Chapter 61: Mobilizing the Masses (Part 4)

While they were busy, a ship was seen sailing through the waves from a distance on the sea. The unique silhouette of the ship allowed the lookout to recognize it at a glance as the transmigrators’ Type 67 utility landing craft. This ship hadn’t moved since it entered the port—to save fuel.

The salt workers on the beach, however, panicked, dropped their tools, and ran chaotically towards the village. The seas were not peaceful in these times. Every ship coming from the sea could be an enemy.

Zhang Xingjiao, being more worldly, stood at the village entrance with the Tan father and son to reassure everyone. “It’s the ship of those kūnzéi masters, it’s fine.”

The transmigrators, however, were very happy. This was the first time in over two months that they had seen their own ship sailing on the sea. The Executive Committee had dispatched a ship that was not easily mobilized, showing the importance they attached to this mission. No one wanted to work in a position that was not valued.

Xi Yazhou raised his arm. “Let’s go, everyone, to the beach to welcome the navy!”

“The navy!” Everyone laughed, feeling quite proud. Weren’t they the most advanced navy in this time and space?

Just then, the landing craft let out a long, stirring blast from its horn. Before the sound of the horn faded, it had emerged from the long line of waves and was heading towards the shore to meet them.

Those without tasks all went to the beach, followed by dozens of curious children and villagers.

The landing craft had a deep draft and couldn’t get too close. Xi Yazhou turned on his walkie-talkie, and the two sides made contact. He learned that in addition to the grain, cloth, and weapons the work team had requested yesterday, the ship also carried a batch of daily necessities and building materials.

“Find us a berthing shore with a draft of 1.2-1.5 meters, so we can beach and unload the cargo,” Chen Haiyang called over the walkie-talkie.

“Alright, wait a moment!”

The western coast of Hainan Island is mainly rocky. Apart from the tidal flats formed by siltation in the bays, small rocky harbors could be found everywhere. They soon found a small harbor not far away, with a small water surface that could barely accommodate two or three fishing boats.

The landing craft, moving at a slow speed, slowly entered the harbor. This landing craft, which had been refurbished before the transmigration, looked both beautiful and majestic at this moment. A new derrick for unloading cargo had been installed on the ship. At the two machine gun positions on the bridge, there was a military group member holding an SKS rifle, wearing an ’80s-style steel helmet and an orange life jacket. They looked heroic and had a bit of the air of the PLA from the other time and space. If only they each had a machine gun, Xi Yazhou thought idly. Seeing everyone coming to welcome them, they were all smiles, waving to the welcoming crowd on the shore.

The engine roared one last time, took a long breath, and then shut down.

The landing craft beached and lowered its ramp. A burly man with a round face and large eyes, tall and strong, came down from the ship. He scared the following children into silence. A man of 190cm in height and 110kg in weight was practically a giant to the people of that time. This giant was Chen Haiyang of the military group, wearing a navy blue training uniform he had brought with him, looking full of vigor.

Chen Haiyang led four military group members to Xi Yazhou, formed a line, and saluted.

“Report, Captain Chen Haiyang of the Navy’s Wuzhishan vessel, reporting for duty with the cargo. I am now under your command.”

“Organize the unloading immediately!” Xi Yazhou returned the salute and smiled. “Let the masses see what you have brought them!”

“Yes, sir! Organizing the unloading immediately.”

After shaking hands with Chen Haiyang and his men to thank them, Xi Yazhou opened the written document from the Executive Committee. He laughed as he read.

“Excellent! Excellent! This really solves the problem.”

He said excitedly to Zhang Xingjiao, “Tell Old Man Tan to gather the villagers to prepare for unloading!”

As the villagers slowly gathered around, Xi Yazhou climbed onto the ship’s bridge and stood high above, with several hundred pairs of eyes staring at him.

“Fellow villagers!” Xi Yazhou said with a broad smile, waving the document in his hand. “Food and clothing have been sent to us from Bairen City. For now, one thousand catties of rice will be allocated to the village! This rice is free of charge, all to be distributed to everyone!”

At first, there was a moment of incredulous silence, followed by a burst of cheers. Last night, Zhang Xingjiao had already gathered some young people through the Tan father and son and taught them to cheer on cue. Some of the elderly and women looked at the boat full of grain and shed tears. The cheers gradually subsided, replaced by the grateful tears of the masses.

Xi Yazhou continued as the crowd quieted down, “There are also fifty bolts of cloth, all for everyone to make clothes. This will require the help of the women in the village! However, there isn’t enough cloth yet, so the clothes we make may only be one set per family, but there will be more to come—”

Before Zhang Xingjiao could finish translating, another cheer erupted from the crowd.

“Fellow villagers!” Xi Yazhou put away the document. “Our life depends on labor, not just on relief. Bairen City now needs a large amount of sea salt. Everyone, put your strength into production. We’ll take as much sea salt as you can produce!”

“We have plenty of strength! Salt, we can produce as much as you want!” Led by the Tan father and son and a few others around them, the crowd was stirred into a frenzy.

