Chapter 13: The New Tiandu Town

Ji Runzhi, the director of the Sanya Special Zone’s Planning and Construction Office, placed a folding table in the work shed next to the foundation stone—which also served as the construction site command post—and spread out the architectural planning blueprints. A gasoline lamp illuminated the dim shed brightly.

Ji Yuan and Ji Shu bustled about, tidying up the work shed until it was clean and neat, which made Ji Runzhi feel very comfortable. It’s great to have apprentices, he thought. These two apprentices, apart from not being able to satisfy his physiological needs, served him meticulously, to the point where they would immediately hand him a piece of paper for spitting the moment he coughed.

Ji Runzhi was not the type to hold back. Since his apprentices pleased him so much, he taught them with considerable diligence—even though he had no interest in education itself.

Under his tutelage, these two apprentices had now mastered simple terrain surveying and basic drafting. Ji Runzhi planned to focus on teaching them more professional content once the Sanya development project stabilized a bit. In the future, he could hand over simple tasks directly to them, freeing himself from having to do everything personally.

“Alright, you two can go out for now.” Ji Runzhi heard someone shouting “Attention! Salute!” from a distance and knew that the main military and political leaders of the Sanya region had arrived. They were here to review the construction plan for Tiandu.

He stepped out of the shed. Sure enough, the Meteor II was stopped at the station platform, letting off white steam. Laborers were climbing onto the flatcars to unload the cargo. A group of elders was coming down from the platform, and the sentry on the platform was presenting arms.

“Your place is not bad,” Xi Yazhou said, being the first to duck into the shed. He sat down on a bench. “It’s much tidier than my headquarters.”

“It’s all Ji Yuan and Ji Shu’s doing. The two kids are really good at their work,” Ji Runzhi said, beckoning to his two apprentices waiting outside. “Go brew a pot of tea.”

“No need for tea,” Wang Luobin said, shaking the tempered travel mug in his hand. “We brought our own. Just have them get us some hot water.”

Ji Shu brought two thermoses from the hot water station—a high-class luxury only available to the elders—poured water for everyone, and turned up the gasoline lamp before retreating outside.

The area around the shed was bustling with a constant stream of laborers and vehicles. However, it didn’t disturb the meeting inside. None of the main military and political leaders of the Sanya region paid it any mind. They all gathered around Ji Runzhi, carefully examining the Tiandu planning blueprints he had just completed and listening to his design philosophy.

This once humid, subtropical valley, the future site of the Tiandu iron mine, would accommodate tens of thousands of miners and their families. Ji Runzhi not only had to lay out the plan for this new town but also consider its future development.

The iron ore in Tiandu was of high quality, but the absolute reserves were limited. Given the huge demand for steel from the transmigrator industry, the mining of Tiandu would not last for more than a generation. Therefore, from the very beginning, they had to plan for how the town would develop after the nearby mineral resources were exhausted.

From the perspective of urban development, the coast of Sanya Bay was more suitable for developing into a large coastal city. Not only did it have enough coastline as a tourism resource, but the potential for sea salt production was also sufficient to support a city’s development. Moreover, the Sanya River provided ample water for urban growth.

In comparison, Tiandu’s development potential was limited. Firstly, the area was small. Secondly, once the mineral products were exhausted, the town would decline. Mining towns are generally heavily polluted, making industrial transformation difficult. It might also require a great deal of environmental restoration work. Therefore, Tiandu’s sustainability was not strong. Water, a necessary resource for a city, was also not abundant enough, making it quite difficult to transition to other industries.

Therefore, in the Sanya development plan, Ji Runzhi only planned Tiandu as a highly functional mining town, with no industrial or commercial zones. The town would consist of only three parts: the mining company’s administrative district, the miners’ residential area, and the mining industrial area. The latter was just a mechanical workshop for repairing and maintaining mining machinery, which would also provide simple repair services for all machinery in the Sanya region.

