Chapter 613: A Night in Guangzhou

In the long winter night, the cold air cut like a sword as huge snowflakes drifted down. Under the dim yellow streetlights, the snowflakes lost their pure whiteness in that moment, vanishing into the depths of the dark night in flickering uncertainty.

The rustling sound of snow did not disturb the humans separated by a single wall. Through the large glass window, one could see a middle-aged man bent intently over his desk writing, beneath a creamy-white LED desk lamp.

"The enemy and our own forces are in a complex stalemate. With ample cold-weather preparations, we will turn passivity into initiative, leveraging the favorable opportunity of extreme weather to mobilize elite troops and launch the West River Campaign, opening the Guangdong–Guangxi Corridor. Kill one group, capture one group, intimidate and co-opt the landlord class along the route."

The "shua shua" sound of writing flowed ceaselessly from the pen nib. As the middle-aged man wrote with furious speed, a red-header document brimming with killing intent gradually took shape on the paper. Finally, when the pen nib wrote down a series of department names for dissemination, this important document representing the will of the Empire was declared complete.

With a long exhale of "whoosh," Xia Xianze capped his Montblanc pen, reached out and tossed the document into the basket, leaned his head back against the chair, and tiredly rubbed his forehead.

After lifting the strong coffee on the desk and taking a sip, he sighed: "In the end, time is merciless to men." Xia Xianze, now past middle age, felt the sense of his body's aging with increasing clarity in this moment.

Back in the day, when he entertained friends from the Ministry of Land and Resources, it was a full-service affair of eating, drinking, and pleasure. At the end, they would move to multiple venues and drink until dawn. The next day, he could still accompany friends from the Ministry of Construction to battle again, playing mahjong all through the night, losing money with precision the entire time. Early the next morning, full of energy, he would still return to the Company to preside over work.

Now, he would feel dizzy after working more than ten hours. If he worked overtime writing documents like tonight, fatigue would come even earlier. Over time, it wasn't just neuralgic headaches; his lumbar and cervical spine would both protest.

But not working overtime was impossible!

As the Imperial Chancellor wielding great power, the public affairs Xia Xianze had to handle daily were virtually endless. There were very few days he could take lightly or rest.

Especially recently, as Guangdong experienced continuous temperature drops and a once-in-a-millennium blizzard, Xia Xianze's workload had also greatly increased. He not only had to direct all Government departments in joint disaster relief but also had to find time to meet with the Cabinet to discuss contingency matters—he was, one could say, busy to the point of taking flight.

In fact, for Transmigrators who possessed historical records, this wave of blizzard weather in Guangdong had long been anticipated.

For this reason, as early as the land-enclosure period, various Government departments had been making preparations one after another. To this day, the various supplies the Crossing Faction had stockpiled to withstand the harsh winter could be called amply sufficient. They could not only meet the needs of the people "under their rule" but could also provide support to other regions.

And this was precisely the reason for Xia Xianze's busyness. There was no free lunch in the world. Along with the delivery of batch after batch of disaster relief supplies, Xia Xianze not only had to control the propaganda departments to seize the moral high ground, widely publicizing the glorious, great, and righteous fact that "Lord Cao's benevolence is unparalleled," but also had to use the opportunity to negotiate with various local Ming officials, seizing and consolidating the Crossing Faction's control at the grassroots level, competing for the hearts of the people.

The above state of busyness was just routine. On top of this foundation, Xia Xianze also had to additionally receive reports from relevant departments, discussing and pushing forward the implementation of the West River Campaign.

The West River was the main waterway from Guangdong to Guangxi, and also the route towards the Yunnan-Guizhou direction. In this era without high-speed rail or expressways, the West River in fact served as the primary artery for bulk logistics between Liangguang.

Like other waterways of this era, West River shipping also faced the long-term constraints of natural and man-made calamities: the undredged channels were treacherous and perilous, gangs of river pirates along the route were as numerous as ox hairs, and merchant travel was restricted in many ways.

Conveniently, this blizzard weather gave the Transmigrators an opportunity: with heavy snow flying, merchant travel was virtually extinct, and the traditional river pirate gangs' mobility would also be severely limited.

At this time, Cao's Forces, possessing advantages in reconnaissance, night combat, close combat, and complete cold-zone combat supplies, could deploy troops at a relatively small cost to clear the banks of the West River, capturing the various immobilized river pirates in one fell swoop.

This opportunity to clear the West River had existed for a long time and had been posted on the Forum by someone several years ago. Later, not only did the Military have plans, but the Cabinet had also long heard of it. So, the moment the heavy snow began to fall, Xia Xianze immediately received the Military's report and began formulating plans to push this matter forward.

Tonight, with the issuance of this document by Xia Xianze, the West River Campaign officially entered the implementation phase.

As the coffee in his cup reached the bottom, Xia Xianze's thoughts returned to reality. He raised his wrist to look at his watch and found that it was unknowingly already 11 o'clock late at night. The next moment, he stood up, put on his wool overcoat, adjusted his fedora, then turned off the desk lamp and closed the door, going downstairs.

As soon as he stepped out, a young man and a young woman at the secretary's desk by the door stood up: "Daren."

"Mm." Xia Xianze nodded: "You two tidy up and get off work."

"Yes."

Having dismissed the secretaries, the Prime Minister continued forward. Soon he reached the stairwell. At the duty desk on the second floor was a steady-looking middle-aged man: "Daren, returning to the residence or going out?"

Xia Xianze did not stop walking at these words, while waving his hand: "No need to call the car, I'm going out for a casual walk."

