Chapter 13: The Remote Exploration Team

Seeing the thriving scene of industrial construction everywhere, the members of the Executive Committee felt a sense of relief. Things were finally on the right track. A few days ago, the first Lancashire boiler had been test-fired and ran well—aside from a small leak, which showed that Zhou Bili’s craftsmanship wasn’t as great as he boasted. It was now ready to be connected to the Mozi Type-1 steam engine.

Unfortunately, coal reserves were running low. Transporting coal and iron from Guangdong had a long turnaround time. It was clear that establishing a coal supply route from Vietnam was becoming a priority. Lingao itself had no coal. In another timeline, the nearest coal deposits would be in Haikou—known locally as Qiongshan County, the prefectural capital.

The remote exploration team’s previous surveys hadn’t ventured deep into Qiongshan, so the situation there was unknown. They hadn’t heard any news of coal from the merchants who came to trade, likely because any local deposits were too small and there was no local demand, so they remained undeveloped.

Walking into the next workshop, they saw local workers under the direction of the transmigrators from the machine factory, carefully installing sections of ceramic pipes. The pipes were fixed to the ceiling and walls with wrought iron brackets. Ma Qianzhu asked and learned that these were for collecting and transporting waste heat. The excess heat from places like the glass workshop, after being recycled for its own use, could be supplied to other workshops through a unified pipe system for centralized collection and utilization.

As for the industrial wastewater, the transmigrators didn’t yet have a good solution. For now, they were simply discharging it. Since the Wenlan River was their main water source and the Bopu Harbor base was at its mouth, they couldn’t afford to pollute their own backyard. The final decision was to expend the effort to dig a covered drainage channel along the main road to discharge the industrial wastewater into the open sea off Cape Lingao. The transmigrators had no time to worry about any potential ecological consequences.

“It’s not that we can’t treat the wastewater, but our equipment is limited right now,” Tian Jiujiu explained. “Once we have the equipment, we’ll set up a simple treatment plant in Bopu for centralized industrial wastewater processing.”

“But can we treat industrial wastewater without chemical agents, ion-exchange membranes, and the like?” Ma Qianzhu asked.

“We can,” Tian Jiujiu replied. “It’s just a matter of how effective the treatment is. In any case, we’re the only source of major industrial pollution in the world at this time. A little pollution won’t hurt.”

“It seems we’re back on the old path of ‘pollute first, clean up later’,” Ma Qianzhu remarked.

The industrial group just laughed off Director Ma’s lament. To these fanatics, the more smokestacks in this timeline, the better. Who cared about a little pollution?

After their tour, they returned to the office for a short meeting, and the bureaucratic machine of the Executive Committee began to turn once more.

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Before the sun was up, a strangely attired team emerged silently from the morning mist. Dressed head-to-toe in camouflage, with mosquito nets over their heads and field packs on their backs, they advanced cautiously, maintaining a set distance from one another. Occasionally, a member would pick something up from the ground or chip a piece off a rock to store away. Others would take out strange-looking instruments from their packs to take measurements. This was the Remote Exploration Team, a unit under the Ministry of Resources.

Back in the planning meetings before the transmigration, some far-sighted individuals had pointed out that a single small county would not be enough for future development. Therefore, it was essential to conduct detailed resource reconnaissance in other parts of Hainan, especially the core areas, to lay the groundwork for unifying the island and future construction. Thus, a secret remote exploration team was formed shortly after their landing.

The team was composed based on several principles. It was made up of young people with experience in fieldwork. Professionals in forestry, geology, and surveying were the natural mainstays, supplemented by a few experts in wilderness survival. Since the military veterans were the core of the military department, they were not assigned to the exploration team. Instead, security was provided on a mission-by-mission basis by members of the Special Reconnaissance Team. In practice, many long-range reconnaissance missions were joint operations.

The team was organized into a 6-7 person squad. Their equipment consisted of three shotguns or five-shot hunting rifles—much more effective than precision rifles in the dense jungles of Hainan—a sidearm for each person (a Glock 17 or a Smith & Wesson revolver), three walkie-talkies, 1:50,000 contour maps, compasses, portable summer tents, mosquito hats, insect repellent, compressed biscuits, water purification tablets, and other survival gear. One member had even foolishly brought a GPS, which was, of course, useless now.

The exploration team took advantage of the sparse population of Ming-dynasty Hainan, traveling through jungles and wilderness whenever possible to avoid contact with the native population. They collected information on all kinds of natural resources, and also gathered military and civil intelligence, placing them under the dual leadership of the Intelligence Committee. Their departures and returns were known only to a few core personnel. The transmigrator group did not want the locals outside of Lingao to know that a group of “short-hairs” was moving quietly among them.

