Chapter 122 - Yuan Ziguang

To allow the refugees to spend the winter on Jeju Island and for the Fubo Army to operate freely on the Shandong Peninsula, the Joint Logistics Headquarters had to solve the problem of winter clothing.

The cheapest and most convenient solution was, of course, to make cotton-padded jackets and overcoats. They were low-cost and had good insulation. Under conditions of abundant material, this was the first solution.

The Planning Department had enough cotton cloth, but not much cotton batting for filling. The cotton cultivation industry on Hainan Island was mainly managed by the Li people. They cultivated cotton extensively, but the yield was limited, and they did not have the habit of making cotton clothes and quilts. Therefore, there was no cotton batting available locally.

If they had to make cotton clothes, they could only use kapok for filling. Kapok was not very suitable for textiles, but its fibers were hollow and had great buoyancy. The Elders used it to make life jackets, and it could probably be used as a substitute for cotton batting in cotton-padded jackets—it should be sufficient in terms of insulation. The reserve of kapok was also ample, so some cotton-padded jackets could be made.

The Planning Department also had a reserve of down—selected from the feathers of slaughtered ducks and geese, cleaned, and stored for future use in making down jackets. However, the attempts by several female Elders’ fashion clubs, including Zheng Shangjie, to make down jackets had already failed. A down jacket seemed like a down-filled cotton-padded jacket, but the actual technical content was not low, especially the fabric of the down jacket, which had to ensure that the down did not “leak.” In the old world, this was achieved with special chemical fiber fabrics. In Lin’gao, using pure natural textiles—whether cotton, linen, ramie, wool, or the rare banana cloth—all failed to meet the requirements. Zheng Shangjie, Ai Beibei, and others had tried all the materials they could find, even considering lining the inside with oiled paper, but they all failed in the end. The replication of down jackets was not to be considered in the next few years.

Finally, there was wool. The Planning Department had previously purchased some of this woolen fabric in Macau and had seized some from the spoils of Goujia Village. After the trade agreement with the Dutch East India Company was signed, the Dutch had also sold some wool to Lin’gao. The total amount was about five or six thousand bolts. The wool was mainly blue, black, and red. At that time, the purpose of purchasing it was to make autumn and winter clothing for the Fubo Army and personnel sent to the northern regions.

After removing the overly thin high-grade fine wool, the remaining coarse wool was a good material for making military overcoats and blankets. Hong Huangnan knew that compared to cotton-padded jackets, which were susceptible to moisture, woolen overcoats had considerable water resistance. For activities in coastal areas with high humidity, woolen clothing was more suitable than cotton-padded jackets. The navy had always worn short woolen overcoats, not just for the sake of being “fashionable.”

Hong Huangnan organized the Joint Logistics Forward Command to write a memorandum to the Planning Department, requesting the allocation of sufficient materials to produce the winter clothing needed for the Engine Operation.

Wool would be used to make military overcoats and winter uniforms for the Fubo Army’s land and naval forces. At least 4,500 sets of woolen winter clothing had to be prepared before the winter of 1631. In addition, warm military boots—preferably with some waterproof function—had to be prepared for the Fubo Army.

To reduce costs and save materials, both the army and navy woolen overcoats were made in the style of short overcoats. As an accompaniment, woolen or cotton military caps, as well as warm gloves and socks, were supplied.

According to the standards of the old world, soldiers’ warm clothing and socks were generally made of wool for its lightness, warmth, and water resistance. However, Lin’gao had no wool, and of course, no yarn. Hong Huangnan settled for the next best thing: using the labor protection cotton yarn gloves that were widely used in the factories of Lin’gao as a substitute. As for warm socks, a similar approach was taken: using coarse cotton yarn to knit line socks.

Such equipment was not a problem on Jeju Island. Hong Huangnan did not know how cold Shandong was during the Little Ice Age. These hand and foot warming measures could still work above zero degrees, but if the temperature dropped to five or six degrees below zero, it would be a bit unbearable.

Cotton-padded jackets were for the refugees. Hong Huangnan wrote in the memorandum that the size should be a bit larger—not only could they be worn, but they could also be used as quilts. The cotton-padded jackets had to be as sturdy as possible, especially the fabric, so that after the refugees were sent south, the replaced cotton-padded jackets could be dismantled, washed, and reused for the next batch of personnel. The Joint Logistics Forward Command estimated that 10,000 sets of cotton-padded jackets had to be prepared by the end of 1631. It was difficult to solve the problem of warm shoes for the refugees, so Hong Huangnan had to ignore it. Anyway, poor peasants in winter generally did not wear shoes. As long as they could survive until they reached Jeju Island, their feet would probably not be frozen off.

Because the clothing was too simple and there would definitely be a shortage, there had to be enough buildings on Jeju Island and in Shandong that could provide shelter from the wind and rain to protect them from the elements and the cold, and at the same time provide a minimum of security. The camps also had to have transportation facilities for personnel and materials.

