Chapter 947 - Newly Acquired Labor

Yang Yun had not missed the probing undertone in those words, but he could hardly respond directly—the Governor's official dispatch had only hinted at such matters—so he affected not to have heard. Ever since Qian Shuiting of the Homestead Faction had won the Senate presidency, the balance of power within the Executive Committee had grown increasingly complex and delicate. Yang Yun cleared his throat, casting about for a new topic.

"Report, Chief! Urgent dispatch from Director Lu!" A courier from the county office burst in, bearing a document pouch.

Liu Xiang glanced at the red wax seal and thought: I just met with him. What could possibly be so urgent? He accepted it with one hand and signed the receipt.

In a quiet chamber of the Daoist temple, Liu Xiang broke the seal and read the secret dispatch. Relief washed through him.

"The clandestine front has borne fruit as well!" He hurried to summon Yang Yun.

"We've gained several thousand able-bodied laborers," he told Yang Yun with a smile. Yang Yun stared at him, utterly bewildered.

The dispatch concerned the final resolution of Baisha Naval Garrison and Haikou Guard Station.

These two installations had maintained relative independence even after the Fubo Army's peaceful entry. But following the retreat of He Zhen's remnants, Tang Yunwen found himself trapped in an isolated fortress. Though his forces had suffered few casualties in the Chengmai debacle, morale had collapsed, and most of their equipment and provisions were lost. The majority of the Baisha Naval Garrison's vessels had been destroyed or captured during the siege of Qiongshan, leaving only a handful of decrepit, unusable hulks.

Tang Yunwen's remaining strength consisted of fewer than two thousand naval and land troops, plus several hundred military households at Haikou Guard Station. The more distant garrisons had either been absorbed by the Senate or had their communications severed. Forget offensive operations—even self-preservation was becoming impossible. Unable to fight yet unwilling to abandon his post and flee, he could only watch helplessly as the Fubo Army entered Qiongshan County, seized strategic positions, and launched a comprehensive pacification campaign. Throughout these developments, the officers and soldiers at Haikou Station and Baisha Garrison maintained a posture of willful ignorance, hoping desperately not to draw fire upon themselves.

But this stalemate could not hold forever. The new social order was being promoted across the entire island—while retaining the old civil administration might be a necessary expedient, preserving the old military was entirely unnecessary. Under direction from the Civil Affairs Political Security Bureau, a comprehensive takeover and reorganization of the island's entire military household garrison system had begun.

As for the Ming army's island-wide military core—Haikou Guard Station and Baisha Naval Garrison—these became the focal point for resolution.

In purely military terms, eliminating these Ming troops would be child's play for the Fubo Army. But Governor Liu wanted resources—especially manpower. Therefore, a circuitous policy was adopted, with the Political Security Bureau handling practical execution. After the Chengmai campaign concluded, prisoners who were local military households and soldiers from Tang Yunwen's forces were released in batches. Among these released prisoners, a fair number of "grains of sand"—men who had already defected to Lingao—were planted.

Once released alongside the other captives, these infiltrators enabled the Political Security Department to launch an immediate subversion campaign. They fomented discontent among the troops, secretly organizing and building networks. Tang Yunwen had caught wind of this, but ever since the defeat at Chengmai and He Zhen's withdrawal, his officers had either died or fled. Those who remained dared not act, fearing any move might provoke mutiny. The only troops whose loyalty Tang Yunwen could rely on numbered fewer than one hundred personal retainers. Maintaining order with these few men was already difficult enough, let alone conducting purges while the outlander pirates lurked outside, ready to intervene at any moment.

This typhoon had been a disaster for Liu Xiang, but for certain others, it was a golden opportunity—the perfect chance to resolve the official military's core on Hainan Island and thereby completely dismantle and absorb all government forces across the island. Under this directive, the machinery of the Political Security Bureau immediately sprang into action.

Liu Xiang did not know that Wu Mu, Office Director of the Political Security Bureau, had secretly arrived in Qiongshan three days earlier. From a work station outside Haikou Guard Station, he was personally directing overall operations. When local coordination was required, the local special envoy Lu Cheng stepped forward.

With assistance from the planted "grains of sand," Tang Yunwen's granaries were conveniently "destroyed by the storm," completely shattering the psychological defenses of soldiers still on the fence. Previously, Haikou Station could still requisition "grain support" from Qiongshan County, but now they had no recourse. Beyond the walls of the garrison and camp lay territory controlled by the outlanders. Without Australian approval, not a single grain of rice or vegetable leaf could be transported in.

Within days, the starving Haikou Station and Baisha Naval Garrison completely collapsed. Soldiers and military households defected en masse, requesting to "join up." Governor Liu had prepared terms for them: those willing to serve as soldiers and who passed physical and political screening would be incorporated by the Training Supervisory Department of the Fubo Army; those unwilling to serve, along with military household dependents, would be "purified" and then uniformly allocated by civil affairs departments to agricultural or industrial labor.

