Chapter 323: S-Class

There were more than two thousand rebels in Huang County. With the addition of three thousand reinforcements and a large number of local conscripts, they had a great advantage in numbers. Mao Chenglu was also a veteran general. No matter how powerful the enemy’s firearms were, they might not be able to resist—not to mention that they had also been given cannons.

So after they made their decision, they turned their attention to discussing the attack on Laizhou.

On Qimu Island, there was a festive atmosphere. The bigwigs of the several Shandong offices were gathered around the stove, all beaming with joy.

After receiving a large group of refugees, Zhu Mingxia returned to the Baimatang relay camp. Relying on his “turning beans into soldiers” formation, he not only scared away the small group of pursuing troops but also collected more refugees along the way.

That night, he led his troops to spend the night at the Baimatang relay camp. The next morning, they were besieged by more than a thousand rebels from Huang County. As a result, not only did they kill more than two hundred people, but they also captured several hundred prisoners.

After returning to Qimu Island, a rough estimate of the number of people was made. This operation, including the received refugees and prisoners, totaled more than three thousand eight hundred people. This was their largest single harvest in Dengzhou.

Moreover, the composition of the population was very ideal. Because most of the refugees this time were fleeing as groups based on clans and villages, the gender balance in the crowd was relatively even, and there were also a large number of children—this was the population that the Senate liked the most. In particular, a rough glance at the refugee crowd revealed many women who seemed to have a height that met the original aesthetic standards, which greatly boosted the morale of the Senate members at the Qimu Island front command.

Although these women were all disheveled and stooped at the moment, as long as they had enough to eat and got a good rest, most of them would be good material.

Not only was there hope for replenishing the technicians at Zhiminglou in Lingao, but there was also hope for upgrading the life secretaries of the Senate.

Just this was enough to make the Senate members of the Shandong office shout “It was worth it!” for coming to this desolate island after all the hardships and braving the snow and frost.

Besides the not-so-“lofty” starting point of satisfying their own physiological needs, the merit of providing high-quality life secretaries for the vast number of Senate members would undoubtedly add many points to their prestige. This would have a great impact on their future status in the Senate!

“It seems that coming to Shandong was the right decision!” Lu Wenyan grinned lewdly. “I have to choose carefully for myself first—the one who is in a favorable position gets the prize first…”

“That’s not right—if those guys in the Senate find out, they’ll eat you alive,” Zhu Mingxia shook his head repeatedly. “Women, there are plenty of good ones. We shouldn’t get our priorities wrong ourselves. It’s not good to be caught with our pants down.”

Chen Sigen chuckled, “Little Lu, you’re still too young, too simple…”

As they were talking, the bell outside rang.

“Oh, the bell for issuing cards is ringing. The card-issuing work for the new refugees is about to begin. I’ll go over first. After this batch is processed, I’ll send a few more ships to Jeju Island as soon as possible. There are too many people on the island—if we don’t transport them away, I’m afraid I won’t be able to manage them.”

Just the day before yesterday, more than three thousand people had been sent to Jeju Island. Now, with the newly received refugees, there were a total of eight thousand refugees on the island, which had already overwhelmed the refugee camp. Moreover, the refugee camp had been receiving one or two thousand people every day recently. The facilities were severely overloaded. At present, they could only ensure that all the women, children, and the elderly could live in houses. Many people could only sleep in the open in the camp, relying on fires to survive. This was a great test for the safety, hygiene, and management of the refugee camp.

Zhu Mingxia left the fortress and mounted his horse. Surrounded by his guards, he rode to the temporary transit station of the refugee camp. The continuous transit of refugees had made the island overcrowded, and management had become difficult. Lu Wenyan had specially cordoned off a piece of land to issue refugee cards. After entering Qimu Island, the refugees would first gather here. There were no houses here, just a piece of land simply enclosed by wooden fences. Of course, they would not have to spend the night here. They would just rest for a while, register, and then leave after receiving their refugee cards and meal cards.

The issuance of refugee cards was proposed by Zhu Mingxia. Soldiers had dog tags, so refugees should have their own refugee cards. This would facilitate management and allow them to keep track of the refugee situation at all times—especially for accurate counting. For special groups, dedicated refugee card codes would make it easy to find these people, such as maids.

Most of the Senate members were very interested in the possible tide of maids. The Executive Committee also intended to take this opportunity to give everyone a good welfare benefit. Under informal authorization, Zhu Mingxia took on the task of finding high-quality maids. It was very difficult to find young beauties among the thousands of sallow-faced and disheveled refugees. Most people would just feel dizzy after looking at them and would only say that there was only a group of potatoes. But in Zhu Mingxia’s view, even if their faces were smeared with charcoal ash and they were gaunt, he could still pick them out one by one.

According to him, one had to look at beauties from the perspective of human anatomy, looking at the height of the brow bones and nasal bones, the distance between the eyes, the position of the hip bones, and so on. Only in this way could effective “quantitative management” be implemented. Otherwise, “beautiful appearance” was a standard that varied too much from person to person.

But it was too inefficient to search for them slowly from thousands of people. So Zhu Mingxia came up with the idea of refugee cards. Only with a refugee card could one be a refugee on Qimu Island, and only with a refugee card could one be eligible to receive a meal card. Only with a meal card could one get food.

