Chapter 237: The Miao Village

Kong Lingyang’s guess was correct. The arrival of Mu Min, who was also the director of the Li and Miao Affairs Office, and Fang Jinghan was precisely to recruit National Army soldiers from the local Li and Miao populations.

The Li and Miao populations on Hainan Island had always been an unusable source of manpower for the Council of Elders, which had long been a source of frustration for the labor-starved Planning Commission.

However, the Li and Miao people had a very low level of productivity and were accustomed to a primitive communal mode of life and production. Historically, they also had strong conflicts with the local Han Chinese. It was very difficult to transform them into an industrial and agricultural population.

To effectively control and use the Li and Miao people, on the one hand, the Religious Affairs Office was “advancing with both religions.” Catholicism and the New Daoism were spreading their teachings deep into the mountainous areas from the south and north, respectively, using religious proselytizing and health services to control the spiritual life of the local people and thus the entire society.

On the other hand, by expanding trade, they abandoned the traditional method of profiteering in Li and Miao trade, stimulating the development of the local commodity economy with lower profits and more goods, supplemented by medical services in the countryside and a small amount of agricultural technology promotion. They used material means to promote social evolution.

Although there had been a plan to recruit Li and Miao people to form a mountain infantry, the General Military Affairs Department believed that there was no urgent need for it at present. The physical fitness of the Li and Miao people was generally poor, and malaria was common, requiring a long period of treatment and recuperation. The cost of organizing them into a combat unit was relatively high.

The Engine Project required landing on Taiwan Island. The General Staff and the Foreign Intelligence Bureau had compiled information from the Haitian and the Great Library and believed that it was appropriate to use a public security force composed of Li and Miao soldiers in the combat operations on Taiwan Island. In particular, in future combat operations against the Pingpu and Gaoshan ethnic groups in Taiwan, the jungle and mountain warfare capabilities of the Li and Miao soldiers could be put to good use.

For this reason, after discussions with the Li and Miao Affairs Office, the General Military Affairs Department sent a joint working group to the Li and Miao settlements in Lin’gao, Sanya, and Changhua, where there was more contact and a certain foundation of mutual trust, to carry out recruitment work.

Wei Aiwen comfortably took a sip of oolong tea and asked, “Old Kong, are there many Li and Miao people here?”

“A lot,” Kong Lingyang said, knowing he had guessed correctly. “To be honest, the economy of Changhua is the Li and Miao economy.”

This was not an exaggeration. If the Council of Elders also compiled GDP data for the counties under its jurisdiction, 70% of Changhua’s GDP would come from trade with the Li and Miao.

“Are there many Miao villages, and what is the approximate Miao population?”

“Very few. According to the intelligence we have, there are less than ten Miao villages, each with twenty to thirty to a hundred households. The total population is about five or six thousand. There is no detailed data.” Although Kong Lingyang had not been in his post for long, during Li Haiping’s tenure, various investigations had been conducted, and a large amount of first-hand information had been accumulated.

In general, there were many Li villages and few Miao villages. And the Miao villages were smaller, poorer, and more backward than the Li villages. This was because the Miao people were latecomers to Hainan Island. They were the descendants of the “Wolf Army,” “thugs,” and “crossbowmen” who were recruited from Guangxi as crossbowmen to suppress the Li people’s rebellion with the Ming army. After the war, the Miao army was disbanded on the spot and scattered to settle in various places. Because they came late, the better land and mountains had already been occupied by the Han and Li people, so the Miao villages were generally in mountainous areas with poor natural environments. In addition to reclaiming some land with difficulty, they lived by hunting and gathering mountain products, and also rented land and forests from Han and Li landlords.

Fang Jinghan interjected, “What is the relationship between the Miao and the Li, and with the local Han people and us?”

“The Miao people don’t have major conflicts with anyone—small frictions are inevitable. The Miao people are very poor, have no land, not even mountainous land. Most of them live by fishing and hunting and rarely have contact with outsiders.” Kong Lingyang had never been to a Miao village, but from his “Li and Miao Affairs Liaison Officer”—the shop assistant Wang who had taken the inspection team to Qiandui Village and the Shilu River—he had obtained a lot of information about the Li and Miao people.

Wei Aiwen listened carefully. He was particularly interested in the Miao villages. The Miao population in Hainan was the smallest, and their economic situation was the worst. They also had a history of conflict with the Li people. Therefore, he believed that they were more reliable to use. Since the Hainan Miao people had come as soldiers, they had a tradition of fighting. It was a very suitable choice to absorb them as a public security force.

“Are there any Miao villages we are relatively familiar with?”

“Yes, Li Haiping had a good relationship with several Miao villages…”

“Can we pay a visit?”

“Of course,” Kong Lingyang nodded repeatedly. “There is a local employee in the cooperative who is specifically responsible for trade with the Li and Miao. His name is Wang Daliang, a Han-Li mixed-blood, formerly a shop assistant, who can speak Li and Miao and is very familiar with the various villages.”

