Chapter 47: Wu Nanhai's Daily Routine

“Good morning, Commissioner Wu,” the two men greeted him respectfully.

“Good morning to you both,” Wu Nanhai said with a particularly gentle smile. As he walked in, he asked, “Old Zhang, I heard your wife is expecting?”

“Yes, yes, thank you for your concern, Chief!” Zhang Xingjiao felt a warmth in his heart. He couldn’t believe the chief, despite being so busy, still remembered his personal affairs.

Zhang Xingjiao had only gotten married last year and had also bought an apartment from the Agriculture Committee. This poor scholar, whose family had once been torn apart, had finally re-established his own family and career.

They walked past the corridor in front of the Wu Office. The side facing the corridor was all large glass windows, offering a clear view of the inside. In the open-plan office, unpainted wooden desks were arranged neatly, more than twenty of them, and file cabinets lined the walls.

Many people were already at their desks, working. A huge blackboard was mounted on the wall, densely covered with various notes and notices.

“Take her to the general hospital for a check-up soon. When the baby is born, you have to treat me to eggs…” Wu Nanhai said as he reached the door of his office.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Zhang Xingjiao replied, hurrying a few steps ahead to open the office door for Wu Nanhai.

Wu Nanhai’s office was not large, but it had a separate break room and bathroom, and the facilities were complete. There were large windows facing south, making the room bright and airy. At the end of the office’s inner corridor was a staircase that led directly down to his private side door on the first floor. It could also go up to the rooftop platform, which was equipped with tables, chairs, and an awning for relaxation.

After entering the office and sitting down, he briefly looked over the non-urgent documents and phone messages received by the night-duty staff. After confirming there were no urgent matters to attend to, Wu Nanhai leaned back in his rattan chair, took out a calendar notebook from the drawer, and picked up a pencil.

Wang Tian first reported on the farm’s production and operation from the previous day. October was the busy season for the autumn harvest and planting. The farm managed a large area of land, and Wang Tian had to travel between various fields every day to supervise a series of tasks, including harvesting, threshing, and storage. He was extremely busy.

He reported on the progress of the autumn harvest and then discussed the current problems. This year, they had used a large number of horse-drawn harvesters, which had doubled the harvesting efficiency. As a result, the storage and transportation bottleneck was immediately exposed. The horse-drawn cart teams could not transport the rice to the threshing grounds in time, so they had to continue organizing manual transport with carrying poles, which took up a lot of manpower.

An increase in efficiency in one area inevitably exposes shortcomings in others. Wu Nanhai jotted down a few urgent matters to be resolved in his notebook and then made on-the-spot arrangements for the things that could be solved immediately. He then turned his face to Zhang Xingjiao.

Zhang Xingjiao quickly opened his folder and began to report one by one:

“Chief, about Chief Xun’s matter…”

“Old Zhang, when reporting work, you should refer to the department, not directly by name,” Wu Nanhai reminded him.

“Yes, yes, my mistake,” Zhang Xingjiao quickly corrected himself. “The meat processing plant reports that the stock of frozen chicken in the cold storage will be depleted in the next few days. If no live chickens are allocated, their chicken processing workshop will have to halt production. Chief Xun’s side called to ask if the supply will be timely. At the current production rate, the production line can only be maintained until 6:00 AM tomorrow.”

Three days ago, a chicken plague had broken out at the farm’s chicken farm. The two thousand chickens originally intended for the meat processing plant had now been culled and thrown into a special biogas digester for diseased livestock for harmless fermentation treatment.

As a result, the supply plan for the meat processing plant had been disrupted.

This chicken plague gave Wu Nanhai a bit of a headache. Not only had the epidemic broken out at the farm’s chicken farm, but the mortality rate of the chicks at the poultry breeding farm was also a bit high. This made him suspect that there might be signs of a large-scale spread. He had already sent people to investigate the matter.

“Reply to the meat processing plant that it will be difficult to resume supply tomorrow. Ask them to readjust their production plan,” Wu Nanhai said. He had already received a report from the Agriculture Committee’s livestock and poultry production department. There were very few live chickens available for slaughter in the next few days, not enough to maintain normal supply. He looked at his notebook. “It is estimated that by October 25th, we can restore half of the original planned daily supply. Normal supply will be restored in early November.”

“Chief, this is the construction plan for the poultry breeding farm at the Agriculture Committee’s directly-managed farm in Qiongzhou. If there are no problems, please sign it.”

“Has the biosecurity assessment for the biochemical laboratory been done?”

“It has been done. It’s in Appendix 4.”

He looked at the assessment; it was written by Huang Dashan. He then took a special dip pen from the inkstand and signed his name neatly.

“These are the agricultural promotion New Year pictures from the printing house. Please review them,” Zhang Xingjiao said, taking out a few samples of the New Year pictures.

Agricultural promotion New Year pictures were now a flagship product of the printing house. Not only was the export volume huge, but the domestic demand was also very large. In ancient times, when information dissemination was not well-developed, the propaganda effect of a New Year picture was the most effective in reaching the common people. After all, very few people could read, but many could understand pictures. Therefore, using New Year pictures to promote the “Australian lifestyle” and production techniques became a very effective method.

