Chapter 2620: Reporting

At dusk, the cadres who had been out conducting inspections returned to camp one by one. After days of visiting villages throughout the region, each had accumulated substantial firsthand information. They gathered every evening for these meetings, sitting beneath the glow of lead-acid battery-powered lamps as the cadres reported on their assigned areas. Zhang Xiao and Li Yao'er listened attentively, occasionally interjecting with questions.

Chen Wuren delivered his report: "...Flooding is a constant threat here. When the enclosure dikes breach, the worst cases bring drowning deaths, collapsed houses, and ruined crops. The fish ponds suffer tremendously as well. Calculating the costs per pond—from draining the old water and refilling with fresh in the first month, to preparing the water for fish, to providing grass and manure over five or six months—each pond requires an investment of ten gold. When floods hit, countless fish escape. Other goods swept away are equally impossible to account for. After a breach, rescue efforts must begin within ten days at most. Those with access to public funds should spare no expense in repairing the dikes. Those without must levy contributions from property owners based on their means. The priority is ensuring late rice gets planted. Once the mulberry shoots sprout new leaves, sericulture can resume. Ponds that still produce fish can be restocked. What's lost at sunrise may yet be recovered at sunset. But if construction is delayed beyond ten days, the floodwaters from the previous disaster barely recede before the next wave rises..."

As he listened, Zhang Xiao quickly jotted a note: Water conservancy is the most critical work for developing Sangyuan Enclosure. The various Enclosure Directorates lack unified coordination—an agency for centralized management should be established, including Shunde.

"Any other matters worth noting?" Zhang Xiao asked.

Chen Wuren considered for a moment. "Now that you mention it, there is one thing. Many fish farmers have complained that fertilizer has become particularly scarce these past two years."

"Oh? What's causing it?"

"Apparently, the Zhu clan has opened some kind of patent medicine shop and has been buying up silkworm feces—Can Sha—in large quantities. They're using it to refine medicinal ingredients. They're offering such high prices that many silkworm households have sold their silkworm feces to them instead, leaving the fish ponds short of fertilizer."

"Silkworm feces?" Zhang Xiao stroked his mustache thoughtfully.

Seeing his prolonged silence, Li Yao'er asked, "Is there a problem?"

"It is a genuine Chinese medicinal material," Zhang Xiao said. "The Compendium of Materia Medica records that silkworm feces can treat diabetes—Xiao Ke—as well as women's uterine bleeding and headaches. It's also used to dispel wind and eliminate dampness. Other ancient medical texts have similar entries. From a modern medicine perspective, the main component extracted from silkworm feces is sodium iron chlorophyllin, which is used to treat iron deficiency anemia. It's just..."

"Just what?" Li Yao'er's curiosity was piqued.

"No matter how useful this medicine is, there's no legitimate reason to acquire it in quantities large enough to create a fertilizer shortage for local fish farmers," Zhang Xiao said.

Silkworm feces as a medicinal ingredient simply didn't have the universal application of something like licorice—its uses were limited. Even accounting for a full year's consumption across all of Guangzhou Prefecture, demand probably wouldn't exceed a few hundred jin. How could that possibly explain such a strange scarcity in the market?

"Something fishy?" Li Yao'er asked.

"I can't say for certain. It just feels wrong somehow." With the information available, Zhang Xiao couldn't pinpoint the reason. "But speaking of fertilizer shortages alone—once our artificial breeding base is operational and fish fry production doubles, relying on farmyard manure won't be remotely sufficient. No matter how efficient the mulberry dike fish pond system is, it can't create nutrients from thin air. The material inputs of the entire system are fixed. Without supplemental fertilizer, yields simply cannot increase. Our chemical fertilizer technology hasn't achieved a breakthrough yet, so fertilizer scarcity will remain a serious problem for the foreseeable future."

"Then what are you going to do? You're the one who made those grand promises," Li Yao'er said with a mischievous smile.

"Rest assured, Elder Sister. When I make promises, I deliver," Zhang Xiao replied. "Changpo Phase I—the project Shi Chuyou has been tirelessly working on—went into production two years ago. Using the 'Shi Chuyou Sulfuric Acid Method' to recover brown coal tail gas, we can produce ten thousand tons of ammonium sulfate annually. If you and I put in the work, make the rounds, and advocate hard enough, we can secure half of Changpo Phase I's fertilizer quota specifically for Jiujiang. Good steel should be used where the blade needs sharpening."

"That's sensible. Industry has to consider return on investment. Fertilizer should naturally go to agricultural sectors with the highest returns." Li Yao'er agreed with his reasoning.

"Even so, this amount won't last long," Zhang Xiao sighed. "Shi Chuyou originally planned to launch Changpo Phase II with forty furnaces. Tail gas recovery alone could produce anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand tons of ammonium sulfate annually, with eight thousand tons of gasoline capacity as a byproduct. But now with Brunei petroleum competition in the picture, I'm afraid the project is hanging by a thread."

"Aren't you a diehard member of the Southward faction?"

"Pursuing petroleum isn't wrong, but waiting for the petrochemical industry to produce fertilizer? Who knows what year that'll be. Better to place our hopes on Chen Huan and the others to get self-produced synthetic ammonia devices working soon." As he spoke, Zhang Xiao had drifted off topic.

"Hey, stop rambling. Keep the meeting focused," Li Yao'er reminded him.

