Chapter 483 - Surveying the Land
"For those with discrepancies in their accounts, they can be temporarily suspended for investigation. As long as it wasn't intentional, they can still be forgiven." Wu De issued instructions to Zhou Botao. "But if anyone continues committing offenses against the wind and keeps playing these tricks, send them directly to the labor reform camp."
With a series of measures in place, not only were the people satisfied, but the pace of grain collection also accelerated greatly. Though the improvements to the grain levy weren't dramatic in scale, every single one was implemented practically and benefited the people. The transmigrator collective's reputation increased considerably. The Executive Committee was also quite satisfied with Wu De's work.
But the hardest part still lay ahead.
"The land survey work will begin immediately." Wu De announced at the meeting. "This task is more complex than anything we've done before."
First, they had to address the resistance of grain households, especially the major ones. Second, they needed mental preparation for the chaotic state of ancient land ownership.
"...We have the fish-scale registers, Chen Minggang's private ledgers, and confessions from the grain runners and clerks. But all this is still far from enough. These account books only give us numbers. Where exactly is this land located? How much area does it cover? That remains very unclear, with massive errors—we need to verify and check each one."
From social surveys and Divine Society fieldwork reports, they knew that a landowner's holdings weren't connected blocks. Most were divided into small, scattered parcels—especially in areas around the county seat and along both banks of the Wenlan River where agricultural development had begun earliest. Investigating all this would be no easy task.
Students were drawn from the National School and given uniform training on surveying and mapmaking. Umbrella-Shop Little Hu was pulled from the study class. The limping grain runner was so dejected he could barely stand. Wu De asked him simply:
"Want to get out?" Wu De said. "We won't mistreat you! Look at Zhou Qi. Working with us has its benefits!"
And so Little Hu immediately began working for the transmigrator collective. His first assignment was participating in the land survey.
"Work hard."
According to the plan, land survey work was divided into three phases. Before the end of 1629 was the declaration phase. Under the pretext of "exchanging for new deeds," re-registration would be conducted. An order was also issued: any land not registered by the deadline would have its old deeds invalidated and land ownership voided.
The second step was the verification phase. Land survey work teams would go to the countryside to verify each household's declarations, correct data, and simultaneously conduct mapping and registration.
The final phase would issue new land deeds based on verified information. This would serve as the basis for implementing the new tax system. The entire survey was expected to be complete by May of 1630.
Through this unprecedented large-scale land survey, Wu De also planned to simultaneously conduct population and property registration, determining all residential settlements in the county—long-range exploration teams kept discovering small villages with no records at the county yamen. They would try to understand Lingao's manpower and material resources as thoroughly as possible.
Besides using manual census methods, Wu De also planned to make heavy use of technological means—particularly aerial remote sensing. No matter where fields or settlements were hidden, from above everything would be laid bare.
Wang Ruixiang had brought an American-made large model airplane and a remote-controlled helicopter. These two extremely precious treasures had been carefully stored in the Planning Committee's specially-controlled equipment warehouse. These constituted the entire "air force" of the transmigrator collective.
The helicopter wasn't very practical and, because replacement parts were extremely expensive, Wang Ruixiang hadn't purchased many spares. The large model airplane had far more spare parts. This plane was quite large and could carry considerable weight in equipment—perfectly usable as an unmanned reconnaissance drone.
"If only we'd known, we should have gotten a Chujiao-6 trainer," Jiang Hongjun said wistfully as he watched Wang Ruixiang assemble the plane. "Easy to fly and very rugged."
"Buying a real airplane would have been too troublesome." Wang Ruixiang shook his head repeatedly. "The paperwork alone would drive you crazy! I actually think it's a loss that the North American branch didn't buy an ultralight. Those aircraft aren't much harder to assemble than model planes."
"But using this is already quite impressive." Wang Ruixiang added. "The only problem is Lingao's strong winds—this thing is too sensitive to wind. If the main structure crashes and breaks, that'll be the end of it."
"We could actually build an airplane." Jiang Hongjun raised the idea. "Simple aircraft don't require much advanced technology. Weren't early planes just bamboo and wooden frames with an engine attached? We have small motorcycle engines. Add a propeller and it could fly!"
"Zhong Lishi and Wang Luobin are both quite interested in aviation. We should talk to them sometime..."
Before he could finish, someone came to hurry them: "The survey team is about to leave. Hurry up!"
"Almost ready!"
