Chapter 18: The Conference — Food and Housing

Once they crossed into another timespace, the transmigrators would face three fundamental categories of problems: basic necessities like food and clothing; protection from violence, whether human or animal; and protection from nature itself—weather and disease. Compared with the overly technical industrial matters, most people cared far more about these personal concerns.

Modern society operates through extreme division and specialization of labor. Every convenience of daily life, even the simplest, requires an entire industrial chain to maintain. A single drop of tap water, before it flows from the faucet, depends on electricity, chemicals, steel manufacturing, cement, construction, and countless other industries working in concert.

In seventeenth-century Hainan, none of this existed.

Rice came only as unhusked grain. Water, after simple sedimentation, could only be sterilized by boiling. Ready-made clothing was an unknown concept—the wealthy hired tailors while ordinary people relied on their wives to cut and sew every garment by hand. Every daily necessity, even those taken most for granted, either did not exist in that timespace or survived only in primitive forms.

As Internal Affairs Team Leader responsible for livelihood matters, Xiao Zishan's proposed equipment list sparked immediate debate.

"Rice hullers, flour mills, grain-processing equipment—is all this really necessary? Consider the spare-parts problem, plus power consumption. Even ancient times had water-powered rice-hulling workshops. And as for grinding flour, Chinese peasants were still milling their own wheat well into the 1950s."

"Even if we adopt mechanized production, Machinery could build what we need. Bringing equipment from this timespace feels like a waste of transport capacity."

"And sewing machines, sergers, cutting tools..." Another voice piped up. "Team Leader Xiao, are you planning to open a garment factory?"

"Agriculture strongly supports grain-processing equipment!" Wu Nanhai interjected, siding with Xiao Zishan. "If Internal Affairs hadn't requested it, we would have. It's all about processing speed—traditional methods are extremely inefficient. Feeding several hundred people through manual operations would consume far too much labor."

"You could use water-powered mills. China had them, Europe had them..."

"Which means building a dedicated mill. Does the labor and material consumed for that not count? With electricity, we can drive this equipment directly and process enough grain in a fraction of the time."

"Machinery can handle spare parts," Xiao Zishan replied. He had anticipated this objection. "In rural areas, dry grain is typically stored. Using planned-economy-era standards: twelve jin of rice per adult per month. With five hundred people, we need at least six tons monthly. And that twelve-jin ration is for ordinary citizens and office workers—heavy laborers receive more. After crossing, with so much physical work ahead, we should calculate at fourteen jin. If we bring in local labor, supply needs increase further."

He continued: "Machine-processed grain is high quality, free of impurities. Stone mills demand high-quality stone, and poor stone produces flour full of grit—terrible for everyone's teeth."

"As for sewing machines—same reasoning. Clothes wear out and need replacing. Who exactly do you expect to make new clothes? Your girlfriends?" Laughter rippled through the room.

"Perhaps you'll find a local woman to marry. She won't know how to make our style of clothes. Teaching her isn't difficult, but a purely hand-sewn garment takes days, even for an expert seamstress. Perhaps you can wait those few days. But in the future, we'll be recruiting workers, and even—" he lowered his voice—"an army." He raised it again: "Will their uniforms also be sewn stitch by stitch by your wives?" More laughter.

"By that logic, ancient armies went naked? Hundreds of thousands of soldiers received new uniforms every year, didn't they?"

"That was based on vast quantities of cheap—even free—labor. We don't have that luxury." Xiao Zishan made a pained expression. "Our lives are finite. Productive capacity must be directed toward climbing the tech tree. Better to bring necessary machinery directly. It can also serve as an engineering sample for future replication."

Housing was another issue of great concern. Internal Affairs had originally planned to purchase large quantities of tents and establish a tent camp before constructing permanent structures. The Construction Group proposed an alternative: purchasing prefabricated houses for direct assembly—the kind common on construction sites as dormitories and offices. Panel materials came in many varieties, were lightweight and easy to erect, reasonably insulated, and far more comfortable than tents. Durability was respectable too: with proper maintenance, seven to eight years presented no problem.

"Our company has one department that's been using the simplest corrugated-steel prefab as warehouse and office space for almost ten years now—still in good shape." The speaker was Auntie Cao's daughter, Li Xiaolü—a petite Northern woman around thirty, fair-skinned and wearing thin-rimmed glasses. "Prefabs can also be multi-story, though that requires light steel framing."

