Chapter 145: Material Preparations

There were many clan landlords in Lin’gao who lived in clustered communities, and they were seldom willing to give up their current mode of production and life. Clan landlords had strong personal control and influence over the people of the same clan and lineage. This was one of the things the Yuanen Senate detested the most.

Operation Engine required the mobilization of a large amount of human resources, besides the naturalized citizens. The population controlled by these clan landlords was also a target coveted by the Yuanen Senate.

By moving the discontented poor people out of the clan, away from the core of the ancestral hall and the main branch, and providing them with a new life superior to their current economic level, they would no longer have the same sense of belonging to “a certain family.” In barren places like Taiwan and Jeju Island, they would have no other support besides relying heavily on the Yuanen Senate, and their mentality would quickly change.

And the clan landlords who remained in Lin’gao would become less of a threat due to the loss of population, and their economic power would also decline accordingly.

Liu Muzhou had originally planned to eliminate the clan landlords, and Operation Engine was a golden opportunity.

If these clan landlords refused to mobilize their militias, the Yuanen Senate could justifiably “punish” them.

Thorpe turned his attention back to the documents in his hand. He was not very impressed with the plan to provide each refugee with 350 grams of brown rice per day for four consecutive months. The refugee camps had a large number of construction projects that required refugee labor. Not to mention that sea transport would be physically demanding, upon arrival, there would be a great deal of heavy manual labor for infrastructure construction and land reclamation.

The refugees stranded on Jeju Island would also be transferred to Lin’gao, Kaohsiung, Tiandu, and Hong Gai. The demand for food would further increase over time. Thorpe planned to suggest that the Planning Office increase its grain procurement in Southeast Asia.

The first batch of Siamese rice had already been shipped in through the efforts of the Vietnam Trade Company, filling the gap left by the dwindling supply of Vietnamese rice. Siamese rice was mainly Indica rice. Most Yuanen were accustomed to Japonica rice and were not used to this type of rice, but the common people, who had long been in a state of semi-starvation, were not so picky.

Another way to supplement the refugees’ food supply was to develop land locally. However, the soil layer on Jeju Island was relatively thin, not a suitable place for large-scale agricultural production. In Korean history, Jeju had always served as a pasture and fishing port, with very weak agricultural production.

In the plan of the Agriculture Committee, it would mainly be used as a pasture. A portion of the land with better natural conditions would be reclaimed for agricultural production. It was said that the climate of Jeju Island was suitable for growing potatoes. Potatoes have a short growing season and high yield, are rich in vitamins, and can be used as both a staple food and a vegetable, effectively supplementing the refugees’ food supply.

The Agriculture Committee had preserved many seeds of crops suitable for planting in the cold northern regions. These seeds were nearing their expiration date. Wu Nanhai had discussed this with him last time, requesting the establishment of a special farm on Jeju Island for seed preservation and breeding. It was a matter of killing two birds with one stone.

On the bridge, the discussion among the Yuanen military officers had come to an end. Thorpe then slowly sauntered over to Fu Sansi. The life vest had just caused a rather heated discussion. Thorpe knew that this newly manufactured life vest was not ideal: the kapok-filled vest was both heavy and bulky, making it almost impossible for soldiers to perform tactical movements. The only satisfactory thing was that if one fell into the sea, this life vest could indeed keep a person afloat.

Unexpectedly, the core of the Yuanen military officers’ debate was not the mobility of the life vest but its color. Someone questioned whether the bright color of the life vest violated the principle of “low visibility” in combat.

Of course, this objection had no meaning in this time—bright and dazzling military uniforms were the mainstream of military uniforms from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The Fubo Army, organized according to line infantry tactics, also hoped to use beautiful and gorgeous uniforms, except for a few special units, but the conditions did not allow it for the time being. The life vest was even less of a concern.

“Thorpe, how are the winter uniforms for our detachment coming along?” Zhu Mingxia asked. “You said you would bring samples for everyone to see this time.”

Thorpe smiled. “The clothing factory has already delivered a batch of trial-produced winter uniforms to me. I originally planned to have a squad wear them to show everyone the effect, but the weather is too hot today, so everyone can just look at the samples.”

The men returned to the meeting room on the bridge. Thorpe’s orderly had already spread out a full set of winter uniforms for the northern regions on the conference table. This type of winter uniform was mainly for troops stationed north of the Yangtze River and south of the Yellow River in winter. In fact, it could also be used in areas slightly further south or north, such as Jianghuai and Hebei.

