Chapter 571 - Initial Results
"Who would come to this remote wilderness to steal rails—are they tired of living?" Zhuo Tianmin was dismissive.
"There are people who follow right behind artillery impact points to pick up shell casings—this is nothing compared to that." Xi Yazhou said. "Besides Anyoule Market, according to Special Recon Team reports, there are still some scattered settlements in the Sanya Special Zone. Can you guarantee they won't come steal rails?"
The problem was that scattered settlements within dozens of li were vanishingly few. Zhuo Tianmin couldn't imagine how many thieves could possibly come from a total population of less than two or three hundred people in these pathetic hamlets. And what would they even do with stolen rails? He felt this was merely a pretext.
Sure enough, at the subsequent Sanya Military Committee meeting, Xi Yazhou proposed that to "clean up the surrounding environment," a comprehensive "public security rectification" campaign should be conducted throughout the greater Sanya jurisdiction.
The specific measure was to transform all villages and stockades in the area—like Anyoule Market—by concentrating populations and forcibly relocating them to settlements under transmigrator control. In short: labor intensification.
"You're creating strategic hamlets. I firmly oppose this." Zhuo Tianmin registered strong protest. "Concentration and resettlement was a Japanese and American trick—you're picking that up too?"
"Call it whatever you like—if it works, it works." Xi Yazhou remained unperturbed.
But everyone agreed the proposal was pointless. Not because they worried about disturbing villagers, but because the massive effort would yield limited additional labor, while resettlement would cost manpower and resources. Poor cost-effectiveness. In the end, only a courtesy visit to these villages was approved—to assess the situation and gather any useful intelligence about local resources.
"Rather than rounding everyone up and forcing them to work, better to entice them with material benefits," He Fanghui suggested. "Besides, since they're able to survive there, they've surely developed the surrounding area to some degree. We can still obtain resources from them. I propose opening a cooperative locally, using commodity exchange to penetrate the interior."
"The potential consumer population of a few villages is too small."
"There are also the inland Li people," He Fanghui continued. "They have no money, but they have mountain goods. We trade them salt, sugar, and various daily necessities, making them dependent on Sanya trade. Then we recruit cooperative partners among the Li. When we eventually penetrate Li territory to establish governance, they'll serve as suitable grassroots foundations. Trade isn't just about profit—we don't actually need profit, do we?"
"This can be delegated to migrant households. We don't need to do everything ourselves." Wang Luobin said. "Have the cooperative set up a consignment point, find some small merchants to operate it. We provide policy and supply channels." He paused. "But I've examined the Anyoule site—the plot is too small. With the new city almost linear in layout, future expansion into a major city will be difficult."
"Ji Runzhi is conducting planning research," Zhuo Tianmin said. "He also thinks the original plan had major omissions. He'll have a report on specific modifications in three days."
"Now let's discuss project progress—" Wang Luobin cared most about this. "When can we ship ore?"
"Right now I'm organizing manpower to break through the road to Huangling. Labor working in three shifts." Zhuo Tianmin spread out the map. "Huangling isn't high, and the terrain isn't too complex. The main road-building problem is the overly dense vegetation—clearing it takes considerable effort." He checked his notebook. "In another week we can break through, though the road surface won't be high-grade—only passable for people and single-wheel carts."
"Getting people up there is victory." Wang Luobin said. "Once people can reach the site, we can clear the mine while building the road simultaneously—two approaches at once."
Wang Luobin had participated in the Tiandu mine survey and knew the local geological conditions well. Tiandu ore was high quality but with limited absolute reserves. The exploitable pit diameter was only about three hundred meters. The ore body was very regular; simply stripping the surface layer and setting up mining sections would enable extraction—convenient for either manual or mechanized operations.
The fastest way to strip the surface layer was whole-mountain blasting. They'd conducted overburden blasting before during Nanbao development. But Pan Da surveyed the site and declared it would be extremely difficult.
"For complete stripping, setting aside technical difficulties—which I don't fully understand either—looking at the mountain's condition, we'd need at least ten tons of yellow explosive. Not black powder."
Everyone knew this was impossible. Never mind where ten tons of nitroglycerin explosive would come from—the fat for making glycerin remained scarce—even with ready explosives, shipping them would be a hazardous venture. The Navy cursed every time they transported a load.
"Ideally we'd build an explosives factory locally, even if it can only produce black powder." Pan Da said. "Upcoming mining will have enormous explosive demand. Shipping constantly from Lingao is inconvenient and unsafe. Besides, we're already planning to build a coconut drying factory here for oil pressing—ready-made coconut oil!"
"That's for the future. What about now?" Wang Luobin asked.
"For safety, fire small charges first, stripping soil and rock layers progressively until we expose the ore layer. Black powder and ammonium nitrate will last another month. After blasting, manually clear a work face. With a work face established, we use hand mining supplemented by small charges." Pan Da said. "I think this is the safest approach. This isn't like doing blasting at Nanbao, with explosives right next door—if it doesn't work, just blast a few more times."
