Chapter 405: The Medical Tour

Wei Bachi spent a long time writing his report on the murder of Westerly, racking his brains on how to phrase it. He revised it again and again, deeply regretting not having taken a course in official document writing or media writing back in the day.

The incident itself was trivial in terms of consequences. However, it left the Senate feeling somewhat disgraced. Compared to Old Feng’s “masterful planning that crushed the counter-revolutionary turmoil” on Jeju Island, complete with the glorious deeds of the Kim Oh-soon siblings, there was really nothing praiseworthy to be found on his end.

After several drafts, Wei Bachi finally decided to adopt an attitude of “deep self-criticism.” Not only would he not evade the issues, but he would address them head-on. He would list out all the points the “devils” in the Senate loved to nitpick, without waiting for them to do it, and then follow up with a “thorough self-examination” to fully “correct his attitude.”

After all, he had single-handedly overseen the construction of Kaohsiung, and so far, its operations were running smoothly, whether it was population transfer, urban construction, or the economic situation. He felt that unlike some in the Senate who would kick you even when you’d done nothing wrong, the Executive Committee valued administrative continuity and stability—especially during this initial development phase.

“The worst that can happen is getting torn apart at a hearing—even the great Han Xin had to endure the humiliation of crawling between someone’s legs,” Wei Bachi comforted himself as he wrote.

But a “good attitude” alone wasn’t enough. Feng Zongze had managed to get through his crisis because of his major achievements in horse administration, “land reform,” and standard village construction. He had fully demonstrated his potential to be a “capable official.” He had to step up his game as well.

The next day, the large display board for the “Kaohsiung Second Five-Year Plan” in Wei Bachi’s office silently disappeared, replaced by another one that read “Kaohsiung Farmland Development Plan.”

That’s right. After a few hours of deliberation, Wei Bachi decided to focus his efforts on earning merit in the area that the Senate cared about most and found most troublesome: agriculture.

“The problem of China, in the final analysis, is the problem of feeding its people,” Wei Bachi said, looking at the results of the all-night rush job he and his life-secretary had pulled off.

Neither the Planning Commission nor the Agriculture Committee had given him a specific target for land reclamation. Wei Bachi had set a personal goal of 30,000 mu, but now he decided to more than triple that number: 100,000 mu to be reclaimed within a year.

This wasn’t a decision Wei Bachi made on a whim. The recent land reclamation and sanitation zone development in the Kaohsiung area had progressed quite smoothly. Although the manpower loss was significant, the casualties were all slaves, with minimal losses among the refugees. Moreover, the overall efficiency of the reclamation work was much higher than he had anticipated.

He currently had a permanent population of 10,000, plus 30,000 refugees. Even if half of these refugees were still in their recovery period and couldn’t be driven to their full potential, they could still handle some light work.

As a new agricultural development zone, Kaohsiung’s access to agricultural technology, fertilizers, and pesticides was bound to be limited. Farming would largely depend on the weather, leading to low yields per mu. However, the area had good water and heat conditions. Even a conservative estimate of 100 kilograms of rice per mu was achievable. With three seasons a year, the harvest could be substantial. According to the Agriculture Committee’s conservative yield estimates, rotating rice, sweet potatoes, and beans on 100,000 mu of farmland could produce at least 10,000 tons of grain, 20,000 tons of sweet potatoes, and several thousand tons of beans. This would be enough to feed tens of thousands of people. If managed well, Kaohsiung could achieve near self-sufficiency in food.

As he was thinking, a communications orderly brought him a telegram.

Wei Bachi was startled, thinking it was a notice from the Executive Committee summoning him back to Lingao for a hearing or “vacation-style treatment.” When he saw that the telegram was from the Agriculture Committee, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The telegram was from Wu Nanhai, responding to his previous suggestion to the Agriculture Committee: to dispatch several sugarcane and sugar industry experts to Kaohsiung to prepare for establishing a sugar industry. Sugarcane, a traditional cash crop in Taiwan, was also a source of wealth. Many Fujianese immigrants were sugarcane growers. If they could also develop a portion of the land for sugarcane cultivation and a sugar industry, the economic benefits would be another point in his favor.

From his previous correspondence with the Agriculture Committee, Wei Bachi had realized their strong interest in Kaohsiung’s agricultural development. Originally, his focus hadn’t been on agriculture; he was keen on setting up some small industries in Kaohsiung. But now, agriculture had become his lifeline, and his interactions with the committee had noticeably increased.

In the telegram, Wu Nanhai showed great interest, stating that he would soon dispatch a Senate technician to Kaohsiung. He also mentioned that he had already spoken with Xun Suji of the Ministry of Light Industry, who was willing to set up a sugar factory in Kaohsiung. However, establishing a new sugar factory required approval from the Planning Commission to be officially greenlit.

“Damn it, aren’t they asking me to go lobby the ministries?” Wei Bachi read the telegram over and over, unsure what to make of it. On second thought, he decided it was best to lie low for now and avoid causing extra trouble. “Let’s just get the sugarcane planted first,” he thought.

