Chapter 9: The Camp
As he was considering what else to write, he heard a commotion outside. It turned out that Wu Nanhai from the agriculture group was arguing with He Ping, whom Shi Niaoren had sent to disinfect the toilets. They had brought their dispute all the way here to get a ruling. Although He Ping had been an employee of a large state-owned pharmaceutical factory before the transmigration, his job was actually in equipment and instrument maintenance; he didn’t understand pharmacology. The health group had requested him because his wife, Zhao Yanmei, was a technician in the factory’s mold culture laboratory. Shi Niaoren was preparing to start a pharmaceutical factory project in the future, and Zhao Yanmei had to be kept. To keep the wife, of course, they had to keep the husband.
He Ping, with his rectangular face and glasses, looked like a scholar. He had simply become a clerk for the health group, doing odd jobs and running errands. Why would he suddenly get into an argument with someone?
When he went out to look, the portly Wu Nanhai was grabbing He Ping, his face full of indignation. He Ping, on the other hand, looked aggrieved, still holding a nylon bag of lime in his hand.
“Did you tell him to spread lime?” Seeing the leader emerge, Wu Nanhai focused his fire on Shi Niaoren.
“What? Is there a problem? Our health group is disinfecting the toilets.”
“Do you understand chemistry?” Wu Nanhai pointed at the lime. “Manure is a nitrogenous fertilizer. It cannot be mixed with alkaline fertilizers like plant ash or lime. The result of mixing them is neutralization and loss of effectiveness. You send people to spread large amounts of lime like this, what use is the feces and urine in this toilet?!”
Shi Niaoren’s face darkened. He was, after all, a US-educated PhD, a medical professor who had operated in the States and fought epidemics in the capital. To be questioned about his knowledge of chemistry by an undergraduate from an agricultural university was a great loss of face. But on second thought, Wu Nanhai, as the head of the agriculture department, was also a member of the Executive Committee, and agriculture was an industry the committee was preparing to develop rapidly. In the future, many logistical support matters might depend on the agriculture department. He himself was the head of the health department. If the two department heads had a public falling out, there would be no room for maneuver later. So, he calmed himself down and suppressed his anger. He really hadn’t thought about the fertilizer effectiveness issue. Using lime to disinfect toilets was the simplest and most common disinfection method. When disposing of the excrement of infectious patients, disinfecting with lime was almost a mandatory procedure.
“This was our oversight,” Shi Niaoren said quickly, placating Wu Nanhai with kind words until he left. Little He had a disgruntled look on his face—he was just carrying out a leader’s orders and still got blamed.
“It’s just shit, isn’t it? Just have them take a few more dumps for him!”
“We are also learning through practice,” Dr. Shi said, comforting his subordinate. “Wu Nanhai needs fertilizer for agriculture—something about crops being like flowers.” He glanced at the bag of lime; almost none of it had been used. The lime had been obtained from the construction engineering department—he was reluctant to use the bleaching powder, which he was saving to treat drinking water.
Lime couldn’t be used, and he was reluctant to use bleach. He had to think of another way for the harmless disposal of the feces. Shi Niaoren’s main field was infectious diseases, so he was no stranger to epidemic prevention. He knew there were many ways to treat excrement harmlessly. Lime and bleach worked quickly. If those weren’t available, the simplest method was sealed storage, but that required a three-stage septic tank—or at the very least, a manure vat… What about using some natural plants? He remembered reading in a book that some natural wild plants could be used as substitutes. The problem was, he couldn’t remember which plants, and since he hadn’t studied traditional Chinese medicine, he might not recognize them even if he knew the names.
Just as he was thinking about whether he should write a report to inquire about any talents in traditional Chinese medicine, Tian Jiujiu came in again to ask which water treatment method the health group planned to adopt, so they could quickly come up with a water supply plan and start construction.
“It’s really one in, one out,” Shi Niaoren muttered to himself.
“What?” Tian Jiujiu looked puzzled.
“Nothing. I’m coming to the construction site now.”
The water supply system was under the direct control of the health group. The shallow groundwater near Bopu was relatively high in salt content and not suitable for drinking. They did not yet have the conditions to exploit deep groundwater. The only feasible option was to draw water from the Wenlan River.
For water supply, the ideal sources are spring water or deep groundwater. A river like the Wenlan, with a relatively large flow and good self-purification capacity, was also a usable water source. However, this was a river delta area, where the water quality is generally more polluted, and water treatment would be more complicated.
Shi Niaoren tested the water depth and flow rate, and took a 250ml water sample from 50 cm below the surface. He had no testing equipment on hand, so he had to rely on the simplest method of visual inspection and smelling.
The results made him shake his head repeatedly. He had originally thought that given the level of pollution in the 17th century, the river water should be very clean. The truth was, although there was little sediment in the water, there was a lot of algae. This indicated that the organic matter content in the water body was too high. This was not surprising in the modern era—it was all caused by chemical fertilizers. But there were no chemical fertilizers in the Ming Dynasty. Such a high organic content only indicated that the middle and upper reaches of the river were developed agricultural areas or residential areas.
Of course, it wasn’t impossible to use this water. According to Shi Niaoren’s observation, this water could at least meet the standard for Class III water by modern standards—some modern city waterworks’ intake points didn’t even meet this standard.
To use such water for drinking would require a rather complex process of sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. No matter which water supply model was adopted, it would require sedimentation tanks, filtration wells, disinfection pools, water channels… For the engineering group, which was short of building materials, this was simply a fantasy.
