Chapter 225: Pulling Aussie Films
In the end, he decided to start with basic infrastructure. He built a pier in the southwest, leveled the embankment, and constructed a jetty that extended into the sea where the water was over 2.5 meters deep. This ensured that the navy’s and the Great Wave Shipping Company’s medium and large vessels could load and unload directly without lightering. The pier itself was protected by a three-story bastion. Around the bastion was a small, fortified residential area where Lu Wenyuan settled thirty households, mainly the original fishermen from the island.
These people would be his “navy,” protecting the pier, patrolling Longkou Bay, and, of course, fishing to supplement their diet.
As for Lu Wenyuan’s own headquarters, it was located on the mountain of Qimu Island. On the summit, he first built a watchtower to monitor the entire island and the surrounding waters, which would also serve as a lighthouse to guide ships into the harbor in the future.
The island had scarce water sources, all located in the mountains. The farmstead was sited directly on one of these water sources.
Not only did it directly control the water source, but he also built collection pools and channels around it to store the mountain’s water. Excess water was channeled down the mountain for agricultural use for the time being.
The farmstead itself was not large—Qimu Island had limited space and scarce water. In the long run, it was not a suitable base; on the schedule, it was merely a transit base built to support the Dengzhou operation. However, the fortified farmstead itself was built to be very sturdy, and it would store large quantities of relief food, clothing, and hygiene supplies.
The farmstead had a water collection pool, large warehouses, a command post, and a residential area. There was also a standard barracks for a company of soldiers. In addition to a brick and stone wall with battlements, it was protected by six small, two-story bastions. According to the plan, each bastion would be armed with a cannon.
The land outside the mountains was slightly leveled. The area above the high tide line was used to plant sorghum, which would be used to build tents and mat-sheds when the Kong Youde incident occurred, instantly creating a refugee camp. As a test, and to solve the housing problem for the laborers building the base, he first built ten simple “longhouses” with wooden frames and reed mat roofs and walls. Each house could accommodate 100 people.
There were also several supporting buildings such as kitchens and latrines. After a trial run, they were deemed basically sufficient.
However, the insulation of these mat-sheds was very poor, and they were not sturdy. They were barely adequate for summer, but in winter, without sufficient winter clothing and heating equipment for the refugees, they would be purely symbolic.
But more and better facilities would involve the problem of transporting materials from Hong Kong. Lu Wenyuan knew that most of the transport capacity was currently being used to ship materials to the newly opened Taiwan base, and it was probably impossible to arrange a special trip to transport materials to the small forward base of Qimu Island.
Almost all the building materials for the Qimu Island base were sourced locally, and the craftsmen were also hired locally. Thanks to the connections with the Catholic Church in Shandong through the Jesuits, and with the help of Sun Yuanhua and other fellow believers at all levels, Lu Wenyuan was not completely in the dark when handling matters locally. He had completed the first phase of construction of the Qimu Island base with almost no use of naturalized personnel.
The poverty of the three eastern prefectures and the cheapness of labor left a deep impression on Lu Wenyuan. This place was far from comparable to Jiangnan and Guangdong. There was cultivated land everywhere, but the crops on most of the land grew poorly. The villages near Qimu Island were all exceptionally poor. When Lu Wenyuan hired workers locally, the wages were so low that some laborers would work for no pay, just for three full meals a day.
Due to the extremely cheap labor, Lu Wenyuan recruited a large number of laborers: men, women, old, and young, he took everyone. The strong did heavy work, the weak did light work. With a large amount of cheap labor, the first phase of the Qimu Island base project progressed rapidly, and by early August, sixty percent of the project was completed.
The laborers also reclaimed fields, built canals and water collection pools, and erected a windmill tower—the windmill had to be shipped from Lin’gao. They planted the first batch of sorghum on the newly reclaimed fields and sowed the seeds of sea-blite on the tidal flats.
To protect the construction on the island and prevent loiterers from mixing in, although Lu Wenyuan did not dig a trench on the long causeway, he built a willow fence—it looked inconspicuous, but once it took root and was filled with sand and stone, it would be very sturdy. The Loess Plateau used this method to intercept mountain torrents and improve soil and water conservation, creating a large amount of farmland in the gullies.
Overall, the construction on the island was thriving. Nevertheless, Lu Wenyuan still hoped that reinforcements would arrive soon—especially that the northbound detachment would quickly land on Jeju Island, so they could at least bring him some supplies along the way. Not to mention, the pile of three-eyed guns and cannons made him uneasy. As for the group of sallow-faced, malnourished militiamen, he also felt they were very unreliable.
The only reliable people were his few naturalized subordinates, especially Huang Ande. Watching him train the militia in a seemingly professional manner every day gave him some peace of mind.
The man Zhao Yingong had handed over, Wang Qisuo, had now recovered. He was now the deputy captain of the militia. It was clear he had some martial arts skills and could draw a bow and shoot arrows, befitting his dual identity as a salt smuggler and a military household member.
