Chapter 173: Relief

Lei En did not express his opinion—he had only arrived in Qiongshan the previous evening, and he had no right to speak without investigation. He planned to go and see the situation for himself later. A few days ago, he had already telegraphed the Ministry of Health to collect a certain number of stool samples, waiting for him to bring the Ministry of Health’s mobile laboratory to test them.

The meeting ended after an hour. Liu Xiang assigned tasks to the naturalized citizen cadres. In the eyes of Lei En and the others, the tasks on the task cards were all simplified to the extreme—this was also a characteristic of the “Qiongshan experience,” giving the naturalized citizen cadres the easiest to understand quantitative standards and avoiding vague wording, to adapt to the naturalized citizen cadres with extremely low cultural levels and no administrative experience.

After the meeting, Liu Xiang held another meeting with the Elders of the disaster relief work team. The leader of the disaster relief work team was Yang Yun, the director of the Labor Department under the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs. This person was a third-level human resource management specialist and had served as the head of the human resources department and the chairman of the trade union of a small and medium-sized sweatshop in the south.

The fact that this person was leading the team fully demonstrated the intention of the Government Affairs Council—it seemed that the leadership was eyeing the labor force of these refugees. Liu Xiang felt that his guess was not wrong, because there were also Elders from the propaganda department among the newcomers.

Liu Xiang and the other Elders went up to the east gate tower.

“This typhoon! This heavy rain!” Liu Xiang muttered, wearing a raincoat and standing on the east gate tower. Behind him were his orderly and guards. A few yamen runners and clerks retained by the county stood respectfully in the rain with their bamboo hats and coir raincoats, waiting for his orders.

The other Elders, under the care of their respective secretaries and guards, were also on the city wall, looking down at the masses below.

To give the refugees a place to shelter from the wind and rain as soon as possible, Liu Xiang ordered the use of the eaves on both sides of the street to directly build temporary rain shelters over the street with wooden strips and reed mats. Looking down from the city gate, the entire street was covered with long sheds, which looked like the sheds set up to sell New Year’s goods in some county towns in the old timeline. The city gate was guarded by soldiers of the Qiongshan County Garrison Company, which was formed by selecting and reorganizing from the military households of several garrisons in Qiongshan County. To fully maintain deterrence, all the soldiers’ rifles had bayonets fixed.

According to the statistics of the Qiongshan County Office, about 10,000 refugees had gathered under the city walls. Although these people temporarily had a place to shelter from the wind and rain, the population was extremely crowded and damp, which was not a long-term solution.

When Lei En pointed out that such an arrangement could lead to a serious epidemic, Liu Xiang said that this was a transitional measure.

“I’ve talked to the liaisons—typhoon disasters happen several times a year here. It’s just that the heavy rain this time has been particularly long, which is why it’s like this. But the water will recede in at most half a month…”

“Are they sure?”

“Is there any reason not to believe the experience of the locals? Besides, I’ve also asked people to clean up the houses at the training ground—there are one or two hundred barracks of the garrison there, but unfortunately, they haven’t been used for many years and have all collapsed,” Liu Xiang said. “Disinfection work has also been ongoing. The people from the health section distribute ginger soup and plague prevention powder every day.”

Yang Yun suddenly interjected, “How much food are you giving them per person per day now?”

Liu Xiang said, “According to Chen Sigen, each person should be supplied with 1,400 kilocalories per day. I can’t calculate the kilocalories, but now the refugees, regardless of age or gender, are given two bowls of vegetable porridge per day. That’s 200 grams of brown rice per person, plus some vegetables, taro, and sweet potatoes.”

Yang Yun of course knew that when he was in the sweatshop, the employee canteen was also under his jurisdiction. 100 grams of rice only had 350 kilocalories. The food provided by the Qiongshan County Office only had 700 kilocalories. This could only ensure that the refugees would not starve to death for the time being.

Liu Xiang had his own difficulties in setting such a low supply standard. Even at such a low level, it would consume 2.2 tons of grain per day. And he could only use the limited grain reserves in the county granary of Qiongshan County.

The grain reserves in Qiongshan were originally quite considerable. A large part of the official grain reserves of Qiongzhou Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty was stored in the warehouses of Qiongshan County. Apart from a portion that was transferred to Lingao for processing, there was still a portion left in the warehouses in the city. But Liu Xiang had no right to use this grain—it was “national reserve grain” under the jurisdiction and deployment of the Planning Commission. He could only use the grain in the county granary.

It was now the time to wait for the summer grain to be harvested, and both public and private reserves were very scarce. He borrowed grain from the local gentry, but they all cried poverty. Some even begged Liu Xiang to reduce or exempt the summer grain tax, saying that their land was flooded and the harvest was completely lost. Liu Xiang used both threats and inducements to finally get two hundred shi of grain.

These days, he had been organizing the refugees to rush to harvest grain in the areas where the water had receded, and to harvest, dry, and roast the flooded rice, taro, and sweet potatoes for use as relief grain.

