Chapter 323 Xiang Zhuang’s Sword Dance

Chapter 323 Xiang Zhuang’s Sword Dance

Chapter 323 Xiang Zhuang’s Sword Dance
Of course, what really made An Rushong feel embarrassed was not the two press releases themselves, but the fact that the appearance of these two press releases conflicted with his previous plans.

Don't forget that in the past two days, An Rusong was preparing to expose the news of drug trafficking by US troops stationed in South Korea in the NGN news pop-up window. However, exposing news like this is not just about posting related news in the pop-up window. It also requires a series of push and hype. The news must be made into a hot topic in order to have a big enough influence among the people.

The most important thing is that if there are too many hot news or topics in the same period of time, even two or more, it will affect the public's attention to related hot topics, which can be regarded as diversion.

Just like this time, if the NGN news pop-up window had just hyped up the news about the Sungnyemun fire and attracted heated discussions among the people, and then released news about drug trafficking by US troops stationed in South Korea, then there is no doubt that a considerable number of people who originally focused their attention on the Sungnyemun fire would shift their attention to the US troops' drug trafficking, and their attention to the Sungnyemun fire would be weakened invisibly.

Therefore, An Rushong must give more consideration to how to operate these two pieces of news.

However, he is fortunately that, according to the results of the negotiation between him and Leonard, the exposure of drug trafficking by US troops in South Korea must be done after his meeting with Thurman. After all, this is a kind of guarantee for him, and it will obviously take some time for Leonard to arrange this meeting. Therefore, An Rusong can adjust the time slightly to avoid the two hot news from interacting with each other and ultimately diverting public attention.

When they returned to the Songquandong mansion, it was already eleven o'clock in the evening. When An Rushong entered the door, Li Caicao and Sun Manzhu had already gone to bed. As for Rubin, her school had officially started yesterday.

After getting himself a glass of water in the living room, An Rushong went to the study. He sat down at his desk, lit a cigarette, then took out the envelope, took out the draft inside, and read it carefully from beginning to end.

As previously speculated, the press release on the "Power Takeover Committee" did include some information about the committee members, but unlike An Rusong's speculation, the press release did not actually include many committee members, with only three or five names listed. In contrast, the press release mainly covered the issue of strengthening supervision over civil servants and promoting disciplinary supervision of public officials.

Obviously, this is one of the key tasks that Lee Min-bo will implement first after taking office as president, and this press release is probably also a wake-up call to some people. No wonder Bai Jinjun said before that those who need to pay attention will naturally pay attention.

The impact of the Sungnyemun fire was much more serious than An Rusong had guessed. This was not difficult to understand. After all, his main impression of the incident came from his memories of his previous life. In his memories of his previous life, the domestic reports on the incident were nothing more than saying that the Sungnyemun, which was regarded as a national treasure by Koreans and had a history of more than 600 years, was burned down by a fire.

But if we go back 600 years, it is only the early Ming Dynasty. In other words, this Chongli Gate is a building in the early Ming Dynasty. It may be very important, but it is not very old. The most important thing is that there are too many cultural relics in China that are more precious than this thing. Therefore, from the perspective of the Chinese, although such things are not trivial, they are not enough to shock the whole country.

However, if we change our perspective to the identity of Koreans, this matter is obviously not that simple. After all, no matter how South Korea robs and steals other people's culture, its own poor historical heritage is clearly there. For them, a symbolic building with a history of 600 years is already a carrier of most of their national pride.

Today, this building, which was like the "first national treasure", was burned down to only a city platform, which means it was completely burned down. Just imagine, how could the sensation it caused be small?

The fact is, An Rusong didn't have to spend any effort to hype the news of Sungnyemun being burned down in the fire. As the news spread the next morning, it attracted the attention of the whole of South Korea.

On the Korean section of Yahoo Forum, this news was pushed to the top of the hot news. Before 9 a.m., there were hundreds of thousands of comments below this news. Some demanded that the fire department be held accountable, some demanded that the arsonist be severely punished, some demanded that the mayor of Seoul be held accountable, and some even spread conspiracy theories in their comments, believing that the fire at Sungnyemun was related to North Korean agents.

