Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-Six: The Arrival of the Maids

Hearing that the repair period for Ship A was very long, all parties who had been eyeing Ship A with covetous eyes gave up. In addition to the navy, which was determined to get it, the remote exploration team and the special reconnaissance team were also eager to claim ownership of this ship.

In the period before the arrival of spring, all parties continued the preparations for the “Giant Project,” which had been interrupted by the general assembly. In order to ensure that the laborers and immigrants who were about to board the ship to be coolies would not waver in their minds, all relevant departments started their engines to “strengthen their ideology.” The puppet troupe rehearsed a new play called “Paradise”: with the theme of developing the wasteland and building a beautiful new home, it was performed repeatedly on tour.

The script of the puppet show was roughly based on the Soviet novel “Virgin Soil Upturned,” with a large number of characters and plot points plagiarized from it. The background was naturally set in Australia.

The puppet show depicted “on the vast wilderness of Australia, a group of poor peasants who had no land and had drifted to Australia, under the leadership of the Australian chiefs, reclaimed the land, fought against nature, established farms, planted endless wheat and rice, raised many cattle and sheep, and the people lived a happy life.”

Of course, there was no shortage of the “Australian chief” who always grasped the correct direction, always united the masses, educated the backward elements, and resolutely fought against the hostile elements; the hesitant and selfish small peasant; the old man full of outdated ideas and not thinking of making progress; the young man who dared to think and act, full of ideals; the activist who was brave enough to sacrifice himself for the collective interest and the safety of the chief… All kinds of bad elements were also readily available: from the scoundrel who stole public property and caused the collapse of the dam, to the “enemy” who had ulterior motives, incited the dissatisfaction of the masses, and vainly attempted to destroy the beautiful life of the masses—the enemy was not clearly identified, but this puppet character spoke standard official language and from time to time used terms like “Your Excellency,” “Master,” and “Your Majesty.”

Ding Ding knew very well that it was not enough to just render a beautiful prospect, so he always performed “The Test” one day and “Paradise” the next day for a full comparison.

The appeal of art and literature was enormous, and the performance effect of the puppet show was far better than everyone expected. Most of the immigrants were peasants with little knowledge, but they were not afraid of hardship and valued land and a stable life more than anything else. As long as this point could be satisfied, their greatest enthusiasm could be fully aroused.

While depicting a beautiful picture of a splendid paradise in the South China Sea for the laborers and immigrants, the Planning (Yuan) was also drawing up a weekly death toll plan, setting a death quota based on the weekly work tasks and the changes in the surrounding conditions.

The death quota was related to the overall planning of the Planning (Yuan): how many new laborers needed to be supplemented to Sanya every week; it determined how much food, clothing, and tools needed to be transported to Yulin; it also affected the speed of transporting new immigrants from Guangzhou to Lingao and whether it was necessary to expand the scale of the quarantine camp. In this grand cause of developing Sanya, people were just a number on a document.

In addition to positive propaganda, internal security work was also strengthened. The General Political Security Bureau established a work network among the laborers to provide timely feedback on the emotions of the masses so that work adjustments could be made in a timely manner. Secret arrests were made of some “low-key elements” who spread pessimistic and panic-stricken remarks about the development of Yulin. Zhou Dongtian interrogated them every day to find out if there were any foreign backgrounds and internal connections among these people. This was a point that Zhao Manxiong was very concerned about.

Zhao Manxiong did not believe that the level of the Ming’s secret service organizations was high enough to send people to infiltrate this group of immigrants to carry out propaganda and liaison activities, but the various small groups formed by the immigrants themselves were to be paid great attention to. He emphasized this point in his memorandum to the Sanya Development Leading Group.

In particular, regional groups were very harmful. He clearly pointed out this in the memorandum. Regional groups linked by common dialects and customs had a strong exclusivity. Once a large-scale regional group was formed, it would undoubtedly infringe on the rights and interests of the smaller number of “outsiders,” which was a common sight in many places.

Once a regional group was formed, a leader would emerge, who would control the “fellow countrymen” openly or secretly. The regional group would strengthen the tendency to use a common dialect. Some dialects were difficult for outsiders to understand, almost like a “secret language” within the group. This was not only a challenge to the authority of the elders, but also contained unstable dangers.

In Lingao, which was under the strict control of the Transmigrator Group’s regime, this situation could still be effectively prevented and curbed. After arriving in Sanya, the control was relatively lax, and in the harsh environment, people would inevitably have activities like “looking for fellow countrymen.”

Zhao Manxiong asked the five giants of Sanya to pay attention to this and to absolutely curb the possibility of small groups being formed through hometown connections. If necessary, the most severe means should be used to prohibit it, up to and including physical elimination. Among the secretly arrested were laborers who had attempted to organize a fellow countrymen’s association. Regardless of their motives, Zhao Manxiong wrote “indefinite labor reform” on all of their handling opinions.