Wang Ruixiang's airplane was carefully mounted on a fixed frame that also served as a launch rack, using rubber-band power for catapult takeoff. After the frame and airplane were assembled, they were loaded onto an ox cart. Then this "aviation ox cart" set off to the countryside under escort of a squad of indigenous soldiers to conduct land remote sensing.
Under Wu De's direction, the land survey commenced in an orderly fashion. To save time, he adopted a method of registration and surveying simultaneously. While waiting for natives to "self-report," they were already beginning to investigate land conditions district by district, first grasping each area's approximate amount of cultivated land, wasteland, and residential settlements. This work relied partly on field teams going to the countryside for on-site inspection, and partly on archival research. The county yamen's document storage room contained masses of original records. A sorting team sent by the Grand Library first went through all land registration archives.
Ming-era cultivated land had numerous designations by nature, mainly relating to land use and origin. The systems were intricately complex—even veteran clerks might not fully understand them. Wu De decided to ignore all of it and first establish actual land ownership status. The sorting team quickly clarified the county's "official land" situation. The results were as expected: the data calculated from original documents didn't match the Household Office records at all—off by more than half.
"Just the official land figures are way off from the Household Office accounts. Missing more than half."
"Those clerks were really corrupt."
"It's not entirely the clerks' fault. Official lands naturally disappear over time. Sometimes tenants occupy them; sometimes local strongmen take them over. Some are even sold off... All sorts of problems, very hard to resolve." The person in charge of sorting reported.
"With these original documents, we can recover the official lands. Transfer everything to the Agricultural Committee!"
"Recovering official lands is certainly legitimate but very difficult." Yu Eshui expressed objection. "Over the years, those cultivating the land have long considered it their own. Now if someone comes waving a centuries-old deed saying this land is theirs, would you accept it?"
"Hmm, that's true."
"Also, these lands may have changed hands many times over the past century or more. We have no evidence to prove current owners are illegal occupiers. So we can only accept the fait accompli. No point wasting effort investigating—it's not cost-effective and would lose popular support."
"That makes sense. Let's just manage the current official lands well first." Wu De thought for a moment. "Actually, let's issue new deeds for these lands too—make everything proper and legitimate."
Ding Ding was also summoned to the Leadership Group office. Besides running the newspaper now, his main energy had shifted to propaganda work. Local popular entertainment activities were extremely scarce—making this an ideal opportunity to occupy the ideological front with propaganda. The Lingao Times had extended its circulation beyond the Green Zone, with more and more local natives recognizing the newspaper's importance. Besides local retail and complimentary distribution, there were now long-term subscribers—mainly local major households eager to understand Australian policy directions.
The Propaganda Department had also recruited all the "performers" in the county, including monks who could chant scripture narratives, Taoist priests who could sing daoqing ballads, and village musicians who performed at weddings and funerals. All were now registered and receiving training. These people would go to the countryside at any time to conduct propaganda activities according to instructions.
But the biggest find was discovering several Lingao puppet theater artists during the social survey. This delighted Ding Ding—Lingao puppet theater was a famous Hainan regional specialty. He had always wondered why they hadn't found any puppet troupes locally. Now he learned this performance form was still in its formative stage.
Ding Ding keenly seized this opportunity. Under his "care," the Lingao Puppet Theater was established—the first salaried professional performance troupe organized by the transmigrator collective. Previously, the performers had all been farmers who only performed at markets during their spare time, earning a few coins. Though quite popular with the common people, they could only stage a few shows throughout the year. Now they could devote themselves entirely to performing.
He invested heavily in the Lingao Puppet Theater—building a small theater for both performances and rehearsals, constructing dedicated dormitories for the performers. These puppeteers had been insignificant folk using inherited skills to scrape together small change because their families had too little land and too many mouths. They weren't respected by society and could fairly be described as cold and hungry. Now the Australians actually valued them, directly hiring them as employees with monthly wages and housing. All the performance equipment—puppets, costumes—was replaced with new items, including various novel Australian gadgets. Every one of them was moved to tears with gratitude toward Ding Ding.
In Ding Ding's view, this was merely basic infrastructure investment. His ambitions were much grander. He wasn't satisfied with just one Lingao Times. Future media mogul of the empire—that was his goal. Of course, not a decadent capitalist mogul like Murdoch, but a media mogul wielding political power.
Ding Ding not only provided the troupe with new performance equipment but also showed them recordings of Fujian glove puppet shows. That puppet theater could reach such levels astonished the performers.
Sometimes opening a window for people sparks infinite creativity. The troupe's level improved by leaps and bounds. Ding Ding also found them a literate scholar to serve as playwright.
(End of Chapter)