Chapter 38: Building Materials

Just as the specialized groups were squabbling over labor allocation, Xiao Zishan received another call from Ran Yao: they had discovered Li tribesmen among the captives.

“Really?” Xiao Zishan was startled. The Li people were a formidable force on Hainan Island. The county gazettes always had a section dedicated to the “Li Situation.” Since the Yuan Dynasty, there had been a Li uprising nearly every year. The conflict between the Han and the Li was intense, and defending against them was a major concern for the local government. For the transmigrators to thrive, they had to be cautious in their dealings with the Li.

“What’s the situation?”

“They say they were conscripted by the county as crossbowmen. Thirty of them came, and we’ve captured eight,” Ran Yao said. “And get this. Remember that family that got caught up in all this?”

“I remember. The woman was a former police officer, right? I sent her to you for the interrogations.”

“She’s Li, and her ancestral home is Hainan. Neat, huh? I think we can use this.”

“I remember her having a Sichuan accent. A lot of ethnic minorities these days are ‘ethnic’ in name only. And she hasn’t lived there in years. What could she possibly know?”

“No, she knows a lot about her people. A few of the Li captives are completely in awe of her,” Ran Yao’s laughter crackled over the phone. “See? Talent pops up when you least expect it.”

Meanwhile, Guo Yi had nearly finished screening the captives. The vast majority were farmers. A few were artisans, but they were really just part-time farmers, firing pottery or working as masons in the off-season. The only one with any real skill was a middle-aged carpenter. Only one was literate: Zhang Xingjiao. He was assigned to learn Mandarin from Xiong Buyou and was made the clerk for the labor force, responsible for recording work points and other administrative tasks.

Wu De separated the artisans into their own team. The rest, aside from about twenty wounded, were divided into five labor teams, led by the first five captives. He deliberately mixed the Lingao natives, the Fujianese “slash-and-burn” farmers, and immigrants from other regions, continuing his divide-and-conquer strategy. Lin Xing and the other new team leaders, having forgotten their own half-captive, half-slave status, were quite pleased with their promotion. Without waiting for orders, they had already made themselves whips, eager to supervise the new wretches.

Strict hierarchy, absolute power, and the benefits derived from that power—these are seductive forces in any human group. Wu De, a veteran of the military and judiciary, understood this well. He reinforced the structure, issuing each of the five team leaders an ugly, rattan safety helmet, a failed prototype from the Industrial Committee. The visual distinction between the “hatted” and the “unhatted” clearly delineated the captives’ status.

Due to the urgent construction needs, all labor teams were assigned to the construction group to produce the most basic building material: bricks.

The reconnaissance team had located a brick and tile works three kilometers from Bairen Beach. It was a typical traditional operation with three earthen round kilns. The workers had fled, but they had left behind a trove of materials: fired bricks and tiles, air-dried green bricks, and a large quantity of “prepared clay.”

The process of firing bricks was tedious. Raw clay was extracted, sun-dried, crushed, mixed with water, and repeatedly trampled to create “prepared clay,” which was then molded into green bricks. These had to be air-dried for ten to fifteen days before they could be fired.

If the transmigrators had to rely on traditional methods, their progress would be glacial. Fortunately, they had a combined brick-making machine, powered by a portable steam engine. Their production rate was now limited only by how much raw clay they could excavate.

Mei Wan considered the earthen kilns too inefficient. And loading a kiln was a skilled job. Luckily, there was a large supply of ready-made bricks on site. They decided to use them to build a 16-chamber Hoffman kiln.

The Hoffman kiln was a continuous production kiln, a technological marvel in this time and place. It consisted of a series of interconnected chambers forming a circular tunnel, with a central chimney. Fuel was added through ports in the roof. The process was divided into four zones: drying, preheating, firing, and cooling, allowing for loading, firing, cooling, and unloading to happen simultaneously. A standard Hoffman kiln could produce over fifty million bricks and tiles a year.

To save time, while the Hoffman kiln was being built, Mei Wan decided to fire the existing green bricks. Loading the kiln was a specialized skill, but Luo Duo of the Intelligence and Information Group, the walking encyclopedia, once again came to the rescue. He located a digital copy of a 1958 booklet titled “Earthen Methods for Making Bricks and Tiles.” Within an hour, a printed copy was rushed to the kiln site. The laborers were astonished to see this “pirate artisan” directing them on how to load the kiln using a book—a secret previously known only to master craftsmen!

Near the kiln was a large field of thatch, intentionally grown as fuel for the earthen kilns. The transmigrators put it to good use.

While the earthen kiln was firing, Mei Wan directed the labor teams to dig clay and cut grass, creating massive piles of both. Some of the captives began to despair, thinking the pirates meant to work them to death.

Then, the portable steam engine sputtered to life, belching black smoke. The flywheel began to turn, powering the combined brick-making machine. The captives watched, mesmerized, as piles of prepared clay were fed into the machine’s great steel maw. A dazzling array of iron parts whirred and roared, and then, as if by magic, smooth, uniform green bricks emerged, neatly cut into boards. Not even the most skilled brick-maker could work this fast. The pirates could do anything! The speed at which they created things was beyond mortal comprehension. Some of the captives, terrified, fell to their knees and kowtowed before the roaring machine.

“What are you bowing for? Get back to moving materials!” Mei Wan yelled at a stunned Lin Xing.

“Yes, Chief!” Lin Xing replied. He had picked up the title from some bored transmigrator and now used it for all of them.

“Work! Work!” he shouted, brandishing his stick. “Move the clay! Hurry up! Anyone who’s too slow gets thrown into that iron mouth!”

The threat was far more effective than his stick. A superstitious terror of the machine gripped every captive. They worked with frantic energy, terrified of being fed to the machine as a living sacrifice.

The newly made green bricks were carted to a stacking area. By evening, the entire supply of prepared clay, which would have lasted the Lingao brick-makers for months, was exhausted.

To build the Hoffman kiln, Mei Wan had another crucial task: producing cement. In his own time, getting cement was as simple as making a phone call. Now, faced with making it from scratch, he was lost. He knew of something called “earthen cement,” but he had no idea how to make it. Replicating modern cement production, a highly specialized, mechanized industry, was impossible.