The water source for the city and the mining area would come from a small reservoir on the Tiandu River. According to the surveys by Bai Guoshi and others, and by consulting hydrological data from the old world, the water flow of the Tiandu River, like all rivers in Hainan, varied greatly between the dry and rainy seasons. Although a railway had been built and they no longer needed to rely on the Tiandu River for transportation, the total amount of domestic and industrial water for the town and the mine was large. And the transmigrators also planned to do some basic agricultural production near Tiandu. All things considered, a reservoir was necessary to regulate the water supply. Power generation was a secondary consideration. Small hydropower generation was unstable and insufficient, only enough to enrich the lives of the elders.

Tiandu’s main energy source would be coal. Transport ships would carry away iron ore from Sanya and bring back coal on their return trip. Part of it would be used directly to drive steam engines, and the other part would be used to produce gas for lighting, cooking, and fuel for local small industries.

“The supporting facilities are too few,” Wang Luobin said, looking at his plan. “The scale of the commercial area is also too small.” He continued his critique, “The miners will have wives and children in the future. Where will these people be settled? The surplus labor force also needs to be arranged… According to your plan, this town is a typical bachelor town.”

“Exactly,” Ji Runzhi explained his considerations. “…It’s pointless to put too much effort into this town. Its development potential is limited, and the iron ore reserves in Tiandu are not that large. So, it’s enough for Tiandu to be used for twenty or thirty years.”

“If that’s the case, then the future Tiandu town will have no women and children.”

Ji Runzhi nodded. “In my opinion, this place is best as a labor camp, similar to the Jiazi coal mine. Miners, administrative staff, and technical personnel would all be on a contract rotation system, serving their terms single. They would work here for three or four years and then go home. Meals would be provided by canteens, with no individual cooking. Logistics would be socially managed, with the mining bureau providing for all aspects of life, from food and housing to clothing and transportation. Life support facilities would be reduced to a minimum, with at most a few small restaurants and taverns for recreation, and a stadium and a brothel for the miners to let off steam in their spare time.”

He continued, “There’s also Sanya City here. The miners can go to Sanya for entertainment during their time off. This can also drive the local service industry. Anyway, with the train, travel between the two places will be very convenient.”

As for the future role of Tiandu, Ji Runzhi believed that after the ore was exhausted, it could be used for military garrisoning, serving as a land fortress to protect Yulin Port.

“Forcing miners to be bachelors for several years, isn’t that a bit inhumane?” Zhuo Tianmin was concerned about this.

“I say this is too much military-style management,” Qian Shuixie said. Although he had resolved to speak as little as possible, he had an instinctive aversion to this kind of militarized society.

“This allows for the most intensive management and reduces social costs,” Ji Runzhi explained. “If we let them bring their families, we would have to arrange employment for the family members. If they are not employed, it’s a waste of labor. With families, they will definitely want to cook for themselves. This place is not like Lin’gao, which has a basic commercial circulation and supply of agricultural products. There is nothing here.”

The biggest advantage of military-style management was convenience and uniformity: food, clothing, tools… and in the end, even women were uniformly allocated. For logistics, this greatly simplified the process.

“No, I don’t think this is good. First, if the miners have no families, they won’t have a sense of belonging here. People will come and go, and no one will stay. This place will always be just a labor camp—we invest a lot of manpower and resources to develop a town. We can’t be as extravagant as the Americans or Russians, abandoning a city and moving on when the resources are gone. Second, women themselves are a labor resource. Arranging employment for them is not a burden for us. For example, the timber processing plant, the coconut processing plant, and the food factory in the Sanya development plan… all of these require a large amount of manpower. There’s no reason to force miners to solve their physiological needs with prostitutes while bringing in labor from outside,” Wang Luobin said. “And one last point: what we need most is population, especially children. This kind of forced singlehood wastes a large number of childbearing-age population. It’s not conducive to expanding the population, especially the new generation.”

The children born in the areas controlled by the transmigrator group in recent years could be educated entirely according to the transmigrators’ wishes. In twenty years, they would grow up to be the native backbone of the transmigrator nation.

“Yes, I also think our top priority is to expand the population of Sanya. This is the only way to form a stable foundation for our rule,” He Fanghui agreed. “To put it bluntly, if there are no women and children of their own here, it will be difficult to get the miners to fight and die to defend the mines.”

