Chapter 383 - Kaohsiung City

Wei Bachi wasn’t originally named Bachi (Eight Feet); he gave himself this name after D-Day. He always said, “Please call me by my style name: Jinnan (Near South).” He was slightly overweight, and having worked as a frontline construction foreman for the General Construction Company for a long time, he had become a sturdy, dark, and stout man.

Wei Bachi used to work in the management consulting industry. He had a master’s degree in economics and was knowledgeable about management, urban planning, and architectural design, with a particular talent for business model design. However, his ambitions were rather strange. In a survey conducted by the Organization Department on the career intentions of the Yuanlao, Wei Bachi actually filled in “Director of the Labor Camp Management General Bureau” and enthusiastically proposed that he was willing to work on the front lines. He even wrote a lyrical self-statement:

“…Beneath the infinite glory of the Empire lies endless darkness. The number of those who oppose the Empire is constantly growing, always stirring restlessly. The Empire’s judicial system is constantly suppressing them, consuming a large amount of the Empire’s resources. The purpose of the Labor Reform Camp Management General Bureau is to extract the maximum value from them, to make them pay for their actions, and at the same time to support the development of the Empire. The jurisdiction of the Management General Bureau extends all over the world, from the wastelands of Siberia to the rubber forests of Southeast Asia, from the mines of the Americas to the farms of Africa. The Management General Bureau supports the expansion of the Empire and is the vanguard of the Empire’s construction. I, Wei Bachi, am willing to devote myself to this cause until death…”

Of course, in Wei Bachi’s secret diary, he painted an even grander blueprint. Naturally, his imagination did not surpass that of the All-Union People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In his diary, his ideal Management General Bureau was an empire in itself: with its own armed forces, laws, factories, farms, and social organizations. And he, Wei Bachi, a Yuanlao of the Empire, was the chief designer, builder, administrator, and maintainer of the Management General Bureau, the guardian of its order. A cold and ruthless decision-making machine, a strict administrator…

Since the Organization Department had no intention of creating this prominent position, and given the burgeoning desire for power in his self-statement, Wei Bachi continued to be a construction foreman for the Lingao General Construction Company. However, when “compulsory labor” was used, Wei Bachi was more often appointed as an organizer. At the beginning of Operation Engine, the dual effect of Wei Bachi’s skills and his experience as a foreman led to his appointment as the mayor of Kaohsiung, responsible for organizing the development of the Kaohsiung area.

The reason for appointing such a person as the mayor of Kaohsiung was mainly due to the current positioning of Kaohsiung by the command headquarters. At present, the primary purpose of the Kaohsiung base was population purification and transit. A large number of refugees from Shandong, northern Jiangsu, and northern Zhejiang would be concentrated here for purification and quarantine, and then most of them would be transferred to Hainan to fill the schools, farms, factories, and construction sites of the Yuanlao Senate.

Wei Bachi’s primary task, besides managing the refugee camps well, was to fully tap the labor potential of the refugees in the quarantine camps—the Planning Commission did not like people eating for free. So, while the refugees were waiting for quarantine and transit, Wei Bachi also had to arrange for them to work and develop the Tainan Plain—the Yuanlao Senate had high hopes for the agriculture in this region.

This task was very difficult. First, the mortality rate among the refugees was very high. In the late Ming Dynasty, wars and plagues were frequent. Smallpox, cholera, typhoid fever… any infectious disease one could think of was found in the refugee camps. Especially virulent smallpox, transmitted through the respiratory tract, had a very high mortality rate. As the weather warmed up, various infectious diseases began to enter their peak season. For this reason, the Ministry of Health stipulated that refugees accommodated at collection points must undergo pre-quarantine on-site for 12 days before boarding ships. Even this could not completely isolate the spread of infectious diseases. Secondly, most of the refugees who arrived were exhausted and weak, and it took a considerable amount of time for them to recover enough to work. And by the time the refugees had finally passed the quarantine period safely and their physical fitness had recovered somewhat, it was often time for them to leave Taiwan.

Therefore, although the total population under Wei Bachi’s jurisdiction was large, the available labor force was not very large, especially the number of people who could perform heavy physical labor. Relatively speaking, only the refugees transferred from the Jeju Island refugee camp were physically capable of being fully utilized. This caused serious delays in many of the Tainan development projects that Wei Bachi was supposed to carry out.

Standing on the observation deck on top of Fengshan, Wei Bachi could see an impressive and continuous stretch of wooden houses extending from the coastline inland. It looked quite intimidating. The resident population inside, according to the precise tables updated daily, was rarely below forty thousand.

But Wei Bachi knew that the contribution these people could currently make to the Yuanlao Senate was pitifully small, and the attrition rate in the refugee camps was also quite alarming.

Every day, a dozen or so people were transferred from the quarantine camp to the isolation area. Once sent to the isolation area, it was difficult to get out again. The isolation area was divided into various wards according to different infectious diseases. The most terrible and highly contagious isolation wards were built separately on a sandbar. The dead from the isolation area were transported to a desolate sandbar for cremation. Even the isolation area itself was set on fire and destroyed every so often, and then rebuilt.