But the busiest time for the General Political Security Bureau had just begun. They were about to face a more arduous task of review and appraisal. At the end of January 1630, a ship from Guangzhou brought the first batch of “special supply goods” that everyone had been eagerly awaiting—women.

The purchase of women was handled by Zhang Xin through the channels of the Qiwēi Escort Agency. Sun Kecheng originally had doubts about this task—anyone with half a brain would know that these women were being bought for the Australians. Buying women for overseas people was a crime in itself, and in the traditional view, it was suspected of separating people from their flesh and blood.

Zhang Xin explained to him that this batch of women would all be sent to Lingao and guaranteed that they would not be sent to Australia, so it would not “separate people from their flesh and blood.” He also said that if the women’s parents and relatives were willing to go with them, the Lingao side would also make proper arrangements.

Zhang Xin repeatedly guaranteed and even specially brought back Zhou Shizhai to explain, which finally dispelled Sun Kecheng’s concerns.

“Manager Zhang, please forgive me!” Sun Kecheng said with some apology. “You have come from afar and settled in the poor and remote place of Lingao. It is indeed necessary to have a woman to take care of you, but if you take the girls away, Australia is tens of thousands of miles away, and their families and children will never see each other again. We really dare not commit this sin.”

Zhang Xin thought to himself that he was really pedantic. If they were sold to rich merchants and officials from Beijing, wouldn’t they also be thousands of miles away and might never see each other again? What was the point of talking about “tens of thousands of miles apart” and “separating people from their flesh and blood”?

But he knew that an old-fashioned escort like Sun Kecheng had his own moral code. If it conflicted with his moral code, Sun Kecheng would insist on it even if it meant not making money. On the bright side, such a person was honest and reliable. On the downside, some things were difficult to handle.

After his repeated guarantees and persuasion, Sun Kecheng finally agreed to handle this matter, but he stated that the escorts would not do this, and the specific handling would be done by the managers on the outer counter. The standard given by Zhang Xin was: a woman from a good family, unmarried, under 25 years old, with unbound feet.

“It’s best not to buy from human traffickers. The price should not exceed ten taels of silver per person. If the parents and relatives are willing to go together, they will be given two taels of silver for settling down, and all the people will be escorted by the escort agency.”

Sun Kecheng knew that the Australians’ aesthetic taste was for tall, long-legged, thin-waisted, large-breasted women with big eyes, so he instructed his capable personnel to handle this matter in various places according to this standard.

Finally, through Qiwēi’s commercial network, more than four hundred people were purchased from Guangdong, Guangxi, and Jiangxi provinces. This was a rough selection. After arriving in Guangzhou, they were screened a second time according to the standards of the Maid Policy Committee.

Under the direct care of President Wen Desi of the Maid Policy Committee, several special measuring tools were specially made and distributed to Guangzhou and Leizhou. One of them was the “standard height” and “alternate height,” which were actually two rulers, one was 1.60 meters and the other was 1.55 meters. The latter was an alternate size in case a sufficient number of suitable candidates could not be found with the former.

This method was simple and intuitive, very suitable for the native staff to master, and it was a hard and fast rule. In addition, three soft rulers were provided to define the bust, waist, and hip circumference. A comparison table of height and the three circumferences was also provided, listing the qualified standards. The last item was a body proportion scale: some women were tall, but their upper body was too long.

Overall, the standard set by President Wen was quite low. Not only was the height standard 1.60 meters, but the bust was only at the level of a B-cup. Even the body proportion was set quite loosely. As for skin color, no requirements were made at all, only a general provision of “fair,” but this, like “big eyes,” was a guiding standard, not a hard indicator.

But this set of standards still made the members of the Maid Policy Committee feel that the standard was too high—judging from the level of the native women they had seen in this time and space, almost none of them met everyone’s aesthetic standards. If there had to be one, it would be Gao Lujie, and she only had long legs and a well-proportioned figure.

“Since we are going to do it, we must do it well,” Wen Desi said. “Otherwise, we could just pull a batch of little girls from the quarantine camp and distribute them to everyone. Why go to the trouble of purchasing them on the mainland?”

“Can we get so many…”

“China is very large and has a large population. We can always find qualified ones,” Wen Desi was not worried about this.

Among the more than three hundred people transported to Guangzhou, about one hundred and fifty people who barely met the standard were screened out. Then, they were selected from the refugee camp in Guangzhou according to this standard, and less than one hundred people were selected. In this way, the first batch of more than two hundred people was shipped to Lingao, along with more than one hundred family members.

Those who were not selected would not be wasted. They would be shipped later as alternates.

The arrival of the women did not cause a big sensation. After the previous turbulent period, everyone was a little indifferent to this matter, and even the discussion about this matter on the BBS had cooled down.

This batch of women was directly taken over by the General Office, and a special quarantine camp was set up, completely isolated from other camps.