Chapter 1878 - Out with the Old, In with the New (Part 14)

At noon, as the midday cannon at Double Gate Tower fired, the "Decisive Victory" operation of Guangzhou Special Municipality officially commenced Phase One. Military, police, and administrative personnel who had already been deployed all moved together. First, all city gates were closed. The baojia ward leaders in every street and alley, following notices received the day before, locked all street gates as soon as the noon cannon sounded.

Inside and outside the city, Army and Navy soldiers controlled all major thoroughfares. Police and security forces that had been lying in wait outside the various dens all struck at once. Without much effort, they swept every den and beggar gathering place clean. Regardless of age or sex, not a single person was spared. Simultaneously, police, security forces, and "public order activists" organized by the baojia wards conducted comprehensive "street-clearing" operations. Armed patrols arrested any beggars or vagrants on sight; those who resisted or tried to flee were shot on the spot.

Loudspeakers mounted on handcarts circulated through the streets, broadcasting the Proclamation on Compulsory Detention of Beggars and Vagrants by Great Song's Provisional Guangzhou Special Municipality. The baojia wards, under police direction, also mobilized able-bodied men to assist in the roundup.

Patrol officers went street by street, notifying every shop and baojia ward head: from this day forth, no one was permitted to provide money, rice, food, clothing, or even water to wanderers or beggars. Upon discovering beggars or vagrants, they must immediately report to police and assist in pursuit and surveillance. Wards and individuals effective at making arrests would be rewarded; those ineffective or who provided aid to beggars and vagrants would face public security penalties.

Neither the Guandi Temple faction nor the refugees who had come to Guangzhou seeking shelter had anticipated the Australians would take such massive action—unprecedented and unheard of. In the past, the authorities had occasionally conducted cleanup operations targeting beggars and vagrants, but mostly by driving them away—as long as they weren't within the local official's jurisdiction, that was enough. If the Emperor or some high official was passing through and found beggars and vagrants unsightly, that was even simpler: the local Chief Beggar would issue orders that on certain days, begging on the streets was forbidden. Never had there been such comprehensive mass arrests. So much so that one dagu, after being captured, still asked in puzzlement: with so many beggars and vagrants arrested, how will you feed them?

"How will we feed them? Of course you'll feed yourselves," Liu Xiang thought. "Trying to calculate costs against the Executive Council—one can only laugh."

By 5 PM, reports came in from all quarters: the concentrated cleanup and detention operations at Golden Flower Temple, the sixty-four dens, and various beggar gathering spots like ruined temples, ancestral halls, and docks were all complete. Work was now shifting to pursuit of scattered individuals. The Planning Institute Special Search Squad's inventory of assets and goods at each location was also underway.

From current reports, the arrest operation had been remarkably successful. Apart from the escaped Gao Lingxiang and Gao Lingda brothers and a few trusted aides, virtually the entire Guandi Temple faction had been captured. Most of the dagu from the sixty-four dens had been apprehended; several others had been killed while resisting or fleeing. Those still at large were very few.

The preliminary count of detained beggars and vagrants exceeded 6,000. Including those not yet transported to the detention center and those still being rounded up, the numbers matched their estimates.

Tomorrow morning, the first batch of detained individuals would be transported to the refugee camp on Hong Kong Island for cleansing and screening. He calculated that this would also provide the labor and funding for the upcoming comprehensive urban improvement campaign.

How much money might they obtain from dealing with Wenlan Academy next? Liu Xiang felt a slight excitement as he reviewed the Preliminary Search Report on Golden Flower Temple, looking at the various assets itemized within. Thinking that Wenlan Academy was renowned for having the richest endowments, and that its trustees had surely embezzled no small amount—when their homes were raided, it probably wouldn't be less than what Chief Beggar Gao had accumulated.

Extrapolating further, the gentry and wealthy households of Guangzhou must have who knew how much silver and treasure hidden in their homes. Not putting it to good use supporting construction was truly a serious waste.

The only regret was that Gao Lingxiang had escaped. If this Chief Beggar couldn't be publicly tried and sentenced, their entire "Out with the Old, In with the New" operation in Guangzhou would lose some of its luster.

From the reports passed along by Mu Min, Gao Lingxiang had obviously received some last-minute information and fled in haste. The reasoning was that his escape had been extremely rushed—he hadn't had time to notify his subordinates or take much of value. Apart from his wife, children, and a few trusted aides, he had abandoned almost everything.

Which link had sprung a leak this time? Must have been someone involved who leaked information! Liu Xiang thought—our security work is really poor!

The possibility of a mole was unlikely. Though since the liberation of Guangzhou there had been the Ye Jie and Han Yue cases, Liu Xiang believed the vast majority of naturalized citizens were reliable. Especially regarding the suppression of the Guandi Temple faction—the only naturalized citizens with access to this information were the northern-expedition cadres from the Qiongya Column working in the security organs. They were all veteran naturalized staff who had been working for years, thoroughly tested, with unquestionable political reliability.