Considering the terrible infectious disease situation in ancient times, the possibility of cholera and typhoid bacteria in the water was very high. After careful consideration, Shi Niaoren believed that it was better not to use the river water before they had the conditions to build water treatment facilities.
“Let’s just transport fresh water from the ship to the shore,” he sighed and went directly to report to Ma Qianzhu.
Ma Qianzhu didn’t know much about how to solve the fresh water problem on the ship, so he called Meng De to ask.
“There is water on the ship, but it won’t last long,” Meng De explained. A typical ship design has at least two freshwater tanks. One stores drinking water, which is fresh water connected from the shore when in port; the other stores daily-use water, which is distilled water condensed from the main engine’s cooling water. This soft water, desalinated from seawater, is usually used for washing and is generally not drunk. Sometimes, when drinking water is insufficient, it can also be drunk.
Because the Fengcheng was designed as an ocean-going vessel, its freshwater tanks were quite large, with a considerable storage capacity. But the original design was to supply a crew of forty to fifty people. Now there were nearly six hundred people, which was a bit of a strain. The amount of new distilled water produced when the auxiliary engine was running was limited and could not be supplied on a large scale for a long time.
“Using the auxiliary engine to supply fresh water!” Ma Qianzhu’s brow furrowed into a knot when he heard the report. “This is exchanging diesel for water!” he said with some regret. “The river doesn’t flow with diesel.”
Shi Niaoren knew he was pained about the ship’s fuel, but he also knew that in Lingao, intestinal infectious diseases like cholera, typhoid, and paratyphoid were historically widespread. Even in the 1970s and 80s, there were small-scale outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. Although the transmigrators had been vaccinated thanks to modern medicine, there was no guarantee that they would be fine. Even if they didn’t get an infectious disease, an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis would be enough to make them suffer.
After a thorough explanation of the pros and cons, Ma Qianzhu had to accept the suggestion. To save water as much as possible, the command post discussed and decided: to set up a centralized water supply station on shore, use a floating barrel line to lay a flexible water pipe, and lead the fresh water from the ship to a 2-ton stainless steel water tower in the living area—for drinking and washing up only.
“As for bathing and such, we’ll just have to make do for now,” Ma Qianzhu knew that this limited water supply policy would surely bring him countless curses, but he had no choice. He sat down and drafted a document, which was sent out via the OA system. “Building materials,” he wrote in his notebook. Many things today had been limited by this building material shortage. He had to find a way to solve it at the meeting tonight.
The twilight gradually deepened, and the first day of D-Day was about to pass. With the command of “knock off” coming from the walkie-talkie, the transmigrators who had been working on the outer construction sites all day returned to the camp in small groups.
The members of the logging group were talking as they returned from the mangrove forest. They carried their tools on their shoulders. Although their bodies were exhausted, there was a fervent emotion in everyone’s heart, and the feelings between them seemed to have deepened a lot.
The tide was receding, and the seawater washed over the large and small rocks in the bay. Looking into the distance, the silhouette of Lingao Cape appeared against the western sky. The blood-red setting sun slowly sank among the scattered clouds. The light of the sky and the color of the sea in Bopu Bay merged into one, shining brightly. The seawater, as if set on fire, turned a golden red.
The transmigrators’ fleet was anchored in the bay in sequence. The dark silhouettes of the ships were edged with a radiant golden light by the afterglow. These ordinary cargo ships and fishing boats, at this moment, seemed as magnificent as the Imperial fleet in Pask’s Gulf to them.
This magnificent scenery intoxicated them. An inexplicable excitement left them speechless. And it wasn’t just them; the transmigrators returning from other outer construction sites also slowed down their pace, gazing at this gorgeous and magnificent scene.
“Let’s go, everyone, it’s getting dark,” the military group personnel at the rear called out to them while checking to see if any transmigrators had been left behind. According to the plan, they were to walk at the very end, ensuring no one was still outside the camp after dark.
“A blockhouse!” someone shouted. Everyone looked towards the camp. The towering beacon tower was now surrounded by an earthen wall, on top of which was a barbed wire fence. At first glance, it really looked like a Japanese blockhouse from an old movie.
After a day of construction, the entire camp had begun to take shape. With the beacon tower and the inspection office buildings as its core, the entire camp was an irregular pentagon. A 5-meter wide, 2-meter deep moat was dug around the perimeter and filled with water from the Wenlan River. The inner bank of the moat was built 1 meter higher than the outer bank and was topped with a 2-meter high barbed wire fence, which was firmly fixed with crossed wooden stakes. Concertina wire was laid at the bottom of the barbed wire fence. Behind the barbed wire fence, the excavated earth was used to build a long rampart, on which a trench was dug. In addition, six 8-meter high wooden watchtowers were built on the long rampart.
At this time, torches were lit along the long rampart, illuminating the moat brightly. The main gate of the camp was open. On the gate tower, two sentries stood with rifles next to a searchlight. Below the gate tower hung two carbide lamps, their light dazzling. The transmigrators passed through the main gate, scanned their dog tags at the human resources registration point at the entrance, and then returned their tools and surplus materials at the Planning Commission’s depot.
“Liu Zheng, right?” the female clerk at the human resources group looked at the personal data and photo displayed on the computer screen, then compared it with his face. “Your barracks number is Building B, No. 14.”