My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 393 New Order
Liu Rong needed to let the Xiuyiwei, a special department that was full of mystery in the past, know that above the commander of the Xiuyiwei, Zhou Ren, there was a superior named Liu Rong.

Moreover, this immediate superior was the Emperor of Han;
They were the former Emperor Taizong Liu Heng, the former Emperor Xiaojing Liu Qi, and every Han emperor since then.

Of course, the "let them know" here does not mean to gather them together literally and then say to them: Hello everyone, I am the emperor and also your boss behind the scenes.

——How can a group feel the presence of their boss most intuitively?
The answer is to give money.

If you have only met a leader a few times in your life, or even have no chance to meet him once, then it will be the same to you whether you have him or not.

But one day, when this boss hands you a bonus that does not belong to you in person, you will remember: there is a leader who you rarely see and may not even have the chance to meet again, and he is the real helmsman of your department.

The same principle applies - the Embroidered Uniform Guards in the past, whether during the reign of Emperor Taizong or Emperor Xiaojing, were actually quite indifferent to the role of the Han emperor.

why?
Due to the special nature of the Xiuyiwei department, their personnel composition is almost directly equated with "all kinds of people".

Farmers, merchants, craftsmen, nobles - basically none of them were included in the personnel composition of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

There is only one group that can be used by the Xiuyiwei, can give full play to the functions of the Xiuyiwei as an intelligence department, and provide enough manpower.

——The rangers.

Because in today's world, nobles are busy enjoying themselves, merchants are busy making money, farmers are busy farming, and craftsmen are busy making iron.

Only the rangers can bear the label of "idlers and lazy people" and wander around, chat and gossip with others without letting anyone notice anything unusual.

Just imagine;
Would you think it normal if a young man who was dressed extravagantly, had a noble temperament and obviously came from a distinguished family background asked you about who the King of Wu had met recently?

A businessman who is obsessed with money, extremely mercenary, and would like to sell even the air for money, asks you whether the King of Yan has said anything outrageous recently, would you believe that this person is a businessman?
The same goes for this - a muscular but honest craftsman asks you about the whereabouts of a certain prince, or a ragged farmer who is bent by the word "survival" talks to you about the impact, pros and cons of a certain policy of the court...

Obviously, the above situations are exactly the same as the plainclothes men in later generations who wear trousers, leather shoes, and flat heads and can spread pancakes into oatmeal - you would be a fool to believe it!
Coupled with the strict population mobility control system of this era, the vigilance caused by "new faces" in local areas is almost the same as that of a tiger descending from the mountain or a locust crossing the border.

Everybody was afraid;
Everyone is paying attention;

No one dared to approach;
At the same time, everyone hopes that all this will be over soon.

But if it were a ranger, everything would be different.

The rangers are always free!
Rangers have no fixed place to live!

The knights-errant are naturally gossipy, and they love to show off their talents and make comments!
It’s just like in later generations, when men can start talking about the international situation after three glasses of wine - the knights-errant of this era all claim to be able to stop a war with their own connections.

Therefore, it is perfect for them to be responsible for intelligence work.

——Rangers have the attribute of "wanderer", so the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar ranger in a certain place would not attract much attention at all.

At most, they would just make contact with the local gangs and then quickly become part of the gang.

——A ranger has the attribute of a 'vagrant'. A ranger who does nothing, does not do any production, hangs around the streets all day, and chats with people whenever he has nothing to do will also not attract anyone's attention.

Quite the contrary: in this era when entertainment is extremely scarce, the stories brought by outsiders are an important and indispensable form of entertainment even for the lower classes.

——Rangers have the attribute of "unknown origin". Although not all of them are involved in murders, most of them are involved in lawsuits of varying sizes.

Therefore, no one would find it strange if they concealed their identities and backgrounds.

Simply perfect!
You can walk around the streets and gather information with justification. You don’t need to make up a fake profession to fool people, or even a fake identity to integrate into society!
Is there anything more suitable for an intelligence officer than this?

All right;

If you said pancake vendor, you win...

Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that over the past ten years or so, almost 99% of the Xiuyiwei's organizational structure of 8,000 people and tens of thousands of personnel have developed from the group of knights.

