Chapter 117: Winning Hearts and Minds (Part 2)

“Of course, as long as everyone works together, none of this is a dream,” Wei Aiwen began to paint a picture of the future. “You’ve all been here for a month. How have your days been?”

“Couldn’t be better! We get new clothes, the food is plentiful and good. Where else could you find such a good job!”

“They even give us shoes to wear. The first time they gave me shoes, I couldn’t bear to wear them. I’ve never worn such good shoes before.” A soldier was wiping his tears. “Later, the chief said we had to wear them, and they’d give us new ones if they broke. I’ve lived for over twenty years and never worn a good pair of shoes—” He started crying, sobbing uncontrollably.

In fact, these so-called “good shoes” were not even cloth shoes, but just straw sandals with a cloth sole sewn on and cloth strips on the straps, making them a little more comfortable to wear than pure straw sandals.

“But—” Wei Aiwen’s tone changed. “We poor people are living a good life now. Will those landlords, chiliarchs, commanders, bandits, and robbers just watch us enjoy our happiness? Just like you, you thought you could live a good life by reclaiming wasteland in Qiongzhou. What was the result?”

Everyone’s eyes widened. Seeing that the time was right, Wang Tao immediately put on a look of gritted teeth:

“No, we will not let them take the fruits of our labor for free!”

“That’s right!” Wei Aiwen raised his voice. “We common people have been bullied by the big households and officials for generations. They eat delicious food and drink spicy wine every day, and when they have no money, they rob us, the common people. In the past, we had no one to rely on, so we could only swallow our tears. Now that we have the Short Hair masters to back us up, with big iron ships and fast guns, and we have weapons in our own hands, can we still let them do whatever they want?!”

“You’ll have to ask if the gun in my hand agrees,” Wang Tao said heroically, striking a pose like Li Yuhe from “The Red Lantern.”

“No!” The crowd’s emotions were indeed stirred up. The soldiers from the commune, being the vested interests, were the most touched.

“What if they try to take it by force?”

“Then we’ll fight them to the death!”

…

Seeing that the time was ripe, Wei Aiwen said, “As long as everyone works together, we can all hold our heads high, our lives will be better, we won’t have to dig for wild vegetables to fill our stomachs, we can eat white rice, fish, and meat every day, and have good clothes and shoes to wear. There will be buildings everywhere, with air conditioning, warm in winter and cool in summer. And electric lights, which will light up the whole room, ten thousand times better than this kerosene lamp. The children can all go to school, get an education, and our country will become rich and strong. We’ll have successful manned space flights and even host the Olympics! Well, anyway, all of this will come true.” Wei Aiwen secretly cursed. He had gotten too excited just now, and his mouth had run away with him, saying things he should and shouldn’t have. Fortunately, everyone had no reaction to words like “air conditioning” and “Olympics,” but they were quite envious of a life without having to eat wild vegetables.

The meeting was over. Ma Qianzhu pulled Wei Aiwen aside and gave him a thumbs-up. “Hey, little Wei! You’re really something! This meeting was a great success. Everyone recalled their pasts, and there wasn’t a single one who didn’t grit their teeth in hatred. With what you’ve done, they’re at least our people now.”

Wei Aiwen was full of pride. “That was a piece of cake! Just you wait, I have more ideas!”

His heart was filled with tears: My last Coke, I traded it all for this… Yu E’shui, you’re such a beast!

The next day, Wei Aiwen’s methods were compiled into a document by Ma Qianzhu and distributed to the company commanders for study. Wang Tao, the transmigrator, had to be temporarily kicked out of the dormitory area—he was no longer a “chief,” his status was now a soldier of the first company of the training battalion. All the companies called him to give reports at their themed meetings. This Wang Tao was a former trainer who lived by his wits. He had also studied storytelling in his spare time, so when he told stories, he was not only vivid and emotional, but he also often left cliffhangers, leaving the audience wanting more. His script became more and more complex, and in the end, Ma Qianzhu had to remind him not to go too far.

However, relying solely on this method of “recalling past bitterness and thinking of present sweetness” was still slightly insufficient. Ma Qianzhu, based on the experience of Xi Yazhou and others in Yanchang Village, organized people to compile a small booklet, focusing on the transmigrators’ slogan “Eradicate the strong and evil, protect the territory and pacify the people.” At the same time, he selected a few of the more active soldiers from the commune and gave them special political training.

“The core of political work is to cultivate loyalty to us,” Ma Qianzhu emphasized at the new army officers’ meeting. “I personally believe that the common people do not necessarily love the government very much. To them, the government is just an authority that must be obeyed, not a ‘state’ in our sense of the word.”

Cultivating loyalty certainly could not rely on a few slogans. No matter what political theory, it was not as effective as protecting one’s own interests. As soon as the war of resistance ended, the Communist Party carried out large-scale land reform in the liberated areas, thus winning the hearts of the people and gaining a stable base and an endless source of soldiers. This was more effective than a thousand or ten thousand repetitions of class consciousness.

By providing the new army with a standard of living far superior to that of the local common people and even the commune members, they would become attached to such a life and regard the transmigrators as their great benefactors. Once their interests were tied together, they would be willing to risk their lives for the transmigrators. For the transmigrators, who had no foundation and were out of step with this society, luring them with benefits was the most effective and fastest method.

