Chapter 101: Civil Affairs Work

Ma Qianzhu said, “In the past, such regulations were made out of expediency. When our establishment was small, it was not advisable to be too detailed. Each unit was multi-talented—also for the sake of efficiency. Now that we are building a system, it is very good that Commissioner Wu and everyone have brought this up.” He paused. “This matter can be submitted to the Senate for deliberation.”

Wen Desi frowned and seemed about to say something, but he held back.

The meeting then discussed a series of follow-up issues, especially the timing of the occupation of the entire island of Hainan. Actual occupation would inevitably involve the stationing of troops and the allocation of cadres, both of which were currently in short supply. After discussion, the meeting decided to first occupy the Chengmai-Qiongshan area, control the entry and exit ports of Hainan, and then gradually occupy all the prefectures and counties on the island.

“In that case, wouldn’t we have to expand the army?” someone whispered below. After this war, the total number of army and navy personnel exceeded ten thousand. There had been a voice in the Planning Commission, the Senate, and the Government Council, hoping to carry out disarmament after the war, reducing the number of army and navy personnel to a more reasonable range, or at least preventing the size of the army from expanding further.

Now, to occupy the entire island, Hainan Prefecture had thirteen prefectures and counties. Excluding Lin Gao, each prefecture and county would require at least one company of troops to be stationed, which would require a basic garrison of twelve infantry companies for the entire island. In this way, not only could the army not be reduced, but it would have to be increased to be sufficient. Not only were the personnel in the Senate and the administrative bureaucracy unwilling to see the army expand further, but the navy also did not want the army to encroach on the limited population resources in a situation of manpower shortage.

“There is no need to expand the army,” Ma Qianzhu said. “We can use the existing forces. We don’t actually need to station an infantry company in every county.”

“If we don’t station troops, we can’t establish our rule.” A regime without military force as a backup obviously could not extend its administration to the countryside, and this was something they valued most and tried their best to promote.

Relying on deterrence from a distance alone would not be effective for administration. A small number of cadres could not penetrate the grassroots. Once they touched the core interests of the local forces, they would be “squeezed” out by violent or non-violent means. One or two retaliations would not produce long-term effects. In the end, they could only make concessions to the local forces: exchanging part of their administrative power for the cooperation of the local forces to ensure tax collection. This was nothing more than repeating the mistakes of the regimes since the Tang and Song dynasties, where political power did not extend to the countryside.

As early as before the second anti-encirclement campaign, the Central Government Council had specially organized personnel from the Civil Affairs Committee to study how to ensure that dispatched cadres could be effective in the local area with as few troops stationed as possible after the war.

The people who conducted this research were not soldiers, but after in-depth research on the Japanese security warfare in Northeast and North China and the establishment of grassroots political power and the suppression of bandits after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the researchers came to the following conclusions:

A sound county-level political power should have at least one county squadron that can be directly commanded by the county leadership to ensure the most basic military deterrence and public security. If this cannot be achieved, at least it must be guaranteed that rescue troops can arrive within two to three days after a distress signal is sent.

“A county squadron is a company. What’s the difference between that and the one infantry company per county mentioned just now?” Although Wu De was very much in favor of the establishment of one squadron per county, this arrangement still exceeded the original plan of the Planning Commission—to reduce the size of the army as much as possible.

“There is a big difference,” said the person who had been assigned to conduct this research, Liu Muzhou, the deputy people’s commissioner of the Civil Affairs People’s Committee. He was a fair-skinned man with a full beard, with a refined demeanor. Although he spoke Mandarin as standard as possible, he would occasionally reveal a Suzhou accent.

“A county squadron is a local armed force, in other words, similar to the armed police. Both their training and equipment can be relatively simple. Including personnel and maintenance funds, they can also be sourced locally as much as possible,” he said. “I suggest that the county squadrons can be filled with locals as much as possible, and their military pay does not need to be as high as that of the regular army.”

Liu Muzhou’s plan was to send armed work teams into each county, as much as possible in the name of the Ming government. For example, the “Pacification Bureau” in Chengmai was a model. Although the name of pacification could not be used in other places, other similar official-private joint organizations such as “Village Pact Bureaus” and “Pacification Bureaus” could be borrowed. They would first intervene in the main local problems and gradually expand their power to all aspects of county administration. When the time was ripe, they would then clean up the clerk class in the county and take full control of the county government.

“The initial armed work teams must have strong military force as protection. An infantry company should be provided. Otherwise, it will be difficult to deal with the complex local situation. According to the intelligence gathered from all sides, the bandit problem in all the counties of Qiongzhou Prefecture is very serious, and the powerful local clans are almost like local emperors, almost all of them armed. Without strong military force as a backup, no one will pay any attention to you,” Liu Muzhou explained his specific action plan. To Ma Qianzhu and the others, this was nothing new: it was nothing more than a replica of the set of methods used by the Communist Party when they took over political power: sending work teams - going deep among the masses, understanding the situation, finding collaborators - training local cadres - establishing organizations - establishing local armed forces - completely liquidating the old forces… Finally, political power would be established. Liu Muzhou’s approach was not new. But they faced a more difficult situation than the Communist Party: although the thirty-odd years of the Republic of China were a tragedy, at least in most parts of the country there were some intellectuals, small merchants, workers, and peasants who had more or less accepted new ideas. In a county town, at worst, there would be a primary school, a few dozen middle school graduates, and a few dozen or a few hundred primary school graduates. What they faced was a society with nothing. The intellectuals of this society were almost unreliable. Their knowledge and status were of little use to the transmigrator regime and were even very dangerous. And they had a great deal of say. The transmigrators were not only out of place in this society, but they also exuded the smell of overseas barbarians.

