Chapter 174: The Application of Successology

Ji Denggao was from Guangdong and could speak excellent Cantonese, which was also understood in Qiongshan. Ji Denggao was a failed fortune-teller by trade, who had wandered the streets and alleys and was very eloquent. He was to play an important role in this disaster relief activity.

“Fellow countrymen, that we can meet here today is nothing but fate. A simple word, ‘fate,’ binds our hearts together. As the saying goes, ‘to meet by chance requires five hundred years of sailing in the same boat’!”

He chattered on, trying to get close to the refugees, occasionally throwing in a few pidgin-like Qiongshan dialect phrases, which put the somewhat frightened and confused refugees at ease.

“Since we are fated to meet here today, I will give each of you a rice ball!”

After delivering this speech aimed at “getting close,” Ji Denggao ordered the staff to distribute the small rice balls to the refugees below.

“Don’t push, take your time, everyone will get one!” Ji Denggao shouted through a megaphone. Several soldiers carried large baskets full of rice balls and distributed them one by one, one for each person, no deception.

The rice balls were made of cooked brown rice with a little salt, vinegar, and dried plums, wrapped in perilla leaves—basically, Japanese-style onigiri. This kind of rice ball could be preserved for a short time in the summer. The taste was also passable, and for the refugees who had been short of food for a long time, it was a delicacy.

But the portion was too small. A small rice ball was not much bigger than a walnut. Combined with the effect of the vinegar, it stimulated the already weakened appetites of the hungry people. Many people swallowed it in one gulp and then looked longingly at the large rice balls being cooked on the platform and the fragrant soup that was boiling, their eyes staring intently.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Ji Denggao stood up again and shouted through the megaphone:

“Fellow countrymen! How does this rice ball taste?”

“Delicious!”, “I’ve never eaten anything so delicious!” a few agents from the propaganda department mixed in with the refugees shouted loudly. These people were all carefully selected small, sallow, and emaciated people, so as not to attract attention for being too well-nourished.

The refugees were already dizzy from lack of food. After eating such a rice ball, their spirits were temporarily lifted.

“Fellow countrymen! I was once the same as you…” Ji Denggao began to tell his “family’s tragic history” with great emotion. Although the whole speech was written by the pen-pushers, it also contained some of Ji Denggao’s own experiences. Although he came from the urban poor, he had also lived a hard life.

Ji Denggao was worthy of his fortune-teller background. His speech was full of emotion. When he spoke of the painful parts, it was hard to tell whether he was acting or had truly touched a sore spot in his heart. He couldn’t help but sob. For a time, the emotions of the refugees below were stirred up.

Ji Denggao’s speech was not a rehash of Wei Aiwen’s “recalling past bitterness and thinking of present sweetness” education. The refugees had no “sweetness” to speak of at the moment. His speech actually followed the path of a combination of so-called “successology” and “pyramid schemes.”

The first step was to get close to the refugees. The second step was to project oneself onto others, using success to tempt the losers, creating a before-and-after comparison. This was a common tactic in pyramid schemes.

Ji Denggao’s successology speech began with “his own life story,” how poor he was as a child, how he herded sheep and ducks; how he worked as a servant and tenant farmer after growing up, encountering all kinds of bullying and hardship. These materials were not all fabricated. In addition to his own experiences, many were excerpts from the self-narrated materials of refugees collected by the Ministry of Propaganda.

“…Why are we so miserable? Why are we so poor? Generation after generation, we work like cattle and horses, yet we still can’t get enough to eat?!” Ji Denggao’s eyes widened as he roared at the crowd below.

Liu Xiang thought that if this were a revolutionary film, he would know what the lines would be, but now he was a little unsure. Because among the Elders, except for a very few, no one intended to overthrow the exploiting class.

Then he analyzed the reasons for everyone, why they were so miserable. The reason was that they had strength but didn’t use it in the right place. They only knew how to work hard to make a living, but they didn’t know how to work hard to make a living.

“…It’s the same, working for others and living by our strength. When you rent someone’s field to plant, before you’ve even planted a single seed, you already owe them several dou of grain! The landlord doesn’t give you seeds, doesn’t have an ox, and even the harrow for plowing is not your own. You have to use your own money for fertilizer in the spring and for watering in the summer… After a year of hard work, after paying the rent, you have to save seeds for yourself and pay back the fertilizer you owe. How many dou can you save? The imperial court adds extra levies and taxes, saying that the grain households should pay, but doesn’t it end up on your heads? Don’t you all think that you are being taken for a ride?”

Seeing that the emotions of the refugees below had been stirred up—the heavy exploitation of tenant farmers was the same everywhere. Many things that the peasants had a vague feeling about in their hearts were now clearly stated, and it immediately resonated with them. Especially in recent years, with the additional levies for the Liaodong and bandit suppression campaigns, the burden on the common people had become heavier and heavier, and life had become more and more difficult.

