Chapter 122 - Manpower Allocation

“How’s the mood today?” Wu De asked Yang He.

“Very stable, blue mood standard.”

“It’s blue every day. Don’t treat it as just going through the motions,” Wu De knew that Yang He had just graduated from college and lacked social experience, which was also something he was worried about.

“No, I came to this conclusion after carefully listening to the reports,” Yang He said seriously.

The so-called reports were from the “sand” sent by Dugu Qiuhun. These people were mostly temporarily transferred from the army, navy, and commune members. The image requirements were dark and thin, and it was best if they could speak the dialects of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, and the two lakes, because most of the refugees came from these areas. In order to avoid the repeated appearance of familiar faces, the “sand” was rotated. Every time a new batch of immigrants arrived, some were mixed in, and they were replaced with each new batch. They ate and lived with the immigrants and regularly reported on the situation of the immigrants in the camp.

Wu De said unceremoniously, “What can you learn from listening to reports? Aren’t you afraid they’ll lie to you?”

“I don’t think so…”

“Look, you’re becoming a bureaucrat. How do you know they won’t lie to you?” Wu De said. “Subordinates are very good at guessing their superiors’ intentions. Sometimes they will unconsciously revise the content of their reports based on your likes and dislikes. You have to go down and see and listen for yourself!”

He took a breath. “As the head here, you have to go down at least two or three times a day. Look at their condition more. Sometimes, clues can reflect big problems. If someone is crying, you have to ask why they are crying. If someone is laughing, you have to know why they are laughing!”

“Oh, I see!” Yang He said with a nonchalant expression. “I’ll go down and see more.”

Dugu Qiuhun had another important task at this time: screening the population. Specifically, it was to investigate those refugees whose behavior was suspicious or who had obviously concealed their identities. For example, someone claimed to be a tenant farmer but had fair and delicate skin; someone had scars from swords but said he was an ordinary commoner…

According to the “List of Dangerous Persons” issued by the General Administration of Security, Dugu Qiuhun had to pay attention to whether the refugees were mixed with: spies from various coastal pirates in South China; spies from the garrisons of the provincial and prefectural governments; spies from Zheng Zhilong; spies from the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard; and spies from the Manchu Qing. Finally, Ran Yao specifically asked them to pay attention to the infiltration of evil cults among the immigrants. And he distributed a set of “Table of Doctrines and Slang of Various Evil Cults in the Late Ming Dynasty,” compiled by Yu E’shui, which included most of the sects found in historical records.

In short, all suspicious persons had to be screened. Although Wu De acknowledged the importance of screening, he was skeptical of such meticulous work—now it was on a scale of a few hundred to a thousand people at a time, so it was feasible to do it so delicately. In the future, when the population exploded and tens of thousands of immigrants came in, would they still do it this way?

However, the attitude of the Executive Committee was: in the early stages, when the number of immigrants was small, the work should be as detailed as possible—after all, this batch of people would be the backbone of the transmigrator regime in all aspects in the future, so their reliability must be ensured.

There were indeed many suspicious persons screened out, but the legendary spies from various factions never appeared. Instead, many fugitives, runaway slaves, and deserters were cleared out. In addition, some scholars who felt that they had lost their dignity by selling themselves were also found out. They even caught a monk—because he had not obtained a certificate of ordination, he could not beg for alms or stay in a monastery, and he ended up on the streets as a refugee. Because the time he had been growing his hair was not long, his topknot seemed too short, and he was suspected of being a Tartar by the transmigrators.

“How many people are there in the camp now?”

“As of 9 a.m. this morning, there are seven hundred and twenty people,” Yang He reported. “One died early this morning.”

“A death?” Wu De stopped. Generally speaking, refugee deaths mostly occurred in the early stages of reception, that is, during the detention period in Guangzhou. Some also occurred in the first few days after receiving purification in Lin’gao. But this batch of people had been here for almost a month. “What’s the reason?”

“Sudden diarrhea and fever. The camp’s health worker couldn’t do anything—there was no antidiarrheal medicine. I saw that it was serious and sent someone to the health center to get antidiarrheal medicine, but he died before they got back. Minister Shi said we’ll only know the cause of death after an examination,” Yang He reported. “But I’ve already sealed off that dormitory. No one is allowed in or out, and I’ve sprinkled bleach.”

“Hmm,” Wu De said. “It’s getting hot recently. We must prevent a possible epidemic.”

“It might be cholera,” He Ma said after looking at the report. “It looks like it. Have they taken a sample?”

“Minister Shi has already taken it and sent it to the health center for bacterial culture.”

“Damn, I hope it’s not that,” Wu De was worried.

“If it is, our medical department will be in trouble,” He Ma sighed. “Why did I study medicine in the first place?”

His heart was heavy. Summer had arrived, and it was the season for the outbreak of the local infectious disease, cholera, in Lin’gao. And an important way for the transmigrator group to supplement the immigrants’ protein was seafood—this stuff was very likely to carry bacteria. Thinking of the stinking seafood processing plant, it didn’t look reassuring.