Ma Qianzhu listened to his plan: the takeover of political power would adopt a rolling model. First, they would take over the areas with a relatively deep foundation of government rule, early development, and dense population, such as Chengmai, Qiongshan, Danzhou, and Ding’an—from which they could quickly obtain a large amount of population and grain resources—riding the momentum of this great victory, they would send out work teams to take over in one fell swoop. Then they would establish organizations, first forming militias in each county, and then county squadrons. After these prefectures and counties were stabilized, they would move on to the next batch of prefectures and counties. In this way, the first batch would only require the dispatch of three or four work teams and infantry companies, which would not occupy too many cadres and military forces at once.

“…We will train cadres and military personnel while taking over,” Liu Muzhou said. “Take over a place, stabilize a place, and then infiltrate another place…”

After Liu Muzhou finished speaking, Du Wen asked to speak. “We are currently lacking cadres, especially cadres who can go deep into the rural areas.” Du Wen had been engaged in social work for a long time and knew the importance of the cadre problem. “The native cadres are not enough. And many veterans are unwilling to go deep among the masses, and have a high and mighty aristocratic complex! I think we should at least implement a compulsory obligation. Every veteran should be required to spend a certain amount of time each year going to the countryside to work in the local areas!”

A commotion arose in the conference room. This idea was good in theory, but it was obviously not very popular. Someone cautiously expressed their opposition: not every veteran was suitable for mass work.

“They can do supportive and technical work,” Du Wen continued to insist. “At the very least, they can go and teach literacy.”

“I think this issue can be submitted to the Senate for discussion,” Xiao Zishan, who was presiding over the meeting, decided to kick the ball to the Senate. In any case, her proposal concerned all the veterans, so it was most appropriate for the Senate to discuss it. Once it reached the Senate, it was certain that this proposal would be shot down.

“Next, let’s talk about the issue of pensions for the dead and disabled…” Liu Muzhou continued. Providing good pensions was a major matter for stabilizing morale. In the past, because they hadn’t fought any major battles, the pension work was relatively simple. This time, the number of casualties was large, and the work was more complicated. He then briefly reported on the pension treatment and conditions.

At this time, Wu Di said, “The expenditure on pensions is still very large. I hope the Executive Committee will consider whether we can set up a special fund or simply establish a military insurance system.”

Insurance was a system that the financial system had been advocating for a long time. Because Lin Gao’s economic scale was small and commercial activities were not developed enough, and most economic activities were state-owned enterprises, the insurance system was regarded as a “non-urgent” system construction and had been postponed. However, the people in the financial system had never given up their efforts in this area.

The current military pension was an excellent opportunity to promote the insurance system, so Wu Di immediately seized this opportunity.

His proposal was to start with a social insurance system.

“It’s equivalent to compulsory savings in disguise,” Wu Di said. “For the time being, our demand for commercial insurance is not large. We can start with social insurance. Otherwise, the future expenditure on pensions, medical care, and pensions will increase year by year, so we need to start working on this early.”

First, a compulsory insurance system would be implemented in the military. Soldiers would have to pay a certain percentage of their military pay as insurance, and this insurance would be used to pay for the pensions of soldiers who died, were wounded, or became disabled.

“…If the soldier is safe and sound when he is discharged, this fee can be paid to him directly in cash as a discharge fee,” Wu Di had been considering this plan for a long time. “We can also implement similar policies for employees and civil servants. It will be of great benefit to our financial and social stability. Especially at this stage, when we don’t need to pay large amounts of various social welfare benefits, it is the best time to accumulate funds.”

Social insurance could be said to be a rolling payment of borrowing new debt to pay off old debt. If they seized the time to make the fund large now, the future government investment would be more effective. Wu Di particularly emphasized this point, which attracted the interest of many people. Wu De had always paid great attention to the matter of military pensions. Now, seeing Wu Di come up with such a beneficial plan for all parties, he immediately expressed his support.

No one else objected, so it was decided to entrust Delong Bank to conduct a special investigation on this issue and propose a plan for the Senate to review when it convened.

The meeting then passed a series of policies on pensions, aftermath, commendations and awards, celebration activities, placement of disabled veterans, and preferential treatment for demobilized militia.

Most of this work involved civil affairs. Liu Muzhou was busy taking notes and had to submit various related veteran proposals received from the BBS to the meeting for review—the Civil Affairs People’s Committee had no full commissioner, so he, the deputy, was actually the head.