In this era, there was no such thing as port facility construction. There were no docks that could allow the large ships of the Fubo Army navy to dock directly. The forward command planned to build a 1,000-ton simple dock at each of the transit points in Dengzhou and Jiangsu-Zhejiang, and a 3,000-ton dock at each of Jeju Island and Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

Shandong needed to build a temporary camp with a capacity of 20,000-30,000 people, and Jiangsu-Zhejiang needed to build a temporary camp with a capacity of 10,000-20,000 people. According to the suggestion of the Ministry of Colonies and Trade, Jeju and Kaohsiung also needed to build reception and quarantine camps with a capacity of 50,000 people. The building materials for these camps would be partly sourced locally and partly shipped from Hong Kong. About 3,000 tons of building materials and equipment would need to be transported.

In addition, the Ministry of Health estimated that the monthly medical supplies and water purifiers needed by the refugees would be about 10 tons. At the same time, a water purification plant with a daily capacity of 20,000 liters would be set up in Shandong, and a water purification plant with a daily capacity of 50,000 liters would be set up in each of Kaohsiung and Jeju Island.

To ensure the needs of the steam-powered equipment and civilian fuel in Jeju Island and Kaohsiung, each place would need 1,000 tons of coal per month.

A ship supply station would be set up in each of Kaohsiung and Jeju Island to provide simple repairs for the ships. At present, the shipbuilding industry did not have the ability to set up points extensively, nor did it have enough workers and large machinery. Hong Huangnan planned to build only a small number of simple facilities locally, such as beach slipways, simple winches, and derricks, and to store some ship materials. In addition, three repair ships would be refitted, equipped with professional workers, equipment, and tools, and would take turns on duty in the ports of Kaohsiung and Jeju Island to maintain and repair the ships.

Hong Huangnan was a little surprised after reading the draft of the supply plan just compiled by the forward command. The scale of the Engine Operation was really not small. Compared to the Giant Operation, although the types of materials transported were reduced, the quantity and transport distance far exceeded those of the Giant Operation, and the organizational complexity was not at all less than that of the old world.

“I can only take it one step at a time,” Hong Huangnan thought. “If I can solve the problems of food, clothing, housing, and transportation, the matter will be half successful.”

The morning sun shone on the land of Lin’gao.

The melodious sound of bells rang out—in Lin’gao, where industry served the nation and all metals belonged to the Council of Elders, metal bells were a very rare object.

As the bells rang, many commands were shouted from a large area of red brick and wooden houses on the banks of the Wenlan River:

“Stand up!”

“Salute!”

“Sit down!”

This was the Fangcaodi National School, the hub of the Council of Elders’ education system—the cradle of the empire’s future elites and backbones.

Following the commands of the class monitors, the students began their first lesson of the day.

The door of the simple, unpainted wooden classroom opened, and a young man in his twenties, dressed in a blue homespun “cadre uniform,” hurried in. He had all the characteristics of an otaku: glasses, obesity, messy hair… probably like Kōta Hirano from Highschool of the Dead or Itaru Hashida from Steins;Gate. However, he was indeed one of the few qualified teachers among the Elders.

“Stand up!”

The Fangcaodi National School had been established for more than two years, and the daily classroom etiquette had been fixed according to custom. This transmigrator named Yuan Ziguang was already used to such a life. He returned the 45-degree bow to the second-year students of the upper primary section of the National School who stood up and bowed 60 degrees to him. Then he scanned the entire classroom with his eyes.

The class of thirty was silent—the Fangcaodi National School implemented a co-educational system. Although in the old world, the counter-current of gender-segregated classes and even schools had gradually become a fashion for the petty bourgeoisie and the wealthy, in this era, breaking down the social barriers between men and women and promoting modern gender relations was an important task for the Elders’ “changing customs and traditions.” Except for a few specialized classes that were single-sex, all were half male and half female.

The classrooms of the Fangcaodi National School were very similar to the rural primary schools in underdeveloped areas that Yuan Ziguang had once visited for “exchange.” Simple white lime walls, wooden windows, and unpainted wooden desks and chairs. Even the simple wooden board at the back of the classroom, used for the blackboard newspaper, with its peeling black paint, was so similar.

He noticed the latest propaganda on the blackboard newspaper—”Firmly grasping the ideological dynamics and theoretical indoctrination of students is one of the primary tasks of Elder teachers.” This sentence was printed on a recent document sent to the People’s Committee of Education and Fangcaodi, which made the full-time Elder teachers, led by Hu Qingbai, unable to adapt, because the document mentioned several “primary tasks,” which led to disagreements among everyone about what was truly the “primary task.”

On the blackboard newspaper, based on the latest Public Opinion Guidance document from the Propaganda Department, the topic chosen by Hu Qingbai was “The Natural and Man-made Disasters of the Ming Dynasty”—there would also be a competition among the classes. The content inside was found by the students from the library materials under the guidance of their teachers, and some were the students’ own personal experiences. The blackboard was almost filled with dense white chalk characters. The headline was poorly drawn; Yuan Ziguang could barely make out a broken basket and a skull.