Unlike the export New Year pictures, which mainly promoted the “Australian lifestyle” and “Australian goods,” the domestic New Year pictures, in addition to political propaganda, had two other key focuses: popular science and the promotion of agricultural technology. Printing new technologies and new ideas on New Year pictures for promotion had proven to be one of the most effective methods in recent years. Therefore, the Agriculture Committee was also responsible for providing and reviewing the content of the agricultural promotion New Year pictures.

The New Year pictures were drawn by the Transmigrators in the art department. Some were original, while others were adapted from materials from the Great Library.

Wu Nanhai took the sample book of New Year pictures and briefly looked at the content. There were a total of twenty themes prepared for the new agricultural promotion New Year pictures to be published and distributed in 1633, all of which were woodblock color prints: “Promote Pest and Disease Control, Strive for High Agricultural Yields,” “Scientific Fertilization,” “Planting Green Manure is Good,” “Courtyard Economy Brings Great Benefits,” “Rice Paddy Aquaculture,” “Don’t Waste an Inch of Land, Promote Ten-Side Planting,” “Plant Castor Beans to Contribute to the Nation’s Industrialization”…

Compared to this year’s New Year pictures, this batch showed significant improvement in both color and composition. Wu Nanhai nodded. “No problem. Tell the Propaganda Department that we want 3,000 for the first batch, all to be sent to the Tiandi Hui.”

“This is a report from Chief Nick at the Jeju horse farm. He requests that another team of veterinarians and animal husbandry students be sent to Jeju Island as soon as possible, no fewer than twenty people. There is also a list of requirements for medicines and equipment.”

Wu Nanhai frowned as he took Nick’s report. Whenever Nick submitted a report, it was always a big request for supplies and personnel, but horse administration was very important. Moreover, the Agriculture Committee now relied heavily on the horse supply from Jeju Island. The Agriculture Committee had used the transported horses to form a horse-plowing team, and the large agricultural machinery that could not be widely used before due to the limited number of horses was now being promoted. After all, the horse-plowing team was much safer and more useful than Bai Yu’s slow-moving First Mechanized Reclamation Regiment, whose boilers were prone to exploding and sending iron plates and rivets flying.

As he read, he said, “Twenty people? Easy for him to say. This year’s animal husbandry and veterinary class only has twenty people in total. If I send them all to him, what about other places? And this list…” It contained dozens of medicines and medical instruments, some of which were controlled substances.

Wu Nanhai deliberated for a long time, then used his pen to cross out several rare medicines and halved the quantity of others. Then, next to the list of veterinary drugs that could be self-produced, he wrote a note: “Please try to meet the quantity as much as possible.” He took out his department seal from the drawer, stamped and signed it, and then handed it to Zhang Xingjiao. “You immediately have the copying room make three copies. One for the archives, one to the Ministry of Health, let them prepare as much as they can from the list first. You personally deliver the original to the Planning Commission and have Chief Wu sign it.”

With all sorts of problems and reports, the morning passed without him noticing. Since the area of rule had expanded to the entire island of Hainan, various administrative tasks had taken up most of Wu Nanhai’s time.

When Chuqing came into the office with a lunch box, Wu Nanhai was on the phone with Wu De, discussing the number of laborers for a water conservancy project.

“…I know the Wenlan River regulation project is a big picture issue. I’m not asking for special treatment. But our demonstration farm’s water conservancy project is also very important, especially for typhoon prevention… Yes, I know there are few typhoons after October, but we must complete the water conservancy project before the rainy season next year. You experienced last year’s typhoon too. Now, all the land on both sides of the Wenlan River belongs to us. If it gets flooded by seawater or inundated again, the loss will be our own. And a reduction in grain production is a consequence we cannot accept now.”

“300 people is too few. At the current pace, it will be the end of next year before it’s done. I need at least 500 people’s worth of work per day. I want to try to finish it by the end of June next year.”

“The labor reform team is also fine. This isn’t high-tech work. You can give me soldiers too.”

“You have to send me guards, otherwise who will catch them if they run away? Ten soldiers is also fine, as long as they have guns.”

“Mm, mm, good. That’s it. I’ll send someone to go through the procedures this afternoon.”

“Eat first, it won’t be good if it gets cold,” Chuqing said as she opened the three-tiered stainless steel lunch box—a product of Wenzhou from another timeline. She took out today’s lunch: fried rice noodles with seafood miso soup. High-quality thin sweet potato rice noodles, fried with dried shrimp, fava beans, and shiitake mushrooms in lard. The miso soup had shrimp, tofu, and seaweed. Simple and delicious, very suitable for a working lunch.

“There’s the opening ceremony for the First Fertilizer Plant this afternoon. Are you still going?” Chuqing still maintained the habit of using honorifics from when she was his personal secretary.

“Yes, of course I’m going,” Wu Nanhai said, taking a sip of the miso soup. “It wasn’t easy to get this project approved. If I don’t go, it would be a great disrespect to the Planning Commission and the Government Affairs Council. I have to at least show my face.”