Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

The bans imposed by Jinchayi and Jinyi Luyu were similar. However, this time, Marshal Nie's proposal to the North China Bureau was not a government-ordered opium ban.

Instead, they actually enacted a "drug control law"

It clearly stipulates various reward and punishment measures. In particular, it aims to intensify the crackdown on drugs. Previously, the opium ban primarily involved prison sentences and fines. However, Marshal Nie's "Drug Control Law" increased penalties, with execution for opium trafficking exceeding a certain weight.

During the Eighth Route Army period, we must pay attention to unity and form a united front.

But now the situation is completely different.

The gun should be shot.

The establishment of the North China Bureau was originally an experiment by the central government. Compared to other local central bureaus, the North China Bureau enjoyed significantly more power from the central government. Therefore, the North China Bureau's introduction of the "Drug Control Law" was legitimate.

At the meeting, most people supported drug control and the introduction of a complete "Drug Control Law."

After the meeting, the North China Bureau immediately sent a telegram to the Central Committee. The Central Committee quickly replied, supporting the North China Bureau's proposal to introduce a formal "drug control law." The Central Committee's intention was to allow the "drug control law" to be implemented within the North China Bureau for a period of time.

If the effect is good, after the founding of New China, we will have experience and can introduce our own "drug control law".

With the support of the central government, the North China Bureau appointed Dong Biwu as the overall person in charge.

One is to introduce an "Anti-Drug Law" as soon as possible, and the other is to launch a vigorous anti-drug campaign in North China.

While the North China Bureau prepared for its vigorous anti-drug campaign, Wei Hongjun had his own priorities. He convened a meeting of officials from the Propaganda and Social Affairs departments to discuss the crackdown on secret societies. Among them were Du Liqing, Director of the Social Affairs Department and Director of the Public Security Management Office of the North China Bureau; Yang Qiqing, Deputy Director of the Social Affairs Department and Deputy Director of the Public Security Management Office; and Bu Shengguang, Deputy Director of the Social Affairs Department and Deputy Director of the Public Security Management Office. Yao Ziming, formerly Director of the Yirecha Public Security Management Office, was now serving as Deputy Director of the Public Security Management Office of the North China Joint Administrative Committee. However, he was the last Deputy Director appointed.

The Propaganda Department is headed by Zhou Yang, and deputy heads include Zhang Panshi, Deng Tuo, and Duan Chengwei.

Among these cadres were those from the Jincha and Jinyi Luyu regions. Now that the Jinchayi and Jinyi Luyu regions have merged, everyone needs to adjust and adapt.

"Deputy Secretary Wei, we now have a lot of intelligence on the secret societies. As long as we give the order, we can take action.

Yang Qiqing, who is in charge of the daily work of the Public Security Management Office, spoke.

Yang Qiqing was a prominent figure on the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan defense front and the head of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Socialist Department. He was also a legendary figure on the Chinese public security front, having solved many major cases. These cases are still frequently mentioned even in later generations.

Don't underestimate Du Liqing, as she is a member of the North China Bureau and the Minister of Social Affairs.

But on this front, Yang Qiqing is more famous than Du Liqing.

"Comrade Yang Qiqing, dealing with secret societies cannot be treated as an ordinary matter. Just like arresting spies, you must be patient. What I mean is that you must send out investigators to conduct a long-term investigation.

To understand the organizational structure of the secret societies, we must clearly understand their organizers, their core members, and the people who have been deceived. And we can't just focus on one location; we need a comprehensive deployment and we must take them all down in one day. First, I want to eliminate the secret societies in Chahar. Second, Rehe. Third, Zhong. Fourth, southern Shanxi. We'll do this one location at a time, eliminating the secret societies one by one. Only in this way can we leave the secret societies with nowhere to hide. I believe you are all professionals and will definitely understand what needs to be done. Comrade Yang Qiqing, do you have any questions?"

The people currently in the Ministry of Social Affairs are all security cadres.

Our job is to catch spies.

The professional abilities are first-class.

Wei Hongjun just gave a general idea.

"Deputy Secretary Wei, I understand what you mean. Our Public Security Administration will send more investigators to thoroughly investigate the secret societies. We won't be dealing with them one by one, but rather one region at a time."

Yang Qiqing nodded.

He is a professional in this field. As soon as he heard Wei Hongjun's words, he understood what Wei Hongjun meant.

"Deputy Secretary Wei, there's a problem here. With organizations like secret societies, those deceived followers can become extremely fanatical after being bewitched. We've handled secret society cases before. Once we start arresting secret society members, these people will rush out to defend us. There have been many cases in the past where our public security officers have clashed with secret society members."