"Right, right, right. Back to the main topic..." He paused. "Actually, if any other family were doing this silkworm feces business, I probably wouldn't think twice about it. But the Zhu clan is different—they're Chen Zizhuang's maternal relatives." Zhang Xiao thought it over but remained uneasy. He turned to Mo Yu: "Old Mo, keep an eye on this. Find out what exactly the Zhu clan is playing at. Report to me immediately if anything comes up."

Next came Zhao Hening's inspection report:

"...Examining the lives of silkworm farmers in detail: except for the intensive period when the silkworms mature, there is generally one to two weeks of leisure time after each crop's rearing work is completed and during the young silkworm stage. Many farmers use this window to take on outside labor jobs. After harvest, besides tending to their fields and gardens, they can pick up additional work to cover household expenses. The result of toiling from dawn to dusk, while not quite enough to cover their expenditure deficit, comes close. By borrowing where they can and being strictly frugal, they barely manage taxes and levies. Beyond this, they have no better options. Mulberry dike fish ponds do generate more wealth than rice cultivation and can provide farmers with a somewhat more comfortable life. However, because commercial agriculture demands high initial investment and carries enormous risks, farmers have almost no means of protecting themselves from disaster. This means they may work hard all year only to end up in utter poverty regardless..."

"Not bad. Hening is making real progress," Zhang Xiao said after listening to the report.

Zhao Hening beamed, her eyes curving into crescent moons. "Distinguished teachers produce outstanding students. It's all thanks to my two mentors' guidance."

Li Yao'er said, "The degree of commercialization in Jiujiang farmers' lives is already quite high by current standards. Their quality of life is better than farmers elsewhere. But the wealth gap appears severe, and social tensions are clearly significant. Hening, did you manage to collect precise data on silkworm farmers' income and expenditures?"

"Accurate data was extremely difficult to obtain. Silkworm farmers don't keep account books, and they often can't recall their yearly income and expenses. Their estimates tend to be rough guesses at best. We had to immerse ourselves in their daily lives, estimating on their behalf based on what we observed, then verify whether our calculations held up."

"Did you encounter any unusual situations?" Li Yao'er asked.

"Yes, I was just about to mention one." Seeing Li Yao'er's interest, Zhao Hening seized the opening. "We met a mother and son whose circumstances were particularly wretched. I truly felt that her life had lost all meaning. Her only wish now is to divorce that good-for-nothing husband of hers. I believe we absolutely must intervene in this matter..." She then described the experiences of Huang Shi and her son in vivid detail, painting a picture so tragic that listeners could hardly hold back their grief.

Li Yao'er couldn't help but exclaim, "How can such a father exist in this world?"

Zhang Xiao said, "Among a hundred people, you'll find every shade of character. When the forest grows large enough, all kinds of birds take roost."

Huang Shi and her son's plight stirred Chen Wuren's memory. He cut in: "Chiefs, have you ever heard of 'Eating the Extinct Household'—Chi Juehu?"

As someone born in the 1980s, Zhang Xiao was no stranger to rural life. The so-called "Eating the Extinct Household" referred to what happened when a family's male head died without leaving other male heirs. Relatives—usually from the same clan—would descend upon the household to carve up its property, not even sparing everyday necessities like pots and bowls. In another variation, they would force the widow to host continuous banquets until the family was completely impoverished and ruined. Once the property was stripped bare, these same relatives would torment the orphan and widow in every way imaginable, eventually driving them from their home. Some widows had no choice but to resort to prostitution.

This practice of "Eating the Extinct Household" had proliferated since the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty. Even the celebrated courtesan-poet Liu Rushi had failed to escape it. After Qian Qianyi's death, members of the Qian clan gathered to seize the family property. To protect what her husband had left behind, Liu Rushi wrote a final testament and hanged herself. Thus a legendary romantic and literary beauty met her tragic end—merely two months after Qian Qianyi had passed.

"You're saying someone is 'eating the extinct household' of Guan Youde's family?" Zhang Xiao asked.

"Though Guan Youde is still alive, based on the actual situation, it amounts to the same thing," Chen Wuren said. "According to Miss Zhao's account, Guan Youde has been ill for ten years. Everyone assumes his days are numbered—including himself. To pay for treatment, his family property was essentially sold off at low prices to relatives from the same clan. As the proverb goes: 'The poor don't last long with sons; the rich don't last long without.' Guan Youde has only a single son. When Guan Zongbao was young, whether he would even survive to adulthood was uncertain. Someone—heaven knows who—fed Guan Youde some honeyed words and convinced him to pull his young son out of school to come home and raise fish. Whoever came up with that plan must have been hoping the boy would also die young. A walking medicine jar like Guan Youde would normally last five or six years at most; dragging on for a decade is rare. I suspect his relatives didn't anticipate that either. I also encountered a man named Guan Youde at the Fish Flower Market. His complexion was sallow, and his Yintang—the space between his eyebrows—was dark. He looked like someone without long to live. That should be the person Miss Zhao mentioned."

"Hmph." Li Yao'er snorted coldly. "How can such vicious people exist in this world!"

"Calm down, calm down. Is this sort of thing rare in the countryside? Even if your family has a son, others won't necessarily tolerate seeing you live better than them. Even on the day we boarded the Fengcheng Wheel, such predatory practices were still playing out. Without transforming the backward productive forces and the warped systems of rural society, tragedies like this will never stop." Zhang Xiao looked at Li Yao'er, seeking her opinion. "That said, I do think we should intervene in this case. What's your view?"

"Reforming customs, changing practices—why wouldn't we do it?" Li Yao'er replied with a smile.

(End of Chapter)