'Our missions are secret'

By Cui Jia in Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia (China Daily)

Updated: 2015-11-13

By early November, the leaves of the plants and trees on the vast grassland of the Xilin Golleague, a prefecture-level division of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, had turned to golden brown, but Lyu Mingbao had no time for the beautiful scenery. Instead, his eyes were firmly focused on two bulletproof trucks that were transporting bank notes on the 350-km journey to a city on China's border with Mongolia.

Lyu has been in charge of the escort department of the People's Bank of China's sub-central branch in Xilinhot for eight years. "We escort bank notes from the printing plants to the vault at our branch, and then transport them to 13 different places within the league," the 56-year-old said. Since 2010, the team, which is always armed, has completed more than 200 missions and travelled 150,000 km.

Before commercial banks withdraw the bills from PBOC branches, they cannot be referred to as "cash", instead they are called "issuance funds", he said.

Most of the funds in the Xilin Gol branch are transported by train from a printing plant in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province. "To ensure security, the funds are put in the type of a wagon that's used to carry coal or livestock, and we have to travel in it too. Sometimes, the smell is terrible. In the old days, we slept on top of the funds," he said. Planes and boats are used to transport the funds over longer distances or across rough terrain.

Although the team is constantly on guard against thieves, Lyu has never encountered hostile activity on the road. Instead, the region's hostile weather poses the biggest threat. "There are sandstorms in spring and snow blizzards in winter. We have to ensure that we avoid accidents and the funds are safe, no matter what," he said.

Jiang Yanqi, who oversees the allocation of issuance funds at the Xilin Gol branch, said the transportation schedule is drawn up far in advance because of high seasonal fluctuations in demand for cash.

"The Mongolian herdsmen only trust cash, and they need a lot more of it during the January lambing season," he said.

Several hours after leaving the PBOC branch in Xilinhot, the trucks arrived at their destination. For Lyu, it was the end of yet another uneventful journey, and he was thankful that the only disruptions had been minor, such as slow-moving trucks carrying bundles of grass bought by the local herdsman to feed their livestock during winter.

"Our missions are secret, so we are not allowed to tell our families where we are going or when we will return. The journey from the printing plant to Xilinhot is quite long, so anything can happen," he said. "If thieves ever worked out our routes, the consequences would be unimaginable."

Trucks loaded with bank notes travel along a highway in the Xilin Golleague, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Nov 2. Jiang Dong / China Daily

(China Daily 11/13/2015 page6)