Part 268: The Prelude

The seeds of the sea-blite could also be used to press oil. Although the quantity of seeds harvested this year was limited, it still provided some valuable oil. Lu Wenyuan’s three daily meals were cooked with this oil.

Lu Wenyuan ate lunch at the farmstead alone. It was called “special supply,” but the quality was truly pitiful. The best dish on the table was diced cured meat from the Tianchu Factory fried with eggs, plus a few vegetable dishes. The so-called vegetables were actually dried and pickled vegetables transported from Lingao. In November in Shandong, you couldn’t even see a speck of green, let alone fresh vegetables. The only thing that could be called a fresh vegetable was the locally stored Chinese cabbage. Lu Wenyuan’s personal secretary had made a cabbage and dried shrimp soup.

After lunch at the farmstead and a short rest, Lu Wenyuan, without stopping, went to inspect the refugee camp again. The refugee camp was set up in a sheltered, sunny spot on the island, but even so, it was bone-chillingly cold. Because they were temporary buildings, all hastily constructed wooden shelters, their insulation was poor. Coupled with the fact that he had few cotton clothes to supply, they relied entirely on the stone stoves with chimneys placed in the middle of each longhouse for heating. The daily fuel consumption was enormous.

In a year of scarcity and hardship, collecting enough firewood was very difficult. There was almost no straw in the fields, and the forest coverage in the eastern three prefectures was not high.

Fortunately, there were quite a few places in Shandong that produced coal. There were some small coal mines, and the price was not expensive. He used his connections in the Shandong church to conveniently purchase coal and transport it by boat to Longkou.

As he lifted the thick door curtain of a longhouse, a smell mixed with sweat, body odor, and coal fumes rushed to his nostrils. Lu Wenyuan couldn’t help but frown.

He looked up at the long transom windows near the roof. At least they were all open—otherwise, people would have really died. There was no sign of smoke backing up from the chimneys either.

The roof was sloped and had several glass skylights, which surprised many of the refugees, who thought this kind-hearted Lord Lu was exceptionally extravagant. In reality, it was just to make more use of the sunlight and save a little fuel.

The aisle was made of rammed earth. On both sides, the ground was raised with adobe bricks. Underneath were flues that utilized the residual heat from the stoves. On top was a thick layer of wheat straw and dried seaweed. The refugees huddled together in groups of three or five to keep warm.

The temperature inside the house could probably be maintained at around ten degrees Celsius, basically ensuring that no one would freeze to death.

Lu Wenyuan made a tour of inspection. The houses were filled only with the old, young, women, and children. All the able-bodied men had been drafted for work. They were currently building an earthen rampart and a ditch protected by bastions around the refugee camp. The farmstead couldn’t do any agricultural production in the winter, so they had to do more infrastructure projects.

After inspecting all the houses, he went to the kitchen to check the hygiene and food rationing. They were using special relief grain transported from Hong Kong. The local grain prices were high, and the quality was poor. Lu Wenyuan had already given up hope of supplementing their food supply locally.

In addition to the relief grain, at his request, “milk substitute powder”—which was just rice flour with a small amount of sugar—had also been transported from Lingao to save as many children as possible.

Lu Wenyuan inspected the kitchen very carefully. He had a very clear account in his mind: the Cheka had a table quantifying the consumption of each type of food in the relief effort down to the gram, and each kitchen was required to strictly follow it.

There were no problems with the accounts and inventory. Finally, he paid special attention to whether the naturalized citizen cooks showed any signs of getting fat, wondering if he should weigh them. Lu Wenyuan, like all Senators, did not believe in the power of morality. After leaving the kitchen, he asked his attendant for the hundredth time, “Any new news?”

“Reporting to the Chief, not yet.”

“Hmm.” A cold wind blew, and Lu Wenyuan couldn’t help but shrink his neck. He wrapped his cloak tighter—the winter of the Little Ice Age was no joke! He found that he had developed chilblains. His feet were both painful and itchy, and the chilblain cream from the Ministry of Health didn’t seem to have any effect.

What worried him more than the severe cold was that, based on his experience, if the temperature in early November had already dropped to this level, then at the coldest time, the sea in Longkou Bay was very likely to freeze.

If it was just thin ice, it wouldn’t be a big problem. Lu Wenyuan was very afraid that the sea would eventually freeze into a surface that people could walk on. The bay was not deep and was relatively enclosed, making it easy for thick ice to form. The Bohai Bay would freeze over large areas even in the winter of the 21st century. If that happened, the willow pale he had set up on the sandbar would lose its function of delaying the enemy, and the farmstead and refugee camp would be directly exposed to the enemy’s attack. The fortifications he was currently rushing to build were born out of this concern.

His gaze turned to the beach. Besides the women working on the beach, gathering seaweed and drying sea vegetables, a squad of sturdy men was running along the beach in the cold wind, wearing vests and shouting slogans. A burly man with a bowl cut, also wearing a vest, ran alongside them, shouting loudly from time to time.

