Chapter 1190 - Ideological Education
The prices here were absurdly cheap, especially when paying in silver—silver, in fact, was the most welcomed currency. As long as you produced silver, anything could be had for a fraction, sometimes mere hundredths, of its original price.
After inspecting the goods, Huang Ande took the purchased population back to the island. The journey went smoothly this time; no one collapsed and died. Upon returning, he reported the purchase of Zheng Yue'e to Zhu Mingxia.
Zhu Mingxia smiled and patted his shoulder: "For this matter, we'll just deduct two taels of silver from your pay. You meant well. As for that girl, hand her over to the medics first. When there's a ship evacuating wounded back, send her along. Once she's in Lingao, have Doctor Deng at the General Hospital take a look."
Deng Boyun of the Ministry of Health General Hospital and the Senate's only psychiatrist, Jiang Qiuyan, had jointly established a Ministry of Health Mental Health Center—in truth a plaque-hanging institution existing mainly to show presence, taking in some mental patients. When the two had time and interest, they would offer some counseling.
For someone like Zheng Yue'e, Zhu Mingxia felt it was at most an acute stress reaction under intense stimulation—something seen in the military as well. Some psychological counseling would likely help her recover.
"Yes! Thank you, Chief." Huang Ande saluted, then hesitated. "Chief, I have a question."
"Speak." Zhu Mingxia didn't mind.
"The commoners of Dengzhou and Laizhou are suffering terribly... human lives here are simply worse than pigs and dogs..." Huang Ande spoke with visible agitation. Dengzhou was his homeland after all; his eyes couldn't help reddening. "Our Fubo Army's military force is so powerful. Why don't we just wipe out this gang of rebels directly? Why do we still have to do business with them?!"
Zhu Mingxia started slightly. Until now, naturalized officers and soldiers of the Fubo Army had never questioned their commanders' orders—to them, the Senate was a godlike existence.
This was a dangerous sign, he thought. As a Dengzhou native, seeing his homeland in such misery naturally made it unbearable.
Of course, he could suppress the question with a single sentence. But Zhu Mingxia paid great attention to ideological and political work. Moreover, Huang Ande was an officer, a future backbone of the Fubo Army. The reasoning needed to be explained clearly.
"Sit down." Zhu Mingxia pointed to the chair in his office.
Huang Ande hesitated, saluted, and sat.
"You believe our Fubo Army is very powerful, correct?"
"Reporting to Sir, yes!" Huang Ande started to rise to deliver a proper report. Zhu Mingxia waved his hand. "We're having a heart-to-heart talk now; no need to follow regulations."
"Do you think our Northbound Detachment can attack Dengzhou and defeat the rebels right now?"
"Whatever stands in our way will be crushed like dry weeds and rotten wood. Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde are nothing but clay chickens and pottery dogs."
Zhu Mingxia thought the man certainly had a talent for idioms. No wonder they called Shandong the "Hometown of Sages."
"We can indeed defeat the rebels now. But what happens afterward?" he asked.
Huang Ande hesitated. What after defeating the rebels? He truly hadn't considered it. In his mode of thinking, such matters were for "the higher-ups." After a moment of stunned silence, he said: "The common people live and work in peace..."
Zhu Mingxia looked into his eyes: "Live and work in peace? You yourself are a Dengzhou native. Did Dengzhou's common people live and work in peace in the past?"
The answer was obvious—in the Dengzhou-Laizhou region, the poverty of the people and the hardship of life were infamous right up to the Republic era. Even in ordinary years, people starving to death or fleeing famine was commonplace.
Huang Ande hesitated: "Though not living and working in peace, surely it wasn't this miserable..." As he spoke, he remembered the various tragic scenes he had witnessed at the market these past days. His eyes welled up, and he hurriedly wiped them with his sleeve.
Zhu Mingxia patted his shoulder. "You're right. Without Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde, commoners could at least starve to death in peace. If they couldn't survive, at least they had the option of fleeing famine or selling their children. Are we defeating Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde just to win the common people such a world?"
"Of course not," Huang Ande said quickly. "If everywhere could be like Lingao, that would be good."
"Like Lingao." Zhu Mingxia nodded. "Even if not exactly like Lingao, having a peaceful environment where they can farm securely and live their lives—commoners would be very satisfied, wouldn't they?"
"Yes!" Huang Ande said. "Common folk aren't afraid of being poor or suffering. They ask for nothing but peaceful days."
"But you know that peaceful days don't come easily," Zhu Mingxia said seriously. "You're an old naturalized citizen, an old soldier. You know how Lingao-Hainan's peaceful days came about."