Seeing the enthusiastic atmosphere, Zhang Xingjiao, as instructed by Chief Xi, quickly stood up. “Fellow villagers! I am Zhang Xingjiao, also a native of this place, and I have studied for a few years. In the past, I was brutally deprived of my house and land by Landlord Gou, and in the end, even my ancestral grave was dug up by him. I was bullied to the point where I couldn’t live…” When he spoke of his painful past, he kept wiping his eyes with his sleeve, and the crowd below also sighed in sympathy. “Landlord Gou destroyed my family and left everyone without clothes or food,” he wiped his eyes and shouted in a hoarse voice, “The kūnzéi masters have come, they give us food and clothing, help us with production. If anyone comes to bother us again, if anyone comes to take advantage of us again—”

“That goes without saying!” the young men roared in anger. “If that bastard Landlord Gou comes again, we’ll smash his dog head!”

The older people looked a little scared, but the atmosphere was now stirred up, and they didn’t dare to say anything discouraging openly.

“That’s right!” Xi Yazhou shouted excitedly. “This saltworks was approved by the imperial court. It’s a place built by your ancestors, one load of water and one spoonful of salt at a time. By what right does Landlord Gou occupy it and get rich? Everyone must protect the salt, protect the grain, protect our homes, and protect the fruits of our labor!”

The crowd’s emotions were extremely agitated. Du Wen, who was standing on the side, had been smiling excitedly at first, but then she frowned. Xi Yazhou had left a little foreshadowing in his speech, not saying that the saltworks belonged to the people—according to the Executive Committee’s thinking, this saltworks would be the property of the transmigrators in the future.

Amidst the clamor of the crowd, Xi Yazhou walked down from the landing craft’s bridge with satisfaction. Bundles of weapons had already been unloaded onto the ground. These were all weapons captured in the battle at Bairen Beach, now refurbished.

In addition to grain and cloth, the landing craft also brought red bricks, cement, and some simple tables, chairs, and benches newly produced by the Bopu timber processing plant for the work team. The personnel of the mechanical group, having nothing to do for the time being, had used the timber processing equipment of the factory to make some modern-style furniture for everyone’s use.

The work team’s camp was also renovated. With building materials and under the guidance of professional personnel from the construction team who came with the ship, everyone worked together and soon completed a blockhouse-style building. There were also a few comfortable tile-roofed houses around it. The 15W radio they brought also had a new antenna tower. Outside the wall, Xi Yazhou had the construction team build a screen wall to serve as a propaganda board.

That day, under the auspices of Xi Yazhou, a village committee was established, with a production team and a militia team under it. At Du Wen’s suggestion, a women’s group was also established. The rural women of Hainan all worked in the fields and were known for doing heavy and hard labor, so the Confucian ethics of separating men and women did not have much of a market here.

The militia team was led by Tan Chengqing. Zhang Xingjiao wrote a petition to the county, stating that because the village had been repeatedly harassed by pirates, a village militia was established to protect the community. This kind of legal procedure was still necessary.

The militia team consisted of sixty young and strong men. The salt workers all knew some martial arts. After receiving the weapons, everyone’s morale was high. They took time out in the morning and evening to train. The flashing of swords and spears made for a lively scene. Xi Yazhou watched from the side, but felt that although these things had some power in single combat, they would probably not be effective in a real melee. Xi Yazhou had seen the attack of the Huangjiazhai village braves during the battle at Bairen Beach: their momentum was fierce, and they were very methodical. If such a team attacked, the unorganized and undisciplined militia would probably collapse at the first touch.

Xi Yazhou had his own set of methods for training new recruits, but these militiamen used broadswords and spears. He was not sure if it was appropriate to rashly use the new recruit training methods of the firearm era.

“If only we could equip them with firearms!” Xi Yazhou said after watching their training and returning to the command post. Chen Haiyang’s men were still at the camp—they were waiting for the salt workers to gather thirty tons of salt. Once the salt was gathered, they would take it and Tan Guihuang across the sea to Leizhou to open up the salt sales channel.

“Firearms won’t be available for a while,” Chen Haiyang thought for a moment. “We can practice drills and physical fitness first. These two are useful in any army of any era.”

“Political reliability must come first, only then can military skills be solid!” Du Wen suddenly appeared from somewhere. She was now completely engrossed in organizing the women’s group, spending every day with Tan Xiaoqin, learning the local dialect. “Our organization is still floating on the surface.”

Her words made everyone present pause. Indeed, the enthusiasm of the salt workers had been stirred up, but they could not yet be considered politically reliable. They had only become allies of the transmigrators due to the circumstances, and the firmness of their stance was still questionable.

Xi Yazhou thought for a moment and said, “The first priority now is to establish an organization. The village committee and the militia have been established, but we haven’t yet taken root in the saltworks. We must cultivate activists among the salt workers and develop a group of people who share our fate. Only then can we be considered to have taken root in the saltworks. We need to gradually promote cadres from among the salt workers.”

Everyone agreed with Xi Yazhou’s view. Du Wen said, “I want to start a training class—let’s call it the Ma’niao Peasant Study Institute. We can train some salt workers, cultivate a backbone force, and I will be the main lecturer. What do you think?”

This view coincided with Wang Luobin’s thoughts. However, Xi Yazhou did not want Du Wen to lecture on any political theory. He said, “Good, the name ‘Study Institute’ is not bad. It just so happens that Engineer Wang also has the idea of running a technical training class. You two can do this together. Let’s start with literacy and learning Mandarin! We all have to take out some time to teach.”