Chapter 92: The New System (Part 1)

“Let’s put aside the matter of finding them wives for now,” Ma Qianzhu said.

“Next, let’s talk about the problem of finding women for ourselves—”

“No, there’s nothing to talk about there either. What I want to talk about is the issue of labor,” Ma Qianzhu interrupted. “We’ve brought so many people to Bairen Beach, given them food and lodging, and made them work for us. What’s next?”

“Then, of course, they continue to work.”

“I’m talking about, um—” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “land, labor systems, remuneration, and management systems.”

Wen Desi requested to speak: “Before discussing the labor system or similar topics, I think we should first establish the status and ranks for the natives. Otherwise, there’s no basis for discussing their differential treatment.”

Currently, the transmigrators have divided the native laborers under their direct control into three classes: Slaves: No personal freedom, forced labor, supplied with clothing and food, no remuneration. This includes captured prisoners before they have been screened and reformed. Laborers: Personal freedom, work as assigned by the transmigrators, free food and lodging, currently also supplied with clothing, and paid by the transmigrators for their labor. Staff: Basically the same as laborers, but with 20% higher remuneration.

There is mobility between these three levels. Slaves can be freed to become laborers, and hardworking laborers can be promoted to staff. For society to be stable, social classes must be able to flow—at least among the ruled.

In the Executive Committee’s plan, the staff class will become the foundation of their rule, from which qualified industrial workers, low-level administrative personnel, and soldiers will be trained.

Although the staff enjoyed preferential treatment and were held in high hopes by the Executive Committee, not many laborers wished to become staff. To this day, the number of people who have become staff is less than a quarter of the total number in Production Team One. Many people still came with the mentality of being long-term laborers and had no real intention of boarding their “pirate ship.”

Where did the problem lie? After careful consideration, Wu De proposed that the limited effectiveness of the staff system was mainly due to its lack of appeal—staff only received 20% more pay. Although there was talk of allocating housing and private plots of land, this had never been realized. Even the first batch of people who became staff still lived in tents and sheds like the other members of the production team. As for private plots, there was plenty of wasteland in Lingao, but due to the lack of irrigation facilities, it required a great deal of manpower to cultivate. For laborers who worked more than twelve hours a day, there was simply no time or energy to tend to it.

Finally, they still wore the “pirate” hat. Although the county, from top to bottom, was now coexisting peacefully with the transmigrators, it did not mean that the locals recognized their ruling position. Receiving 20% more pay came with the risk of “following the bandits”—the benefits and risks were clearly not proportional. Although the peasants did not understand economics, they could still make this simple calculation.

“Should we immediately seek amnesty? Become good ‘short hairs’ that the common people can trust?”

“No, amnesty is not that easy. Zheng Zhilong’s amnesty took several years to achieve, and he was a native of Fujian with extensive local connections. We are complete outsiders. If the government regards us as barbarians and treats us the same as the ‘wild boar skins’ (Manchus), then there will be no negotiation at all.”

The solution was reverse thinking. Since the risk could not be reduced, then the benefits should be increased. When risk and reward are proportional, people will naturally be willing to take risks. Not to mention distant examples, Zheng Zhilong was able to continuously recruit sailors and soldiers in Fujian to supplement and expand his fleet largely because being a pirate could bring greater benefits to the local people.

“At present, a simple 20% increase in income does not create a significant difference among the laborers.”

The starting point was to implement the housing policy for the staff. Anyone in the Executive Committee who had lived in the countryside knew very well the great enthusiasm of peasants for building houses. In the years after the implementation of the household responsibility system in the countryside, peasants whose situation had slightly improved almost all built new houses. To this day, many peasant families, even if their children have already settled in the cities, will still build new houses for their children in the countryside.

A person who has a place to live. A person with a temporary residence will not have a sense of belonging to that place. Only when one has one’s own house will one regard this place as a home and work hard to build and defend it. Otherwise, one is just a passerby, and what does other people’s property have to do with them?

The construction of the production team’s housing outside the South Gate was such an attempt. The Executive Committee required the engineering group to build this batch of housing as a real village, not just as simple collective dormitories.