“…When I threw myself at the feet of the chiefs, wearing a sackcloth, someone asked me why? Why go to such a group of people from overseas? I said I was looking for the dream in my heart. When I was running under the scorching sun for the chiefs, digging ditches in the fields, people asked me again why I was sweating so much on land that was not my own. I said I was trying to realize the dream in my heart. Life has dreams, life is like a dream, but life is not a dream after all. We have no money, we are illiterate, and generation after generation we have faced the yellow earth with our backs to the sky, yet we don’t even have a place to stand. We are despised, oppressed, and we don’t even have the right to dream. So today I will bring you all into a world where dreams come true. Everything there comes from our own hands. Our hard work is not for the pitiful bit of food we get after paying the rent, but for our own future and the future of our children…”

Ji Denggao struck while the iron was hot, boasting about the various advantages of the Tiandihui’s farms: after being hired or becoming a shareholder, one could be assigned a standard house and could even obtain ownership through a 20-year mortgage; all the children in each household could go to school; regardless of gender or age, as long as one wanted to work, there was a job for everyone. The farm paid wages, and everyone could eat their fill every day without having to tighten their belts to get through the spring famine; those who were willing to contribute their land as shares could also receive a certain dividend at the end of the year…

Ji Denggas tongue was as nimble as a reed. His speech not only contained general promises but also constantly cited actual individual cases. These cases were of course not fake. The cooperative farms run by the Tiandihui in Lingao had already been piloted in several communes with remarkable results.

“Such a good thing, could it be a lie?” someone in the crowd shouted loudly.

This person was one of the propaganda personnel who had been mixed in with the refugees beforehand. These people were considered part-time personnel in the Lingao system. They had normal livelihoods on a daily basis but often secretly accepted instructions from government departments to handle some matters and received a small allowance. The informants controlled by the General Political Security Bureau were one of them, and the Ministry of Propaganda controlled a group of propaganda and agitation cadres.

Ji Denggao was waiting for him and immediately replied:

“Brother, you’ve said it well. There’s no such thing as white rice falling from the sky for free. The cooperative also needs everyone to work for it. It’s just that the Australian chiefs are leading us to do it. As for the credibility of the Australian chiefs, is there anyone who doesn’t trust them? What was Lingao like before, and what is it like now? Even if you haven’t seen it, you should have heard about it!”

The various actions of the Australians in Lingao—especially the good treatment and welfare they gave to their subordinates, and their mythical farming skills—had long been spread throughout Qiongshan. After Ji Denggao’s speech, many poor tenant farmers and long-term laborers who had nothing to their names were moved.

Where to work is not work? Even if it’s not as good as this person said, at least the fact that the Australians feed their subordinates is not fake.

However, for a while, no one dared to stand out. Fortunately, the propaganda team knew that this kind of thing had to have a leader. The rural people were most afraid of taking the lead. They had already prepared this leader. Two or three undercover team members from Qiongshan immediately stood up.

“I’ll go!” a strong man in his forties roared and strode over. He then shouted to the crowd, “Where is it not working for others to plant the land? At least we can eat our fill by planting for the Australian masters. I heard that in the Australian masters’ communes, brown rice and sweet potato silk rice are provided in sufficient quantities at every meal! And there are rewards every week!”

His words immediately caused a commotion. Then, a few more undercover team members came out, shouting and agitating the refugees. Ji Denggao immediately instructed the staff to give them two large rice balls and a bowl of thick soup.

“You eat first and regain your strength. Don’t worry. From now on, you’ll be eating this every meal.”

Seeing them eating fist-sized rice balls, and the thick soup constantly emitting a fragrant aroma, the refugees below could no longer hold back. A large group of people immediately shouted:

“We’ll go, we’ll go, we’re willing to go!”

Just as Liu Xiang had thought, the main purpose of the work team that came to Qiongzhou was to use propaganda methods to absorb a large amount of labor into Lingao through recruitment during this natural disaster. By recruiting workers, a large amount of labor would be drawn away from the local area, thereby destroying the local traditional labor production relationship—attracting tenant farmers to leave the landlords’ land and enter factories and state-owned farms in Lingao, artificially creating a labor shortage in Qiongzhou. Since the tenancy system was still mainstream among the large landlords in Qiongzhou, the Executive Committee believed that by pulling away the tenant farmers, they could force the local landlords into difficulties in production, making it difficult for them to maintain their original production system. This would in turn lead to a rise in labor prices and a fall in land prices. Combined with tax policies and the operation of the Tiandihui, they would promote an agricultural policy of concentrated land management in Qiongshan.