"Yes." As the middle-aged man acknowledged the order, he waved a hand in the air. Thus, as the Daren went downstairs, two security personnel silently fell in behind him—burly in build, keen and capable in expression, with pistol holsters at their waists. And when the Daren reached the front door on the first floor, two more guards pulled open the main door for him.

Xia Xianze, long accustomed to being surrounded by Bodyguards, faced the swirling heavy snow outside the door at this moment, exhaled deeply, and then strode out.

Due to design flaws from the outset, compounded by a scarcity of construction materials, this crude building called the "Prime Minister's Official Residence" was, in reality, like that official residence in the Old World, only suitable for the Prime Minister to work in, not to live in.

As a result, whenever time permitted after getting off work each day, Xia Xianze would most often walk home—after years since Crossing Over, everyone, including Xia Xianze, had married native Ming girls and started families.

In the courtyard of the Prime Minister's Official Residence, a thick layer of white snow had already accumulated, making a "creak, creak" sound underfoot.

Walking in the courtyard, Xia Xianze felt the snowflakes brush his face, and his mood inexplicably lightened considerably: "In the blink of an eye, it's been several years since I've seen snow."

Most of the Transmigrators had spent these past few years in the warm south, so they indeed had not seen snowfall for a very long time.

After wandering two circles in the courtyard with his head lowered, Xia Xianze, exhaling white breath, stepped through the thick accumulated snow and out the wrought-iron gate.

The sentry at the gate, wearing an army greatcoat with snow accumulated on his shoulders, saw the Daren come out and immediately stood at attention with his rifle, saluting.

Xia Xianze nodded, standing at the main gate and pondering for a moment. What met his eyes was a dim yellow, silent long street, with snowflakes dancing—beyond twenty meters, nothing could be seen clearly.

At this moment, to his right hand side was a series of Government department compounds. Further along would lead to an area where a group of Transmigrators lived; Xia Xianze's home was also there.

Opposite him, across an asphalt road, was also a row of Government departments, and key ones at that, such as Finance and Internal Affairs.

And to his left was a "dead-end road." Lying horizontally at the road's end was the Imperial Palace, commonly known as the "Big Supermarket."

This short stretch of road gathered all the vital departments of the Crossing Regime. This area, after work ended each evening, would be cordoned off and sealed, completely inaccessible to ordinary people. Therefore, at this moment, the long street was empty and deserted, with only scattered points of light still shining from the buildings on both sides, representing certain workaholics still toiling through the night.

Tonight, Xia Xianze seemed to have something on his mind. After standing in front of the official residence, looking left and right, he did not turn right to go home as usual, but instead turned left, heading in the direction of the Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace was very close, only two or three hundred meters away. A few minutes later, Xia Xianze passed through a similar wrought-iron gate, carrying a body full of snowflakes as he stepped into the Imperial Palace.

Although the owner of this building often appeared and disappeared mysteriously, at least tonight, the Imperial Palace was not desolate and cold.

Before even reaching the second floor, the Prime Minister's ears caught the sound of shouting from a hi-fi stereo. The girl's high-pitched voice, the familiar melody, made the Prime Minister momentarily dazed—what was playing on the stereo was an ancient dance track from the Old World, "Wow."

When the Prime Minister reached the second floor, what he saw was a lively scene.

Under the bright lights, a large group of Transmigrators seemed to be having a party. They each held wine glasses in hand, from which wafted the aromas of champagne, Moutai, and Wuliangye.

Without a doubt, this bunch had already been drinking for quite some time. They gathered under the wrought-iron LED chandelier in the center of the main hall, each one red-faced with collars open, forming a circle, twisting their hips and shouting boisterously.

Surrounded by the drunkards was Li Dazui, the head brothel-patron of Haojing'ao and representative of the entertainment world, who was performing a hot dance. This gentleman had clearly long been drunk, bare-chested to reveal a body of pale flesh, standing in a horse stance with his finger held horizontally to his lips, cosplaying Lee Jung-hyun. From time to time, he would also knead his own pectoral muscles—a scene too unsightly to behold.

After coming upstairs and seeing this kind of scene, Xia Xianze shook his head helplessly and quietly skirted around this bunch of drunkards.

Since it was a supermarket layout, there were naturally rooms behind the main hall. The next moment, as expected, in a room at the back, the Prime Minister met tonight's target—His Imperial Majesty, the Cao Emperor, Cao Chuan, who was smoking cigars and chatting idly with several Transmigrators.

Clearly, today's Emperor was a bit special.

Before this, the Emperor had been mysteriously elusive the vast majority of the time, rarely interacting with the Transmigrators. Usually, if there was something to be conveyed, he would hurriedly give Xia Xianze a few words and be done with it. A scene like today's "rejoicing with the people" had only happened two or three times since the Crossing Over.

So Xia Xianze was somewhat surprised. Actually, he had received a phone call that afternoon and knew Cao Chuan had returned. He hadn't expected this Emperor to, contrary to his usual behavior, start a party in the Imperial Palace.

Lowering his head to glance at the Cohiba cigar wooden box placed on the coffee table, Xia Xianze frowned unnaturally. He knew that all the enjoyment these drunkards had tonight, including the Moutai, champagne, Wuliangye, and Cuban cigars, were definitely Old World luxury goods the Emperor had personally brought over—these things all counted against the Quota!

Xia Xianze, who usually went gray-haired allocating quotas to various departments, felt somewhat displeased at this moment.

At the same time, the Cao Emperor, seeing Xia Xianze enter, did not notice the other's bad mood, but instead laughed heartily: "Ha, the Prime Minister has arrived! Quickly, pour some champagne for General Manager Xia, cut a cigar!"