Chapter 1744: Guangzhou Special City Police Bureau
Jia Jue couldn't find Wang Daniao anywhere. "Big Bird Wang" had originally been just a nickname, but over the years it had become his actual name. When Jia Jue questioned the neighbors, they said no one had been seen entering or leaving the house for days.
Jia Jue cursed silently. The Chief treated this matter of dredging ditches and opening canals with utmost seriousness. As a Household Division clerk, failing to locate the crucial person would surely leave an impression of incompetence. He should have kept close watch on this Wang Daniao from the moment the Chief entered the city—the man had even shown up during the registration roll call.
Unable to find him, Jia Jue had no choice but to report the truth to Liu Xiang.
In fact, Wang Daniao was still within Guangzhou's walls. After hearing how the Australians had tortured clerks into surrendering the Fish Scale cadastral books, he grew terrified they would come after the Canal Map in his possession. That map was treasure! He hadn't committed any crimes or offenses against heaven and humanity, but the Canal Map was his ancestors' cash cow—the capital that kept his entire family in comfort, the rice bowl that would feed his descendants for generations. Hand it over, and what would be left? He'd have to stick his backside in the air and dig ditches himself. His family hadn't done actual labor in many generations.
The demolition of Chengxuan Street convinced him the Australians would inevitably need his Canal Map. He was unwilling to surrender it, but the Australians had countless ways to compel cooperation. The mere thought of torture instruments sent Wang Daniao fleeing with his entire household.
He owned a small estate in the countryside, but he didn't hide there—everyone at the yamen knew about that property, and someone would certainly report it.
Fortunately, he had another connection. He was sworn brothers with a "Big Bone"—a gang boss—among the "Guan Di Temple people" in the Great North Gate suburb. Many of the laborers hired for ditch-digging had been recruited from beggars, and Wang Daniao knew these circles well. So he took his whole family to seek refuge with this associate, and now lay hidden in a residence outside the city gate.
When the Australians reached their wits' end, they would naturally send someone to negotiate. Pulling chestnuts from the fire was dangerous, but wealth and honor were always won through risk. Without this Canal Map, the Australians couldn't hope to locate all the open and hidden ditches in the city. Their ships might be sturdy and their cannons sharp, but what could they do? They couldn't pry Guangzhou open!
After receiving Jia Jue's report, Liu Xiang immediately ordered Lin Baiguang to mobilize the police and Detective Brigade for a citywide search. Portraits were drawn and distributed to every city gate. Wang Daniao's countryside estate was raided, but not even a shadow was found.
Without the Canal Map, the specific layout of ditches and canals throughout the city remained unknowable. They would have to rely entirely on manual patrolling and inspection—an enormous undertaking.
Liu Xiang felt helpless. The complexity of managing a seventeenth-century city far exceeded his imagination. Since the shortcut was closed, the only option was brute force. He immediately shifted municipal priorities to household surveys. Fortunately, Mu Min arrived at just this moment.
There had been considerable debate within the National Police about who should serve as Director of the Guangzhou Special City Police Bureau. This position was, in effect, also the Chief of the Guangdong Police Department—a regional high official in the police hierarchy. Unlike being a section chief at headquarters, the power was substantial and the responsibility even greater. Success would lead to an immeasurable future.
Ran Yao had originally intended to send a male Senator—Guangzhou was newly occupied territory, and the person in charge of a coercive organ would face unimaginable work intensity. But the Executive Committee's opinion prevailed: Mu Min should go. The official rationale was that her service experience was comprehensive—she had worked public security, criminal investigation, and served a year in the Political Department. She was ideally suited to handle a complex new environment like Guangzhou. But rumors suggested the real reason was to "promote gender equality."
So Mu Min came to Guangzhou as the police department's top leader.
The backbone of the Guangzhou Police Bureau consisted of naturalized citizen police officers transferred from Hainan—only one hundred and fifty in total. Some were officers recruited from naturalized citizens who had almost five years of police service, with the most senior among them already serving as station chiefs. They possessed rich experience but relatively weak formal training. Others were cadets fresh from the Police Administration Class who had received proper Lingao-system police education but lacked field experience. Their shared problem was unfamiliarity with Guangzhou itself. Many knew nothing of Cantonese. This caused tremendous difficulties in carrying out their work.
As soon as Mu Min settled into the Guangzhou City Police Bureau—housed in the former Lingao Circuit Yamen—she convened a meeting of all naturalized citizen police to assess the public security situation and current workload. In her view, the past few days' efforts had felt like treating the head when the head ached and the foot when the foot hurt—reactive rather than systematic. The police organ had essentially been used as an execution tool, while many fundamental tasks remained unstarted. Even the basic organizational structure hadn't been properly established.
Of course, this wasn't Liu Xiang's fault, nor Lin Baiguang's. The blame belonged entirely to the police organ itself. Mu Min was in no position to complain—she now had to fully cooperate with their work while simultaneously building her own institution.
