Chapter 521 - Undercurrents
"Relax," Hu Qingbai reassured him once more. "Home economics is also part of the school curriculum…"
"Fine, fine, you win," Ji Runzhi surrendered dejectedly. "But where are they going to live now? I'm in group quarters. They can't get into Bairen Fortress."
"You don't need to worry about that. They'll link up with you when you leave for Sanya." Hu Qingbai handed him two envelopes containing the relevant materials. "The paperwork is all in here, along with their living-expense passbooks."
"There are living expenses?"
"Of course—did you think you'd have to pay out of pocket to support them?" Hu Qingbai looked a bit apologetic. "By rights, you should also get a subsidy, but the Executive Committee hasn't finalized that yet. It'll probably come through after the New Year."
Hu Qingbai was full of grievances. "The Executive Committee is moving too slowly. I've raised the issue of subsidies for apprentices and adopted children several times, and I still haven't gotten a clear answer."
"Yes, yes." Ji Runzhi slunk off, not wanting to get caught in a rant.
Preparations for the Sanya Special District development finally drew to a close; the New Year of 1630 was about to arrive.
That year's New Year saw festive preparations underway in every region controlled by the transmigrated collective. According to the Great Ming calendar, the Lunar New Year was still over a month away, but the Gregorian calendar used by the collective had influenced local folk. Some people—especially those directly under the collective's administration and those who had benefited from the "Australians"—had started imitating the "Australian New Year" celebration.
The transmigrated collective's finances had improved considerably, and consumption of luxury goods rose accordingly. Mo Xiao'an's Light Industry Department was developing new consumer products for both export and domestic supply; the variety of items available through the monthly ration grew steadily. More and more life-amenity goods appeared on the market.
Big red lanterns and red "Chinese knots" began appearing for sale—newly organized small-batch productions from the Light Industry Department, meant to "enrich the holiday market." Zhou Dongtian's printing works also mass-produced modern-style, vibrantly colored Spring Festival couplets, New Year pictures, and "Good Fortune" posters. They were not only distributed to the transmigrators but also to commune members. Business partners of the transmigrated collective likewise received them; many regarded them as treasures. These small trinkets, hardly expensive, had become status symbols for Lingao's nouveau riche and newly minted notables.
Had this timeline possessed surveys measuring happiness indices, the Lingao populace's score would have risen. Yet not everyone in Lingao felt happy.
An undercurrent was swirling through the internal BBS. Grumbling posts were multiplying; from time to time a thread ignited debate. A few days earlier, a thread titled "How to Educate Your Personal Secretary" had appeared—originally a fantasizing post by some shut-in, discussing how to train one's personal secretary to match transmigrator aesthetic tastes. It covered everything from the classically refined—zither, chess, calligraphy, painting—to the less refined "jar sitting," and from the modern—ballet and modern dance—to the rather plebeian massage and sauna. Suggestions poured in enthusiastically; the thread reached over 250 floors. Just as high spirits peaked, someone suddenly flew into a rage and derailed the thread, questioning exactly what standards the Executive Committee used to allocate secretaries.
This question clearly struck a nerve. Public opinion surged; verbal artillery roared; the atmosphere verged on "just two short of a quorum." The moment someone shouted, "One cannon shot from Fengcheng—" the thread was locked.
Although the BBS operated under a real-name system, transmigrator citizens were evidently far more fearless than their counterparts in another timeline. Immediately, many people posted demanding to know why the thread had been locked. Those who tried to defend the Executive Committee were promptly slapped with the epoch-making label of "Five-Currency Coupons Party," and what had been a one-sided denunciation devolved into a two-sided brawl. Somehow, the topic pivoted to Xi Yazhou; old grudges over his past thread deletions were dredged up. In the heat of the moment, someone proposed that he be shot "the moment the second revolution succeeds." Just as the spamming reached a climax, the midnight whistle blew, and Chang Kaishen—punctual as ever—pulled the main switch. All discussion was cut off.
The following night saw slightly calmer discussion: that day, Xiao Zishan had announced on the BBS, on behalf of the General Affairs Office, that the rationing-coupon system for various daily necessities was abolished; everyone could purchase freely. This somewhat mollified the disgruntled masses. Moreover, the General Affairs Office had just released a draft soliciting opinions on private-residence designs for each transmigrator. These developments did much to ease the shut-ins' discontent.
Nevertheless, resentment continued to ferment. Reports trickled through various channels to the Political Security Bureau. Ran Yao found the situation somewhat thorny and personally edited a special issue of the Public Sentiment Bulletin, focusing on transmigrator ideological trends. He printed several copies and placed them on the desks of the Executive Committee's principal members.