——The pattern of the Embroidered Uniform Guard is not to let a legitimate intelligence officer pretend to be a ranger, but to recruit a genuine ranger as their own intelligence officer.

The problem brought about by this model is that the entire Xiuyiwei is almost entirely composed of rangers with poor organizational discipline and no moral bottom line.

If this is a secret service, then that’s just fine—spies don’t need to, and can’t even, have morals;

But what Liu Rong wanted was a pure intelligence agency, even a formal, visible intelligence agency similar to the national security department in later generations.

In such a formal department, a group like the Rangers, which have gangster attributes, is bound to have some troublesome problems.

For example: seeking profit and avoiding harm, selfishness, and dedication is almost zero;
For example, they are greedy for money and have no bottom line. They can quit or even betray the organization for all kinds of incredible reasons.

Finally, the most inconspicuous, but also the most important point for intelligence agencies: act on impulse and follow whoever feeds you.

It was not Liu Rong's random imagination, or a battle of wits and courage with the air - in this matter, Liu Rong was inspired by a real case.

The incident happened five years ago, nearly a year after the Wu-Chu Rebellion was quelled and Crown Prince Liu Rong had recently become regent.

At that time, the late emperor had probably made up his mind to pass the throne to Liu Rong, so he revealed the existence of the mysterious organization, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, to Liu Rong.

In the following period of time, Liu Rong repeatedly heard the doctor Zhou Ren report his work to the late emperor in the Xuanshi Hall.

Even the internal work reports of the Xiuyiwei did not need to be avoided, so Liu Rong had obviously heard a lot of other topics about Zhou Ren and the Xiuyiwei.

Among them, what impressed Liu Rong the most was that there was a time when a ridiculous incident occurred within the Xiuyiwei.

The story goes something like this: The Embroidered Uniform Guard needed funds for a project, and Zhou Ren applied to the late emperor as usual;
As usual, the late emperor came up with a variety of excuses and ostensibly promised Zhou Ren a reward, but in fact he approved the funding for the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Then Zhou Ren took the funds and issued tasks within the Xiuyiwei, distributing the funds at the same time.

Soon after, the mission was successfully completed, but there was some money left over;
Zhou Ren felt that there wasn't much left anyway, so instead of collecting them all, he might as well leave them as a bonus for the spies of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Then something went wrong.

——After receiving Zhou Ren's bonus, a few idiots in the Embroidered Uniform Guard privately approached Zhou Ren and said, "A gentleman will die for his friend."
Zhou Ren treated them so well that they were so grateful that they could not repay him.
If necessary, he would go through fire and water for Zhou Ren without hesitation! So Zhou Ren was so scared that he immediately went to the palace and reported the matter to the late emperor to clear himself of suspicion.

The reason why Liu Rong was so impressed by this incident was that at that time, this incident caused quite a stir among the late emperor.

——The late emperor was almost shocked!

After being surprised, he immediately became furious!
But in the end, the matter was only dealt with in a superficial way: those idiots were secretly executed and Zhou Ren was fined for half a year.

As for the situation where the lower and upper levels were disconnected due to the lengthy power structure - the members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard had no sense of identification with the emperor - it was not resolved at all.

Later, the late emperor also told Liu Rong: This kind of thing cannot be solved.

If you want to win people's hearts, you must "give money", that is, give them benefits.

Moreover, the money must be distributed face to face in person, rather than hiding behind the scenes and distributing it through the hands of subordinates.

However, the Embroidered Uniform Guard is an organization that cannot be shown to the public and cannot be seen in the light, and the emperor absolutely cannot "touch" it.

Because it damages the image.

Therefore, even though he knew that doing so might cause the Embroidered Uniform Guard to slip out of his control, the Han emperor still had to "protect his feathers" and never show up in front of the Embroidered Uniform Guard members.

Because only in this way, the Emperor of Han could, when one day the secrets of the Embroidered Uniform Guard were exposed to the world, say with confidence: I don’t know what the Embroidered Uniform Guard is, and I have never heard of these three words!
Everything was done on the own initiative by Zhou Ren, a non-staff member and temporary worker!