Huang Ande nodded. He was a veteran of the Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign and the Pacification War, still remembering those days and nights of fighting.
"How many comrades did we sacrifice? What price did we pay to let the people of all Hainan Island enjoy the peaceful days you envision?" Zhu Mingxia's voice grew impassioned. "Do you know where the rifle in your hands, the clothes on your body, the shoes on your feet, and the dry rations you eat come from?"
"Provided by the great Senate!" This was the standard answer provided by Wei Aiwen, but when Huang Ande gave it, he felt neither absurd nor laughable—he believed this from the bottom of his heart.
"Correct! It is provided by the Senate, but also earned by the diligent labor of the vast naturalized citizenry. Workers toiling by furnaces in factories, farmers laboring under the scorching sun, sailors driving ships regardless of life and death, miners working desperately in coal yards—only then did Hainan Island have the peaceful days you speak of!" Zhu Mingxia employed a string of lyrical parallelisms to strengthen his persuasiveness.
"Defeating the rebels now would be easy for us. But what about afterward? Don't forget there are also the Great Ming's government troops, whose harm to the people is no less. Even if they don't harm the people and leave quickly, is it enough for the people to continue living peaceful days of starving to death and fleeing famine?"
"Of course not!" Huang Ande said firmly.
"Soldier chaos, bandit chaos, exorbitant taxes—this Great Ming world is already ablaze everywhere, full of devastation. Suffering people are everywhere. As the Senate's sharp sword, we must broaden our vision: hold the whole world in our chests, vowing to save all the people under heaven!" He waved his hand with full emotion.
Huang Ande's passion was kindled as well: "Save all the people under heaven?!" Though he had long sensed the Senate's ambition, he had never heard an Elder reveal it so bluntly. A powerful emotion surged through him. The heroic spirit of achieving great deeds instantly overwhelmed his pity.
"Correct—for all the suffering people under heaven!" Zhu Mingxia nodded solemnly. "So our primary work is to silently accumulate strength. Maximizing the collection of population from Dengzhou-Laizhou to strengthen ourselves is what we should do now—not seeking momentary gratification for the suffering of one locality's people. That is only petty benevolence and petty righteousness, not the great benevolence and great righteousness that considers the whole world!"
"Yes, I understand!" Huang Ande jumped up excitedly, standing at attention and saluting. "Serve the Senate and the people!"
After Huang Ande departed, Zhu Mingxia took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. Educating a person was truly no easy task. He watched Huang Ande's retreating figure with complex emotions.
"Mr. Speaker, the Executive Committee Enlarged Meeting will begin in fifteen minutes..."
The Senate Speaker's private secretary, Qian Honghuang, wearing a female clerk's uniform, opened the office door and spoke respectfully.
"Very well, I'm coming immediately." Qian Shuiting tidied the documents on his desk. He retrieved a briefcase from the wooden shelf on the wall, then took a stack of files from the safe in the room—no longer reinforced concrete, but a genuine steel-plate riveted safe—carefully counted them, placed them in the briefcase, and snapped the lock shut.
Then he scrutinized his reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall, checking if his clothes were crisp and unwrinkled, smoothing his hair. Qian Shuiting placed great importance on his image and was the only Executive Committee member with a full-length mirror in his office. In America, he had enjoyed watching politicians shape their public personas, from hairstyles and clothing to demeanor. Now he found himself involuntarily practicing the same.
Today's meeting had actually been convened to discuss his "Elder Military-Political Proposal." The White Silver Plan had passed the Senate vote and officially entered the Executive Committee discussion stage.
Ever since late 1630, when Qian Shuiting first proposed on the BBS to rob the Spanish galleons transporting American silver to Manila off the Philippine coast in 1631, this proposal had garnered extremely high popularity.
Hoisting the Jolly Roger, wielding a cutlass, wearing an eyepatch to board enemy ships, then stepping on chests of silver while forcing crew to walk the plank... the imaginations of many Sailing Ship Party boarding-action enthusiasts had instantly expanded without restraint. Although history buffs had pointed out that standard pirate Jolly Rogers hadn't appeared yet in 1630 regardless of color, no one paid attention to their spoilsport replies. And the treasure figure—claimed to be up to a million taels of silver—made many people's pupils instantly assume the shape of silver ingots.
Only because the timing wasn't ripe had this extremely popular proposal been postponed until now. However, those interested had been following this plan all along. Information collection for the operation had been ongoing. Implementation details had been discussed at several small gatherings aboard the Feiyun.
Over more than two years, through the collective brainstorming of a group of people, constant data collection, and small-scale wargaming, the simple plan had been continuously refined, forming a feasibility report with detailed content and concrete figures.
(End of Chapter)