This was Chen Sigen’s detachment of the Special Reconnaissance Team, which had arrived not long ago. They were intensifying their cold-resistance training. Their presence gave Lu Wenyuan some reassurance—the machine guns they were equipped with were a formidable weapon.

Due to the weather, the Shandong detachment of the Northbound Detachment, which was originally scheduled to arrive a week ago, had not yet arrived. The main force was still stranded in Taiwan. Only an advance company with four 48-pounder naval guns had landed on the scheduled date and was now busy building gun emplacements.

He looked at his watch. It was already November 1, 1631. According to the normal historical trajectory, yesterday, October 31, 1631, Kong Youde, who had been sent by Sun Yuanhua to reinforce the Ming army in Liaodong, was passing through Wuqiao on his return journey. Due to a lack of supplies, his soldiers “foraged on the spot” and clashed with the local gentry. The entire army mutinied, Kong Youde was taken hostage, and the mutiny broke out. The Dengzhou Rebellion, which would last for nearly two years, had officially begun.

Although Qimu Island was quite remote, it was within the territory of Huang County, which was a place where the rebels and government forces repeatedly fought over. With the rebels’ high mobility, mainly consisting of cavalry, no one could guarantee that the flames of war would not spread here. Lu Wenyuan had to have sufficient means of self-protection, especially now that the Northbound Detachment had not yet arrived.

He gazed out at the sea, hoping to see the black smoke and sails of a fleet on the horizon, but there was nothing—the sea was empty.

Lu Wenyuan sighed and walked back. On the bastion, soldiers were enthusiastically conducting gunnery drills. Some had even taken off their thick woolen coats and were practicing in their shirtsleeves. But this atmosphere did not infect him. He returned to the farmstead’s meeting room in a gloomy mood and asked his secretary again, “Any new news from Taiwan?”

“No new news,” the secretary replied, but she added a new piece of information: ten minutes ago, a telegram had arrived from Yizhou.

The content of the telegram was an inquiry about the reception capacity of the Qimu Island refugee camp. If possible, he planned to transfer some refugees to Qimu Island.

Daozhang Zhang’s efforts in Yizhou had been brilliant. Using the power of the Zhuang clan in Dadian Zhuang, he had not only established a firm foothold but also successfully launched a refugee rescue operation in the name of charity. Not long ago, he had experimentally transported a batch of refugees to Qimu Island to verify the feasibility of his planned refugee transport route.

“Reply to Yizhou, don’t send any more refugees for now. The situation in Shandong is currently unclear, and the roads may not remain open…”

As he was dictating the reply, Chen Sigen walked in. The fitness coach-turned-strongman had a well-proportioned figure and a ruddy complexion. He was wiping sweat with a towel and said with a smile, “Want to join me for a daily sauna and workout? I guarantee it will warm you up and you won’t be afraid of the cold all winter.”

“Thanks, but I don’t plan to get steamed and then frozen,” Lu Wenyuan said listlessly. He took out a seal from his inner pocket and stamped the telegram. “Send it out immediately.”

After arriving on Qimu Island, Chen Sigen had immediately had a sauna built for himself. He took his soldiers to the sauna every day, and then they would run in the wilderness wearing only vests. According to him, this was the best way to improve the body’s resistance to cold: both the Finns and the Russians were avid sauna-goers.

Lu Wenyuan sent the secretary away and then said to Chen Sigen, “Old Chen, if the rebels attack now, do you think we can hold them off?”

Chen Sigen was stunned for a moment, then immediately smiled, “It’s not about whether we can hold them off, but how we can fight more beautifully…”

“Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? Kong Youde has at least two thousand elite Liaodong cavalry.”

“Have the cavalry ever heard of a machine gun?” Chen Sigen said. “Not to mention the machine guns. My detachment is all equipped with automatic weapons. Basically, after one round of concentrated fire, the enemy will definitely rout. It’s hard to fight a battle of annihilation, but a battle of rout is no problem.” He patted Lu Wenyuan’s shoulder—with so much force that he almost fell over. “Besides, there’s the advance company and those few big guns. That alone is enough to give Kong Youde a hard time.”

Although Chen Sigen said so, Lu Wenyuan was still a little worried. He had already sent out a group of spies to patrol the main road to Huang County every day to detect the arrival of the rebel army in time.

Chen Sigen, however, was not interested in Kong Youde. Kong Youde’s fate had been decided when the Senate decided to intervene. He led the Special Reconnaissance Team to participate in Operation Engine. Besides providing special operations support for the entire operation, he also had another mission.

The basic attitude of the Operation Engine Command towards the Dengzhou Rebellion was “orderly chaos.” That is, to expand the turmoil to the entire eastern three prefectures, create as many refugees as possible, and then take them in. However, their military projection and personnel transport capabilities were limited, and the number of people they could rescue in each period was limited. To avoid losing too much population and social wealth, the chaotic situation also had to be controlled and “rhythmic.” Ensure that the places that should be in chaos were in great chaos, and the places that should not be in chaos were absolutely not in chaos.