Chapter 1455 - Hidden Agendas (Part 5)

"You don't need to tell me—we figured this out long ago. The problem is we're not like those in the industrial sectors who have specialized knowledge. Without them, we'd literally be eating hairy pigs. We're not like the people in law, finance, judiciary, or civil administration who have practical governance experience. As for the enforcement agencies, ambitious people with real expertise occupied those positions ages ago. Look at the people in education now—other than those with teaching degrees who are properly trained, and you, Yang Sir, who have some bank accounting experience—everyone else has degrees in what the Executive Committee considers 'the most useless of useless majors.' No wonder we're all playing soy sauce!" Yuan Ziguang suddenly got worked up too, draining his glass in one go.

Zhang Zhixiang nodded: "Education has never been a powerful department—it's a 'clean-hands' office! No power means no action. Most of the current outside lobbying groups are centered around transmigrators from powerful departments. Even the Queen has a Social Work Department that deals directly with the grassroots. We have no administrative power to fall back on and no control over discourse. We can't attract soy sauce transmigrators—soy sauce transmigrators evaluate cost-benefit when choosing who to follow, and our education sector can't even make a loud noise firing blanks."

"Heh heh, power! Those people think they hold the power now—so who holds the power of the future?" Yang Xinwu had drunk a few glasses too many. His face was flushed, his eyes red, his whole body burning. Ideas seemed to flow like a torrent, brilliant schemes by the hundred, and his words became remarkably smooth.

He stood up with a mysterious air and drew back the curtain. In the distance, the lights of the harbor and industrial district twinkled in an unbroken chain. He took another big swig of rum and waved his arms: "The Senate is currently holed up in a corner of Lingao, but our industrial scale and government model are already second to none in this era. Look at how many naturalized citizens work in the factories, military, and government! An intermediate management layer has already formed between the Senate and the grassroots. Never mind dominating the whole world or conquering the mainland—even if we only occupy a few strongholds in Southeast Asia and a corner of South China, this management layer will expand dozens, hundreds of times over! It will become a new bureaucratic class! A vested-interest class! Even if the transmigrators were workaholics, they couldn't possibly govern society in every detail. Ultimately they'll rely on this bureaucratic class! In the future, they may even form some kind of symbiotic relationship with it! In other words, the rising bureaucratic class will eventually become part of the power structure of the future Australian-Song Empire—especially in the actual execution of power. Tell me—between Sir Humphrey and Hacker, who has more power?"

"In the foreseeable future, it probably won't reach the level of Lord Humphrey, but the bureaucratic class gradually acquiring a share of power is certain." Zhang Zhixiang nodded.

"What does this have to do with us?" Yuan Ziguang hadn't quite caught on yet.

"Damn, is there anything in your brain besides the uniform club and schoolgirls? This bureaucratic class won't be made up of just anyone—they'll definitely be selected layer by layer from our Fragrant Fields students. Our disciples will spread throughout every industry in the entire empire. The outstanding ones among them will become holders of a portion of power. And as their teachers and mentors, we naturally have inherent connections. To put it plainly—in the future empire's power structure, there's a portion we can directly influence!"

"Right! When you put it that way, our education sector isn't so pathetic after all." Yuan Ziguang suddenly got excited.

"Exactly! What was Old Chiang's biggest asset? Whampoa Military Academy! We're basically the principals and political directors of Whampoa now... No matter how high the naturalized citizens rise, they still have to call us 'Principal' and 'Teacher.' When Premier Zhou went to Chongqing, how many Nationalist bigwigs greeted him respectfully? What did he rely on? Nothing but having been the political director at Whampoa!" Yang Xinwu threw back his drink in one gulp. "At cards, you can't beat me; at war, I can't beat you! Ha ha ha..."

Zhang Zhixiang saw him getting animated, rambling drunkenly, and knew he had entered the first stage of intoxication. He hadn't intended to participate in this conversation, but knowing that Transmigrator Yang had gotten a bit obsessive over Yang Jihong's case and had pent-up resentment, he figured letting him vent, get drunk, and sleep it off would be good. He poured him another glass.

Yang Xinwu paced restlessly around the room with his glass, waving his arms and expounding his "grand plan" with spittle flying: "Before that happens, we in education need to at least assemble a team, make our presence felt in the Senate, be able to engage in interest exchanges with other small groups, be able to influence Senate decisions, and gradually form a mature outside lobbying group. When our disciples rise to high positions in the future and need someone in the Senate to speak for them, they'll naturally turn to their former teachers!"

