Chapter 105: Pan Jiexin

Leaving the Provincial Surveillance Commission yamen, the sun was already setting in the west. The three young friends walked down the street, each with their own thoughts.

Zeng Juan’s face was pale. He had never run a long distance like the “one thousand meters” before. Since he started at the community school, the emphasis had always been on proper demeanor; even boisterous running was reprimanded by the teacher. He had no concept of how long five minutes was, but he had never felt time pass so slowly. When he finally finished, he had just stopped when his stomach churned, and he threw up all his breakfast. He still hadn’t recovered.

After suffering so much, he still exceeded the time limit. Zeng Juan was greatly disappointed. He had originally thought that by “joining the Kun,” even if he was a year or two younger, his status as a student at the community school who had already started writing essays would make it a sure thing to apply for a position as a police officer, which was close to being a “yamen runner.”

He never expected this result! Zeng Juan was dejected. Before he came, his inner struggle was “whether to join the Kun,” not “whether he could pass.” Now, the Australians had clearly told him, “You are not qualified.”

This was a huge blow to him. Zeng Juan’s self-esteem was greatly hurt, and his hope of using the Australians’ power to deal with his brother-in-law had also been dashed.

Zhang Yu, on the other hand, felt no sense of loss. He had been somewhat reluctant to join in the first place. The business at the shop was booming, and his family also wanted him to help out more at home. He had gone to apply with them out of brotherly loyalty, and he actually felt relieved to have been rejected.

Li Ziyu, however, was overjoyed. His uncle had always told him to “diligently practice archery and horsemanship,” which he had thought was superfluous, but it turned out to be useful after all! Working for the Australians, regardless of whether he was a “founding minister” or not, the eight dou of grain and rations each month would be enough to support his family. He had been a “rice worm” and a “bone-melting dragon” in his family’s eyes all his life, and he never thought he would be able to earn money to support his family today! At this thought, he was both happy and sad.

Li Ziyu and Zhang Yu were chatting excitedly. They had walked a long way before they realized that Zeng Juan had been silent all this time. He comforted him, “A-Juan! Don’t be so down. You heard what that police officer said—there will be more recruitments in the future. If you don’t pass this time, you can try again next time. Since the Australians value running so much, we just need to practice hard! As long as we put in some effort, we will definitely succeed!”

Zhang Yu, however, knew why he was unhappy. He said, “A-Juan, although you didn’t pass, Ziyu did. We’ll have our own person in the yamen now. If anything comes up, we can just ask him for help.”

Li Ziyu also realized what was going on and patted his chest. “A-Juan! We are brothers. Your business is my business! Don’t worry, your nephew is my nephew. I will definitely not let her suffer!”

Zeng Juan hesitated. “This—”

Li Ziyu said, “It’s not that I’m criticizing you, but is this even a big deal? In the past, even if someone died, as long as the constables wanted to settle it, there was nothing they couldn’t settle, let alone a small matter like yours. Give that bastard brother-in-law of yours a taste of his own medicine, and he’ll naturally know his place.”

Zhang Yu also said, “Actually, it’s better for Ziyu to step in in this matter than for you to pass and do it yourself. If anything happens, it will be easier to resolve. Otherwise, your brother-in-law will accuse you of ‘abusing public office for personal gain’ and ‘seeking revenge,’ and you won’t be able to handle it.”

Zeng Juan’s heart warmed. “Ziyu! A-Yu, thank you for your trouble.” At this, his eyes welled up, and he was about to cry again.

“We are all good brothers; there’s no need for thanks,” Li Ziyu said. “You should practice running more. When there’s a new recruitment, go and try again. With an official position to rely on, everything is easier!”

Liu Xiang had been cautious about whether they could recruit enough patrol officers. After all, they were still labeled as “overseas Kun bandits” and “rebels,” and Guangzhou Prefecture was not a barren land like the Central Plains where the people were destitute. Compared to the old, wily yamen runners, he really had no idea how many “good citizens” would “join the Kun.”

Unexpectedly, the registration situation was beyond his expectations. On the first day, five or six hundred people registered. Although the physical examination and fitness test eliminated two-thirds of them, the quota of one thousand patrol officers was filled within a week.

“Raise the recruitment banner, and there will be people who want to eat,” Liu Xiang couldn’t help but say. “No wonder the Ming Dynasty is doomed! No wonder the Qing Dynasty was beaten all over the place by the British!”

Liu Xiang had once read a book that mentioned that in the 16th century, the Spanish in the Philippines had made several plans to conquer the Ming Dynasty. The forces used in the plans, including mercenaries and natives, were only a few thousand. At that time, he had only thought that the Spanish were being wildly imaginative. Now, thinking about it, perhaps it wasn’t so wild after all—after all, the Spanish were also prepared to recruit “Green Standard” troops.

However, he had no time for感慨 now. The police had been recruited and needed to be trained. With an extra thousand “civil servants,” the monthly salaries also had to be paid—it was all about money!

