Chapter 86: The Engine Operation Concludes

As soon as the short Spring Festival holiday of 1633 ended, while the winter snow had yet to melt, the various agencies under the Executive Committee quickly resumed their operations. According to the holiday schedule issued by the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs, the Spring Festival holiday was three days long. In reality, many industrial and mining enterprises and government offices only took a one-day break on the first day of the new year before immediately returning to work.

Time, which the Elders often had in abundance before D-Day, was now their most precious commodity. If not for the consideration that the work pace in Lin’gao was already excessively tense and that the vast number of naturalized citizens and indentured servants had few days off throughout the year and needed a chance to breathe, the general inclination of the Elders was to not have holidays at all.

As for the Elders themselves, most worked from the first day of the year to the last, without a single day off, and worked overtime every day.

The laziest employees and the most indolent students of the past now burst with incredible work enthusiasm. As the saying goes, power is not only the best aphrodisiac but also an excellent stimulant. In 1633, through the comprehensive efforts of the Executive Committee and the Personnel Office of the General Office, the phenomenon of “soy sauce Elders” and “basic labor Elders” was completely eliminated. All Elders were promoted to leadership positions. Even a “pure soy sauce Elder” like Salina became the Director of the Western and Portuguese Affairs Division of the Foreign Affairs Department and the head of the Western and Portuguese Language Materials Group at the Great Library. Furthermore, every Elder had a position with authority and subordinates, ensuring their expertise was fully utilized. Even those who knew nothing could at least become a research group leader in the People’s Committee for Education.

In the office building of the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs in Bairen City, work was in full swing. Since the start of Operation Engine, the place had been operating almost 24/7. The resources gathered by Operation Engine were people, and all population matters fell under the jurisdiction of the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs. Therefore, the statistics and settlement of refugees became the main work of the committee in 1632. The task was extremely heavy. Although the collection and transportation of refugees were not their responsibility, once they arrived in Jeju, Taiwan, and Hainan Island, the committee took over. They were responsible for the specific allocation of people for purification, collective data registration, and final destination. Consequently, the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs underwent a large-scale expansion in 1632, not only adding a large number of naturalized citizen clerks but also constructing new office buildings and acquiring many newly manufactured office and computing devices.

A confidential clerk from Lin’gao Telecom would deliver the latest population statistics from all the overseas stations of Operation Engine every 12 hours. The hand-cranked mechanical calculators and key-press counters in the computing center clattered away, continuously churning out the latest numbers.

In the large office of the Human Resources Department, naturalized citizen clerks updated the charts on the wall every 12 hours based on the numbers from the telegrams. The refugees were represented on the charts in four groups: stock at collection points, losses, in transit, and arrivals. This ensured that the Elders could know the concrete results of Operation Engine at any given moment.

Yang Yun, the head of the Human Resources Department, was the first among all the Elders to know the exact figures. He was currently sitting in his office, sipping a strong cup of tea and rereading the summary report on population acquisition from Operation Engine that he had personally prepared.

With the execution of Kong Youde in Jeju, the recapture of Dengzhou, and the Daoist priest’s successful “defense of the faith” in front of the Cloud Ascension Temple, which firmly established the “New Daoism’s” base in Yizhou, the curtain on Operation Engine was beginning to fall. Although natural disasters would continue to plague the coastal areas where large-scale population collection was possible after 1633, the kind of nationwide effort to gather refugees would not continue. Biting off more than one could chew could lead to indigestion. The Yuanlao Yuan needed to properly digest this new batch of immigrants and make them productive as soon as possible.

The latest statistics were now out. The “number one task” of 1632, which had consumed countless human and material resources in what could be called a “nationwide effort” to gather people, was about to have its final results revealed.

Shandong, Qimu Island-Zhaoyuan area: A total of approximately 280,000 people were collected. Among them, over 180,000 were collected locally; 72,000 were obtained through the “potatoes for people” trade with the rebel army; 6,000 were the remaining population of Dengzhou who surrendered to Qimu Island when Kong Youde withdrew; and 21,000 were the remnants of Kong Youde’s troops captured and taken to Jeju.

Shandong, Yizhou: 31,000 refugees from southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu were collected.

Zhejiang, Hangzhou: 14,000 refugees from Zhejiang were collected.

This was the direct gain from Operation Engine. Among them, 175,000 had already been transported to “settlement locations,” which included Jeju Island, Taiwan Island, and the various counties of Hainan Island. Another 180,000-plus were temporarily housed in refugee camps in Qimu Island-Zhaoyuan, Jeju Island, Yizhou, and Hangzhou, awaiting transport.

In addition to Operation Engine, other populations were acquired, mainly through several military campaigns.