But political reliability didn't mean immunity to leaking secrets—especially for those with no concept of security. He himself had already learned a painful lesson from Guo Xi'er.

Though the sorcery case investigation led the Political Security Bureau to conclude that Guo Xi'er had "no subjective intent" and had been "used," just the series of things she had done for "praying for a child" and "securing favor" was enough that Liu Xiang couldn't keep her at his side. The Political Security Bureau's recommendation was: revoke her "personal secretary" qualification and bar her from proximity to Elements.

Liu Xiang had scrambled over this sister-in-law situation. He had to write several private letters to Zhao Manxiong and Xiao Zishan pleading for leniency. Only then was it changed to the Executive Office's penalty of "dismissal with retention under probation" and "transfer from close Element service." Not caring about Guo Xi'er's tears, he quietly sent two guards to escort her back to Lingao, delivering her to her elder sister for "education."

Having clearly had both sisters at once, now he found himself having to return to his "old flame" Miss Five. Liu Xiang couldn't help sighing.

Liu Xiang's thoughts somehow drifted to Lu Cheng. Speaking of which, though that Lu Cheng girl had an ordinary face, she did have a nice figure... He quickly pulled his thoughts back. Shifting in his seat to move closer to the desk edge, he put on a serious expression, tapped his forehead, and took out a manila document folder from his right drawer.

The title on the folder was: Proposal for Restoring the Classified Information Bureau and Security Bureau Establishments.

Liu Xiang had worked in chaos cryptography in the old timeline, which of course fell under information security. His advisor had inevitably been involved in various classified systems construction projects for the province and city—as committee member, expert, or directly working on projects. Liu Xiang had been brought along by his advisor to participate in quite a few government-related projects. So he was fairly familiar with classified information and security work.

Liu Xiang had long been dissatisfied with the Executive Council's classified information work. Many people, including the vast majority of Elements, had romanticized fantasies about security work. It seemed that whenever classified information was mentioned, they immediately thought of nuclear weapons briefcases; whenever security was mentioned, they jumped to James Bond. As if only that counted as classified information, only that constituted security work. The Elements' quirky tastes had certainly deepened this mystification. However, this contradiction accumulating to dramatic life-or-death climaxes wasn't the norm for classified information work. While in Qiongshan, Liu Xiang had begun working from memory and some obscure materials in the Great Library to draft organizational frameworks for the Classified Information Bureau and Security Bureau. He also needed to adapt the old timeline's frameworks to Australian Song's current technological level. By the time he had mostly finished, he had been transferred to Guangzhou. The Guo Xi'er incident had just occurred, so Liu Xiang was preparing to introduce this proposal at an opportune time.

Deep down, rather than wanting to remind the Executive Council how important classified information and security work was, this document was more about explaining how poorly the Council's security work had been done. Therefore, naturalized staff committing certain "minor" errors was inevitable; the responsibility didn't lie with the naturalized citizens...

Liu Xiang first explained the functions of the Classified Information Bureau and Security Bureau, because in many people's eyes, these two departments seemed to be the same thing—and in the old timeline's county-level central administrative bodies, they were indeed combined into a "Classified Information and Security Office" to reduce staffing. For most Elements who in the old timeline could hardly access municipal-level—let alone high-official—administrative central offices, the concept that the "Classified Information Bureau" and "Security Bureau" were two completely different administrative units definitely needed clarification. After detailing the scope of authority of both agencies, Liu Xiang still had to draw an analogy: "The Classified Information Bureau is like the government agency of classified information work, responsible for determining classification levels, transmission, delivery, storage, retrieval, and other specific tasks for classified documents. The Security Bureau is like the public security-procuratorate-court organs of classified information work, responsible for supervision, review, investigation, training, certification, and so on." Liu Xiang didn't know if this analogy would finally make things clear to most people. Further on came the detailed breakdown of subordinate organizational responsibilities for both departments—naturally adapted to current conditions. For example, the Security Bureau's enterprise classification qualification certification work was currently essentially non-existent. Similarly, the Classified Information Bureau's Technology Division had little meaning given the Council's current technological conditions. Still, Liu Xiang listed them and wrote "recommend retaining organizational framework."

"Classified information is typically divided into three levels in descending order of importance: Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential. Non-classified information also has distinctions between internal and public, with scope limitations on distribution...

"Classified information isn't some mysterious big news. Much very routine information is actually classification-related. For example, college entrance examination papers are 'Top Secret Before Activation'—this is also a form of time-sensitive classified information. A large part of the Classified Information Bureau's work deals with these..."

(End of Chapter)