The construction engineering group took into account both the living habits of the countryside and the effective use of land to save building materials, and finally came up with a design for an apartment building. Each apartment building has three floors, with three residential units on each floor. Each unit consists of a 14-square-meter bedroom, a 16-square-meter main room, and a 10-square-meter kitchen. There are no toilets within the units; instead, there is a public toilet on each floor. Sewage is discharged through pipes to a biogas digester for harmless treatment. The building is not equipped with water and electricity supply or an independent drainage system. However, relevant positions have been reserved in the design and construction.

The apartment buildings are mainly used to accommodate family households. Of course, a unit of this size would be a bit crowded for a large family, but a family size of 4…5 people is quite suitable.

The houses are of brick-concrete structure. The floor slabs of the first batch of unit buildings are made of wood. The construction group plans to use precast concrete slabs in the future to reduce the possibility of fire.

“What about the property rights of the houses?” someone asked after looking at the drawings and renderings.

“Because our land system has not yet been formally decided, for the time being, these houses only have deeds. The relevant land deeds will be reissued after the land policy is determined.”

The issue of land ownership was a point of contention among the transmigrators. Most people hoped to confirm private land ownership, while some insisted on state ownership of land. Others believed that they could copy the land policy of the original time and space, transferring land use rights rather than ownership—but without that strange year limit.

The Executive Committee did not intend to carry out welfare housing allocation for the laborers—people tend to despise things that cost no money. Each unit was priced at sixty taels of silver, and anyone could buy it. Installment payments were allowed, and staff-level employees enjoyed a 10% discount.

Needless to say, the staff who were burdened with installment payments would work harder than anyone else to maintain the existence of the transmigrators—otherwise, their dream of a peaceful home would be completely shattered. The members of the Executive Committee had more or less seen the living conditions of the local tenant farmers, long-term laborers, and small peasants. For them, it would be impossible to own such a house even if they worked for several lifetimes.

“I have a question,” Xiao Zishan asked. “Farmers usually raise livestock and so on. If they live in such an apartment building, what about the livestock? If they want to raise pigs and chickens, they can’t raise them in the corridor, can they?”

“The livestock sheds and pigsties are intensive,” explained Mei Wan, who was in charge of the explanation. “They are not placed together with the residences, which is conducive to hygiene. Similarly, this new village will also have intensive granaries, which can minimize losses from insects and rodents to the greatest extent.”

“With such great benefits for the staff, I’m afraid all the laborers will want to transfer. There should be some restrictions.”

“That’s right,” Wu De nodded in agreement. “We also need to make this staff position a little harder to get, so that there is competition.”

The basic conditions he drafted for applying for a staff position were:

1. Personnel with specialized skills recognized by the transmigrators who are willing to serve them, such as craftsmen, scholars, soldiers, etc.
2. Those who have served the transmigrators as laborers for more than 12 consecutive months and are willing to continue to serve.
3. Those who have made significant meritorious contributions.

“But now, just having levels like staff and laborers to distinguish the population is no longer very suitable for us,” Wu De said.

Regardless of the differential treatment between these people, the labor model was the same: collective labor. Except for a very small number of craftsmen and intellectuals with specialized skills, most people were assigned work daily by Wu De according to the labor demands put forward by the various professional groups.

Under the current state of numerous infrastructure projects, this system ensured that there was sufficient manpower available for each key project, and it also strengthened the personal control over the laborers.

As many enterprises are about to go into production, it is inevitable that specialized industrial workers will emerge. Industrial workers are professional. If they are still assigned work daily as they are now, it will be inconvenient for enterprises to organize production, and it will also be difficult to cultivate a professional team.

The Production Team Two, which migrated from Gou Family Village, had many family units, which was completely different from Production Team One, which was mostly composed of bachelors. If the men were considered laborers, what about the status of the women and children? In the current work assignments, many women and children also participate in labor. How should their remuneration be calculated? For those women with many children or young children in their families, simply using a kindergarten to solve the problem is not realistic. And what about the resources and expenses required for a kindergarten? … All these various problems reminded the Executive Committee that they needed a civil administration system to manage their first batch of subjects.

The transmigrators had many choices when it came to choosing a civil administration system. For example, in Saltworks Village and Damei Village, they adopted a model of villager autonomy, with a village committee for management. This method had a ready-made model to follow and the effect was relatively good. However, under such a system, the inherent power in the village was too strong, and the main positions in the village would be monopolized by a few people. The most typical example was Saltworks Village, where the village administration was almost completely controlled by the Tan brothers. Although the Tan brothers were their training targets and currently seemed very loyal to the transmigrators, it was still not as good as direct control.