Chapter 209: Treatment

After each symposium, Wu Fo would organize and compile the recordings of the conversations into a volume. The political department would then review this material, strive to analyze and grasp the ideological state of the participants, and write assessments and specific countermeasures. This material was also sent to the Political Security General Administration as basic material for personal political appraisal.

Personal political appraisal began shortly after the establishment of the Political Security General Administration. Under the auspices of Ran Yao, Wen Desi, Mu Min, Wu De, and the mysterious fatty from the Intelligence Committee, a complete set of scoring methods, standards, and levels was quickly developed.

According to this system, political appraisal was divided into five grades, marked with Roman numerals I to V. I was completely reliable, II was reliable, III was controllable use, IV was unreliable, usable, for further observation, and V was completely unreliable. Each grade was further subdivided into three different grades: A, B, and C. The political appraisal of the transmigrators themselves started from IIC; immigrants were scored based on their age, occupation, experience, and the intuitive impression of the appraisal officer, and the appraisal result was finally obtained.

Illiteracy could add points, but just being literate did not add or subtract points. Anyone with any form of official education, even a tongsheng, would have points deducted. The more books one read, the lower the score in the evaluation. At the level of a xiucai, if one had not experienced persecution by the government, the starting evaluation was basically IIIC. For the transmigrator group, they needed the help of traditional intellectuals, but traditional intellectuals were not necessarily in tune with the transmigrator group in terms of ideology, which was why the scoring standard of “the more knowledge, the more reactionary” came about.

Those with a criminal record, whether it was theft, murder, or rent resistance, would have points deducted. Those who had killed government officials, regardless of the circumstances, would have points deducted—if you resist once, you will resist a second time. Today you resist the Ming Dynasty, tomorrow you will resist the transmigrator group.

Those who came to defect on their own initiative, such as the pirate leaders, had a higher starting evaluation than the captured pirates, starting from IVC. Then, they would be assessed based on the situation in these 90 days, and a second appraisal would be conducted after 90 days. A third appraisal would be conducted after 6 months.

Because the number of immigrants was increasing, if everyone had to go through the process, the organization of the Political Security General Administration would have to be expanded tenfold. Therefore, it was stipulated that ordinary immigrants would only be appraised once 90 days after arriving in Lingao. In the future, unless they joined the army, were recruited for work, or were promoted to cadres, they would no longer undergo political appraisal.

The Political Security General Administration began to gradually establish a complete set of files for every native under its rule. The first batch of files was established for the natives who had already joined the system, including those who had obtained the status of employees, full-time or part-time grassroots administrative cadres, and army and navy officers and soldiers, and students of the National School. Then it would gradually expand to the members of various communes.

“The long-term plan is for everyone to have a file,” Wu Fo proposed a 20-year internal security system construction plan at a regular meeting of the Internal Affairs Committee: “The household registration system, the file system, and mass prevention and mass governance are the fundamental guarantees for us to establish a reliable country! The transmigrators must and can use various means to conduct comprehensive and thorough surveillance of the entire society!”

This set of theories was very much to the liking of the attendees, but the attitude of the Executive Committee towards the secret appraisal in the personal files of the transmigrators was still very ambiguous, in a state of neither admitting nor denying it. Whether it was Wen Desi, Ma Qianzhu, or other members of the Executive Committee, they never consulted the relevant materials, nor did they ever talk about the existence of such a thing in the Political Security General Administration. Before these future politicians were sure that they could hold the supreme power, everyone was very clear about the risks that this thing would bring to their political future if it was leaked.

After reading the minutes of this meeting, Ma Qianzhu just simply ticked his name on the circulation list and did not make any instructions. But from this day on, mysterious sketches and calculation papers full of calculations began to appear on his desk again, and he also borrowed many books on early mechanical computers from the Great Library. Then, a few people in the Industrial and Energy Committee who had studied machinery and electronics and had stayed in the United States received an additional task: to preside over the translation of books on the early mechanical data management system manufactured by IBM—IBM had designed and manufactured semi-automated card-based data storage and retrieval systems for large American companies, the FBI, and Germany in the 1930s. Among them, the automated card management system for concentration camp prisoners designed and manufactured for the Nazis also caused IBM to be involved in a lawsuit after the war.

According to the preliminary appraisal of the Political Security General Administration, Fatty Hu had the highest starting evaluation among all the defectors, which was IVA. This was naturally because he not only gave up his ships and men, but also refused to continue to go to sea. The second was Shi Shisi and others who handed over all their ships, which was IVB. As for those who still wanted to keep their ships, it was IVC. The leaders still did not know that behind the warm greetings, they had been labeled with different tags.

“How should their wages be paid, and according to what standard?” Yan Ming asked Wu De for instructions.