The “Type 31 Northern Region Army Field Force Winter Uniform” was made of imported thick British woolen cloth for its warmth and water resistance. It was in the style of a short trench coat, with drawstrings at the hem and cuffs. Since Lin’gao could not produce zippers, the front placket of the uniform used a staggered double-breasted design, with a high collar that could be buttoned up. The uniform was equipped with a waterproof hood made of raw wool fabric—a separate warm hat was also provided. The lower body consisted of woolen breeches and short deerskin boots—deerskin had good warmth and water resistance. Since there was not enough deerskin available, the mass-produced version would be partly made of cowhide. The hat was a cotton “three-piece cap,” the so-called “Lei Feng hat.” After wearing this, soldiers could not wear steel helmets. Fortunately, the soldiers of Lin’gao rarely needed steel helmets to protect their heads.

In addition to the outer coat, there were also additional garments such as a thin cotton vest/cotton liner to enhance warmth in low temperatures. After all, Lin’gao in this time had not yet produced sweaters and thermal underwear. Soldiers basically wore their outer coats directly over their shirts, so the warming effect was limited.

The soldiers’ gloves and warm socks were made of thickened cotton yarn for labor protection. Fu Sansi felt that these things would definitely not be warm enough. Under the current conditions, the ideal military gloves were duck-paw cotton gloves, hung around the neck with a connecting rope. They were warm and not difficult to make, but in an emergency, the gloves had to be taken off to shoot. For socks, they could consider importing wool to spin yarn for woolen socks, but for now, they could only be coarse cotton yarn socks.

If they went further north—for example, into the Liaodong region—the warmth of this uniform would be insufficient. Therefore, the clothing factory had also trial-produced a military cotton overcoat as a supplement.

“With a cotton overcoat, everything will be almost solved. When I was a soldier in Shaanxi, I could wear a military overcoat at night and not be afraid of standing guard outside,” Fu Sansi said, full of praise for the military cotton overcoat.

Warmth was especially important for southern soldiers going to the north for the first time, especially since the main source of troops for the Fubo Army was from Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian. Suddenly going to the north, they would be completely unable to adapt to the winter there, and frostbite would be quite severe. If not handled properly, wound infections would bring a great burden to logistics. The Yuanen from the south would also have a hard time adapting to the local climate.

The Yuanen looked at these newly made winter uniforms, occasionally touching them with their hands. The woolen uniforms indeed looked different from the cotton ones, especially with the addition of collar tabs, cap badges, and various military insignia. The full set of uniforms looked truly imposing, incomparable to the soft and floppy cotton uniforms.

“This looks like a soldier,” Fu Sansi sighed. “The current uniforms, without a belt, are just like flour sacks. They’re so loose, the military bearing just doesn’t come out…”

The military appearance and bearing of the Fubo Army, while not the best in this time, was at least much better than that of the Ming and the Jurchens. But to the Yuanen, the military appearance of the Fubo Army still seemed a bit shabby.

“What’s this?” someone asked, picking up a container made of a seashell.

“This is an anti-frostbite ointment developed by the Ministry of Health. Each soldier will be issued a box. The medical team will also stock some for backup—it will also be issued to the refugees when necessary,” Thorpe said. “Liu San is also organizing the Rénshìtáng to develop a frostbite ointment.”

To ensure the combat effectiveness of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment, besides sparing no expense to import wool and woolen cloth to make winter uniforms, considerable adjustments were also made to the personnel of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment. Soldiers from Liaodong, Shandong, Henan, and North Zhili were transferred from the entire army to the 4th Battalion to increase the proportion of soldiers from the northern regions.

The soldiers from Shandong were formed into a company-level unit directly under the detachment and then attached to the various companies and platoons to serve as guides and translators. In addition to the Shandong soldiers, units of soldiers of Minnan and Hakka origin were also specially formed for the Taiwan landing operation.

Besides conscripting militias from Lin’gao, Dongmen Chuiyu and Wei Aiwen also planned to recruit some “mountain infantry” from the Li and Miao peoples, mainly armed with cold weapons, to be deployed in Taiwan for “garrison” and “punitive” operations against the indigenous people of Taiwan. But Zhu Mingxia felt it was not very meaningful, though he did not oppose it—at least adding some low-level security forces could also lighten the burden on the Northern Expeditionary Detachment’s manpower.

“Everyone, look at this.” Thorpe, as if by magic, took out a wooden box. He opened it with an exaggerated gesture in front of everyone.

Inside were a few rough brass cylinders. Everyone’s eyes were filled with doubt. A few seconds later, Zhu Mingxia finally understood. He let out a cheer, took one out, brought it to his eye, and slowly extended the tube.

The box contained the very telescopes that the army and navy had been wrangling over with the Planning Office for a long time.

There was a large number of telescopes in the Planning Office’s inventory and the private collections of the Yuanen. But the army and navy also had a great demand for telescopes. The army wanted to equip every company commander with a telescope, and the navy repeatedly stated that at least every ship’s captain should be equipped with a telescope—otherwise, it would affect their combat effectiveness.

Besides the infantry company commanders, technical branches like the artillery and engineers also needed telescopes. Therefore, applications and memorandums for optical equipment were always major documents on the desk of the Ministry of Science and Technology.