Chapter 311: A New Opportunity for an Official Post

The Sanya Special Zone’s military committee system was similar to a “standing committee” system, but the committee’s authority was limited to military actions. Wang Luobin’s administrative plans for Sanya did not require the approval of the other four members.

The garrison in the Sanya area was only allowed to operate around Yulin Port, primarily for local garrison and public security duties. Its jurisdiction, centered on Tiandu Town, extended north to Damao, south to the Yulin Luhuitou Peninsula, east to the Daanling Mountains, and west to the eastern end of Sanya Bay, roughly covering the entire Yulin Port area.

Within this area, the military committee had the authority to authorize the army and navy to conduct unlimited military operations, including “cleansing” operations against local villages and garrisons.

Wang Luobin, as the supreme head of the Sanya Special Zone, enjoyed gubernatorial powers similar to Tang Menglong’s, with the authority to appoint and dismiss all transmigrator cadres under him. However, this authority did not extend to the heads of the army and navy garrisons, the director of the Tiandu Mining Bureau, and the general commander of construction, who were all members of the Sanya Special Zone Military Committee—they were directly appointed and dismissed by the Executive Committee.

Only when all members of the military committee voted four to one in favor could they relieve one of these four individuals of their leadership. However, such a removal of command was considered a serious event, and afterward, all members would be dismissed and recalled to Lin’gao to face a hearing.

The chief of the major region was not subject to this restriction. Even if the other members of the military committee reached a four-to-one consensus, they had no power to remove him from his position. Any attempt to do so would be considered “rebellion.”

This system was designed to test a future system of checks and balances for local governments: to prevent the garrison from degenerating into a “Kwantung Army”-like military clique that acted arbitrarily and domineeringly in the local area, and to prevent the local government from in turn controlling the garrison and forming a semi-independent force with both food and guns. The bigwigs of the Executive Committee clearly did not want a secondary power center—or worse, a new Transmigration Group—to form in Sanya.

As for the heads of the various departments under these five senior administrative officials, they would be appointed upon the recommendation of their respective committees. The public officials below them would be, as much as possible, natives trained in the military and political school, to observe their independent administrative capabilities and make adjustments to the future cadre training plan.

While the Executive Committee was holding intensive meetings on the key issue of personnel, discussing the setup of various departments and the allocation of cadres for the Sanya Special Zone, the broad masses of transmigrators were also actively engaged.

The Executive Committee’s communiqués on the development of Sanya and the establishment of the Sanya Special Zone had been issued more than twenty times. Each communiqué contained the “publicly disclosable content” of the meeting, with the main purpose of soliciting suggestions. The discerning masses had already discovered that, so far, the communiqués had not touched upon the specific candidates for the dispatched cadres.

Undoubtedly, with the development of Sanya and the establishment of a complete set of administrative bodies, several more of the five hundred would be promoted to official positions. This was an excellent opportunity for the ordinary transmigrators who had not managed to secure an official post in the previous round of institutional expansion and were still in the position of “hatless chiefs” to climb the official ladder. Moreover, it was rumored that the cadres going to Sanya this time, following the example of those sent to Qiongshan, would all be assigned personal assistants. This immediately sparked great imagination among the highly ambitious comrades, and some began to actively campaign for these vacant positions.

Thus, the Executive Committee’s discussion group on the Sanya development project was flooded with all sorts of opinions and suggestions. The more clever ones used their expertise and skills as a starting point, eloquently arguing for the importance of establishing relevant departments or enterprises in the Sanya Special Zone, and writing feasibility reports with citations from various sources. Most of these people had certain professional skills, and those more brilliant than them had already been selected for leadership positions in the previous rounds. If such positions were to be created again, they would surely be theirs.

Those with less skill had to resort to simply and directly repeating the importance of certain institutions and positions, which basically required no professional skills.

Those who had no skills and did not want to play the roundabout game of seeking an official post were very direct and simply asked for one—they had been working as basic laborers for so long, if not for merit, then for their hard work. It was only right that they should be given a small administrative post now.

Those who already held positions in various ministries and commissions were much more subtle. They were mainly calculating whether they could be promoted further. After Xi Yazhou became the commander of the dispatch battalion, he had been hosting banquets and distributing cigarettes for several days in a row to deal with the jealousy of his many transmigrator colleagues in the army. Everyone knew that although his official title was only that of a small dispatch battalion commander, being the first to be given such a major independent responsibility was a sign of future success.

Xi Yazhou’s experience spurred many others to become active.

In the Lin’gao Construction Company, one person also had some lively ideas.

