Chapter 4: T-Hour

Hu Xun was sleeping soundly with his young wife when he was suddenly shaken awake.

“What is it?” he asked, instantly alert. For a subordinate to dare to burst into his bedroom and wake him, it had to be something important.

“It’s bad! In the bay… there are… there are… so many—” the servant stammered, gesturing wildly. “So many ships!”

“Pirates?!” Hu Xun’s heart skipped a beat. He threw on his clothes and got up. “Quick, sound the gong! Everyone, grab your weapons! Prepare to fight!” he yelled. Without looking back, he roared at his young wife, who was still dazed on the bed, “Quick, get me dressed!”

Outside, the gongs began to beat, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. The stockade immediately descended into chaos. The able-bodied men dropped what they were doing and ran towards the public office. The manager there, already instructed by Master Hu, distributed swords, spears, bows, and arrows to the guards. A dozen or so single-barreled and three-barreled hand cannons, along with two small cannons, were also pushed out and hurriedly dragged towards the stockade gate.

Hu Xun rushed out of his house, a large saber in his left hand and a short firearm in his right—a Western toy a ship owner had given him. The matchcord wasn’t even lit.

The ship owners and stewards who were wintering in An You Le Market ran around the street like headless flies, asking everyone what was happening. When they learned that a large pirate fleet had arrived, many turned pale, and some burst into tears. The ships at the pier below the stockade were surely lost.

As soon as Hu Xun reached the west gate, he saw a hundred or so people blocking the entrance, clamoring to get out. The stockade guards were trying desperately to hold them back, but to no avail. Amidst the chaos, he could hear they were ship owners and sailors who wanted to get out of the stockade to sail their ships away. The guards were outnumbered and were being pushed back by the desperate, red-eyed crowd. Someone was about to remove the locking bar from the gate. The headman guarding the west gate shouted in panic—if the gate was opened, what if the pirates took the opportunity to rush in?

Hu Xun charged into the crowd. With a swift motion of his saber, he lopped off the heads of the two men who were trying to remove the bar.

“Have you all gone mad?!” Hu Xun flicked the blood from his great saber. “There are dozens of ships out there waiting! None of your boats will get out! You’ll just be throwing your lives away!”

The crowd was stunned into silence by his blood-drenched saber. No one dared to speak.

“Stay quietly in the stockade and await my orders!” Hu Xun snorted coldly. “You can forget about your ships and cargo, but at least you can save your lives!”

Hu Xun ordered the guards to drive everyone back to the inns. He then ascended the west gate tower. He saw no less than fifty or sixty ships in the bay. Some were heading towards the Lin’gao stockade, while others were sailing deeper into the bay.

Hu Xun drew a sharp breath. Among the fleet was a rarely seen five-masted galleon. But what shocked him even more was what followed. He saw several strange-looking vessels moving through the bay without sails or oars. He stood there stunned for a few minutes—Is that even possible?!

But soon, something even more terrifying happened. Three two-masted ships sailed in a column towards the shore of An You Le Market. They quickly reached the vicinity of the pier, their broadsides facing the stockade. He could clearly see the square gunports on their sides open up, revealing dark cannon muzzles. Hu Xun couldn’t help but shudder. There are twelve ports on this side alone. How many cannons does this ship have?

“Chief, should we fire a shot?” a guard asked. The few iron and bronze cannons on the stockade wall could at best reach the beach. It would be more like setting off a large firecracker to boost their own morale.

“Fire your ass!” Hu Xun, no longer caring to pretend to be a member of the cultured Hu clan from Shuinan Village, slapped him across the face. “Fire, fire, you think this is a funeral, firing your bird-gun just for the noise?”

The headman said, “Chief! I don’t think they intend to attack the stockade. At most, they’ll just plunder the ships and cargo below.”

“We can’t let our guard down against an attack on the stockade,” Hu Xun said. “Tell everyone to be vigilant and not to fire randomly.” He quickly descended from the wall with his saber and ordered all men and women in the stockade to be mobilized. The able-bodied men were to man the walls, while the women and elderly were to prepare logs and stones. If necessary, they would tear down houses.

