Chapter 53: Work in the Li District (Part 3)

According to their pre-arranged plan, upon entering the mountainous area, everyone switched their rifles to a state of alert and sent out scouts to probe ahead. The mountains were not particularly steep. Along the way, they could see small patches of land planted with rice that was about to be harvested. There were also signs of cultivation on the gentler slopes—the green mountain forest, like a molting blanket, occasionally revealed patches of yellow. This was the shanlan (mountain rice) planted by the Li people, a primitive agricultural method akin to slash-and-burn. In the distance, one or two scattered villages could be seen on the slopes. Since they had ample time, they were in no hurry, enjoying the mountain scenery as they walked. Although it was autumn, Hainan was like summer all year round. The mountain flowers were still in full bloom, the vegetation was lush, and the scenery was particularly beautiful, a stark contrast to the desolate, weed-choked landscape outside the mountains. Reaching a mountaintop, everyone stood and looked around.

Wen Desi couldn’t help but praise, “What a truly beautiful place.”

“The scenery is much better than along the banks of the Wenlan River,” everyone else agreed, wiping their sweat and pointing at the surrounding landscape.

“What’s that?” On a small hill not far away, there was a grove of extremely tall and straight trees. Among the lush green trees, these had conspicuously already shed their leaves.

“That is the kapok tree,” Wen Desi said. As someone who lived in Guangzhou, it was impossible not to recognize the city’s official flower.

“Kapok, I know it! The flowers are beautiful. I saw a lot of them when I went to Panzhihua,” Mu Min said.

“Hehe, that’s right. The place Panzhihua is named after the kapok tree.”

“Why have all these trees shed their leaves? Trees in the south don’t usually lose their leaves, do they?”

“It is a deciduous tree,” Fa Shilu explained. “Its native habitats are mostly places with distinct wet and dry seasons. It sheds its leaves before the dry season begins to conserve water.” Although he was an agronomist, he had also worked in plant protection and was quite knowledgeable in this area.

“This tree is very useful,” Fa Shilu continued. “It’s an excellent fiber raw material.”

“Good as it may be, it can’t be spun into cloth.”

The fibers of the kapok tree are much shorter than those of cotton, making them unsuitable as a textile raw material. However, it grows quickly, its wood is light and soft, and its fibers are short, fine, and soft, without any twist. It has a hollowness of over 86%, is not easily soaked by water, has strong pressure resistance, excellent warmth retention, is naturally antibacterial, and does not attract moths or mold. It can be used to fill pillows and life jackets.

The transmigrators had previously found a few scattered kapok trees along the Wenlan River, but this was the first time they had seen such a large, dense forest of them. If developed, it could be very promising.

“Chief Wen, I’d like to collect some samples,” Fa Shilu requested.

“Engineer Fa, you should ask Captain Lu about this—” Wen Desi said. “I’m just a team member; I don’t have command authority.”

“Right, right, I forgot again.” The agronomist smiled sheepishly. The title of “Chairman” on Wen Desi’s head always made him forget this.

“Old Fa, you said this kapok can’t be spun, so why have I heard that the Li people’s cotton textile technology was always advanced in ancient times? Even Huang Daopo learned spinning from the Li people in Hainan.” Accompanying him to collect samples was Cui Yunhong, who was carrying a lot of equipment: a laptop, a transient electromagnetic instrument, an anchor bolt detector, an ultrasonic detector… and even a small hand-cranked generator, the “Africa poverty-relief edition”—after all, all these things needed electricity. While Fa Shilu collected samples, he also took the opportunity to do some geological surveying.

“Not all kapok can’t be spun,” Fa Shilu said, carefully avoiding the thorns on the trunk as he used a measuring tape. “Some varieties of kapok can be, but the quality can’t compare to herbaceous cotton. Also, some so-called kapok is actually Sea Island cotton.”

“Sea Island cotton?”

“It’s a high-quality long-staple cotton, native to Central and South America. It’s called Sea Island cotton because it was once widely distributed along the southeastern coast of the United States and its nearby islands,” Fa Shilu explained. “Hainan Island has a similar type of long-staple cotton that is very close to this American Sea Island cotton.”

“I’ve seen cotton. It’s short, like a grass, and planted annually. How can it be like a kapok tree?”

“Hehe, because cotton can be annual or perennial.” Fa Shilu knew that in their original time, most people couldn’t tell one crop from another; plenty of people mistook wheat seedlings for chives. Having seen cotton at all was already pretty good. “In a natural environment, cotton can grow into a perennial woody plant. Perhaps because, like the kapok tree, its seeds are covered in cottony fibers, it was mistakenly called kapok. The raw material for the Li people’s textiles on Hainan Island should be this perennial woody cotton.” He continued, “I’ve seen a few of these scattered cotton trees. They are quite common on the island. Our department is currently considering how to handle the cotton issue.”

“This is just regular kapok, right?”