They naturally had medicine for cholera, but they were a bit overwhelmed when it came to dealing with a large-scale cholera outbreak. Moreover, the treatment of cholera patients required fluid replacement, and they didn’t have much of a reserve of that. He Ma scratched his scalp. “The toilet used by the people in this dormitory must also be sealed off,” He Ma gave instructions. “We’ll decide on the disposal plan after the results are out.”

Because of this incident, everyone paid special attention to the hygiene inspection. After a tour and finding no problems, Wu De came to the office of the quarantine camp. At this time, many representatives from different departments had already arrived. The office was not large, and the weather was hot, so they all squatted in the shade of the trees, smoking and chatting. When they saw Wu De and his group arrive, they all swarmed over.

“Don’t worry, let’s have a meeting!” Wu De certainly knew what they were here for and quickly stopped them from all talking at once. Because the quarantine for this period would end in three or four days, for the various departments that were short of manpower, these seven hundred refugees were a big piece of meat to be divided and eaten.

“Yang He, get some water for everyone, make sure it’s boiled.”

“There’s boiled herbal tea, absolutely hygienic,” Yang He called for someone to bring a large old-fashioned teapot and put it in the shade. Everyone took out their own cups from their belts to drink tea.

Wu De glanced at the eager representatives of the various departments, who were like hungry tigers, and began with an opening remark: “I know why you are here, it’s a monthly event! Don’t worry, and don’t talk about how difficult your department is or how important it is to the great cause of transmigration—I know all that!”

This was to shut everyone up and prevent the meeting from turning into a complaint session. Sure enough, those who were originally prepared to wave their notebooks and speak with fervor had to sit back down.

“There’s only so much manpower. I’ve read all your applications and also gone to the Planning Committee to understand the progress and manpower needs of each department,” he flipped through the folder he had been given and smiled at the girl who had brought it over—she should be a native girl, with dark skin and big eyes, looking quite good.

“It’s impossible to satisfy everyone 100%,” Wu De smiled. “Let’s allocate them.”

The allocation was limited to men and women over the age of thirteen. Children under the age of thirteen were not considered labor and were directly received by the National School under the Ministry of Education.

After the new immigrants were purified, they were assigned to the Bairen Commune and the Bopu Commune according to the destination of the units that received them—in view of the development of the chemical-steel industrial zone around Bopu Port, in order to facilitate the use of labor nearby, the Ministry of Civil Affairs had newly established a Bopu Commune in Bopu as the local civil affairs management agency.

The Industrial and Energy Committee, as usual, received the largest share. The Bopu Chemical Plant was about to be ignited and put into production, requiring a large number of workers. And setting up mining sites in Hongji, Vietnam, and Tiandu, Hainan, also required a lot of manpower.

The Ministry of Education received the second largest piece of the cake this time. The simple normal school took away one hundred and sixty young men and women at once, which made several departments unwilling. But after Bai Yu explained the benefits that this batch of normal school students could bring after graduation, everyone endured it—after all, it was a very arduous and labor-intensive task for their own departments to provide cultural education for the new workers and apprentices they were assigned.

The Lin’gao Construction Company ranked third, receiving fifty people. The Lin’gao Construction Company generally used dispatched workers from the commune, but as the amount of engineering construction continued to increase and the demand for skilled labor grew, the construction company also began to establish its own team of full-time native skilled workers.

The medical department received thirty people. The weather was getting hotter, the population was increasing, and the demand for health care and epidemic prevention was growing.

…

The other departments all received some additional personnel, some ten or eight, some three or four. The army and navy received nothing. Except for replacing the dead and wounded, the army and navy did not increase their establishment by a single person. This made them very angry. In the end, after coordination, it was decided that thirty of the children still studying at the National School would be selected as “designated students,” half for the army and half for the navy. As soon as they obtained a B-level diploma, they would be transferred to the non-commissioned officer class of the military and political school to study.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs did not receive any new personnel either. First, the personnel allocation and recruitment of the General Administration of Security were not public. Second, Ran Yao, who was in charge of police administration, was not keen on adding personnel—from the perspective of saving, the army and navy were usually sufficient for riot control in addition to training and work. He was now engaged in “mass prevention and mass governance,” in other words, everyone was responsible for public security, and they shouldn’t push everything onto the police uncles.

After the personnel were allocated, Bai Yu from the Ministry of Education announced the notice of the restructuring of the apprentice general corps into a vocational and technical school.

“It’s just a change of name! It’s for centralized registration, centralized accommodation, and centralized management,” Bai Yu said, afraid that someone would misunderstand and think that entering the vocational and technical school meant becoming a part of the Ministry of Education’s manpower. “The Ministry of Education is only responsible for the students’ life management and cultural education! The specific vocational skills education is still organized by each department and enterprise.”

“What about the military and political school?” The army and navy also attached great importance to this issue.

“The same approach,” Bai Yu said. “You are still responsible for the professional studies.”

“So it’s dual leadership? The requirements for the students of the military academy are different from others!”