As for Tang Yunwen himself and his personal guards—whether they wished to defect was entirely up to them. If they came, they would receive equal treatment. If they chose not to come, it mattered little. He could keep his handful of men and one questionable "flagship" and continue playing the role of an empty-titled Coastal Defense Brigadier at Baisha Naval Garrison. Of course, no provisions would be supplied for his soldiers' pay and rations—he could continue collecting the subsidies sent from the mainland as before.

A significant reason these men were willing to defect was the grain shortage. The secret dispatch requested that the Qiongshan County Office find a way to first mobilize three to five days' worth of provisions for the defecting personnel at Haikou Station.

Thus, Liu Xiang summoned Yang Yun to hand this matter over to him—Qiongshan County truly had little grain left at its disposal. He also harbored ulterior considerations: with this batch of military household population, perhaps the Executive Committee would ease up somewhat on its population extraction demands from Qiongshan.

After hearing the full situation, Yang Yun first offered some appropriately correct platitudes about "congratulations on major achievements across all fronts," then the two began an "active dialogue" regarding relief provisions for these military households. After all, these several thousand additional people were an unexpected development for Yang Yun as well; no provisions of this standard had been prepared in advance.

The grain question was actually the secondary objective of Yang Yun's visit to Qiongshan. Before his departure, Wu De had given him private instructions to find a way to secure a portion of "surplus grain" from the local area. But upon arriving in Qiongshan, he realized that Liu Xiang harbored obvious resistance to surplus grain collection. His cooperation on labor recruitment already showed signs of reluctance. On the surplus grain issue, he would likely refuse to cooperate at all.

Liu Xiang, for his part, was prepared to resist the surplus grain procurement. Regardless of how much grain the local landlords might have stored, he opposed using coercive means to extract civilian grain reserves during a disaster year. First, it endangered social stability. Second, recovery from the disaster could not rely solely on relief from the Planning Commission and the Civil Affairs People's Committee; it still depended on local reserves. As for how to compel the gentry to release their grain—that should be an economic problem solved through economic means.

Just as almost all work was consumed by disaster relief, an unexpected visitor arrived at Qiongshan County Town early that morning.

"Old Tang! We're so close to each other, and you didn't even send over some red eggs when your son had his one-month celebration!"

"Ha! I'm a man who rolls around in coal piles all day—where would I get red eggs? Any eggs I boil come out black!" Tang Menglong had used the occasion of visiting his child to make a trip back to Lingao, hoping to transfer out of his current post to somewhere else, but so far without success.

Liu Xiang and Tang Menglong sat in the office while Guo Ling'er brought each of them a cup of freshly pressed mixed fruit juice.

"What brings you here today?" Liu Xiang asked.

"Don't get me started," Tang sighed. "The wire telegraph line we finally connected to the mine—several sections got washed out by the rain, and who knows which plague-ridden scoundrel picked up the iron wire and ran off with it during the storm." The wire telegraph network between Jiazi Coal Mine and Qiongshan County had been operational for less than a month.

Tang Menglong took a big gulp of his drink to settle himself. "And then the Planning Commission says Qiongshan is now a pacified zone, so there's no need for a wireless station—they want me to hand over the mine's wireless equipment. I had no choice but to come here to send my telegrams."

"You need to get that repaired quickly!" Liu Xiang could tell he hadn't finished speaking. "Pacified zone or not, local operations still aren't fully up to standard."

"Of course. I'm already preparing personnel and requisitioning materials. Once the rain stops, we'll start emergency repairs." Tang Menglong continued: "But there are some things at our mine I need your help with. Little Liu, you've got to help me out here."

"Hey now, why so formal? Your Jiazi Mine is a centrally administered unit. We local folks will definitely provide full support."

"Don't talk about central administration. They said on the radio two nights ago that weather conditions are bad and the ships carrying grain and supplies can't sail." Tang Menglong said. "The mine only has four days' worth of grain left. The workers need four thousand kilocalories of food per day—our stockpile is depleting fast! Before, they always prioritized keeping the mine supplied!"

"Sea conditions have been poor lately, and several places are competing for shipping—transport capacity is quite tight." Liu Xiang's heart clenched—I don't have much grain here either—but he had no choice but to make vague responses.

"Ah, production targets at Jiazi Mine have increased again. But they won't give me more workers or machines—how am I supposed to boost output? Once the typhoon hit, shipping on the Nandu River stopped. The coal we've mined can't be shipped out, and just piling it up by the river isn't a solution." Tang Menglong continued his litany of woes. "Using small barges to haul coal—and a lot of the tugboats have broken down. I only see them being sent out for repairs, never being sent back as replacements. The inland shipping team is becoming like Wang Xiao'er!"

Though inferior in quality—far below the premium anthracite from Hongji—Jiazi Coal Mine's coal belonged to the Changchang coal formation and had the advantage of low sulfur content, making it suitable for metallurgical coke. At this stage, it was the sole supplier of coke to the Ma'ao Steel Complex. The high-grade iron ore shipped from Sanya all required coke refined from Jiazi Mine's lignite to maintain production. And the No. 1 blast furnace alone required thirty thousand tons of coke annually. With the No. 2 blast furnace under intensive construction, one could imagine how enormous the coke deficit would become.

(End of Chapter)