"Let's do that then." Wang Luobin decided. "Ants gnawing a bone—gnaw it open bit by bit. Other sites must also push forward. Especially the Luhuitou and Yulin Stockade fortification and dock projects—we must complete basic construction before summer."
Summer would bring heavy rainfall and risk of direct typhoon strikes. If basic construction wasn't completed in time, the current temporary wooden buildings and simple docks could be destroyed by waves and storms.
The entire Sanya Development Command was consumed by a rush-to-work spirit: Elders worked day and night almost without rest, lights burning through the darkness. Everyone knew the Yuan Elder Council and Executive Committee were watching Sanya. The sooner they shipped the first load of iron ore, the louder their voice in the Elder Council would be.
Hundreds of laborers toiled day and night under Zhuo Tianmin's direction, repairing roads and leveling foundations. Ji Runzhi ate and slept at the Tiandu site's temporary shed, designing and drawing and supervising construction simultaneously. Li Haiping simply slept at the just-blasted-flat Luhuitou mountaintop battery construction site; all marines became laborers. Sun Xiao's Planning Council calculators clattered their abacuses like rain drops, and Sun Xiao's daily work was compiling countless reports. Detailed forms tracked daily labor deaths, injuries, and illness; personnel replenishment status; categorized material consumption and inventory; earthwork completed and planned...
These data reports didn't need to be sent back to Lingao immediately. The Planning Council representative only telegraphed daily to report project progress and required personnel and material replenishment. But since Wu De took office, he'd particularly emphasized establishing a complete archive system, requiring all projects to maintain records for future reference, experience summary, and accountability.
Wang Luobin studied the progress chart's multicolored markers in the Yulin Stockade command post. Every day, telegrams brought the latest progress from each site. He constantly marked symbols showing whether schedules were exceeded or missed, adjusting labor, machinery, and materials—calculating how much longer until ore could ship. According to the Planning Council's plan: ship the first ore load ten months after D-Day; achieve annual production of ten thousand tons of ore at eighteen months; expand to sixty thousand tons annually after twenty-four months.
Looking at this progress chart, Wang Luobin felt somewhat uncertain. This work vastly exceeded his previous experience. He'd been a project manager before, but handling such an enormous and crucial project was a first—not to mention he actually had little knowledge of construction and mining. He could only push forward, learning as he went.
Generally, conditions were improving. Workplace fatality rates had dropped to acceptable levels. Those convalescing from malaria were beginning to recover work capacity. Available labor numbers showed restorative growth for the first time. According to Sun Xiao's projections, they wouldn't need fresh labor replenishment from Lingao for a while.
The brick machine that had caused the catastrophic workplace accident was repaired. Now, apart from occasional minor breakdowns from worn parts, it ran normally. The Sanya brick-and-tile works used continuous kilns with steel cables and iron trackway carts—far more efficient than Lingao's rotary kilns. Brick and tile production could now fully meet construction demand. Besides cement, steel reinforcing bars, and bamboo reinforcement still requiring Lingao supply, bricks, tiles, stone, and lime were now fully sourced locally in Sanya. The timber processing factory was also under intensive construction. Once completed, it could not only supply sufficient building materials locally but also ship timber products and byproducts to Lingao. The cargo space previously occupied by these bulk goods would be repurposed for coal. Sanya's coal demand was steadily increasing.
The Planning Council required Sanya to maintain at least fifteen days' coal reserves beyond daily consumption. Steam engines and boilers had risen to "dependency" level importance for the transmigrator collective.
The only problem was that boiler quality remained concerning. The mass-produced steam engines and boilers manufactured in rush mode had high failure rates, at one point affecting project progress. At his request, Zhan Wuya specially dispatched a repair team composed entirely of Elders to conduct a major overhaul of all boilers and steam engines used in the project.
Pan Da led blasting teams in continuous blasting at various sites. The entire Yulin region echoed with explosions. Laborers and migrants knew this was just blasting, but for the former Anyoule Market residents, the sudden increase in explosions disturbed and unsettled them—they believed these "Australian sea pirates" were fighting some unknown enemy.
Hu Xun remained in the seaside temporary detention center with food, drink, access to showers, and permission for his family to send clean clothes—quite preferential treatment. The only difficulty was knowing no one around him, which kept him nervous. He had no idea how these pirates would deal with him—he now understood they were the so-called Australian pirates.
He worried for his own life and feared they might harm his family. Hu Xun had several concubines and a fourteen-year-old daughter awaiting marriage. Wasn't this a plump morsel everyone coveted? And these were pirates who'd supposedly mount old sows when the lights went out!
The daily blasting intensified his terror. Inland, to his knowledge, there was no force besides the Li people. Fighting the Li obviously wouldn't require such excessive firepower. As for government troops, if they came, they'd come by sea—they absolutely wouldn't come through the wilderness overland.
