangzhou and became the top leader of the police department.

The backbone of the Guangzhou police force consisted of only one hundred and fifty Naturalized Citizen police officers transferred from Hainan. Some of these were officers recruited from the Naturalized Citizen population, the most senior of whom had nearly five years of service. Some had already become heads of local police stations. They had rich work experience but lacked professional knowledge. The other part consisted of recent graduates from the police academy, who had received formal police education under the Lin’gao system but lacked work experience. A common problem was that none of them were very familiar with Guangzhou, and many were completely ignorant of Cantonese. This created great difficulties in carrying out their work.

As soon as Mu Min moved into the Guangzhou Municipal Police Department—the former Lingnan Circuit yamen—she immediately convened a meeting of all Naturalized Citizen police officers to get a general understanding of the public security situation in Guangzhou and the work that had been carried out so far. In Mu Min’s view, the work of the past few days had been a bit like “treating the head for a headache and the foot for a footache.” The police force was essentially being used as an executive tool, and many key tasks had not been started. Even the basic structure of the police force had not been established.

Naturally, this was not Liu Xiang’s fault, and even less so Lin Biguang’s. It was entirely the police department’s own problem. Mu Min was in no position to complain now; she had to fully cooperate with their work while improving her own.

However, Liu Xiang and Lin Biguang had at least done two things right. First, during the takeover of the old yamen runners, they had stabilized the force, bringing the old public security personnel of Guangzhou’s one prefecture and two counties basically under the control of the new regime. This prevented them from dispersing and causing trouble and also provided usable manpower for the nascent police force. The fact that Guangzhou, a 17th-century metropolis, could maintain a generally stable public order was largely due to the work of Lin Biguang’s Comprehensive Management Office. Second, they had completely mastered the archives of Guangzhou’s paifia personnel, firmly grasping this most grassroots social organization.

Lizheng, baozhang, paifia, resident group leaders… although the names were different, their role in social management was the same. To do public security work well, it was necessary to establish an effective baojia system.

Due to social turmoil, the late Ming Dynasty was a high point in the construction of the baojia system in China, and Guangzhou’s baojia system was quite well-developed. With the current severe shortage of police force, improving public security meant relying on “mass prevention and mass governance,” a policy directly related to the completeness of the baojia system.

So, her first task was to request Liu Xiang to transfer a portion of the archives stored in the prefecture and county yamen archives. The personnel files from the Ministry of Personnel section were particularly valuable to her.

The personnel systems of the entire prefecture and county’s lijia, baozheng, and local officials, as well as the yamen clerks’ files, were all managed by the Ministry of Personnel. All appointments, dismissals, promotions, transfers, and salary increases had to go through them. Mastering these files meant mastering the detailed information of these grassroots personnel.

Now that Liu Xiang wanted to conduct a household survey and clean up the household registration, it was a good opportunity to fully grasp this system. A complete household registration system was indeed a key focus of police work.

Mu Min immediately began to establish the Guangzhou Special Municipal Police Department.

The new Guangzhou police system would not have sub-bureaus in Nanhai and Panyu counties for the time being; the municipal bureau would directly command the local police stations. The other counties would have their own county bureaus.

She had no time to attend to the county sub-bureaus for now. Her main focus was on the municipal bureau. According to the organizational regulations, the Guangzhou Municipal Police Department would have an Administrative Division (with sections for household registration, public security, traffic, and sanitation), a Judicial Division (with sections for criminal investigation, interrogation, forensics, and records), and a General Affairs Division (with sections for internal affairs, training, discipline, and archives). The structure was relatively simple, with few levels.

She took over the detective squads and related yamen runners originally commanded by the Comprehensive Management Office and reorganized them. Some were reassigned to various departments based on their specialties, quickly establishing the police structure. The remaining detective personnel were also adjusted. Some formed a uniformed “Uniform Squad” responsible for street patrols, while others formed a plainclothes squad to act as informants in the urban area and its four suburbs.

As for the district police stations, her view was the same as Lin Biguang’s: it was not urgent to establish formal police stations without detailed household registration data. However, to ensure public security, several temporary sub-stations were set up throughout the city with police presence, so that they could respond promptly to any alarms. At the same time, fire and security observation points were set up in high places such as the Twin-Gate Tower, Zhenhai Tower, the bell tower of the Five Immortals Temple, and various city gate towers, using mirrors, signal flags, and fireworks to transmit signals.

With the National Army as the main force, a dedicated riot control mobile team was established, stationed at major traffic nodes and city gates, ready to be deployed at any time. The detective squad’s uniform team patrolled in sections, while the plainclothes team was dispersed throughout the city.

The next thing Mu Min planned to do was to take over all the “street watchers” in Guangzhou.

The street watchers were responsible for opening and closing the street gates and patrolling at night, essentially doing grassroots public security work. They had been around the streets for a long time, knew many people, and had a deep understanding of the lower levels of society. Even if these people were not recruited as police officers, they should at least be managed by the police department, as this was also a component of mass prevention and mass governance.

However, Lin Biguang expressed a different opinion. As the director of the Comprehensive Management Office, although he was on the same level as Mu Min, in many practical matters, he acted on behalf of Liu Xiang. Therefore, Mu Min had to discuss many of her plans with him.

“This is not urgent,” Lin Biguang said. “The street watchers may seem like beggars on the surface, but they are actually members of a gang.”

He then explained the situation of the Guandi Temple Gang to her.

“…The Guandi Temple Gang, they say they are beggars, but in reality, they are the largest underworld force in Guangzhou. By recruiting the street watchers, we are reaching into the sphere of influence they have long controlled, which will inevitably provoke a strong backlash. Although we have guns…”

“I understand,” Mu Min immediately grasped his meaning. “We don’t know enough about their background. We can’t cut the grass without removing the roots.”

Lin Biguang nodded. It was easy to talk to smart people. “Yes, not only that. The Guandi Temple Gang has deep penetration into the lower levels of society. It’s a complex network, and they actually control many aspects of the city’s management and operation. If they rise up against us now, with our insufficient manpower and incomplete institutions, many of our tasks will become passive.”