As for organizations like Ma Qianzhu’s soldiers’ committee, they were reluctantly established under the complete control of the transmigrators, although most people were skeptical of such soldier democracy—many even cited counterexamples. But Ma Qianzhu still insisted on doing it. The reason, of course, was that after the Sanwan Reorganization, the soldiers’ committee and the party branch established at the company level had played a magical role in transforming the old army—almost like a cheat code.

Since it was effective for an old army like the National Revolutionary Army, it would also be effective for the new army they were building from scratch.

Ma Qianzhu naturally couldn’t implement the system of “building the party branch at the company level,” otherwise the right-wingers in the Executive Committee would eat him alive. However, the soldiers’ committee had the banner of democracy as a tiger skin, and no one could do anything about it. To show his emphasis on this matter, he himself served as the chairman of the battalion-level soldiers’ committee.

The tasks of the soldiers’ committee were mainly five: first, to participate in army management; second, to maintain discipline; third, to supervise the company’s economy; fourth, to carry out mass movements; and fifth, to conduct political education for the soldiers.

Its system completely imitated the soldiers’ committee of the Red Army era. The lowest level was set at the company. The entire company’s soldiers’ meeting would elect 5 to 7 or 9 people as the executive committee of the company soldiers’ committee, and one person would be elected as the chairman. At the battalion level, one representative would be elected for every 5 soldiers to form the battalion soldiers’ committee. 11 to 13 people would be elected to form the battalion soldiers’ executive committee, and one person would be elected as the chairman. And so on. The soldiers’ committees at all levels did not have standing committees.

Regarding the relationship between the soldiers’ committee and the military organs, the soldiers’ committee could only make suggestions or ask questions about a certain issue, and could not directly interfere or deal with it. When the soldiers held a meeting, the commanding officer had to be present, and no closed-door meetings were allowed. In wartime, the military commander could suspend all activities of the soldiers’ committee to prevent extreme democratization.

Of course, the soldiers’ committee, which was completely controlled by the transmigrators, had no concept of democracy or not. Anyway, the “chiefs” asked them to elect, so they elected. As for what they were elected to do and how to do it, they were all at a loss. Ma Qianzhu knew that this thing was just a formality at this stage, but he didn’t like the argument that “democracy needs a foundation”—sometimes you have to force things a little.

The transmigrators decided to let the new army soldiers start with the simplest self-management, including arranging the internal affairs of the squad, cleaning, and managing the food. When the interests of the soldiers were guaranteed and they had a sense of being their own masters, their enthusiasm would be stimulated, and their sense of responsibility for the construction of the army would also be strengthened.

Tian Liang was released from the quarantine camp in Bopu. During his days in the quarantine camp, he attended classes to learn to read every day, did some simple manual work, and his body also became stronger. He could now roughly read the “textbooks” that were sent to the camp for them to read every day. Tian Liang was very happy in his heart. It seemed that the masters here were going to promote them—at least to be a manager or something. Otherwise, there was no need for a servant to learn to read.

In his spare time, he would sit behind the barbed wire with a few friends of similar age and watch the lively scene on the training ground across the water. The best friends he made in the camp were three brothers, all with the surname Ruan. After they arrived here, they were named Ruan Xiao’er, Ruan Xiaowu, and Ruan Xiaoqi.

Now, even a fool knew that the master who bought them was not just a rich man—do rich men train their own soldiers? He knew about the village braves in the countryside—Tian Liang had suffered a lot from these people when he was wandering, and he had also seen them robbing lone merchants on the road, but how could those country bumpkins compare to the people on this training ground? Tian Liang had seen the garrison soldiers drilling in Guangzhou. They were considered the elite of the official army, but compared to the soldiers on the opposite training ground, he always felt that they were not as spirited.

Those soldiers were all bald, wearing short clothes, and exuded an air of competence and neatness. They marched in neat formations, and even their legs were raised in a straight line. They even shouted slogans all day long during training. This really opened their eyes, although it was a bit strange—the soldiers were all training with wooden sticks. Could it be that such a rich master couldn’t afford a few spears?

The strangest thing was that although it clearly wasn’t raining, they could always hear the sound of thunder. Sometimes it was continuous for a whole day. Later, they heard from someone that it was the masters firing their cannons. The masters also had cannons? This made them even more confused.

Finally, one day, they were called up and told to pack their things. It was time to be assigned.

The boys under the age of 13 were sent to the “primary school,” which was said to be a place for studying. Tian Liang was already fifteen, so it was naturally not his turn. Those over 13 who were good at arithmetic or showed other talents were sent to the “technical school.” This group of them, who had no special talents, were all swept into the “military and political school.”

This school, proposed by Ma Qianzhu, had no school buildings. The children were all issued a set of military uniforms and incorporated into the “cadet team” of the training battalion, and they followed the adults in marching with wooden sticks.

Tian Liang wanted to know where Guo Fu had been assigned, but the girls were assigned on another day. Later, he found out from the auntie who delivered the food that the girls under 13 had also gone to the “primary school,” and the others had all gone to the “technical school.”

“I heard that after learning skills in school, they will be assigned to the ‘chiefs’ as maids,” the auntie said with a look of envy. “They are all fortunate children.”