It was in this atmosphere that at nine o'clock in the morning, a news release about the Chongli Gate fire arranged by Bai Jinjun was sent out in the news pop-up window of the NGN software.

It was this press release that made An Rushong understand the political goals that Li Minbo wanted to achieve by using the Chongli Gate fire.

In the press release provided by Bai Jinjun, the cause of the fire was not mentioned, but the responsibility for the burning of Sungnyemun was directly put on the Fire and Disaster Prevention Department and the Ministry of Public Administration to which the department belongs. According to the press release, the fire at Sungnyemun was indeed caused by someone's arson, but after the fire broke out, the management department of Sungnyemun actually took fire-fighting measures as soon as possible and quickly contacted the fire department. However, when the fire department arrived at Sungnyemun, the fire had been basically under control.

Under the circumstances at the time, if the firefighters had conducted a careful inspection of the second-floor wooden structure on the city wall of Chongli Gate, the fire might have been avoided. However, the reality was that the firefighters who responded to the call were careless and anxious to go back to rest, so they hastily withdrew without conducting a basic inspection of the fire scene.

As a result, there were hidden embers in the fire scene that had not been cleaned up by professional firefighters. After the firefighters evacuated, the fire quickly reignited and eventually became an uncontrollable situation.

Therefore, the press release believes that the Chongli Gate fire was not only an absolute man-made disaster, but also a double man-made disaster: the first man-made disaster came from the crazy arsonist, and the second man-made disaster came from the inaction of state officials, more specifically, from the inaction of firefighters.

Using the root cause of the Sungnyemun fire as an argument, the press release also made an undisguised criticism of the administrative agencies of the Republic of Korea, including the Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs. All the problems, such as bloated institutions, redundant staff, overlapping powers, etc., were singled out and criticized.

Finally, the press release even directed its criticism at the Progressives, roughly meaning that during the past decade or so in power, the Progressives have made the entire national administrative structure increasingly bloated, administrative fiscal expenditures have also increased, and the burden they have placed on the national economy has become increasingly heavy.

Why has South Korea's economic development continued to slow down during the years when the progressives were in power? This is undoubtedly one of the reasons.

Just by reading between the lines of this press release, one can see that Li Minbo's administrative measures after taking office will definitely include actions such as institutional mergers, and it may be a jaw-dropping move.

Unfortunately, although An Rushong in his previous life had some understanding and memory of South Korea's past, these understanding and memories were mostly superficial. It was impossible for him to know or remember those details, such as what specific measures Li Minbo took after taking office, and it was even more impossible for him to know what decisions he made regarding institutional mergers.

However, on the third day after Chongli Gate was burned down, some rumors began to appear in newspapers and media. The most noteworthy of these was that Lee Min-bo might merge the Ministry of the Executive and Self-Government, the Central Personnel Commission, and the National Emergency Planning Commission into a unified "Ministry of Public Administration and Security."

If this rumor is true, then this newly formed Ministry of the Public Administration and Security should be regarded as the largest and most powerful agency in the Korean administrative system, because it not only controls the National Intelligence Service, the National Police Agency and the Fire Agency, but also the establishment of government agencies, personnel appointments of civil servants, management of government facilities, etc. Even the pensions of national civil servants are managed by this department.

In addition, rumors also mentioned that once the "Ministry of Public Administration and Security" is officially established, its first minister will be Won Shi-hoon.

Near noon, in a French restaurant called "Crème et Croissant" on 17th Diannong-ro, Dongdaemun District, An Rushong put down the knife and fork in his hand, wiped his hands with the napkin, then stood up slightly, bowed slightly to the middle-aged man opposite, and then stretched out his hands to take a business card handed over by the other party.

"Sit down, sit down, we're not strangers," the middle-aged man waved at him after he took the business card, smiling and saying, "Jin Jun and I are not only classmates, but also friends for twenty years. Since you are Jin Jun's junior, you are my junior, haha."

An Rushong smiled and put away the business card first, then picked up the decanter next to him and filled the middle-aged man's glass with red wine.

Next to An Rusong was Bai Jinjun. He had been sitting there smiling and saying nothing until An Rusong filled his glass with wine. Then he said slowly, "Since Brother Lujun said so, Rusong, don't refuse. It's just a business deal anyway. Whoever does it can do it."

(End of this chapter)