"Heh heh, when you put it that way, I realize our education sector actually has bargaining chips with every department. Fragrant Fields graduates are in high demand—every department's expansion depends on the human resources we provide. We used to just stupidly help everyone with their problems; now we can start making demands!" Yuan Ziguang lit a Chuqing limited-edition cigar with satisfaction. "Xinwu, tell us—what do you want to do this time?"

"Every time we allocate students, some departments act like they're doing us a favor. It's time we united and gave them a taste of their own medicine." Yang Xinwu thought of a big-chested, long-legged female student he had personally tutored, whom Wei Bachi had snatched away to Kaohsiung as a confidential secretary with one personnel order from the Cadre Department—it still made his blood boil.

"Should we discuss this with Old Hu first..."

"I don't think we should for now—he's an Executive Committee member, after all. It wouldn't be good for him to get directly involved. We'll just ask for his support later." Yuan Ziguang's face was flushed with excitement—a rarity except when he was having heart-to-heart talks with female students.

Zhang Zhixiang smiled, puffing his cigar as he watched them drunkenly discuss with such fervor, but inwardly he was skeptical. The relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and his Whampoa students was mutual. Chiang had certainly built his base through Whampoa students, but those students' ability to make an impact was inseparable from his becoming KMT leader and maintaining control of the Nationalist government for so many years. If Chiang's political career had ended with his first resignation, there would have been no Whampoa faction afterward.

Only by seizing political power could one establish one's own faction and base. Otherwise, the president of Tsinghua University would be the most powerful person in all of China.

Interpersonal relationships were ultimately about exchanging interests. Fragrant Fields had to be able to provide its students with sufficient support for them to consider themselves part of "the Fragrant Fields faction." Otherwise they would simply form "alumni associations" to help each other out, without any deep connection to the school or its teachers.

Right now, the transmigrator teachers at Fragrant Fields had no resources to offer naturalized citizens any practical support—never mind the limited influence Fragrant Fields teachers had within the Senate. These naturalized graduates' current ranks were too low. It would be at least three or four years before naturalized students rose to mid-level administrative positions or higher.

Using bottleneck tactics to enhance their bargaining power in exchange for administrative system influence seemed very difficult to Zhang Zhixiang: scarcity inevitably led to corruption, and allocating scarce resources meant power. The problem was that Fragrant Fields and the education sector didn't control allocation—that power lay with the Civil Administration People's Committee's Cadre Department. Fragrant Fields was merely a production factory; the destination and price of its products were never decided by the workers on the assembly line. If they wanted to create a bottleneck, they could only do so by slowing production and artificially creating further scarcity. But doing that would put Hu Qingbai and himself under severe scrutiny. An assembly line foreman who deliberately slowed work would simply be replaced, not given a bigger bonus.

"Boss, what I want this time is to mobilize the education sector. Our current advantages, besides student allocation, include having a lot of soy sauce transmigrators who resonate with the Senate's marginalized transmigrators—with numbers, it's easy to build momentum in the Senate. Of course, I have selfish motives too. I want to leverage these two advantages to negotiate with those Jurisprudence Society people, see if we can find a win-win solution, and then ask them to give Jihong the lightest possible sentence. Maybe I'd get a light sentence even without doing all this, but going through such a humiliating process isn't what I want!" Yang Xinwu was full of fighting spirit, waving his fists. "All power to the Senate!"

"How do you plan to mobilize people? How do you plan to build momentum?" Zhang Zhixiang asked.

"I haven't figured that out yet," Yang Xinwu said impatiently, "but it doesn't matter. There's always a way! The key is to mobilize people, make some noise. Once we have momentum, everything becomes manageable!"

Yuan Ziguang asked: "Old Yang, how do you plan to negotiate with the Jurisprudence Society? Go directly to Majia?"

"Majia is also an Executive Commissioner—it's not convenient to approach him directly. I'm thinking of talking to An Xi. But I'd like to find someone who knows both sides to act as a go-between."

"Who?"

"Ji Xin!"

"Let's go." Zhang Zhixiang watched Yang Xinwu snoring like thunder on the bed and blew out a smoke ring. He said to Yuan Ziguang.

When Yang Xinwu woke again, the sun was already setting. His head ached a little—dizzily—he'd drunk too much.

He kicked off the blanket covering him. On the nightstand was cold tea Yuan Ziguang had prepared for him. He picked it up and took a big gulp—it made him feel much better.

He sat there in a daze for a while. He vaguely remembered making some long-winded speech while drinking at lunch, but now he couldn't quite remember what. He tried hard to recall, but it only felt like someone was pounding his head with a sledgehammer.

Forget it, this can wait. Yang Xinwu felt his stomach growling. There was probably nothing in the kitchen—maybe the cooperative still had bread. Just as he finished washing up, changed clothes, and was about to go out, the doorbell rang.

(End of Chapter)