“Chief, Chief Mu and Chief Lin are here,” Guo Xi’er reported.

“Please ask them to come in.”

Mu Min was here to discuss the deployment and arrangement of the police force. She took out a large-scale map of Guangzhou.

“This is the deployment plan I discussed with Director Lin,” she said, unfolding the map on the conference table. It was covered with many markings in red and blue pencil.

“On this map, I have roughly marked the sub-bureaus, police stations, and security checkpoints,” Mu Min said. “This is a preliminary plan, basically based on Director Lin’s introduction and the information we obtained from the household survey in the previous stage. It’s very incomplete and can be gradually adjusted in the future.”

According to Mu Min’s plan, in Guangzhou city, the police force would temporarily only have a municipal bureau, without the originally planned Nanhai and Panyu sub-bureaus. The municipal bureau would directly lead the police stations. The jurisdiction of the police system would only be in the urban area and the surrounding gate districts.

“We currently lack police officers who can take on intermediate-level police work, and we don’t have enough qualified agencies and professional technical personnel to deploy, so we are adopting the simplest approach. We will concentrate resources at the municipal bureau, and all professional police work will be handled by the municipal bureau,” Mu Min explained her vision. “The police stations will only be responsible for household registration and grassroots governance work.”

A total of forty police stations would be established throughout the city and the surrounding gate districts.

“Our principle for setting up police stations is to make them relatively dense. Because our roads and communication methods are too backward, communication can only rely on manpower and visual and auditory signals. We also have no means of transportation; responding to calls depends entirely on foot. Therefore, the jurisdiction of each police station cannot be too large, so that we can quickly receive and respond to alarms.”

The police stations would be headed by Naturalized Citizen police officers from Hainan, who would also serve as the backbone of the operations. Each station would be equipped with 10 to 30 police officers, depending on its geographical location, the size of its jurisdiction, and the population. In addition, a number of retained bailiffs familiar with the local situation would be assigned to each station. In this way, the actual number of personnel at each station would be between 20 and 50.

“…In terms of the number of personnel, each station can be considered overstaffed,” Mu Min said. “Many of these stations, by the standards of the old time and space, would only have a staff of five. But we are facing a very complex public security environment, and our personnel quality is low, so we have to assign more people. If we really assigned only five people to a station, I would be afraid of things going wrong.”

“Do we have enough personnel for this?”

“Director Lin and I have calculated, and it’s enough. Of course, there is a slight shortage of veteran Naturalized Citizen police officers,” Mu Min sighed and tilted her head. “It really feels a bit stretched.”

Lin Baiguang said, “For now, the street watchers are still sounding the night watch and opening and closing the gates as usual. I suggest we don’t touch this group for the time being. We can reorganize them after we deal with the Guandi Temple Gang. For now, leaving them be at least serves some purpose.”

As they were talking, Guo Xi’er came in again to report that a Chief Pan had arrived.

Liu Xiang’s spirits immediately lifted. This Police Officer Pan had finally arrived!

This Police Officer Pan was Pan Jiexin, the head of the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department. His sudden arrival in Guangzhou was not to handle some major criminal case, but for a simple yet important project: police training.

As soon as Liu Xiang proposed the plan to recruit and train one thousand police officers, the National Police expressed their full support, and Ran Yao then sent Pan Jiexin. In Lin’gao, he also served as the director of education for the National Police.

So far, the police training in Lin’gao had been very rudimentary. Although the Executive Committee was keen on the violent agencies, the resources allocated to the police were very few, especially in terms of personnel allocation. Fenshuiling Academy provided very few students. In five years, the Fenshuiling National School’s police administration program had only trained less than a hundred professional students—these students now constituted the “professional group” in the National Police.

The majority of the police force came from short-term training classes. Veterans from the Fubo Army and recruits from the Naturalized Citizen population, after about sixty days of training, were assigned to various police departments to perform their duties.

In the old time and space, sixty days of training would not be considered short, but in the old time and space, even a recruited auxiliary police officer had at least a high school diploma. Now, they were facing a group of semi-literates, and the difficulty was imaginable.

For this reason, the Senate’s police officers had to fight on two fronts: they had to be busy with their own work and also teach classes in the police training program. After five years of hard work, they had finally managed to set up the framework of the central and Hainan Island police agencies.

However, they now had to face the entire Guangdong province. Just for Guangzhou, the few people Mu Min had brought were not enough, not to mention that these people would actually have to fill the police agencies of the entire Guangdong.

The door opened, and Pan Jiexin walked in. He looked to be only twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but was actually in his early thirties. He was not restrained, greeted them, and found a chair to sit down.

“Come, have some tea,” Liu Xiang said. “Was the journey alright?”

“It was smooth enough,” Pan Jiexin replied crisply. “Let’s get down to business and talk about the current situation. I need to go back and prepare in detail.”