“You’ve asked a big question,” Wu De smiled. “The Dugong was just saying a few days ago that a group of petty bourgeois were being pretentious at the meeting before, and this matter was not settled, and now there is a blank.”

“That 24-level administrative level or something? Did he bring it up at the meeting again?”

“Yes, but now this system is very controversial, and it is estimated that it will be rejected and re-formulated.”

The issue of administrative levels and treatment was indeed a problem that needed to be solved at present—as their organizational structure continued to expand, the number of native public officials continued to increase, especially the number of native military officers in the army. If the treatment issue was not resolved, it would be difficult for people to work with peace of mind.

“Can’t we just follow the treatment standards for workers?”

“Of course, the current plan is to follow the worker grade standards,” Wu De said. “But this is much more difficult than the worker grade standards. The technical level is a hard-and-fast rule. This lacks evaluation standards. There has been a lot of argument about this.”

In addition to the evaluation standards, the central point of the debate was whether the treatment should follow the position, or whether the level should be the level and the position should be the position. Among the cadres at all levels of the Executive Committee, there were two distinct factions. One faction believed that the treatment should follow the position, and there would be no treatment if the position was lost; the other faction believed that this would cause many public officials who could not be promoted for various reasons and remained at the grassroots level for a long time to lose their motivation—if there was an independent administrative level, at least they could be compensated by means of “low position, low rank, high administrative level.” Just as there are so-called deputy-division-level section members in many government agencies.

The latter encountered a lot of opposition: everyone had seen in another time and space the result of the proliferation of redundant officials and redundant positions in the organization caused by the parallel of these two lines of administrative level and position.

“I also oppose this lifelong administrative level. At that time, there will be a deputy-department-level cook, which is strange to think about.” Yan Ming was not keen on the administrative level treatment system either.

“After all the discussion, the matter of military ranks has been settled,” Wu De said. “The specific documents will be issued soon. Among the eleven people, ten belong to the Maritime Forces Department. Chen Haiyang will give them a rating and then issue military pay according to their rank.”

The issue of military ranks was relatively simple, and it was the basic national policy of the transmigrator group to give preferential treatment to soldiers. Once the rank was conferred, everyone had no objection to enjoying the treatment according to the military rank during the service period.

The military rank system of the transmigrator group simply adopted the simplest officer rank system: general, field officer, and company officer, with nine ranks in three grades. Now the formal rating and ranking had not yet begun. After comprehensive consideration, Chen Haiyang decided to give the leaders such as Shi Shisi and Lin Dan who had handed over their ships and formally joined the navy the rank and treatment of a navy captain. As for the others who joined the Southeast Asia Company, he believed that since these people had shares in the Southeast Asia Company, they would have dividends to share. It would be unfair if they received the same salary, so they could only be paid according to the treatment of a reserve navy captain—at a 40% discount of the same level. As for the sea-going allowances in the navy’s plan, they would not be issued as a rule.

“Is the salary of this navy captain a bit low?” Yan Ming said after looking at it. “It’s not bad for a single person or a small family. But this group of people all have a large family to support. And the reserve is at a 40% discount… It may not be enough to buy food for everyone.”

“Let them divide their families as soon as possible,” Wu De said. “Our salary standard is calculated based on supporting immediate family members. They also have a large group of nephews, nieces, and relatives. We also need to arrange work for these people as soon as possible, so that we can separate them all to avoid them gathering together and causing trouble. If the children go to the national school, their meals will be free. It will still be a surplus in the end.”

At the same time, under the unified arrangement of the Ministry of Finance and Economics, the army and navy began to fully use circulation coupons to issue military pay, instead of using silver as in the past. At this stage, the circulation coupons have established a basic credit, and through the efforts of the commercial and trade departments, currencies such as silver and copper coins can only buy simple agricultural products in Lingao, and cannot buy anything decent. More and more commodities began to only accept circulation coupons, or there were discounts for using circulation coupons. In addition, the “reasonable burden,” the tribute of the transmigrator group, could be paid with circulation coupons, which greatly stimulated the use of circulation coupons.

“I think each person should be given a settlement allowance first,” Chen Haiyang said. “How about five hundred yuan?”

Yan Ming looked at his notebook: “Eleven people is five thousand five hundred. That’s fine.”

“We have to tell them where to use it, otherwise they will think we are fooling them.”

“Don’t worry, doesn’t everyone have a translator assigned to them? Wei Aiwen said it’s one-on-one brainwashing. I say—” Wu De said, “The key is to teach them a new way of life—the capitalist way of life has poisoned so many promising young people—when they get used to taking a hot bath every day, having a bottle of ice-cold beer with their meals, and taking their wives and children to see a movie every week, they won’t leave Lingao no matter how much silver and women you give them elsewhere.”