Through open and secret investigations and conversations, Lu Wenyuan had a general understanding of Wang Qisuo’s background: a local military household who made a living by smuggling salt, with no family left. This situation was quite common among the naturalized citizens and was not surprising. Lu Wenyuan didn’t pay it much mind.
“Pulling Aussie films, pulling Aussie films, new films are showing… Guan Yunchang slays Hua Xiong while the wine is still warm, Spider-Woman battles Spider-Man, Teacher Aoi bravely fights the evil yamen runner, the adventures of the Five-Way-Hero…”
Accompanied by the crisp sound of a gong, a vendor’s cry came from the street. Children in the alley rushed to the street corner, pulling out a handful of copper coins from their pockets and tossing them into the vendor’s hand, shouting, “Let me see first, let me see first.”
This was a normal morning in Guangzhou city. Every day, 176 such vendors roamed the streets and alleys of Guangzhou, setting up more than 300 “Aussie film machines” on the market, bringing visual entertainment that did not belong to this era to the children and adults of this time.
Si Kaide, dressed in Ming dynasty attire, witnessed this scene from a carriage, a smile playing on his lips.
“Pulling Aussie films” was similar to the “pulling foreign films” of the late Qing and early Republican era in the previous world. In a wooden box, a clockwork mechanism drove a ratchet to turn a film reel, continuously playing the images on the film. The viewer had to pull a rope to wind the clockwork. Everyone knew it was an Australian product, so it was called “pulling Aussie films.” Light came from sunlight collected by a lens, and at night, it was provided by an oil lamp, though the effect was much worse.
This device was designed by the Machinery Factory at the request of the Colonial and Trade Department and the Propaganda Department. Its structure was an improvement over the traditional “foreign film box,” being lighter, smaller, and with better effects.
This entertainment greatly increased the burden on Lin Hanlong’s optics factory. The main component of the “Australian scenes” was the lens. Although the performance requirements were low, they still had to be ground one by one. For this, Lin Hanlong had to work with the Elders of the Machinery Factory to develop a machine that could mass-produce simple optical lenses.
The Colonial and Trade Department did not develop this set of things for the entertainment of the Ming people, nor for increasing revenue—although the vendors who obtained a “franchise” from the Zichengji all said that this business was not bad, the annual “franchise fee” of a few hundred taels and the income from renting “Aussie films” were just a drop in the bucket in the entire Lin’gao economic system.
The important point was for propaganda, especially for spreading the “Australian lifestyle,” to build momentum for the upcoming commercial center, and at the same time, to attract the people of the Ming Dynasty to immigrate to Hainan Island.
Guangzhou was the gathering place of wealth and population for the entire Guangdong province. As long as the idea of Lin’gao being a “beacon of light” and a “land of happiness” was established here, it could not only attract the poor who were struggling to make a living and hoping for a new life, but also a portion of the wealthy.
Before the second anti-encirclement campaign, the Planning Commission had mentioned the problem of the small total economic volume and scale at an expanded meeting of the Executive Committee on the national economy. And the constraint on all this was the population.
Industry required a large population—especially at the very low level of the Council of Elders’ industrial system, they had to rely on human wave tactics to expand production capacity. Therefore, collecting manpower became a top priority.
The ultimate goal of investing almost all the resources of the Council of Elders in the Engine Project was also to acquire a large population.
The “pulling Aussie films” propaganda campaign, although its effect on the overall labor recruitment plan was minimal, could still have a great impact in the long run.
“Come and see, the latest Aussie films—Australian workers moving into new homes, the great ironworks smelting molten iron, rice fields with a yield of a thousand jin per mu…”
The vendor changed some of the films again. This part was a blatant promotion of the “new life.” Because the content was novel, it also attracted many viewers. After all, the Australians were already “famous” in Guangdong, and many people wanted to know more about them.
“Cough, cough, cough, cough…” Guo Yi, also in the carriage, was still not used to cigars. He put down the cigar in his hand.
“I say, Sir Guo, a cigar is not a cigarette, don’t inhale it into your lungs. The kick is too strong,” Si Kaide said, slowly exhaling a puff of smoke. “You are now the representative of the Australian style in Guangzhou, Guangzhou’s Mr. Fashion. You have to pay attention to the details.”
“What Mr. Fashion, it was all your idea. I was forced to smoke this thing—I didn’t smoke or drink in the past.”
“Nonsense, you worked in a powerful department and didn’t smoke or drink? How could your leaders use you?” Si Kaide ignored Guo Yi’s complaint. “You need to hold that pose more elegantly, so the rich will be willing to spend money!”
This was always a sore point for Guo Yi. He had worked hard in his past life, but by the time of D-Day, he hadn’t even made it to a deputy section-level clerk. Of course, the reason was definitely not that he didn’t smoke or drink.