Wei Aiwen nodded. “Arrange for us to go to a Miao village tomorrow.” He then asked, “Old Kong, we are here this time to recruit some young Li and Miao men as soldiers. Do you think the local Li and Miao people are willing to join the army?”

“We can definitely recruit them,” Kong Lingyang said. “Whether it’s the Li or the Miao, they all live a hard life. Although the labor intensity of planting in the mountains is not high, they don’t have many days of full meals.”

Then Kong Lingyang talked about the current situation of negotiations with the Li and Miao villages in Changhua. At present, most of the Li and Miao villages in Changhua had trade relations with the Changhua branch of the cooperative. The relationship was at least not hostile. It would not be a problem to recruit some able-bodied men.

The next day, led by a local merchant from the cooperative, the members of the visiting group once again set out on the road to visit a Miao village.

The location of the Miao village was very remote. Although the straight-line distance from Changhua Fort was less than 30 kilometers on the map, the terrain was rugged, and the grass and forests were dense. The whole team could only follow the guide’s steps, shuttling along a hard-to-recognize path. They arrived at the Miao village early the next morning.

Before entering the village, they were startled by a terrifying scene in a grove outside the village. Many reed mat rolls were placed horizontally on the branches of the large trees, some already half-decayed and scattered on the ground. The group was very curious, but Fang Jinghan knew that this was not something interesting.

“This is the cemetery of the Miao village,” he introduced. “The Miao people here, after they die, are placed on the branches of the trees in the forest like this…”

Mu Min quickly hid far away upon hearing this. Although Wei Aiwen was used to seeing dead people on the battlefield, he couldn’t help but feel his hair stand on end.

“Why haven’t we heard of this custom before?” Mu Min was surprised. She had traveled to the southwest and had been to several Miao villages, but she had never heard of such a custom.

“This is undoubtedly a local custom,” Fang Jinghan said. “As for whether the Miao villages on the mainland have such a custom, I haven’t studied it. But you were there as a tourist, and they wouldn’t promote such a custom as a selling point.”

They soon arrived at the village gate. Wang Daliang often came and went here and was familiar with the place. The able-bodied men guarding the gate immediately let them in.

The condition of the Miao village was far worse than the Qiandui Village of the Li people they had visited before. It was obviously very poor, with only about forty households. The village had no proper wall and used thorny plants as a natural fence. The houses in the village were extremely simple: bamboo frames, bamboo mat walls coated with yellow mud, and thatched roofs. Some free-range pigs, chickens, and ducks roamed the village.

According to Wang Daliang’s introduction, the Miao people here could hardly afford anything and relied on hunting and gathering mountain products to exchange for salt and ironware from the cooperative.

The hunting economy was a very unstable source of income, so they also planted mountain rice. The yield was not high, barely enough to sustain the basic livelihood of the village. Kong Lingyang was promoting the cultivation of some simple cash crops in the Li and Miao villages in Changhua, but the transportation here was too inconvenient, so it was temporarily excluded.

“The Miao people live in such hard-to-reach mountains. It’s certainly difficult for others to get in, but isn’t it also very difficult for them to get out?” Mu Min said.

Wang Daliang said that this was not a problem for the Miao people. They were very good at climbing mountains and crossing ridges, not only fast but also tireless. The people of the Miao village could walk a hundred li to the market and back in one day.

“This is excellent material for mountain infantry,” Wei Aiwen said, his eyes revealing a greedy expression. It would be a waste to have them as a public security force.

Mu Min observed the village with great interest and lamented that the living standards here were really too hard. The common people ate thin porridge or miscellaneous grain porridge for three meals a day. Except for when they hunted, they had almost no meat—not even vegetables. There were no vegetable plots around the village, so they only used salt to season their food. The gift of the various ethnic groups in the southwest, chili peppers, had only recently been planted in Lin’gao in this era.

The reason Kong Lingyang had brought them to this village was naturally because their poverty would make it easy to recruit people.

She suddenly asked, “I feel that the Miao people here are very different from the Miao people on the mainland.”

“Some experts believe that the Miao people on Hainan Island are actually the Yao and Dong people from Guangxi, and may also be mixed with some Miao people,” Fang Jinghan said.

With Wang Daliang’s introduction, they soon met the village elder. By the fire pit, Mu Min presented gifts to the elder. In the subsequent conversation, Wei Aiwen used his glib tongue to boast about the great prospects of serving the Ao-Song and the Council of Elders, how they would have “three meals of white rice a day, and meat at every meal.” The recruits would also receive a settlement allowance. He spoke so persuasively that even the elder himself was a little moved, lamenting that he was too old.

Although the elder had no direct experience of the Fubo Army’s treatment, the cooperative had been doing business here for two years with honesty and trustworthiness and had a high reputation locally, so the elder did not doubt the truth of his words.

The visiting group quickly achieved its goal: the elder agreed to let them recruit soldiers locally. With his strong cooperation, Wei Aiwen recruited more than a dozen people in this one village.