A long queue had already formed at the place where the cards were issued. The refugees were lined up according to age and gender, maintained by militia holding wooden sticks. First, the refugees were divided into three groups: men, women, and children under twelve. The men and women received their refugee cards separately, and then they were divided into three subgroups according to their approximate age: 12-25 years old, 25-40 years old, and over 40 years old.

Each subgroup went to a designated location to receive their meal cards. After receiving their meal cards, they went to the assembly point to find their relatives and friends and became official refugees.

Each time, the cards were issued by village. After one village was finished, they would move on to the next. The scattered refugees were gathered by the naturalized citizens before they went to get their cards. To maintain order, Zhu Mingxia used a large number of Qimu Island militia to maintain order, with soldiers from the Northern Expeditionary Detachment with bayonets to keep the situation under control. He also found some work team members with kind faces from the naturalized citizens to calm the people’s hearts.

Zhu Mingxia stood at the position where women aged 12-25 received their meal cards. When he saw a potentially suitable woman, he would nod, and the card issuer would give the refugee a meal card starting with the letter Z. Behind him stood three naturalized citizens. He had explained the key points of selecting people to these three people in detail. Now that he was still on Qimu Island, he would do it himself, and the naturalized citizens would also take this opportunity to practice. When he was busy with other things and couldn’t do these things all the time, he would rely on these people to select them in the future. The selected female refugees with Z cards would be screened again and divided into B, A, and S-class maid candidates. As for those below B-class, they would be screened again after being transported to Jeju Island.

The continuous screening of refugees still made Zhu Mingxia’s eyes a little blurry. He rubbed his eyes. Anyway, it was the last time he would be in charge, so he would persevere to the end. For the girls of the Senate, he would persevere a little longer. After a few dozen more people, a thin figure caught his attention. A slender little girl was tightly clutching a pipa that was taller than her, hiding most of her body behind it, with her whole face covered by the pipa. Zhu Mingxia observed for a moment. From her figure, she was still a little girl. Her face was pressed tightly against the pipa, and he couldn’t see her features. The position of her hip bones was quite high, which piqued his interest. He walked up to the girl and knocked on the pipa.

“Lift your head.”

The girl timidly raised her small head, revealing frightened eyes. Her sallow and thin cheeks were almost like those of an ET alien, a standard refugee appearance. Zhu Mingxia observed carefully and felt that she had good potential. And her feet were not bound, which was a pity that her cheekbones were slightly high, otherwise it would be even better.

“How old are you? Can you play the pipa?”

“Yes, yes, fifteen, sir,” the girl was obviously frightened by Zhu Mingxia, and her speech was a little stuttered.

The next few simple questions and answers allowed Zhu Mingxia to learn more about the little girl. She was a member of a small street opera troupe. Because the number of people was small, she was mixed with other scattered people to receive refugee cards. There were other sisters behind her. Zhu Mingxia looked back and sure enough, there was a woman with a bamboo flute in her hand. Unfortunately, she was average-looking, but that didn’t matter. He was in urgent need of people who could play musical instruments, and now he had found them.

Under the girl’s guidance, Zhu Mingxia found the leader of the opera troupe. The leader’s surname was Liu, a woman in her thirties. The hardships of her wandering life had carved lines on her face, and her graying hair made her look almost fifty.

At this time, Zhu Mingxia was not wearing a Fubo Army uniform, but a leather coat made in Lingao. When Liu addressed him, she hesitated for a moment and finally decided to call him general. This address made Zhu Mingxia feel very pleased, and his gaze also softened slightly. Liu’s rich life experience allowed her to grasp this momentary change, and she began to promote her opera troupe滔滔不绝. Liu had a typical southern accent, but fortunately Zhu Mingxia could understand her. In Liu’s half-true, half-false self-praise, he had a general understanding of these people.

The troupe leader, Liu, was once a prostitute in a brothel in Nanjing. She was sold to a brothel at a young age. Because her appearance was slightly inferior, she worked particularly hard on music theory and became proficient in blowing, pulling, playing, and singing, and she actually became a signboard of the brothel. She had sold herself for many years and had originally accumulated a considerable amount of savings, but she did not expect that the brothel’s booming business would attract the envy of others, who colluded with the government to seize the property. Logically speaking, this had little to do with her. The brothel was just changing owners. But she did not expect that the other prostitutes who had always been dissatisfied with her took the opportunity to make trouble and used the new owner to squeeze her out. Not only did she lose most of her savings, but her face was also disfigured by her enemies. Fortunately, she was proficient in music theory and managed to survive by singing on the streets and pulling together a small opera troupe. Otherwise, she would most likely have starved to death on the streets.

Over the past ten years, by adopting stray children and buying daughters from poor families, the opera troupe had grown from a few people at the beginning to more than a dozen. Because they heard that there were many wealthy merchants in the Dengzhou area and business was very good, they took a boat from Songjiang to here. They did not expect to encounter the Kong Youde mutiny not long after they arrived in Dengzhou. The troupe leader knew that in times of war and chaos, they could not hide in the city, so they hid in a village where they had acquaintances in the past.