Bu Shengguang spoke.

Bu Shengguang came from the Central Red Army. After the First and Fourth Red Army joined forces at Maogong, they exchanged cadres. Bu Shengguang went to work for the Fourth Red Army and later served as Chief of Staff of the 129th Division's Independent Brigade.

That is to say, when Chen went to Yinan to establish a base, Bu Shengguang was his chief of staff.

The southern Hebei region was in great chaos at first.

There were defeated Nationalist soldiers, bandits, and village protection teams in every village. Of course, there were also numerous secret societies. They had dealt with secret societies before, but the problem was very difficult. The biggest problem was the sheer fanaticism of the deceived people.

If you want to deal with the Taoist sect, hundreds or even thousands of people will besiege you.

How do you deal with it?

Are you going to shoot?

If the shooting starts, it will be a big deal. But if we don't shoot, how can we solve these problems?

"Yes, Deputy Secretary Wei. We've also been secretly investigating various secret societies in the North China Liberated Area. They're incredibly numerous. Some have thousands or even tens of thousands of members, while others have hundreds or even thousands. Throughout the entire North China Liberated Area, the number of members of various secret societies is estimated to be no less than 500,000 or 600,000, perhaps even more. Our Public Security Bureau alone is insufficient to handle them."

Yao Ziming spoke.

Wei Hongjun nodded.

Although Wei Hongjun had thought that the Taoist sect was crazy, he did not expect it to be so crazy.

The North China Liberated Area is an old base of the Eighth Route Army and also an old liberated area. Yet, even such an old liberated area has so many members of secret societies. What about other liberated areas?

What about those Kuomintang-controlled areas?

Wei Hongjun thought for a moment and said, "Well, let me discuss this with Secretary Nie, Secretary Bo, and Secretary Dong. Let's see if we can transfer some troops to your Ministry of Social Affairs and Public Security Administration Office."

After the founding of New China, the Public Security Army was formed, and later the Armed Police was formed. There were reasons for that.

Because the public security force is too weak.

But they have too much to do.

Especially in the early days of liberation, there were too many bandits and too many secret societies. Although the regular army also participated, the regular army was still the regular army after all.

We can't let the regular army deal with these things every day.

Therefore, part of the troops were assigned to local leaders and became armed police forces.

Wei Hongjun planned to set up armed police in North China first.

“If we have the support of the troops, many things will be much easier.

Du Liqing nodded.

He certainly wouldn't refuse this plan to strengthen the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Public Security Administration. After conferring with the Public Security Administration, Wei Hongjun turned to Zhou Yang and the others and said, "Comrade Zhou Yang, the problem of secret societies can't be solved by simply arresting people. The most important thing is publicity. We need to make the general public understand that secret societies are just people playing tricks. We need to expose their tricks and prevent our people from being fooled. This is the job of your Propaganda Department."

"Deputy Secretary Wei, we will expose the secret society's scam in the newspaper."

Zhou Yang spoke.

But Wei Hongjun shook his head and said, "Most of the members of the Huidao Sect are ordinary people. They were deceived because they are uneducated. Even if some of them learned to read and write, they would not be able to understand the content of the newspaper. What use will your articles in the newspaper have?"

Wei Hongjun was not satisfied with Zhou Yang's answer.

The Propaganda Department of the North China Bureau now mainly administers two major newspapers: one is the "North China People's Daily", which is the official newspaper of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan, and the other is the "Shanxi Chaharji Daily", which is the official newspaper of Shanxi, Chahar and Hebei.

But these two newspapers are party newspapers.

But ordinary people weren't meant to read newspapers like these. These party and government newspapers were primarily aimed at the Eighth Route Army's own military and political cadres, promoting its policies and promoting united front work. These newspapers weren't meant for ordinary people. If they could understand these newspapers, they wouldn't be deceived by secret societies. Secret societies included many powerful figures, but they didn't participate out of trust in the secret societies' charades. They participated because they hoped to exploit them for greater gain. The only true victims were the uneducated common people.

Facing those uneducated common people, your propaganda in newspapers is useless.

These people are completely lost in their newspaper business. Perhaps they've been dealing with intellectuals and young students for years and have forgotten that China is a country with a preponderance of illiterate people. While they may be educated, their actual propaganda efforts are often divorced from reality and condescending.

"Deputy Secretary Wei, I think the drama club model is more suitable for promoting knowledge among farmers."

Duan Chengwei worked his way up from the grassroots level.

Unlike Zhou Yang and others, who were themselves literati, they were already well-known left-wing literati in the literary world before they defected to Yan'an. After they defected to Yan'an, Yan'an attached great importance to them.

