Chapter 440: Ideological Education

The price was extremely cheap, especially when they paid in silver. In fact, silver was the most popular commodity here. As long as you had silver, you could buy anything for a fraction, or even a hundredth, of its original price.

After selecting the goods, Huang Ande returned to the island with the people he had bought. The journey was smooth this time, with no one dying on the way. Upon returning to the island, he reported the matter of buying Zheng Yue’e to Zhu Mingxia.

Zhu Mingxia smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “For this matter, we’ll just deduct two taels of silver from your military pay. You had good intentions. As for the girl, hand her over to the medic first. When there’s a ship to send the wounded and sick, send her along. After she arrives in Lingao, have Dr. Deng from the General Hospital take a look at her.”

Deng Bofu of the Ministry of Health’s General Hospital and Jiang Qiuyan, the Senate’s only psychologist, had jointly established a Mental Health Center under the Ministry of Health. In reality, it was just a nameplate institution to show their presence, taking in some mental patients. When they had the time and interest, they would provide some psychological counseling.

Zhu Mingxia felt that Zheng Yue’e’s condition was at most a stress reaction to intense stimulation, which was quite common in the army. He estimated that with some psychological counseling, she would recover.

“Yes! Thank you, Chief.” Huang Ande saluted, then hesitated for a moment. “Chief, I have a question.”

“Go ahead,” Zhu Mingxia said nonchalantly.

“The people of Deng-Lai are too miserable… their lives are worth less than pigs and dogs…” Huang Ande became a little emotional as he spoke. Dengzhou was his homeland, after all, and his eyes couldn’t help but turn red. “Our Fubo Army is so powerful, why don’t we just wipe out this group of rebels? Why do we have to do business with them?!”

Zhu Mingxia was taken aback. So far, no naturalized military officer or soldier of the Fubo Army had ever questioned the command of the elders. To them, the Senate was like a god.

This was a very dangerous sign. Zhu Mingxia thought to himself that because he was a native of Dengzhou, he would naturally be unable to bear seeing his homeland in such a miserable state.

Of course, he could have just suppressed him with a single sentence, but Zhu Mingxia placed great importance on ideological and political work. Moreover, Huang Ande was an officer, a future pillar of the Fubo Army. He had to explain the reasoning to him.

“Have a seat,” Zhu Mingxia pointed to a chair in his office.

Huang Ande hesitated for a moment, then saluted and sat down.

“Do you think our Fubo Army is very strong?”

“Yes, sir!” Huang Ande was about to stand up and report again, but Zhu Mingxia waved his hand. “We’re just having a chat now, no need to follow the regulations.”

“Do you think our Northern Expeditionary Detachment can defeat the rebels if we attack Dengzhou now?”

“It would be like crushing dry weeds and rotten wood. Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde are nothing but clay chickens and pottery dogs.”

Zhu Mingxia thought to himself that he really had a way with words. No wonder they said Shandong was the “hometown of the sage.”

“We can indeed defeat the rebels now, but what happens after we defeat them?” he asked.

Huang Ande hesitated. What would happen after defeating the rebels? He hadn’t really thought about it. In his way of thinking, these were matters for the “higher-ups” to consider. After a moment of stunned silence, he said, “The people will live and work in peace and contentment…”

Zhu Mingxia looked into Huang Ande’s eyes. “Live and work in peace and contentment? You yourself are a native of Dengzhou. Did the people of Dengzhou live and work in peace and contentment in the past?”

The answer was obvious. The poverty and hardship of the people in the Deng-Lai area were famous even until the Republic of China. Even in a normal year, people starving to death and fleeing famine were commonplace.

Huang Ande hesitated. “Although they didn’t live and work in peace and contentment, it wasn’t as miserable as this…” As he spoke, he remembered the various tragic scenes he had seen every time he went to the market, and he couldn’t help but shed tears, quickly wiping them away with his sleeve.

Zhu Mingxia patted his shoulder and said, “You’re right. If it weren’t for Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde, the common people could have starved to death in peace. If they couldn’t survive, they at least had the option of fleeing famine and selling their sons and daughters. Are we defeating Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde now just to fight for such a world for the people?”

“Of course not,” Huang Ande said quickly. “It would be great if it could be like Lingao.”

“Like Lingao.” Zhu Mingxia nodded. “Even if it can’t be like Lingao, if there’s a peaceful environment where they can farm and live their lives in peace, the people would be very satisfied, right?”

“Yes!” Huang Ande said. “The people are not afraid of being poor or suffering. They don’t ask for anything but a peaceful life.”

“But you know that this peaceful life doesn’t come easily,” Zhu Mingxia said sternly. “You are an old naturalized citizen, an old soldier. You know how the peaceful days in Lingao and Hainan came about.”