The headquarters of the Lin’gao Construction Company was a two-story frame building with an industrial style, featuring wrought iron trusses and exposed brick walls, designed and built under the supervision of Bing Feng. The atrium was full-height, reaching up to the roof, with a clearance of five or six meters. In the atrium were several huge, sturdy solid wood tables. On the first table was the planning model of Bairen City; the second was currently under construction, with plaster powder, paper, paste, and various fine wood materials piled up next to it.

The person making the model was Ji Runzhi, the planner of the Lin’gao Construction Company. This person was a fanatical architectural enthusiast. As a certified architect and urban planner, Ji Runzhi had the capital to look down on the entire Lin’gao Construction Company and often proposed various planning and architectural schemes in the company. In general, his schemes were characterized by being “large,” “huge,” and “complex.” Not long after D-Day, when the Executive Committee requested the construction company to erect a simple monument on the D-Day landing beach, Ji Runzhi immediately submitted a drawing of a large triumphal arch-style building in a mixed Baroque and Neoclassical style. This drawing won unanimous praise in the Executive Committee, but it was too far beyond reality and was immediately rejected. In the end, not even an ordinary monument was erected.

The first reason Ji Runzhi became a transmigrator was to see the Bao’en Temple Pagoda with his own eyes. The second reason was his dream of becoming Speer in a new world. He was very fond of the fantastical architecture and urban planning of the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. His computer was filled with such drawings, and he fantasized about one day designing the “Transmigration Palace” and the future millennial imperial capital in a new world—he privately called it “Shendu” (Divine Capital), although this was a bit similar to Wu Zetian’s “Shenjing.”

Later, he also made various designs for the “Lin’gao General Hospital,” the “National School,” the “Lin’gao Transportation Hub,” the “Customs Building,” and the “Army Headquarters.” In his view, these designs had sadly compromised with reality, and the standards had been lowered to an unbearable simplicity, but they were all, without exception, shelved by the Planning Committee. The ones that were actually selected were all simple-style buildings designed by Mei Wan and others. The most terrifying was the ox-cart transfer station designed by Mei Lin, which was actually a bamboo pole truss structure with a reed mat roof.

“This is called a porridge shed. How can it be called a transportation hub?” Ji Runzhi commented privately.

Of course, such comments made him very unpopular in the Lin’gao Construction Company.

So far, the only ones that had been selected were the Cuigang Martyrs’ Cemetery and the only outsourced project of the Lin’gao Construction Company: the Catholic Church in Dongmen City.

The initial design of this church almost scared Lu Ruohua to death: this building was larger than the St. Paul’s Church in Macau, which had been under construction for more than a decade. The entire missionary budget given to him by the Jesuits would not even be enough to build the gatehouse.

In the end, the design was greatly changed to an “economical and applicable church” before it was approved by Lu Ruohua and construction began.

“I thought the church would be richer,” Ji Runzhi expressed his disappointment. He had not come to this 17th century to build such ordinary small buildings.

Even the company’s general manager, Mei Wan, couldn’t help but say to him: “What’s the point of doing all this useless work all day long? It’s more useful to do more buildings that meet the current needs and capabilities of the Transmigration Group.” But Ji Runzhi turned a deaf ear to this suggestion and spent most of his time every day drawing his “grand architecture” on the drawing board and making “planning maps” for new cities.

His long-term neglect of his proper duties eventually led to Ji Runzhi being relegated to supervising construction on construction sites as a project manager for a long time. His professional knowledge was only sought when planning certain projects, and architectural design was completely out of his hands.

As soon as the Sanya Special Zone plan was published in the communiqué, he immediately got busy: Sanya and Yulin were good places! Ji Runzhi had been to Dadonghai and was full of praise for the local natural environment. Unfortunately, in the modern era, this place was already occupied by various hotels, resorts, and high-end residential areas, and there was no room for him to display his talents. And here, it was dominated by the “Lin’gao Bauhaus School” led by Mei Wan, which was not only not to his taste, but also offered no chance for advancement. So he decided to go to the Sanya Special Zone to give full play to his talents—staying here would be the end of his dreams.

The nature of the Sanya Special Zone was mainly construction and development. Since this was the case, various plans for the entire area would also be indispensable. The Executive Committee’s communiqué only roughly set a planning scheme, and there were many details that could be supplemented. If he could take this opportunity to present a complete planning proposal, the Executive Committee’s attention to him would be greatly increased, and his ambition to be transferred to the Sanya Special Zone as a dedicated planning and architectural designer would be realized.

With this ambition, Ji Runzhi devoted himself to the design of the planning scheme for the Sanya area. To strengthen his persuasiveness when he recommended himself to the Executive Committee, he began to make a physical model of the Yulin Port planning map in the hall of the construction company’s headquarters. Ji Runzhi knew that just making suggestions was not convincing, and a professional design and planning document was also meaningless—laymen would only find it very boring. The best way was to demonstrate it visually with a model.