Chapter 48: Port Construction (Part 1)

To any outside observer, D-Day would have appeared as a spectacle of magnificent chaos. The bay had retained its primeval subtropical beauty, but now small boats crisscrossed its waters in every direction while ship derricks swung endlessly, hoisting cargo up and lowering it down. Dense crowds of people descended from the enormous freighter on boarding ladders, streaming toward a beach bristling with colored signs that marked landing zones for personnel, vehicles, and equipment; staging areas for cargo; liaison points; registration stations—a whole improvised bureaucracy sprouting from the sand.

The port camp radiated outward from the Bopu Patrol Office and its adjacent beacon tower. From a purely developmental standpoint, this location left much to be desired—mangroves crowded the waterline, and the terrain lacked openness. But the patrol office offered ready-made structures, and the beacon tower provided an invaluable artificial high point. The Ming soldiers had fled, leaving these advantages for the taking. Unfortunately, another life form proved less accommodating.

Shortly after the Military Group occupied the building at dawn—their search still incomplete—several men came fleeing out, their bodies covered in flea bites. Old brick-and-timber buildings were breeding grounds for vermin; fleas and bedbugs had been standard residents since time immemorial. Before DDT and lindane achieved mass production in the 1940s, parasites were permanent occupants of any aged structure, wooden ones especially. As recently as 1945, Naples had suffered a typhus outbreak spread by fleas—an epidemic halted only when American forces blanketed the city with DDT to exterminate the hosts. Only then did most world cities finally escape these ancient plagues.

As head of the Health Group, Shi Niaoren had anticipated exactly this problem in his sanitation plan. The epidemic-prevention team followed immediately behind the landing force—a procession of figures in full protective suits, high boots, masks, and goggles, backpack sprayers strapped to their shoulders. Watching these apparitions enter the buildings and begin furiously spraying, the Military Group couldn't help but think of Unit 731.

The Medical and Health Group used a six percent wettable lindane solution mixed into a 150× water suspension, coating every corner, every piece of furniture. Then they sealed the doors and windows for thirty minutes to eliminate fleas, bedbugs, and anything else that crawled. All the old junk inside—mats, bedding, clothes—was hauled to the beach and burned. The unfortunate Military Group members who had entered prematurely were unceremoniously doused head-to-toe with the solution and sent back to the ship for bathing. Each received a special orange-red tag from the Health Group, marking them as "light contamination."

After thirty minutes of fumigation followed by an hour of ventilation, the Landing Command immediately claimed the patrol office's three-bay central hall as their headquarters. The side rooms—former barracks—underwent the same treatment before being converted into a computer room and secure storage for valuables.

The stench of lindane still hung thick in the air, but for a command post, this was a minor inconvenience. Radios were set up; maps spread across tables. Soon, powered by battery banks, the server hummed to life. A wireless LAN materialized, and with the help of a signal-amplifier antenna, laptops at every landing and unloading point could now exchange data directly with the central server. Information began flowing in like a tide: the Personnel Group established registration points at each landing site, recording every arrival; the Planning Committee stationed personnel with scanners at unloading and staging points, logging the intake and output of equipment and materials.

Aboard the Fengcheng, transmigrators assigned to various groups queued for disembarkation, filing off team by team according to the Personnel Group's schedule. The knockoff American backpacks weighed heavily on their shoulders—and this was merely issued gear. Personal luggage remained in the hold, last priority for unloading.

The ship's PA system broadcast Executive Order 16280002 on endless repeat:

1. All actions must follow commands. No unauthorized actions.

2. No one may cross the camp perimeter without permission. Those with task requirements must register at guard checkpoints when crossing.

3. No relieving oneself or discarding trash at random. Trash must be sorted and disposed of in designated pits.

4. Food and water must only be obtained from designated supply points. No unauthorized hunting, fishing, or eating wild game.

5. Anyone noticing physical abnormalities in themselves or others should immediately seek help at medical stations.

To maximize labor efficiency and prevent the inevitable situation of some people working while others stood idle, the Landing Command devised an armband system. Red designated Military Group guard personnel. Blue marked ship duty and crew—with a white circle in the center bearing characters for vessel type: "Freighter," "Barge," "Fishing," "Landing," "Boat," or "Misc." Those unable to work, whether sick or children, wore blue with "Misc." White identified technical specialists assigned to D-Day construction. Yellow signified command and administrative personnel under Landing HQ. White with numbers denoted the "basic labor force"—four-digit codes printed on each band. All basic laborers organized themselves into five-person teams, each assigned its own four-digit identifier. Team leaders received workbooks where every new assignment was recorded, along with any tools and equipment issued.