But Hu Xun wasn’t foolish enough to think that the few hundred people in his entire stockade could withstand an attack. His preparations, as if facing a great enemy, had a single purpose: to show this force, whoever they were, that An You Le Market was not a soft persimmon but a hard walnut. Anyone who wanted to take a bite would have to work for it.

“Prepare fifty jars of wine, two whole cooked sheep, two hundred taels of silver, and one hundred bolts of cloth,” Hu Xun instructed his manager. “Have them all ready at the east gate.”

“Chief, I’m afraid that won’t be enough,” his ever-present secretary whispered.

“I know it’s not enough,” Hu Xun said, a little impatiently. “This is just to test the waters, to see what they’re like.”

The landing operation unfolded like a flawless performance. Everything proceeded according to schedule.

The first personnel transport ship docked in front of Yulin Fort, and the hatches were opened.

The neatly assembled laborers, in order, group by group, climbed onto the deck and then, guided by sailors, descended the gangway onto the pier.

The long sea voyage left many staggering as they set foot on land. When the pier became crowded, a slight push would cause someone to fall. Some even fell directly into the sea from the pier. Small boats nearby quickly came to rescue them, but those who were too exhausted couldn’t struggle in time and were dragged under by their luggage. By the time they were pulled out, they were already dead. A few people drowned in the initial chaos, but most made it ashore safely. Many collapsed onto the sand as soon as they touched it, gasping for breath. They were quickly herded up by their group leaders and captains and marched in batches towards the distribution center set up by the Planning Committee. Those who couldn’t be roused were taken away by the collection team.

Those who made it to the distribution center were led to steaming large pots. Several men who looked like cooks ladled a bowl of warm soup into their enamel cups. It had an indescribable aroma.

Lin Gonglao took a sip. It tasted a bit bitter, a bit sweet, with a hint of herbs, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was probably some kind of medicinal soup, specifically to cure seasickness. The soup was neither cold nor hot, just the right temperature. Lin Gonglao drank it all in one go.

Strangely, he soon felt strength returning to his legs, which had been weak from the long time at sea. A steady stream of vitality seemed to well up from within him, and his spirits lifted considerably. He looked around in surprise. The people around him were much the same. Those who had been severely seasick and had barely managed to walk to the distribution center seemed to have recovered significantly after drinking a bowl of the medicinal soup.

“This is uncanny. What kind of miracle drug is this?” Lin Gonglao muttered.

The concoction boiling in the pot was “Energy Supplement Type B,” formulated by the Ministry of Health. The recipe had been finalized after several revisions and trials by Liu San, Chen Sigen, and others. The reason for its miraculous effect was its main ingredient: coca.

Coca leaves were a mild drug widely used by the working class in Central and South America. Before the Spanish conquest, the Indians used them to combat fatigue, thirst, and altitude sickness, forming a so-called coca culture that continued into the 21st century.

The transmigrator group had brought coca plants with them precisely because of these effects and its relatively minor side effects. However, many among the elders were still skeptical about it and demanded the strictest management of its use.

But pragmatism eventually won out. The Ministry of Health had prepared a large quantity of this potion—using almost their entire stock of harvested coca leaves—in consideration of the extreme hardship of the Tiandu development project. They needed something that could quickly restore the laborers’ spirits. Along with the “Energy Supplement,” a large quantity of cigarettes was also shipped. “Great Production” brand cigarettes were supplied openly and for free. Anyone who wanted to smoke could have up to three packs a day.

After drinking the potion and resting for a short while, someone came to call their group number. Each ten-man group had a unique number, which was sewn onto their work clothes and luggage with a cloth strip. To the Planning Committee, the laborers were not even nameless individuals; they were merely components that made up the labor groups.

Lin Gonglao’s group was assigned to assist the installation team of the construction company in building the second pier.

Two engineering boats, equipped with cranes and pile drivers, were towed over by motorboats. With the help of machinery, a second pier was quickly built in front of the Lin’gao stockade using prefabricated components transported by the ships. Two mobile power generation boats, loaded with boiler-locomobiles, dropped their eight anchors next to the pier, lit their fires, and began generating electricity.

According to the plan, the original pier at Yulin stockade became Pier One, designated for personnel transit. The newly built Pier Two was dedicated to cargo handling.

