Chapter 55: Siblings
Gu Yansheng’s figure had disappeared for quite a while before Liao Litang straightened his back, clearly letting out a sigh of relief.
Nearly died.
Truly hovering between life and death; if he had spoken even slightly unpleasantly today, his whole family would have to go into the Japanese Law Enforcement Department.
He couldn’t admit this pain alone.
He picked up the telephone on the table and called Ma Sihai, “Come to me right away!”
After hanging up the phone, his trusted subordinate at the door knocked carefully and came in: “Section Chief, are you alright?”
“What could be wrong?” Liao Litang glared at him, then thought of something and strode to the door, where indeed the crowd had not dispersed.
“What are you all standing here for? Don’t you have work to do? Deputy Division Chief Gu wants to promote judicial reform, and our General Affairs Section, as an important part of the Judicial Department, must fully support the auxiliary work! Did you hear that clearly?”
“Clear!”
“Go do your work!”
His subordinates dispersed one by one, smiles blooming on their faces, all much more relaxed; since the Section Chief was fine, they were fine too, and what to do was made very clear.
Soon Ma Sihai hurried over, closed the door first upon entering, and saw Liao Litang slumped on the sofa with eyes closed resting, so he asked directly.
“Has that Gu guy left? What did he say?”
The division was only so big; if Gu Yansheng had lost his temper in the General Affairs Section and even he, the Section Chief, didn’t know about it, there was no point in continuing.
“What ‘Gu guy’? Call him Deputy Division Chief Gu when there are people around, and Division Chief when there aren’t.”
Liao Litang slowly opened his eyes and warned, “Old Ma, do I still need to teach you basic etiquette?”
“Gu” Ma Sihai was choked speechless; damn it, wasn’t it you who called him ‘that Gu guy’ the most enthusiastically in private?
But now wasn’t the time for that, “What’s wrong, did you eat gunpowder? Such a big temper, don’t take it out on me? What exactly happened?”
“Eat gunpowder, I damn near went into the Japanese Law Enforcement Department to eat a bullet!” Liao Litang angrily sat up straight and told Ma Sihai directly how agonizing the situation had been.
He emphasized especially how Gu Yansheng had quietly set a trap for them.
After hearing it, Ma Sihai’s hair stood on end; if it were him, he’d have fallen into it too.
“So cunning? Yesterday you were still saying he was young, damn, blind.”
Sure enough, they shouldn’t have underestimated him just because he had just entered the government and was young.
Could someone planted by the Japanese Consulate be a pushover?
“Awesome, right?” Liao Litang glanced at him sideways, tapping the table nonstop as he said: “Just this matter, even thinking back now, I don’t know how I answered; 0.8 or 0.5, if this chance was given to you, would you say to add it?
If you dare say no, he’d immediately go to the prison and tell the prison guards about it; who could withstand that? If it were you, would you dare refuse?”
Ma Sihai frowned seriously and nodded, “Wouldn’t dare.”
The prison guards and them could actually be considered a community of interests; they took the big share, and the prison guards could get a cut from food and medical fees, but that was it.
The big money from working wasn’t even enough for them to split, let alone extra to share with ordinary prison guards.
If it were really found out that they rejected adding more than half the food fees, the prison guards might rebel and report them.
At least it would lead to disloyalty, plummeting morale, no escape.
If it really happened, when that Deputy Division Chief Gu replaced the prison warden with a new one bringing 0.8 food fees, everyone would probably follow him.
“If we’d known, we should have visited his home last night. If we’d really delivered money, it wouldn’t have been so embarrassing today.”
Ma Sihai sighed; yesterday he had suggested giving Gu Yansheng some gold bars to test the waters, but Liao Litang had rejected it.
The reason for rejection was that Liao Litang thought this Deputy Division Chief Gu was at odds with the mayor; what if after three days the plan couldn’t be produced and he rolled up his bedding and left? Wouldn’t the money be wasted?
Moreover, since he had just arrived and they didn’t know him well, logically, wait a few days; if he really took root in the Judicial Department, it wouldn’t be late to send then.
Ma Sihai had thought it made sense at the time, so he didn’t object.
“Some money really can’t be saved; I think it’s because our attitude wasn’t in place. How about tonight we go deliver some? He didn’t deal with you today, that’s at least a good sign.” Ma Sihai suggested.
“Deliver now? We have a pile of shit on our own asses not wiped clean; would he accept what you hand over?”
Liao Litang let out a deep breath and said gravely: “He made it very clear; wipe your asses clean, make meritorious contributions in judicial reform, and only then when someone slips up, can he protect us with the Japanese, and only then dare to protect us in front of the Japanese.
We’ll talk about delivering money later; first get things done. That warden, you’re close to him; think of a way to handle it.
“How to handle?” Ma Sihai didn’t want to think of the worst outcome, and crucially, he couldn’t bring himself to do it; the warden was his subordinate, a brother in arms.