Do not believe?

If you don't believe me, just ask those shady things of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Has anyone seen me?

If it was really the Embroidered Uniform Guard that I created, how could I not meet with these things?

How could you not paint them a rosy picture and give them some money in order to win their hearts and minds and gain control of these things?
It sounds cold and heartless.

But at the national level, there is no way around it.

It is just like some countries in later generations, which were not convenient to send out troops openly, so they let the soldiers in the army become mercenaries for one side of the war in their "individual" capacity;
——The only difference between the soldiers of a certain country and the mercenaries of another country is that the former are under the command of this "certain country", while the latter completely obey their personal will.

Naturally, if something goes wrong, the former will implicate the country behind it, but the latter can be completely classified as: personal behavior, nothing to do with the country.

The Emperor of Han - mainly the late Emperor - had roughly this attitude towards the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards are certainly useful;
Of course the late emperor would use it;
But no matter what, no one could be allowed to know that the Emperor of Han actually supported such a shady organization.

Therefore, a safe distance needs to be maintained between the late emperor and the Embroidered Uniform Guards.

The late emperor’s single-line communication and remote control of the Embroidered Uniform Guards through Zhou Ren was already at its limit.

The key to this issue is that the Xiuyiwei cannot be seen in the light, so the emperor has to keep a distance from it, and keeping a distance will inevitably lead to the disunity of this organization.

It seems to be a dilemma of having to sacrifice one thing while gaining the other - it's either this or that, you can only choose, you can't have both.

Liu Rong’s answer was: I want them all.

Can't see the light?

Then let him see the light.

Secret service agency?

It is obviously an intelligence agency and national security department!
Since it's a national security department that can be seen in the open and on the surface, then I don't have to keep a "safe distance" anymore, right?
There is no need to maintain a safe distance, so I will naturally highlight and emphasize the existence of the Han Emperor as my immediate superior within the Embroidered Uniform Guard, so as to strengthen the centripetal force of this organization towards the Han Emperor.

The specific means can be briefly summarized as "giving money". To be more specific, it means improving treatment, clearly distinguishing rewards and punishments, clarifying tasks, giving the department a sense of mission, and then building a formal and complete system for it.

This is very important.

"Money" in a narrow sense, that is, material treatment, is certainly important;
But "money" in a broad sense, even the invisible benefits such as sense of destiny, formal establishment, and social status, are more important factors.

Why is the iron rice bowl so attractive in later generations?

Is the salary very high?

Or is the bonus cap very high?

Or, is there any legal and invisible source of profit that can earn one million a year?

Apparently neither.

The real allure of a stable job lies in its stability and respectability.

In particular, the word "dignity", with its weight in terms of social status, personal connections, and social roles, can be said to be the most extraordinary privilege that the lower-class people are most likely to obtain in their lifetime.

What Liu Rong had to do was to transform the Xiuyiwei, a former secret service department, into a permanent government department that was like the golden rice bowl of later generations, stable, respectable, and contributing to the society and the country, and having a natural sense of pride and mission.

The first step is to set up a complete departmental framework and clarify the mission of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

In the past, the Embroidered Uniform Guards were like the royal family's secret spies and undercover agents, doing all kinds of despicable things that could not be displayed in public or in the light of day.

But from now on, the Embroidered Uniform Guard will have to do a series of upright and noble work, including national security, external intelligence gathering, and intelligence delivery behind enemy lines.

In particular, whether or not one has this awareness is extremely important for intelligence personnel themselves.

——If you were a paparazzi hired by a wealthy man, specializing in taking celebrity gossip, what would your work status be like?
If you were an underground worker planted by the country in the Japanese pirate country, specifically responsible for work behind enemy lines and making hard contributions to the country and the nation, what would your working status be like?
Same principle;

We need to make sure that everyone in the Embroidered Uniform Guard has a clear understanding of their identities and their jobs, and that they understand that they are not someone's dog that is solely responsible for smelling.
Instead, he is a hero of the entire Chinese nation who is willing to live behind the scenes and silently contribute to the prosperity of the nation. His merits are immeasurable!

(End of this chapter)