“It’s regular kapok.” Fa Shilu was a bit disappointed. If it had been a forest of Sea Island cotton, they would have struck gold. This long-staple cotton could not only be used as a raw material for fine spinning, producing high-count cotton cloth with a texture and feel comparable to silk, but it was also an indispensable raw material for the tire cord of the future tire industry.

“It can be used to make guncotton,” interjected Zhang Bolin, who was standing guard nearby. “For guncotton, any fiber will do.”

“You can’t say that—” Fa Shilu was saying, when he suddenly saw two or three people approaching from a distance. Their dress and appearance were clearly not Han Chinese. Knowing they were Li people, he quickly packed up his things and retreated to the main group.

Two native soldiers approached, calling out from a distance. They both wore cloth shirts, but their lower bodies were wrapped in a strip of cloth like a loincloth, somewhat resembling a Japanese fundoshi. They carried hook knives at their waists—a tool and weapon that every Li man used to carry—and had crossbows on their backs. Lu Rong spoke with them for a while in the Qiongzhou dialect and learned that they were now within the boundary of a dong (Li village area), and the chieftain lived in a village ahead called Nanan Village.

As they were talking, the prisoners behind them became agitated. Ignoring the heavy salt packs on their backs, they rushed forward. When the two groups met, they embraced and wept with emotion—it turned out these two soldiers were from their village. Early that morning, a hunter had reported to the chieftain that a strangely dressed group had arrived. They were not numerous and were not government troops, nor were they the usual lone or small groups of Han merchants. The chieftain, who was also the Tushe Zongguan (Native Chieftain General Manager) appointed by the Ming government, had the duty to maintain local security, so he sent people to investigate.

From the conversation, they learned that five of the thirty Li soldiers sent from this dong had escaped and returned. Now, the entire Li district was abuzz with talk of a powerful group of sea pirates who had come from the sea with formidable firearms. The small merchants from the Han areas had embellished the story of the battle at Bairen Beach, and now almost everyone knew how terrifying the transmigrators were.

Realizing that the newcomers were the “sea pirates” with supernatural powers, the two soldiers showed fear. Lu Rong quickly explained that they were not pirates but merchants, and the fight with the government troops at Bairen Beach was a matter of self-defense. They had come to the Li district this time, firstly, to return the eight prisoners, and secondly, to do business. With that, Lu Rong opened a salt pack—the snow-white refined salt sparkled in the sun. The power of salt was indeed immense. After licking it to confirm it was real salt, the two soldiers ran off as if on wings.

Lu Rong ordered everyone to wait where they were. If the information the Security Group had obtained from the Li prisoners was accurate, the power of salt would be enough. Even so, everyone was still a little nervous, fearing that the other party might come for revenge. With the firepower of more than twenty SKS rifles, they could handle one or two hundred people, but if a conflict broke out, the aftermath would be difficult to manage. If their own side suffered a few casualties, it would be an irretrievable loss.

Before long, they saw a middle-aged man approaching, surrounded by more than a dozen Li soldiers. He was dressed much more elaborately than the nearly naked soldiers, in what looked like traditional Li brocade, with pheasant feathers decorating his head, appearing to be a chieftain of some sort. According to the prisoners, this was an “Aoya” a major figure in their dong, second only to the Tushe (native chieftain).

This “Aoya” could speak the Qiongzhou dialect very well. He came forward alone into the open space between the two groups and first stuck his hook knife into the ground.

“What does that mean?” Lu Rong was a little nervous.

“It seems to mean no hostility,” Wen Desi said. He remembered watching a documentary about an Amazon rainforest expedition where the team encountered natives in the forest who also placed their machetes on the ground to show friendliness. “Just do the same.”

So, Lu Rong also walked out and placed his machete on the ground. Not only was he extremely nervous, but everyone in the team was sweating—he was only about fifty meters away from those soldiers. If a crossbow bolt was fired and hit a spot not protected by his stab-proof vest, the poison on the arrow, from the Antiaris toxicaria tree, would be instantly fatal.

The two sides stood there talking for more than ten minutes. Then he returned, saying with some resignation, “He won’t let us go to the village. They are willing to buy the salt, and he is willing to ransom the prisoners with things we want.”

Wen Desi thought, “What’s the point if we just go back like this?” But the captain was Lu Rong, and interfering with the decision seemed to violate the command policy established by the Executive Committee.

So he asked tentatively, “How about we talk some more? Maybe offer a gift—”

“A gift!” Lu Rong laughed. “I’ve been out of the business for over a year, I’ve forgotten the tricks of the trade.” He went back, and the two talked for a while longer. After a moment, Lu Rong returned, beaming.

“It’s done! He agreed to take us to the outskirts of the village, but we can’t enter. We can only trade outside the village. But he promised to let us meet the chieftain.”

The price for this change of heart was a small fruit knife. Although the fruit knife was not made of high-grade steel like tool steel, it was still a steel knife, completely incomparable to the crude iron hook knives they had.

It seemed that commercial bribery worked everywhere.