The winter solstice passed in the blink of an eye, and a cold front descended without warning. The Little Ice Age's Lingao received frost; vegetation was blanketed in white. Before sunrise, temperatures plunged to around 3–4°C. Transmigrators who had grown accustomed to wearing shirts and thin jackets hurried to add thermal underwear. Some plants showed signs of withering. At last, the sensation of winter had arrived.
Xiao Zishan walked through Bairen Fortress in a warm coat and sweater. Every transmigrator he encountered greeted him; the whole way, he was nodding and saying, "Morning," "It's really cold today," "I'll think about that in a bit." As General Affairs Office Director, he managed the Five Hundred's food, clothing, shelter, and sanitation; virtually everyone knew him.
The director's post was not a glamorous one, but familiarity with everyone was a significant asset. Xiao Zishan felt that, for now, this kind of work suited him.
He emerged from the canteen after a bowl of rice noodles, nice and warm all over, and arrived at his office. The Sanya development work was proceeding at white heat, and his own schedule had grown busier. In his office stood several large, locked sheet-metal filing cabinets. Inside, arranged alphabetically by English letters, were drawers packed with the personal dossiers of every transmigrator. After the organizational restructuring, he had personally led a team to transcribe everything from the computer system by hand and then print it into booklet form. Computers would last twenty years at most; the data had to be backed up in time.
Xiao Zishan had never worked in personnel management, but he had spent many years as a regional sales manager. A regional sales department was not a full company, but it had its own little operation; he was well acquainted with office procedures and management methods. Managing dossiers for five hundred people was not overly complicated. Following introductions from professional HR-management textbooks, he had also commissioned a set of personnel-index cards, in case the computers failed and manual retrieval became necessary.
After sitting down, he began processing the paperwork for recently appointed personnel. The formalities were not complex, but Xiao Zishan was worried.
What worried him, naturally, was the growing chorus of discordant voices from within the collective—voices that were growing louder as the collective's fortunes improved. His daily work on living-standards issues brought him into frequent contact with ordinary transmigrators; he did not need the Public Sentiment Bulletin or the internal BBS to know that resentment was accumulating among the masses. It made him very uneasy.
After a while, his mind refused to settle—an acute sense of imminent crisis was intensifying. Xiao Zishan felt he needed to speak immediately with the other Executive Committee members, who were busy with the Sanya development plan, before the situation escalated into a mass movement and became impossible to resolve.
He picked up the telephone, cranked it three times, and said, "Connect me to Wen Desi."
Once the call went through, he said, "Director Wen, there's this matter—perhaps you might consider it?…"
Wen Desi's voice came through the receiver. Xiao Zishan murmured a few "mm-hmms," then added, "This should be dealt with early. Around holidays, people have more on their minds. Why not float something in advance to calm people down?"
"Well—I'm afraid that, when the time comes, the situation may be hard to control," Xiao Zishan said after hearing Wen Desi's response.
Finally he said, "All right, all right, I understand." Xiao Zishan nodded repeatedly to the empty room. "The personal-secretary issue absolutely must be resolved this time. If you have no objection, I'll give a heads-up to the Guangzhou Station and have them step up purchases of suitable girls."
"No rush," Wen Desi said. "The budget involved is too large, and the allocation method is bound to cause disputes. We might as well put it to a vote."
While Xiao Zishan was on the telephone, Ma Qianzhu was in his office writing the Planning Commission's year-end summary report. Such documents had been mere boilerplate in another timeline, but here Ma Qianzhu considered them absolutely essential.
The Farm coffee house was in full swing. Newly decorated, with additional tables, chairs, and barware, it now offered several more items for sale. Leizhou-produced rum had been removed from the list of special-supply goods. Since the Leizhou sugar operation installed a second boiler and larger distillation equipment—and Huang Dashan personally visited to provide modern fermentation strains and improve the process—rum output had risen further. Rum was now sold without restriction. At the Farm coffee house, it was sold by the glass, with a limit of 250 ml per person per day. This was not because supply was short but because Xiao Zishan worried about alcoholism.
Ma Jia's Law-Studies Club, along with various others who did not belong to the club, was meeting here. Ostensibly, it was just "year-end, time for a get-together." In reality, these malcontents—or men with designs of their own—were plotting something major: they were preparing to convene the first General Assembly.
"Our transmigrated community must immediately convene a General Assembly," An Xi declared with passionate conviction. "The transmigrated collective's political framework has been operating for over a year now. Various problems and contradictions have gradually emerged. Now is the time to hold an assembly and correct these issues."
(End of Chapter)