“…It won’t work for long. The grain in the county granary is very limited. I can only manage for another three or four days at most. Any longer, and I’ll have to ask Wu De to approve grain for me.” Liu Xiang didn’t know what relief supplies Yang Yun had brought, so he had to make the situation sound more serious.

Yang Yun nodded noncommittally. Liu Xiang felt that he was not very interested in allocating relief grain. He couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed—he had some understanding of the thinking of the people in the Executive Committee. Many of them were unscrupulous Machiavellians. In this environment with unprecedentedly little “political correctness,” it was hard to say what they would do. He thought of the several meetings on grain and labor that he had been summoned to in Lingao before the typhoon struck. The direction was already very clear.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine. He thought to himself that the Executive Committee had better not pull any tricks. Disaster relief was a matter of the people’s hearts and minds. If they played any tricks on it, a single misstep could lead to a mess, ruining the excellent situation—he had put in a lot of effort to create this stable and united situation in Qiongshan County. It must not be destroyed by some people’s hot-headedness.

Yang Yun suddenly asked, “Where is the porridge kitchen?”

“It’s on the open ground at the end of the street.” Liu Xiang looked at his watch. “The porridge will be distributed in another two hours.”

Yang Yun consulted with the other Elders for a few words and instructed the secretary behind him, “Tell them to set it up at the porridge distribution site.”

“What? What are you setting up?” Liu Xiang asked.

“Of course, it’s something good,” Yang Yun said. “Listen to me, the Executive Committee’s plan for disaster relief in Qiongzhou is this…”

The porridge kitchen was set up on a large open muddy ground at the end of the street. Liu Xiang had people lay a layer of earth on the ground and then spread crushed sand and stones to make it as dry as possible. A total of ten sheds were set up on the open ground, each with several large pots. These pots were generally borrowed from government offices, temples, and Taoist monasteries, and half were borrowed from large local households. At this moment, the porridge was already boiling in the large pots in the porridge kitchen.

Liu Xiang accompanied Yang Yun and the others to inspect the porridge kitchen one by one. Yang Yun picked up a ladle and stirred it in the large pot. In addition to rice grains, the porridge was filled with diced taro, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and various unknown vegetable leaves, which looked quite colorful. It was just that the contents of the porridge were a bit thin.

At the end of the porridge distribution site, a dozen or so naturalized citizen workers who had come with the work team were busy pulling measuring tapes and driving wooden stakes. Prefabricated building materials were already piled on the ground. Liu Xiang also organized some of the refugees to help with the work.

The most eye-catching thing was the three large pots that had just been unloaded from the ox-carts. Several craftsmen were busy building stoves.

“Is this going to work?” Liu Xiang was a little worried.

“It’s fine,” Yang Yun said with a beaming smile. “There’s stimulation only when there’s comparison. Once the masses are incited, it’ll be easy to handle.”

At nine o’clock in the morning, with the sound of a horn, the originally quiet street suddenly became agitated. The weak refugees, who could only sit or lie down, heard the horn and struggled to their feet with each other’s help, walking towards the porridge distribution site. The naturalized citizen cadres and the soldiers of the garrison company were maintaining order, and the sharp whistles rose and fell:

“Don’t push!” “Don’t crowd!” “Everyone will get some!” “Watch the children and the elderly, don’t fall!”

…

Under the maintenance of order by the garrison company, the refugees went to the porridge distribution site in batches according to their distance.

Today, as soon as they entered the porridge distribution site, they smelled a different fragrance—not the bland vegetable porridge of the past few days, but a long-lost, strong aroma of rice. It seemed to be mixed with other fragrances.

The rich and fragrant aroma of rice wafted through the air, causing them to look around. Suddenly, someone discovered that the aroma of rice was coming from a newly built shed at the end of the site.

The crowd immediately rushed towards this shed. Sure enough, under the reed mat shed, a half-person-high earthen platform was built. On the stove on the platform, a large pot of fragrant rice was being cooked. In a large pot next to it, a brown thick soup was boiling, emitting an alluring aroma.

On a large table, on a clean wooden board, were rice balls of two sizes, large and small, all wrapped in perilla leaves, emitting the fresh fragrance of rice and vegetable leaves. Several cooks were still constantly making new rice balls.

The refugees immediately became agitated. Even before the typhoon came, they had been in a state of spring famine since the beginning of spring, eating little and working hard every day. Now, there was a large pot of dry rice in front of them! Many people’s stomachs immediately rumbled reflexively. If it weren’t for the fact that the Australian soldiers were standing in front of the earthen platform with bayoneted muskets, looking menacingly, the refugees would have rushed up to snatch it.

Looking at the appearance of the people cooking on top, it didn’t look like they were going to distribute rice. While the refugees were at a loss, cheerful music suddenly sounded. Accompanied by the song “On the Fields of Hope,” Ji Denggao of the Mass Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Propaganda ascended the earthen platform with great vigor.

“Fellow countrymen!” he shouted loudly. “You have suffered!”