After the meeting, Liu Muzhou hurried back to his office. He immediately arranged for someone to be the “director” of the Chengmai Pacification Bureau. He planned to focus on Chengmai first, to gain some experience for the other prefectures and counties later.

This person was very important, because he planned to make this person the director of the Chengmai office—in effect, the future county magistrate.

The organization department gave him a list of veterans who were interested in serving in local administration and their resumes. Liu Muzhou chose a person named Fei Si. Soon, his file arrived at the office of the Civil Affairs Committee. Liu Muzhou called Fei Si and told him to prepare his luggage and report immediately.

Then he called Fangcaodi and asked Hu Qingbai to see if there were any suitable native students in the administrative class who could be sent as members of the work team. While he was busy, Du Wen suddenly came.

“Director Du, what brings you here?” Liu Muzhou quickly stood up to greet her. Needless to say, this director of the social work office was here to give him instructions again. Liu Muzhou really didn’t like her interfering, but he had no choice. When it came to the experience of establishing grassroots political power in the countryside and researching rural society, no one was better than her.

“There’s something,” Du Wen said, sitting down unceremoniously in the chair opposite his desk. “Chengmai is a new area. I originally wanted to go and see for myself, but there are also many things to do in Lin Gao…”

“Yes, yes, we are now fully establishing village-level political power in Lin Gao. Your affairs are very busy, and the work here cannot do without you,” Liu Muzhou said quickly.

In terms of rank, Du Wen was Liu Muzhou’s subordinate, but Liu Muzhou knew that in terms of seniority as a leader in the transmigrator group, Du Wen was far superior to him. In particular, she was the main person in charge of social work, and her achievements were outstanding—just the social work in the thirteen villages area during the Lin Gao bandit suppression campaign was enough to be proud of.

It was precisely because of this that Liu Muzhou was afraid of her interfering. Because once she started to dictate the implementation of policies, it would be difficult for him to refuse—she had both theory and practice.

Du Wen glanced at him with a “I know exactly what you’re thinking” look and leaned back in her chair. “Our social work department should have gone to Chengmai to conduct in-depth social research. Now that I can’t go, I’ll recommend someone.”

“Who do you want to recommend?” Liu Muzhou recalled the personnel in the social work office. Originally, there were only Du Wen and Dong Weiwei. Later, there was Wu Mu, but he was transferred away. Now it should still be a department with only a director and a deputy director.

“Liu Yuefei,” Du Wen said. “This person was just transferred to our department not long ago and is very active.” She said this with a bit of unnaturalness. “Too active. It’s better to let him go on an external investigation.”

“Is it a girl? It might not be very convenient to work in such a quasi-security area…”

“It’s a man,” Du Wen said with contempt. “You can arrange him however you want—his enthusiasm is very high. you can first arrange him in Chengmai, and then arrange him in Qiongshan later… It would be best if he could investigate the entire island of Hainan.”

“Good, social research is also very important work. Since he is so enthusiastic about it, it’s for the best.”

Du Wen nodded indifferently. Liu Muzhou felt that she seemed to be relieved. Then she said, “In addition, I would like to make a few suggestions on the current social work.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Women’s work,” Du Wen emphasized these two words, and then she was very satisfied to see that Liu Muzhou did not subconsciously frown. “We have not mobilized the local women enough, and we have not done enough propaganda.”

Liu Muzhou was indeed all ears. What Du Wen said was not wrong. Liu Muzhou knew that the women of Hainan were actually very capable, and they were even better at enduring hardship than men. But everyone had always considered women’s work to be Du Wen’s strange hobby, so they basically ignored it.

“So I suggest that in the work teams sent this time, we must combine with native women cadres to go together. We must also mobilize the women’s work in Hainan—and also the youth work. It’s also a blank slate. I think we should also organize organizations like the Children’s Corps.”

“The youth work has to be arranged by the Executive Committee. We can’t just do our own thing. And it should generally be the responsibility of the education department,” Liu Muzhou said. He thought that this was not like women’s work. The status of youth organizations was very important. Now that the Executive Committee had not made specific arrangements, it was better for the Civil Affairs Committee not to interfere.

“Alright. We’ll talk about that later.” Du Wen then recommended a female cadre. “Tan Xiaoqin from Yanchang Village is one of our earliest female cadres. She graduated from the Ma Niao Agricultural Lecture Institute. She has done a good job in Yanchang Village, but the clan power there is too strong. I don’t think it’s very useful to keep her there. We should transfer her out to a broader world to be tempered!” she said, waving her hand excitedly.

“I have no objection,” Liu Muzhou thought. It didn’t matter anyway. It was good to have an extra female cadre. “But is she willing? A single, unmarried girl working with men outside, is she willing, and are her family members willing? This is a feudal society.”

“Isn’t it our mission to change customs and traditions? Are we going to keep accommodating ignorant and backward social trends and not strive to change them?”

“Yes, yes.” Liu Muzhou was speechless. He thought that Fei Si would have a lot of things to do now. “To be cautious, I think it would be better for two female cadres to work together.”