Soon they went to various places to serve as cadres in the propaganda field.

Later, in the field of propaganda, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, their primary focus was on the United Front. They attracted more young students to the Eighth Route Army and helped more centrists understand the Eighth Route Army. In this respect, their contribution to the revolution was significant. However, the situation has changed, and they need to educate the general public about policies and raise their awareness. Unfortunately, most of them lacked grassroots experience, so they don't know how to do this.

Duan Chengwei still has experience.

Know how to promote to ordinary people.

"How do you want to use the drama club?"

"Deputy Secretary Wei, in reality, those charades of the Taoist sects are simply the legacy of generations of swindlers. It's just that many ordinary people haven't had the opportunity to witness these swindlers, so they're deceived. My idea is that we could specifically recruit some folk artisans from the public and recruit them into a drama club. Let them tour various towns and villages, showing them what these so-called magical tricks are all about.

"Recruit some street craftsmen?"

"Yes. I think they make a living as a quack. If I give them a chance to join the drama club, they probably won't refuse."

It is not easy to travel around the world, even making a living is not easy.

If they were given a public position, they would surely be delighted. Wei Hongjun then smiled and nodded, saying, "Comrade Duan Chengwei is right. We should use different propaganda methods for different audiences, and we must not fall into dogma. When facing ordinary people, especially the many illiterate people, we must adopt methods that they can understand.

Recruit some quacks and have them expose those tricks and let our people know that they are all fake. This is the best way to eradicate the secret societies.

Chapter 698 Armed Police

After the establishment of the North China Bureau, everyone was busy. Not to mention the Secretary of the North China Bureau, Marshal Nie. He needed to improve the various departments of the North China Bureau. Even the personnel issues involved had Marshal Nie very cautious.

After all, it is a merger of two major mountains.

Although Jin-Cha-Ji held an absolute advantage, Marshal Nie could not follow the original plan of establishing a second-tier military region. When Jin-Cha-Ji was forming a second-tier military region, Marshal Nie chose to have the Beiyue region annex the Jizhong, Jidong, and Rehe military regions. This was because the Beiyue region was already so powerful at the time. Of course, another reason was that neither the Jizhong, Jidong, or Rehe military regions had any capable cadres who could step up.

Therefore, Marshal Nie successfully completed the establishment of the Jin-Cha-Ji Second-Level Military Region.

But not this time.

After all, the other party is also a local central bureau.

Bo Shuchun, Teng Daiyuan, Yang Xiufeng and others are not rootless people. On the contrary, they are cadres with qualifications and status.

There still needs to be a balance.

If Marshal Nie annexed power from the North China Bureau, not only would the cadres in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan revolt, but how would the Central Committee view it? Shanxi, Chahar, and Hebei were already so powerful, and Marshal Nie was already a member of the Politburo. If, during this merger, the Shanxi-Chahar-Yibei region annexed Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, not only would the cadres in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan be displeased, but the Central Committee would also be unhappy. The accusation of factionalism would be leveled at any moment.

Besides personnel issues, the North China Bureau currently has another important task. The Central Committee requires the North China Bureau to establish a large-scale Party school, a large-scale military academy, a large-scale Party newspaper, and so on. In essence, the Central Committee is requiring the North China Bureau to embark on the path of true formalization.

Paving the way for the founding of New China.

The scattered Party schools should be merged and formalized.

Therefore, the status of the North China Bureau Party School this time was very high.

The original intention was to have Marshal Nie take on the concurrent post of president of the Party School, but he was too busy. Furthermore, Marshal Nie did not want to be seen as a true "lord" who would use the North China Bureau Party School to train his own cadres. So, he proposed Zhao Zhensheng as president of the Party School.

Then there are the major party newspapers.

The newspapers previously owned by the second- and third-tier military regions in the base areas were abolished. They were merged to expand the newspaper sector. The main focus was on expanding and strengthening two newspapers: the North China People's Daily and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Daily.

There are also large military academies, including large-scale development of universities.

To support the North China Bureau's call for the establishment of a large number of universities, universities in Yan'an began to relocate to North China. Furthermore, the existing Jin-Cha-Ji School and Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu School began to merge. The most notable was the merger of North China United University and Northern University to form North China University.

North China University holds a pivotal position in the history of universities in New China.

One of the predecessors of North China University, North China United University, was formed by the merger of Shaanxi-Northern Public School, Luxun Academy of Arts, Yan'an Workers' School, and Anwubao Wartime Youth Training Class. It later merged with Northern University to become North China University.