Infectious diseases were always a ticking time bomb hanging over Wei Bachi’s head. And the land reclamation and water conservancy construction statistics tables sent by the Planning Commission made him even more worried.

What was worse was that every ship from Lingao brought documents, notices, and statistical forms from various ministries and commissions. Wei Bachi found himself mired in a terrible sea of paperwork.

Wei Bachi was no longer so jubilant about being the “Governor of Taiwan.” Although he had the largest number of “subjects” and the strongest military force, he also faced the most complex situation. Thinking of the pile of documents on his desk and the locked “confidential document boxes” packed full on a certain ship just entering the port, Wei Bachi let out a groan of despair—he hadn’t been interested in letting his life secretary into his bedroom for many days.

“A knife will rust quickly if not sharpened,” he muttered, watching the convoy entering the port. He had received a telegram from the General Office a few days ago, informing him that some Yuanlao were coming to Kaohsiung to work on several projects.

“And now they want to build a lighthouse. Don’t they think I have enough to do?” Wei Bachi’s mood worsened.

A puff of white smoke rose from the battery at Kaohsiung Port, followed by a booming cannon shot. It was a salute fired to welcome the arrival of the Yuanlao. Wei Bachi stood up, straightened his cotton-linen blend tropical uniform, put on his pith helmet, and strode towards the pier where “The Spanish Whore” was docking. A group of life secretaries and attendants followed behind him.

Wei Bachi and Liu Zheng and the others had only met a few times at the annual meeting and the Yuanlao Senate assembly, and had little contact in their work. In contrast, he was very familiar with Zhong Lishi. Zhong Lishi’s Taibai Observatory had been built by the prisoners from the labor camp under Wei Bachi’s command.

The several Yuanlao exchanged pleasantries on the pier. Dr. Zhong once again reminded them to be extremely careful when unloading the cargo. Then, surrounded by their attendants, they got into Wei Bachi’s “official car.” Thanks to the conquest of Jeju Island, more than a hundred horses had been transported from there. Li Chiji and Minister Hong immediately requested the General Office to distribute all the “official use” horse carriages in stock to various locations. Wei Bachi was allocated two because of his diplomatic dealings with the Dutch and other foreigners.

Before getting into the carriage, Dr. Zhong glanced at the newly built Kaohsiung Customs House. The two-story red brick building, as usual, had a clock tower—this time, it wouldn’t have to be empty.

After the carriage started, it sped along the road paved with coal cinders. As a naval port and coaling station for the navy, Kaohsiung had accumulated a large amount of coal cinders and ash from warships, so the road hardening work was done quite well. On both sides of the main road were newly erected telegraph poles. Workers in uniforms with “Lingao Telecom” written on the back were climbing the poles to lay telegraph lines.

The carriage drove along the newly paved “Yuanlao Senate Avenue” towards the “City Hall”—which was also Wei Bachi’s “Mayor’s Mansion.” This building was designed by Zhang Xingpei of the Lingao Construction Company and looked no different from the city halls of small towns in Europe and America in the old world. Zhang Xingpei was best at prefabricated timber-frame buildings. Because they were quick to assemble and the house types were both beautiful and practical, they were widely used in the development of new areas. From the Kaohsiung City Hall down to the longhouses in the refugee camps, they were all this type of building.

The City Hall was built on a half-man-high stone foundation, plastered white with lime, looking both imposing and beautiful in the sunlight. Even by the standards of the Yuanlao, this official residence was quite good. Of course, this City Hall also had a clock tower.

In front of the City Hall was the Kaohsiung Municipal Square. Half of the square’s ground was already paved with gravel. A deep, wide ditch ran through the middle. Workers were laying bricks at the bottom of the ditch. Around the square, plots of land had been marked out with bamboo poles and white limewash lines, ready for the successive construction of various public and commercial buildings. On some plots, temporary bamboo sheds had already been erected, while on others, construction had already begun. Piles of stones, cement, sand, and lime were everywhere. Professional construction workers and labor teams from Lingao shuttled back and forth, the sounds of steam pile drivers and work chants echoing one another.

“This is the main drainage channel. A new city must be built on a solid foundation from the ground up.” Wei Bachi’s mood had been low, but since all this was his own creation, he couldn’t help but boast a little in front of the other Yuanlao. So he occasionally pointed to the construction sites, “This place gets a lot of rain. If the drainage isn’t done well, there will be problems.” Then he pointed to the surrounding buildings, explaining their respective functions. The two largest building plots were reserved for the Agricultural Committee and the Navy. Both the Navy and the Agricultural Committee had offices here. At present, the local construction in Kaohsiung was mainly centered around these two departments.

On these two plots, temporary bamboo sheds had already been built, with signs for the “offices” erected. Naturalized citizen military officers and cadres came and went, and couriers constantly arrived with documents. It looked very busy.