Huang Ande nodded. He had experienced the second anti-encirclement campaign and the pacification war, and he still remembered the days and nights of fighting.

“How many comrades did we sacrifice, how much did we pay, to let the people of the entire Hainan Island live the peaceful life you hope for?” Zhu Mingxia’s voice was filled with emotion. “Do you know how the rifle in your hand, the clothes on your back, the shoes on your feet, and the dry rations you eat came to be?”

“They were provided by the great Senate!” This was the standard answer provided by Wei Aiwen, but when Huang Ande answered this, he didn’t find it ridiculous. He believed this from the bottom of his heart.

“Correct! They were provided by the Senate, and they were also obtained through the diligent labor of the vast number of naturalized citizens. The workers work hard by the furnaces in the factories, the farmers toil under the scorching sun, the sailors risk their lives to pilot the ships, and the miners work to the death in the coal mines. Only then did Hainan Island have the peaceful days you speak of!” Zhu Mingxia added a series of lyrical parallel sentences to enhance his persuasiveness.

“Defeating the rebels now would be an easy matter for us. But what about after? Don’t forget there’s also the Ming government army, which is just as much of a scourge to the people. Even if they don’t harm the people and quickly leave, would it be good enough for the people to continue living their peaceful days of starving to death and fleeing famine?”

“Of course not!” Huang Ande said firmly.

Zhu Mingxia said, “Rebellions by soldiers and bandits, exorbitant taxes and levies—this world of the Ming Dynasty is already a land of fire and devastation. People are suffering everywhere. As the sharp sword of the Senate, we must have a broader vision: to embrace the world and be determined to save all the people under heaven!” He waved his hand with great emotion.

Huang Ande’s passion was also stirred up. “Save all the people under heaven?!” Although he had long sensed the Senate’s ambition, he had never heard an elder express it so directly. A strong emotion surged in his heart, and the heroic sentiment of making great achievements instantly overwhelmed his pity.

“Correct, for all the suffering people under heaven!” Zhu Mingxia nodded solemnly. “So our primary task is to quietly accumulate strength. Our current task should be to shelter as many people as possible from Deng-Lai to strengthen ourselves—not to act on a whim for the suffering of the people in one place. That is small kindness and small righteousness, not the great kindness and great righteousness that considers the whole world!”

“Yes, I understand!” Huang Ande jumped up excitedly and gave a salute. “To serve the Senate and the people!”

After Huang Ande left, Zhu Mingxia took out a handkerchief and wiped his sweat. It’s not easy to educate someone, he thought, looking at Huang Ande’s departing back with mixed feelings.

“Mr. Speaker, the expanded meeting of the Executive Committee will be held in fifteen minutes…”

The private secretary of the Speaker of the Senate, Qian Honghuang, dressed in a female clerk’s uniform, opened the office door and said respectfully.

“Alright, I’ll be right there.” Qian Shuiting tidied up the documents on his desk. He took a briefcase from a wooden shelf on the wall, then took out a stack of documents from the safe in the room—no longer made of reinforced concrete, but a real steel plate riveted safe. He carefully counted them, put them in the briefcase, and locked it.

Then, he looked at his reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall, checking if the creases in his clothes were neat and smoothing his hair. Qian Shuiting was a person who paid great attention to his image, and he was the only member of the Executive Committee to have a full-length mirror in his office. When he was in the United States, he liked to observe how American politicians shaped their own image, from their hairstyle and clothing to their demeanor. Now he couldn’t help but practice it himself.

Today’s meeting was actually held to discuss his “Senate Military and Political Proposal.” The Manila silver plan had already been passed by the Senate and was officially in the discussion stage of the Executive Committee.

Since Qian Shuiting first proposed on the BBS at the end of 1630 to rob the Spanish galleons transporting American silver to Manila in 1631, this proposal had gained extremely high popularity.

Flying the skull and crossbones, wielding a cutlass, wearing an eyepatch and jumping onto the enemy ship, then stepping on a chest of silver and forcing the crew to walk the shaky plank… the imagination of many sailing and boarding enthusiasts immediately swelled uncontrollably. Although some fact-checkers said that whether red or black, the standard pirate skull and crossbones flag had not yet appeared in 1630, no one paid attention to their buzz-killing posts. And the claimed treasure of up to a million taels of silver made many people’s pupils immediately turn into the shape of gold ingots.

It was only because the time was not ripe that this highly popular proposal had been postponed until now. However, those who were interested had been following this plan, and the collection of information for this operation had been ongoing. The implementation details of this plan had been discussed at several small gatherings on the Feiyun.

For more than two years, a group of people had been working together, constantly collecting information, conducting small-scale wargames, and continuously supplementing the simple plan, which had now become a detailed and numerically specific feasibility report.