Four steel cranes were quickly installed. These cranes, luxuriously made with an all-steel pipe structure connected by bolts, were lightweight and strong. They used electric hoists to lift cargo and could handle most heavy loads.

Bundles of rails were unloaded from the ships, and the laborers of the road construction team began to lay the tracks. The light railway would extend from Pier Two all the way to the newly cleared cargo yard outside Yulin Fort. Tracks couldn’t be laid directly on the sand, so Shan Daoqian used prefabricated frame-style roadbeds. Sand and gravel were filled into the frames, and the rails were bolted on top. Using a segmented construction method, working from both ends towards the middle, several hundred meters of double track were completed in less than two hours. The railcars were unloaded from the Da Jing and put into service for cargo transport.

Cargo pallets, covered with rope nets and tarps, were unloaded one by one onto flatbed railcars and then pushed by hand to the cargo yard. At this point, a strange, large object was lifted from the Da Jing. Under the direction of a group of people running back and forth, it was safely lowered onto the rails. On a standard flatbed railcar sat a machine taller than a man. This was a small locomotive built by the machinery factory using a mass-produced small steam engine. Due to the tight schedule, the steam engine and boiler were almost completely exposed on the railcar. The horsepower of this small steam engine was pitiful, but it was currently the only one that could be mounted on a flatbed railcar.

Several technicians climbed up and busily added water and lit the fire. After about an hour of tinkering, white steam began to spurt from the exhaust valve, and the pressure gauge showed that there was sufficient pressure.

Shan Daoqian looked at his watch. They were three minutes ahead of schedule, a good sign. This incredibly ugly so-called locomotive was the first on the railway. It was jointly trial-produced by the Lin’gao Vehicle Factory and the Machinery Factory, overcoming many difficulties. It had passed tests in Lin’gao and was named the “Meteor.”

“Start!” he commanded, waving a small green flag.

Liang Xin, standing on the locomotive, his face black with soot, had large baskets full of high-quality Hongji coal piled behind him. Several native workers were busy around the steam engine.

Seeing the green flag raised, he immediately moved a lever. The Meteor let out a whimper, hissed steam, and began to move. The ten flatcars attached to it clanged with the sound of steel against steel.

The Meteor moved forward a few meters and then suddenly stopped. This made Shan Daoqian anxious. He leaped onto the locomotive in three bounds.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Liang Xin was sweating profusely, his work clothes soaked black with sweat. He held a large wrench in his hand. “The pressure suddenly dropped, but I don’t see any leaks…”

“Fix it, quick!” Shan Daoqian was very anxious. This landing plan was detailed down to the minute. A problem in one link would delay the next. Although there were backup plans, no one wanted the problem to occur on their watch.

“Okay, okay,” Liang Xin, a technician from a nuclear industry enterprise, busied himself around the steam engine, tapping here and tightening there. After a while, the pressure returned. The Meteor, pulling the train of cars, slowly started up again. For this naked version of a locomotive, its horsepower was really too small. The rudimentary little train chugged towards the cargo yard at a slow speed of only 5 kilometers per hour.

But, at least it was mechanized transport! The cargo this one train pulled would have taken laborers hundreds of trips with their “Zidian-gai” wheelbarrows, not to mention the large items that had to be carried by hand.

Shan Daoqian looked at his watch. Fortunately, the delay was less than two minutes. The project’s overall coordinator, Sun Xiao, would not have to adjust the implementation schedule.

This landing and construction project was managed on a project basis, with each project assigned to a project manager and coordinated by the planning commissioner, Sun Xiao.

Following Wen Desi’s ideas on standardization, Sun Xiao had created a detailed implementation schedule. Which labor team would land at what time, which equipment should be unloaded at a designated yard at what time—all were specifically planned. A detailed timetable for the start and completion of all projects was established. By what date and time a project would end. The clerks of the Planning Committee under Sun Xiao could quickly determine, based on the schedules and cards, what facilities would be available by a certain time, and how many labor groups and pieces of equipment would be free for reallocation, thus maximizing the use of personnel and machinery.

Using a project schedule also clarified the priority of projects, arranging them in the correct time sequence to prevent unimportant projects from receiving priority in manpower and material supply.