Labor dispatch fell under the centralized management of the Personnel Group. In their tent, a large table held a pre-printed map of the Lingao Cape–Bopu Port area, covered with transparent overlay. Each specialist group and labor team was represented by colored, numbered cards placed in their current work zones. Based on task intensity, dispatchers clipped markers to the cards: one hairpin for light duty, two for medium, three for heavy—a simple method of balancing workloads across teams. Crude as it was, this visual system paired with the OA labor-management module gave Personnel complete visibility into every team's current task, location, and workload, down to what tools and materials each had received. The arrangement proved remarkably effective for deployment and management.

On the bay's southern beach rose a large military tent. A sign out front proclaimed in wobbly painted characters: "Bopu Port Zone Construction Command." Here gathered every technical mind the transmigrators possessed in architecture, planning, design, and hydrology. Their just-completed Project One was already in operation—construction equipment and materials flowed continuously from the floating dock. With this material foundation secured, port-zone construction could begin in earnest.

Inside the tent: a conference table and folding chairs from the ship, laptops glowing, and stacks of bound hydrographic data volumes. Though technical experts of every stripe were present, all attention focused on four individuals studying the map.

Bing Feng was twenty-seven, a hairy young man who worked as a structural engineer and held a project-manager certificate. His specialty lay in portal-frame steel structures and steel-frame residential design and construction.

Yan Quezhi was twenty-eight and chubby, a product of the Chinese university system's tendency to produce generalists who knew a little of everything but mastered nothing. He held an associate degree in hydrology and could charitably be called a half-trained technician in water resources, hydrology, and meteorology. He knew surveying, could operate levels and theodolites proficiently, and possessed a basic understanding of hydraulic engineering structures.

Mei Wan was thirty, an architecture graduate who had knocked around construction companies for years, becoming a veteran operator specializing in cost estimation and project management. He was proficient with all measuring instruments and brought rich experience in civil-engineering coordination to the table.

Li Xiaolu was also thirty, a professional planning and design specialist holding both architect and planner certifications. Surveying and planning were her specialties.

These were the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the Construction Engineering Group. Li Xiaolu was the only woman among them, but no one could match her credentials. Still, she had limited practical construction experience and disliked the spotlight. So Mei Wan led the Four Heavenly Kings—he had spent the most time on actual job sites and knew at least a little of everything.

"Command requires basic port infrastructure complete by nightfall," Mei Wan announced, relaying the orders. "Electricity, water supply, unloading area, cargo staging. Plus basic fortifications. We have priority access to materials, machinery, and labor."

"Group Leader Mei, we haven't even surveyed yet—we can't produce a proper plan." Li Xiaolu frowned at the map. "I compared our archived survey data with what's here. The terrain differs significantly from the twenty-first century."

"No time for precision," Mei Wan said. "Fortunately, this isn't our main base—we don't need extensive planning. Small temporary projects only."

The solution, as any site veteran knew, was to survey, design, and build simultaneously. Mei Wan made assignments: Li Xiaolu and Yan Quezhi would handle port-zone surveying—a task requiring both technical skill and physical effort, so one basic-labor team was assigned as helpers, along with a five-shot shotgun from the Military Group for protection. Tian Jiujiu took responsibility for camp water supply and drainage; Chang Kaishen handled electrification. Bing Feng drew the most challenging assignment: building cargo warehouses.

By comparison, Chang Kaishen had it easier. The Committee had prepared generators and supporting power equipment of every type, but all of it still slept in containers. For a temporary port camp with few power points and light overall load—mainly lighting, command-post office equipment, and some electric unloading machinery—the demands were modest.

Given these requirements, the early power grid needed to be simple, reliable, convenient to operate, and sparing with materials. Chang Kaishen's plan dispensed with any shore-based power plant. Instead, he would draw electricity directly from the Fengcheng's auxiliary engine—after anchoring, the main engine stopped, but the auxiliaries ran continuously to supply ship power. The Electrical Group would run a 380-volt cable from the ship's distribution room, securing it along the floating pontoon all the way to shore, where it would connect to a distribution station. The entire grid used the simplest radial configuration, common in old Chinese rural networks. The drawback was obvious: any line fault or maintenance meant cutting power to everyone on that line. But for now, this was acceptable. The only equipment requiring uninterrupted power was the command-post IT systems—UPS backup units and high-capacity battery banks would suffice.

However, the Committee vetoed the initial plan to fix power cables directly to the floating pier. Leakage risks and unsafe conditions concerned them, and cables strung across a busy pier could easily suffer accidental damage. The Engineering Group revised the design: they disassembled spare floating units, strung the empty drums together with steel cables, and floated them on the water as a dedicated conduit. Counterweights hung from each drum for stability. This power-line water route soon proved far more valuable than anticipated. First came an oil line to pump diesel from the ship. Then Communications ran telephone cables ashore. Now the Fengcheng could contact Command by direct phone call—or even fax—without relying on walkie-talkies. Best of all, IT specialist Shi Kai used this phone line for network connection, enabling all shore computers to access the ship's server bidirectionally through the Command server. The OA system had achieved complete coverage.

(End of Chapter)