Green waves rolled, surging eastward through the Qiongzhou Strait. A stately black paddle-wheeler, belching smoke and steam while its sails were unfurled, cut through the waves with imposing speed.

Although its speed left all other vessels in its wake, the black smoke and white steam puffing from its funnel were not thick, and the paddle wheels churning the water were not turning rapidly, indicating that its boiler and steam engine were not operating at full capacity.

On the mainmast, a dazzling banner danced in the wind: the blue Lodestar flag.

This paddle-wheeler, built entirely of teak, had a standard displacement of 500 tons, qualifying it as a “large ship” on the 17th-century Chinese coast.

Its appearance was not like the other ships of the Senate, which had a standard light black paint job. Instead, it retained the original color and grain of the teak wood. There were no rows of gun emplacements visible on the deck. It lacked the spartan look of other Senate vessels; on the contrary, many of its details were exquisitely decorated. The most conspicuous carving was an octopus figurehead. The palace-lantern design on the sterncastle added a Chinese touch, giving it a “peaceful” appearance.

This was the “yacht”—the Octopus—built by the Lingao Shipyard for the Guangzhou Station. It was specifically for Master Guo to “live in luxury and debauchery” in Guangzhou and to display the power of the Senate.

Because it needed to navigate inland rivers, the Octopus’s tonnage couldn’t be too large. To reduce the workload, this “luxury yacht” was designed and built for “Master Guo” based on the hull of the 500-ton Type 621 paddle-wheel tugboat built in Lingao. Since it would primarily operate in inland rivers and the Pearl River Delta, high speed was not a priority, so a smaller engine was used to reduce the size of the boiler, steam engine, and coal bunkers.

Aboard this ship, which was quite luxurious by the standards of this era, was a medical tour group led by the People’s Commissar for Health, Shi Niaoren.

To expand the Senate’s influence throughout Hainan Island and Guangdong, the People’s Committee for Health had begun organizing mobile medical teams at the beginning of the year. Composed of several Senate members from the health department and outstanding naturalized citizens, they began a medical tour of the various counties of Qiongzhou Prefecture.

The tour covered the entire Hainan Island area, as well as Leizhou and Guangzhou. Leizhou was a given; the counties of Xuwen and Haikang had already been “Lingao-ized” through the tireless infiltration efforts of the Leizhou Station. The reason for including Guangzhou was mainly to prepare for the campaign to conquer the Pearl River Delta during the Second Five-Year Plan.

Guangzhou was a continuation of this grand medical tour and its final stop. After the Battle of Chengmai, the Senate’s medical superiority, demonstrated through the treatment of wounded Ming soldiers and witnessed by battlefield onlookers, had spread throughout Guangdong.

Some shrewd merchants in these areas began to covet the “Australian miracle drugs.” The production and distribution of the Senate’s modern medicines, with the exception of some of Runshitang’s traditional Chinese medicines sold and exported through private channels, were entirely controlled by the Planning Commission. They were mainly used within the health system, and apart from a very small amount requested for “special needs” by overseas stations, there were no arrangements for export—they didn’t even have enough for their own use.

However, according to intelligence from Guo Yi and others, some of Runshitang’s traditional Chinese medicines that were not part of any export batch had appeared in places like Guangzhou. Even some products from the Ministry of Health’s pharmaceutical factory, which were not on the export list at all, had surfaced.

Even worse, counterfeit products had appeared. In addition to the already-existing fake Runshitang traditional medicines, there were even more fantastical items: the Guangzhou Station sent the Ministry of Health a cardboard box of honey-and-rice-flour pills. The label read “Sulfanilamide Pills,” with a line of small characters below: “Imperial Pharmacy of Lingao Prefecture, Great Song. Special Supply for the Great Song Senate.”

What surprised the Senators the most was that these lines of woodblock-printed text were all in simplified characters and arranged horizontally from left to right. The packaging style was a clear imitation of modern products made in Lingao.

Sulfanilamide, the most effective antibiotic they currently mass-produced, had a reputation as a miracle drug. It was astonishing that merchants would think of counterfeiting it.

Medicine is not an ordinary commodity. Counterfeiting can delay treatment and even cause death. Once fake drugs became rampant, it would seriously damage the reputation of modern medicine and have a severe impact on future public health work.

This situation drew the high attention of the health department.

So, after several discussions, the bigwigs of the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Health decided that rather than implementing a series of measures to prevent modern drugs from being leaked or smuggled through the medical system, or joining forces with other departments to crack down on the black market, it would be better to take the lead themselves. They would open Australian clinics outside of Lingao, which would not only expand the influence of the Senate and modern health concepts but also combat counterfeit and shoddy products.

Besides, even the naturalized medical personnel trained by the Ministry of Health had been known to administer iodine orally to patients when they returned to practice at the grassroots level. Given the knowledge level of the natives of this world, every drug they exported was effectively a prescription drug. Without sending their own trained medical staff to guide the natives on how to use the medicines, the Ministry of Health was genuinely worried that the “Australian miracle drug” brand would be ruined.