In the end, it was decided to appropriately expand the miners’ residential area. The miners’ housing would not be just dormitories. In addition to dormitory buildings, some “tube-shaped” apartment buildings would be built to accommodate family units. The supporting facilities in the residential area were also increased accordingly, with the addition of a primary school and a kindergarten. Besides the commercial buildings for the cooperative, some commercial space was also reserved for new merchants to open shops in the future.

As for the formidable defense system originally designed by Ji Runzhi, Xi Yazhou felt it was unnecessary.

The defense system designed by Ji Runzhi was basically the same as Sanya’s, with moats and earth ramparts. But Xi Yazhou believed that the defense pressure on Tiandu was actually much less than on Yulin Port. Further inland from Tiandu was Li territory, and the Li people’s military strength was very average—a people who had to purchase all their iron tools from outside would be at a great disadvantage in a war. And from Hu Xun’s testimony, the Li people had occasional harassments, but rarely large-scale military incursions.

“If we wanted to fight, our few thousand miners, equipped with standard pikes and helmets, and having received military training, would be enough to push all the way to the foot of the Wuzhi Mountains.”

“This is already the most simplified version of the defense facilities. How can it be simplified further?” Ji Runzhi said unhappily, seeing his plans being rejected one after another.

“We can adopt the village model used by the German colonists during their eastward expansion,” Wang Luobin said. “Use the houses themselves as fortifications.”

The specific method was to arrange individual houses in a square or circular group. The doors and windows of each house would open towards a central open space, with no windows on the outer walls. The gaps between the houses would be connected by walls made of logs or bricks. Only one fortified, sturdy gate would be left for entry and exit.

“Isn’t that too simple?” Ji Runzhi found it incredible. He had seen this method before—when building gated communities, the outermost apartment buildings were directly connected by brick walls to enclose the community.

This method was fine for preventing petty thieves, but for defending against armed enemies? Ji Runzhi felt it was completely unreliable.

“The German immigrants used this method to resist the Slavs, expanding German territory from Swabia to the Oder River, and deep into East Prussia. You should know that their houses and walls were made of wood. The Li people we have to face don’t even have the military level of the Slavs—the Slavs at least had iron weapons back then.”

“Besides the Li people, we also have to consider the Ming army or pirates, right?”

“If they have the ability to cross the mountains and traverse the Li territory, then they are no longer the Ming army or pirates,” Xi Yazhou said with confidence. “Even if they have that ability and perseverance, it would take at most thirty minutes for reinforcements to arrive by train from Yulin Fort. A few thousand armed miners can surely hold out for twenty minutes, right?”

“Actually, looking at your architectural design,” He Fanghui interjected, “most of the houses are two-story or taller brick and tile buildings. The second floor would be five or six meters high, right? The Lin’gao city wall is not much higher. Besides not having windows on the first floor facing outwards, we can still have them on the second floor and above, at most with iron shutters.”

In the end, it was decided to group all the houses, and to build a few more blockhouses at key locations as the core of the defense. Each blockhouse would be garrisoned by a number of core militiamen. The office building in the administrative district would be fortified in the same way as the public office in Sanya City. Finally, a moat would be dug around the entire Tiandu town as a basic defense.

At the meeting, Xi Yazhou proposed the concept of using armored patrol cars for security. He suggested specifically requesting Lin’gao to build several flatbed railcars equipped with the “Suichao” type steam engine or, even better, a single-cylinder diesel engine. The car body would have simple protection on all four sides, and it would be equipped with a “typewriter” (machine gun). The railcar would conduct regular patrols on the tracks between Yulin Fort and Tiandu. In the event of an enemy attack, it could rush to any point along the line at the fastest speed and use its dense firepower to strike the enemy.

“Given the technical level and combat will of the enemies in this time, I believe that at least in the South China region, no enemy can continue to attack under the sweep of a typewriter,” Xi Yazhou said with great confidence.

The armored patrol car, besides serving as a mobile force for reinforcements, would mainly be used for routine security along the railway line. Xi Yazhou was not so much afraid of an enemy attack as he was concerned that the large number of rails might attract the covetous eyes of the locals, leading to a large-scale theft of the rails.