That said, Liu Xiang and Lin Baiguang had accomplished at least two things well. First, they had stabilized the workforce during the reception of old clerks, ensuring that the former public security personnel of Guangzhou Prefecture and its two counties remained under the new regime's control. This prevented them from scattering to cause trouble while providing usable manpower for the nascent police organ. That Guangzhou—this super-metropolis of the seventeenth century—could maintain roughly stable public order owed much to Lin Baiguang's Comprehensive Governance Office. Second, they had completely secured the archives of Guangzhou's tithing personnel, firmly grasping this most fundamental layer of social organization.
Village heads, Bao chiefs, tithing heads, resident group leaders—the titles varied but the role in social management remained constant. Effective public security work required an effective Baojia system.
The chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty had ironically produced a climax in China's Baojia system construction. Guangzhou's system was quite well-developed. Under the current severe shortage of police manpower, improving public security meant nothing other than "mass prevention and mass governance"—and this policy's success depended directly on whether the Baojia system functioned properly.
Mu Min's first step was to request Liu Xiang transfer a portion of the archives from the Prefecture and County Yamen repositories. The Clerks' Division archives were especially valuable.
The personnel records of the Lijia and Baozheng systems, rural officials, and yamen clerks and runners all passed through the Clerks' Division. All appointments, removals, promotions, transfers, and salary adjustments required their processing. Mastering these archives meant mastering the detailed circumstances of the most grassroots personnel.
Liu Xiang's planned household survey to clean up registration records presented an excellent opportunity to fully capture this system. A comprehensive household registration system was indeed a cornerstone of police work.
Mu Min immediately set about establishing the Guangzhou Special City Police Bureau.
The new Guangzhou police system would temporarily forgo branch bureaus within Nanhai and Panyu counties. The Municipal Bureau would directly command various police stations; other counties would establish county bureaus.
She had no time to attend to county branch bureaus at present, focusing her energy on the Municipal Bureau first. According to the organizational ordinance, the Guangzhou City Police Bureau established three divisions: the Administration Division (overseeing Household Registration, Public Security, Traffic, and Health Sections), the Justice Division (overseeing Criminal Investigation, Interrogation, Forensic, and Clerical Sections), and the General Affairs Division (overseeing Internal Service, Training, Discipline, and Archives Sections). The structure was relatively simple with few hierarchical layers.
She took over the Detective Brigade and related clerks previously commanded by the Comprehensive Governance Office and reorganized them. Personnel were assigned to various departments according to their specialties. In this way, the police institution took shape quickly. The remaining Detective Brigade personnel were also restructured: one portion formed the uniformed "Patrol Squad," responsible for street patrols; the other became the plainclothes "Investigation Squad," serving as eyes and ears throughout the urban districts and four suburbs.
As for police stations in various districts, her view aligned with Lin Baiguang's: there was no rush to establish formal stations before detailed household registration data existed. But to ensure public security, several temporary substations were set up within the city to deploy police forces, enabling rapid dispatch when emergencies arose. Simultaneously, fire and public security lookout points were established at elevated positions—the Double Gate Tower, Zhenhai Tower, the Wuxian Temple Bell Tower, and various city gate towers. Signals were transmitted using mirrors, flag semaphores, and smoke or fire.
Using the National Army as the main force, a full-time Riot Response Unit was established, stationed at major traffic nodes and city gates, ready to mobilize at any moment. The Patrol Squad conducted group patrols in designated sections, while the Investigation Squad dispersed throughout the city.
Mu Min's next objective was to take control of Guangzhou's "street watchmen."
These watchmen were responsible for opening and closing street gates and beating the night watch during patrols. In practical terms, they performed grassroots public security work. They spent their days on the streets, knew faces and names, and possessed intimate knowledge of the lower strata of society. Even if this group couldn't be formally incorporated as police officers, they should at minimum fall under police bureau management. This too was a component of mass prevention and mass governance.
However, Lin Baiguang expressed a different opinion. As Director of the Comprehensive Governance Office, though parallel to Mu Min in rank, he exercised many of Liu Xiang's practical functions. Thus, many of Mu Min's intended initiatives required his consultation.
"This matter isn't urgent," Lin Baiguang said. "On the surface, street watchmen are beggars. In reality, they're gang members."
He proceeded to explain the situation with the Guan Di Temple people.
"...The Guan Di Temple people may be called beggars, but they're actually the largest underworld force in Guangzhou City. Our incorporation of the street watchmen would be reaching into a sphere of influence they've controlled for years. This will inevitably provoke fierce backlash. Even with guns in our hands..."
"I understand," Mu Min said, grasping his meaning immediately. "We don't know enough about their organization yet. Cutting the grass without pulling the roots won't work."
Lin Baiguang nodded. Speaking with intelligent people was refreshing. "Exactly. And there's more—the Guan Di Temple people's penetration into lower-class society runs extremely deep. The relationships are completely intertwined. They actually control many aspects of urban management and daily operations. If they turn against us now—while we're still short on manpower and our institutions remain incomplete—many of our initiatives will be thrown into chaos."
(End of this chapter)