Her voice was soft as she continued. "Given the harsh environment we'll face, we should use higher-grade materials—magnesium-phosphate prefabs, for instance. These use polystyrene foam core magnesium composite panels for walls and roofs, with steel doors and windows set in light steel framing. No special machinery is needed for installation. With simple tools, four skilled workers can assemble a standard unit of about sixty square meters in just four hours."

"Their modular flexibility exceeds corrugated steel. Units can be added or removed as needed, with doors, windows, and wall panels freely interchangeable. With reinforced structure, they can be built multi-story as well. These houses have excellent sealing and insulation, and they're entirely fireproof—moisture-resistant, corrosion-resistant, earthquake-resistant, and light. A standard unit weighs only 2,200 kilograms. Expected lifespan exceeds ten years. Dormitories, offices, and small warehouses can all use this type."

"What about factory buildings?" Industry was quite interested.

"Large-span factory buildings won't work with these. But you could use cement-panel prefabs instead." Li Xiaolü continued: "Basically, angle-steel frames with cement-panel construction. Much heavier than standard prefabs, but the advantage is a lifespan of twenty years or more. They can handle large spans and can be built as two- or three-story structures."

"Cement panels..." someone said hesitantly.

"Construction believes our industrial system can produce both cement and angle steel without difficulty. If factory buildings aren't urgently needed, we could bring only blueprints plus necessary molds, jigs, and materials, then build on-site using local resources." Her face was pale, and she seemed to suppress a wave of nausea as she steadied herself against the table. "However, assembling prefabs is skilled work. I recommend sending people to prefab companies for hands-on training."

Wen Desi nodded and made a note: "Practical skills training."

"Can we install plumbing and electricity in these houses?"

"Yes—though we can't run conduits inside the walls, surface-mounting works fine. However, Construction's view is that dormitories and office buildings should not have individual water supply and drainage, to save materials. For water needs, we think it's best to have separate public washroom facilities with three sections: shower room, washbasin area, and toilets. This allows centralized plumbing. Given Hainan's heavy rainfall, we'll install enclosed corridors connecting dormitories to the washrooms. Winter temperatures aren't low enough to warrant heated showers."

"What about cooling? Summers in Hainan are scorching. We need air conditioning."

The suggestion drew eye-rolls, though more than a few privately hoped for air conditioning. They were accustomed to it—and in Ming-era Hainan, there wouldn't even be electric fans.

"Traditional AC is definitely out of the question." Li Xiaolü glanced at Xiao Zishan; seeing no objection, she continued. "Traditional AC requires enormous amounts of electricity and chemical refrigerants—far too luxurious for our situation. If the Executive Committee decides to implement cooling, we have two options."

She seemed slightly dizzy as she went on. "First: evaporative-pad cooling—essentially evaporative ventilation fans that eliminate the indoor unit and compressor, using water as the refrigerant. Very energy-efficient. The downsides are high humidity, and the fans are difficult to manufacture."

"Second: groundwater-cooled AC. Similar in principle to radiator heating, except we pump groundwater instead of steam. High initial investment—deep wells and copper tubing for evaporators—but much better performance. Personally, I prefer this option. It works far better, and the system is simpler."

"Isn't that type prohibited by the government? They say it wastes water."

"There's no such regulation in another dimension."

"I understand that. But wasting water is still wasting water—not exactly environmentally friendly."

"You're worried about environmentalism back then?"

"You can reinject the groundwater, so there's no waste," she explained. "For something more advanced, there's geothermal AC. Similar method—about ten meters underground, temperatures remain constant around 20°C. Drill down and circulate water as a heat-exchange medium, warm in winter and cool in summer. In winter, extract heat from the ground; in summer, release heat into it. Our camp would need geologically stable ground. If conditions are too active, the system can only provide heating."

The attendees turned to Xiao Zishan—he was in charge of internal affairs. Xiao Zishan, in turn, looked to Chairman Wen Desi. He personally favored anything that improved living conditions. It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, hard to go from luxury to frugality—a group of pampered city dwellers, starting over in a wilderness, would suffer terribly low morale if conditions proved too harsh.

But he didn't dare state his position. These livelihood systems would require substantial industrial resources, and he simply lacked the courage to commit.

Wen Desi exchanged glances with him, then surveyed all the group leaders. Finally, he delivered the classic line:

"We'll need to study this issue further."

(End of Chapter)