The occupation of Jeju Island resulted in the “naturalization” of about 40,000 local Koreans. After the capture of Zhongzuosuo, about 20,000 people from Fujian were taken.

Spontaneous immigrants flowing in from Guangdong numbered about 23,000.

Furthermore, after Operation Overlord, the Zheng family’s influence in Taiwan was dealt a devastating blow. The more than 40,000 Fujianese immigrants in Taiwan could also be annexed with little cost.

Thus, excluding the population still stranded in refugee camps awaiting transport and the yet-to-be-annexed population in Taiwan, the Yuanlao Yuan had directly increased its controllable population by about 250,000 by the beginning of 1633. If all the people awaiting transport were successfully moved, the actual increase would be 430,000. Adding the expected controllable Fujianese population in Taiwan, the total increase in population would be about 480,000.

480,000 people, Yang Yun thought. That’s a considerable number. Although it could greatly alleviate the current labor shortage in various industrial and agricultural sectors, so many people needed food, clothing, and housing…

If not for the windfall from Operation Overlord, it was hard to say whether the Yuanlao Yuan’s finances could have handled it. He then looked at the age and gender ratios of the refugees. As a former HR manager of a sweatshop, he was very satisfied. Nearly 70% of the population were young and able-bodied men and women between the ages of 15 and 25. The next largest group was children, and the smallest group, less than 5%, was the elderly over fifty. In such harsh conditions, the old and weak had almost no chance of survival. The female ratio exceeded 40%—a very high number. This was clearly the result of deliberate efforts at various collection points, especially Qimu Island; otherwise, it was hard to imagine so many women could have survived.

To the average Elder, a high proportion of female refugees simply meant a larger pool to choose “female servants” from. But for Yang Yun and the People’s Commissioner for Civil Affairs, Liu Muzhou, the arrival of a large number of women helped to balance the terrifying gender imbalance in Lin’gao. With the current male-to-female ratio of nearly 8:1, a large number of naturalized citizens had no possibility of finding a wife. The cost of betrothal gifts was already comparable to real estate prices in his old world.

Being unable to marry and have children meant having no family. To make people feel secure living under the rule of the Yuanlao Yuan, the marriage problem had to be solved. When the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps was first established, they specifically recruited “female soldiers” from the interior to solve the marriage problem for the soldiers entering Xinjiang.

Solving the marriage problem for immigrants had always been a top priority for the People’s Committee for Civil Affairs. They had indeed made some efforts: sending people to Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi to buy female populations; prioritizing the collection and transport of women when gathering refugees; and imposing a “concubine tax” and a “concubine stock tax” in areas under Yuanlao Yuan rule through the General Administration of Taxation to curb the practice of taking concubines. But these measures were just a drop in the bucket compared to the vast number of single men.

Now, with over a hundred thousand young and able-bodied women about to arrive, it was like rain after a long drought. Moreover, the proportion of unmarried or widowed women among them was quite high, which could solve the marriage problem for a large number of naturalized citizens who had served the Yuanlao Yuan for many years. This was far more encouraging than being named a model worker or receiving a medal.

Yang Yun finished his report and went to Liu Muzhou’s office.

Liu Muzhou, like him, treated his office as his home. Apart from his activities with his life secretary, he ate and slept in his office. Over time, whenever the People’s Commissioner Liu left his office to go home, everyone knew he was going to “take care of business.” This led to an incident where an Elder came to discuss something with him, and Liu Muzhou happened to be at home fetching some personal items. The naturalized citizen clerk named Liu Li, who was receiving the visiting Elder, inadvertently blurted out, “The Elder has gone home to ‘pa pa pa’.”

“Pa pa pa,” as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, was originally only circulated among the Elders. Now, senior naturalized citizens were also learning this “Australian slang” and starting to use it.

Liu Muzhou was currently engrossed in his work. As the People’s Commissioner for Civil Affairs, his duties were numerous and varied. Since the start of Operation Engine, his workload had multiplied, and he lacked the energy to even “pa pa pa” as often.

“Old Liu, here’s the summary report on population collection from Operation Engine that I compiled. Take a look,” Yang Yun said, handing him the folder.

“No need to look. I have a rough idea of the numbers,” Liu Muzhou said. “Our problem now is how to settle these people.”

“How to settle them? Most will definitely be settled in Lin’gao. After all, this is our main industrial and agricultural base…”

“That’s beyond doubt.” Liu Muzhou leaned back in his rattan chair, staring at the ceiling. “But a few days ago, Wu Nanhai told me he hopes to settle 100,000 agricultural population in the three main agricultural counties of Hainan: Wenchang, Qiongshan, and Chengmai.”

“That many?”

“It’s not that many, really,” Liu Muzhou said with a frown. “That’s only a little over thirty thousand per county. Compared to all the land reclamation plans, it’s far from enough.”