Their parent organization, the Ministry of Resources, was one of the most mysterious places in Bairen City. Just as most transmigrators didn’t know where the Ministry’s Great Library was located, the Exploration Team’s headquarters was an unmarked small courtyard with its own independent armory, radio station, and a direct telephone line to the Executive Committee. In addition to this office, the team also had independent forward bases several kilometers outside Bairen and at Bopu Harbor. To avoid attracting attention, the teams always departed from these bases. The average transmigrator rarely saw them leave or return. The members of the Remote Exploration Team had one more point of pride—they enjoyed the same unlimited right of self-defense as the intelligence and special reconnaissance teams, which amounted to a “license to kill.” They could not only defend themselves when attacked but could also kill any local native whenever they deemed it “necessary,” without needing to provide an explanation.

Liu Zheng walked in the middle of the formation. After about half an hour, he looked back. The forest was no longer visible, and he felt a little relieved. The journey ahead had no particularly dangerous sections. Although they were pestered by all sorts of insects, the trip had been smooth so far. Feeling the need to do something, he picked up his walkie-talkie and said softly, “Point man, maintain speed, not too fast. Keep searching. Over.”

“Understood,” came the reply.

Liu Zheng put the walkie-talkie away and stretched his body, weighed down by the large backpack. They had completed half of this expedition’s route. The survey of the Danzhou oil shale mine had yielded less than satisfactory results; the shale was covered by about 7-8 meters of soil and rock, making it difficult to excavate without machinery. But he wasn’t very interested in that. He had been out for a week and could finally go home. The thought of his wife, Liu Shuixin, made him stir. Leaving her alone in the residential area was a real worry. He thought of the leering nerds from the neighboring blocks who wandered around their area every day, some of them often singing in terrible, off-key voices. It made sense; they were on a high-protein, low-fat diet and did more than 10 hours of high-intensity labor every day. It would be strange if their libidos weren’t raging. His own life, by comparison, was blissful. For one thing, he had someone to wash his clothes when he got home, unlike the bachelors whose dirty laundry piled up until it stank before being washed all at once. No wonder this group of single men was clamoring for “lifestyle secretaries” every day—they had pressing physiological and daily life needs.

It seemed he wouldn’t be so lucky. Having a wife around had its pros and cons. Whenever the guys with wives or girlfriends were shooting the breeze and the topic of “lifestyle secretaries” came up, they all collectively went silent.

This time, the remote team’s destination was Danzhou, with the primary objective of exploring the oil shale deposits there. Zhong Lishi had provided a full set of data accumulated from his oil shale design work in the other timeline. Their mission was to find and verify these deposits.

After the New Year, the entire squad was exempted from manual labor, instead resting and recuperating in their camp. As a seasoned explorer with rich outdoor experience and a useless degree, Liu Zheng was chosen as the team leader.

“Captain, hold up. I need to collect a specimen,” came the voice of Bai Guoshi, a master’s student from the Forestry University, over the walkie-talkie.

Liu Zheng quickly ordered, “All units, halt!”

“What’s with the noise? Stopping all the time. Do you people have any sense of planning?” Ye Mengyan’s complaint came through the radio. He was on loan from the Special Reconnaissance Team for this mission.

“You don’t know a damn thing. We’re not on a military recon mission; we’re conducting biological and mineral surveys. Of course, we have to look as we go,” retorted Bai Guoshi, who had been collecting numerous plant specimens along the way. His approach to biology had become what his university professor had once harshly criticized as “practical biology”: “Sees a plant or an animal and immediately thinks about what it’s for, whether it’s edible, or if it has economic value!”

“Don’t argue! Maintain silence!” Liu Zheng quickly interjected.

Bai Guoshi dropped his pack and cautiously walked towards a small patch of woods, with Huang Zhaizi following close behind.

“What did you find?”

“Heh heh, good stuff.”

“What good stuff?” Huang Zhaizi watched as he carefully dug up a small shrub. He was an experienced outdoorsman himself, but he couldn’t identify it.

“This is called Yizhi (Alpinia oxyphylla),” Bai Guoshi explained. “It’s an important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.”

“An herb, huh.” Huang Zhaizi was a little disappointed. The plant seemed to be everywhere in the forest, nothing special at all.

“Don’t underestimate it. It’ll be very useful for us to live comfortably here,” Bai Guoshi said. The fruit of the Yizhi plant was an essential component for summer heat remedies like Rendan, Qianjin Ding, and Qingxin Dan. Historically, it was one of Hainan Island’s major tribute items.