Liao Litang glared, “What do you think? His brother-in-law is the president of the Suzhou Maintenance Association; if you just extort his money, won’t he go complain? At a time like this, Deputy Division Chief Gu clearly said he doesn’t like this person, so find a way to make him disappear, but the method must leave his president brother-in-law unable to say anything.
You don’t want to go into the Japanese Law Enforcement Department, do you?”
“Alright.” With things as they were, Ma Sihai could only protect themselves first.
After thinking, he said: “I’ll find two people from Shanghai’s prisons. After Deputy Division Chief Gu’s inspection mission at the second prison ends and the heat dies down, find an opportunity on his way home to kidnap him, extort the money to settle accounts, kill him and pin it on the Military Statistics Bureau.
Didn’t he design a small armed group robbing prisoners? Just follow that script; we’ll go down to investigate, conclude it’s Military Statistics Bureau revenge. Anyway, he hasn’t untouched people from the Military Statistics Bureau in prison; it fits perfectly.”
“That’s it.” Liao Litang finalized with a slam.
“Then after this is done, how much money should we deliver?” Ma Sihai asked about the main matter.
Liao Litang frowned; this was indeed a problem, needed discussion.
Gu Yansheng returned to the office, sat in his position, and leaned back relaxedly.
Actually, handling matters in the division could be considered a waste of time, pure internal friction.
Whether in business or politics, as long as it’s internal, it’s internal friction.
For him, the people and matters in the division were meat rotting in the pot; he could handle them anytime. Originally, this timing should have been put later, like during reform implementation; if someone jumped out, then depending on the situation, killing the chicken to warn the monkey would suffice.
Now without available people like Wen Yan, making internal cuts was actually somewhat wasteful.
Otherwise, a position like the warden could have been arranged with his own person today; then if he wanted to release one or two people from inside later, it would be as easy as a single sentence.
Report a death from illness, no need for any release procedures; the person could disappear without a trace.
But with the accident coming, he could only face and handle it; at least for now, as long as he could still hold them down, Liao Litang and Ma Sihai should be usable for him.
With the two major sections of General Affairs Section and Prison Management Section in hand, today’s harvest was not bad, and with today’s events spreading privately in the division, no one should stir up trouble for a short time.
Should learn from Old Jiang: to repel external enemies, first pacify the interior.
Internal matters didn’t need consideration now, and the report to Fu Xiao’an was tomorrow; Gu Yansheng leaned in his chair thinking about the organization’s mission.
According to Lu Bowen, the information from the organization was to prepare money or cotton yarn; the organization would send someone else at the right time to pick it up.
That meant the organization had its own channels to transport goods out of Shanghai.
This was actually a difficulty too, but since the organization could handle it themselves, Gu Yansheng wouldn’t worry about it; just prepare a safe warehouse, ready for them to pick up anytime.
As for the cotton yarn part, Lu Bowen and He Yun had comprehensively collected the information; now Gu Yansheng summarized it all himself: three difficulties in the cotton yarn mission.
First, from whom to buy; second, who goes to buy; third, where to put this safe warehouse.
Those with large quantities are factories or big merchants.
Japanese purchase limits; large-scale procurement from urban area factories should all require permits, and one piece of cotton yarn is 181 kilograms; buying directly from factories, even just one piece, would need a chamber of commerce or shop self-use name to avoid suspicion.
The latter is not hard to arrange; for the former’s permits, think of a way; simply put, fake both.
Check which shops or chambers of commerce routinely procure cotton yarn, pick a few with strong connections, forge Japanese approval documents, pretend to be their people, and go directly to the factory site to pick up goods.
This method works in theory.
But there are problems: ten pieces are 1,800 kilograms, a hundred pieces 18,000 jin; if taking this route, need to prepare large trucks for transport in advance.
This thing is too obvious; once the factory reacts and reports the case a day or two later, the Japanese will trace the large truck and truck’s final warehouse unloading location.
Unless the timing can be nailed down, i.e., delivery and warehousing on the same day, picked up by the organization the next day, leaving an empty warehouse to completely stump the investigating Japanese.
Otherwise the whole thing would likely fail at the last step.
Gu Yansheng thought; coordinating the timing might not be that easy, mainly because he couldn’t estimate the organization’s shipping method.
They could carefully arrange to time the procurement, but if the organization’s pickup people needed more time, like two days later to ship out of Shanghai, not only the cotton yarn couldn’t leave the city, but the whole group taking delivery would be packaged for the Japanese.
No way to communicate, risk is a bit high.
Who goes to buy, where to put the safe warehouse; these two problems still unsolved.
Gu Yansheng thought, then simply switch thinking.
What place won’t the Japanese check or can’t check, selling without needing approval documents, able to pick up goods anytime, eliminating these three problems from the source.
There really is such a place, safer than the black market.
Fu Xiao’an’s warehouse, Japanese Chamber of Commerce’s warehouse, and his own source factories.