He kept trying to extract information from his guards—where they came from, what they were doing here, and most importantly, what they planned to do with him. But the guards said nothing, responding only with the barest necessary words, and they behaved the same among themselves. Hu Xun wondered what kind of people these expressionless guards were—how could they stand facing each other for hours without exchanging a single word?
After about a month of agonizing waiting, someone finally came to see him.
The visitor was an Australian—Hu Xun recognized him as one of the same people as the so-called Manager Wang from Lingao. He saw a man of medium height, powerfully built, with close-shaved head, double chin, dark eye bags, and thick lips. He wore the gray short jacket common among the Australian short-hairs, with a bag slung diagonally across his body and a bamboo hat at his shoulder. His appearance and dress exceeded all of Hu Xun's social experience—he couldn't figure out this person's background.
He Fanghui politely inquired about his living conditions and health.
"I'm well enough. Your honored group has treated this prisoner quite generously." Hu Xun smiled bitterly.
"Heh heh," He Fanghui laughed, patting his shoulder in a friendly manner. "Old Hu, don't take this personally—in another twenty years, you'll look back on today and feel grateful to have been our prisoner."
Hu Xun was speechless. What kind of shameless person was this? Having your family estate seized, you were supposed to feel grateful? What nonsense!
But he didn't dare show his feelings, only murmuring agreement. Seeing the visitor in good spirits, he hurriedly inquired about his family.
"Your family is fine." He Fanghui was brief. "Still in your original residence. I've posted some police at your door to look after things. The household is all safe—you can rest assured."
"Thank you, Master He." Hu Xun relaxed somewhat upon hearing the residence was safe. With his whole family at their mercy, there was no need for deception.
"You needn't stay here any longer." He Fanghui said. "Today you go home."
He was told to gather his things and was led out of the Anyoule Market public hall. Outside, the weather was fine and sunny, the light dazzling. After a month indoors, the sudden brightness made Hu Xun dizzy—he nearly fell. Then, under special "escort," he returned to his own residence.
Walking down the street, Anyoule Market had completely transformed. The original palisade walls had been entirely demolished; some street buildings were also torn down. Only a few brothels and small eateries remained in business. The inns and warehouses where sea merchants had stayed were also intact, with people in black short jackets and waist sashes standing guard at the doors.
His own residence remained unchanged, just with the main gate tightly shut. Returning home naturally brought a mix of joy and sighs. Fortunately, everyone was safe, and the pirates hadn't come to harass them. Every few days, vegetables, fish, shrimp, and grain were delivered—free of charge.
"Everything at home is fine—not a cent or a mosquito missing—but everything you had stored in the outside public warehouse is all gone..." His wife was still chattering.
"Don't think about those goods." Hu Xun waved his hand impatiently. "If they'd wanted to take things, even the household goods would be gone. What's the point of mentioning the warehouse!"
Hu Xun's mind was in turmoil. He couldn't figure out what this group wanted. It seemed these people—calling themselves from Lingao one moment, from Australia the next—intended to settle here permanently. Watching their major construction work made that clear.
While Hu Xun fretted at home, he didn't know he'd just narrowly escaped the terrible fate of being exterminated along with his whole family.
How to handle this former baocheng of Anyoule Market had produced two different opinions in the Sanya Military Committee. The most extreme view held that Hu Xun was a leader of the old order, likely to collude with authorities, and thus a potential threat. For safety, he should be executed along with his family.
The other view held that Hu Xun had merely exploited weak government control to become a local strongman. He had no significant misdeeds, knew the local situation well, and moreover had surrendered voluntarily. Killing him would give the transmigrators a reputation for cruelty. Future encounters with similar people would then face determined resistance.
"His whole family is now in our grasp. Any suspicious moves and we can wipe them out immediately—legitimately." He Fanghui fought to spare his life.
"Hmph, do we need legitimacy?" Xi Yazhou scoffed. "Honestly, this person is of little use to us; keeping him is just a hidden danger. As for our reputation—cruelty is also a weapon."
"That's on the Huns' and Mongols' level. Not helpful." After much deliberation, Wang Luobin decided not to create too many enemies at this stage. The final decision was to spare Hu Xun as an example for future recruitment and pacification efforts.
So Hu Xun was placed under house arrest, forbidden to leave. His household could keep ten servants—limited to maids, old women, and men over fifty. All other servants were "confiscated."
Of Hu Xun's three sons, only the one under ten years old remained; the other two were sent to Lingao to "study"—effectively hostages. Hu Xun couldn't understand how Lingao had become Australian territory, but he was powerless to stop them. He could only pack their bags and see them off.
Hu Xun's former secretary, after a period of vetting, was retained under He Fanghui as a clerk. As for the militia commanders, who were of pirate background and had some martial skills, they were taken to Lingao to supplement the Navy's recruit battalion.
Former Anyoule Market militiamen with local families were organized into labor teams; single men were shipped to Lingao to replenish the labor pool. As for Hu Xun's clansmen and relatives—every single one was sent to Lingao for resettlement.
(End of Chapter)