Chapter 18: The Meeting - Food and Shelter

Once in the other world, the transmigrators would face three primary challenges:

1. Basic life support: food and clothing.
2. Protection from violence, both human and animal.
3. Protection from the elements: harsh weather and disease.

These personal concerns, unsurprisingly, resonated more with the group than the highly technical industrial issues discussed earlier.

Modern society is a complex web of specialized labor. Every convenience, no matter how simple, is supported by an entire industrial ecosystem. A single drop of tap water is the end product of electricity, chemical engineering, steel manufacturing, cement, and construction.

In 17th-century Hainan, none of this existed.

Rice came as unhusked grain. Water, after simple sedimentation, could only be disinfected by boiling. There were no ready-made clothes. The rich hired tailors; the poor relied on their wives.

All the daily necessities they took for granted, the cheap and readily available goods of their time, did not exist, or existed only in a primitive form.

As the head of the Internal Affairs Group, Xiao Zishan proposed a list of equipment that sparked a heated debate.

“Rice milling machines, flour mills… are they necessary? What about spare parts, power consumption? The ancients had water-powered rice mills. And many rural Chinese were still grinding their own wheat in the 1950s.”

“I think the mechanical department could build these. Bringing them from our time seems like a waste of tonnage.”

“And sewing machines, sergers, cutting tools… Group Leader Xiao, are you planning to open a clothing factory?”

“The Agriculture Group firmly supports the need for grain processing equipment!” Wu Nanhai declared. “It’s about speed! Traditional methods are inefficient. With several hundred of us, manual operation would consume too much manpower.”

“We can use water-powered mills. They had them in China, in Europe…”

“Then we’d have to build a mill. And what about the manpower and resources for that? With electricity, we can process enough grain quickly.”

“The mechanical department can handle the spare parts,” Xiao Zishan said, relieved to have an ally. “In rural areas, they store dry grain. For a group our size, the ration is 12 kilograms of rice per adult per month. With 500 people, that’s 6 tons of rice per month.

“And that’s the standard for ordinary citizens. Heavy manual laborers will need more, at least 14 kilograms. If we bring in local labor, the demand will be even higher.

“Machine-processed grain is also of better quality, with no impurities. Stone mills require high-quality stone, or you end up with grit in your flour, which is bad for your teeth.

“As for sewing machines, the principle is the same. Clothes wear out. Who will make new ones? Your girlfriend?” (Laughter)

“You could marry a local woman. She won’t know how to make our kind of clothes. And a hand-sewn garment, no matter how skilled the seamstress, takes several days to make.

“And what about uniforms for our future workers, our army?” he lowered his voice, then raised it again. “Will your wives be sewing those, stitch by stitch?” (Laughter)

“The armies of the ancients wore clothes, didn’t they?”

“That was built on a foundation of cheap, even free, labor. We don’t have that,” Xiao Zishan said, a look of mock heartbreak on his face. “Our lives are limited. Our productivity should be focused on climbing the tech tree. It’s better to bring these necessary machines. They can also serve as engineering samples for future replication.”

The housing problem was another major concern. The Internal Affairs Group had planned to use tents as a temporary solution, but the Construction Group proposed prefabricated houses, the kind commonly seen on construction sites. They were lightweight, easy to build, insulated, and far more comfortable than tents.

“A department in our company has been using the simplest color steel prefabricated houses as warehouses and offices for almost ten years,” said Li Xiaolü, Auntie Tian’s daughter, a small, slender woman in her late twenties. “They can also be made into multi-story buildings with a light steel structure.”

“Given the harsh environment,” she continued, her voice soft and thin, “we should use higher-grade materials, like magnesium-phosphate prefabricated houses.

“The walls and roof panels are made of magnesia composite panels with a polystyrene foam core, with steel doors and windows, and a light steel keel frame. No special machinery is required for installation. Four skilled workers with simple tools can assemble a standard 60-square-meter house in four hours.

“It’s modular, expandable, and the materials are fireproof, moisture-proof, anti-corrosive, and earthquake-resistant. A standard house weighs only 2200 kilograms and has a service life of over ten years. Dormitories, offices, and small warehouses can all use this type of house.”

“What about factory buildings?” the Industrial Group asked.

“For large-span factory buildings, we can use prefabricated houses with a washed stone finish,” she said. “They’re heavier, but have a lifespan of over twenty years and can be used to build 2-3 story buildings. The Construction Group believes we can produce the cement and angle steel ourselves. If the factory building is not urgently needed, we can just bring the drawings and build it with local materials.” Her face was a little pale. “However, installing prefabricated houses is a technical job. I suggest we send some people to a prefabricated house company to learn on site.”

Wen Desi made a note: “Practical skills training.”

“Can we install water and electricity?”

“Yes, surface installation is no problem. But to save materials, we propose independent public washrooms—bathrooms, washrooms, and toilets—with centralized plumbing and enclosed corridors connecting them to the dormitories and offices.”

“What about cooling? Hainan is very hot in summer. We need air conditioning.”

The suggestion drew a few eye-rolls, but many were secretly hopeful.

“Traditional air conditioning is impossible,” Li Xiaolü said, glancing at Xiao Zishan. “It requires a lot of electricity and chemical refrigerants. A luxury we can’t afford. But we have two other options.” She paused, a wave of nausea washing over her.

“One is a wet-curtain cooling air conditioner, an evaporative air cooler. It’s energy-efficient, but the humidity is high, and manufacturing it would be difficult.

“The other is groundwater cooling. The principle is similar to radiator heating, but with groundwater instead of steam. It requires a larger initial investment—deep wells and copper pipes—but the effect is much better, and the system is simpler.”

“Isn’t that kind of air conditioning banned? They say it wastes water.”

“There’s no such regulation in the other world.”

“But it’s not environmentally friendly.”

“Do we still care about environmental protection at that time?”

“The groundwater can be re-injected,” she explained, “so there is no waste. Or we could use geothermal air conditioning. At a depth of ten meters, the ground temperature is a constant 20 degrees Celsius. We can use it for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.”

All eyes turned to Xiao Zishan. He was in favor of anything that would improve their living conditions. It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but difficult to go the other way. For a group of pampered city dwellers, harsh living conditions would be a death blow to morale.

But he didn’t dare to approve it. Such a system would require a massive amount of industrial resources. He looked at Wen Desi, the chairman.

Wen Desi met his gaze, then looked at the leaders of the various groups. After a long pause, he delivered a classic line:

“Let’s study this issue further.”