Chapter 87: Population Allocation

“The final say on this matter should be with the Planning Department, right?” Yang Yun’s implication was that it wasn’t Wu Nanhai’s place to dictate population allocation.

“That’s true, but the opinions of the various departments are also a major source of reference for the Planning Department’s final allocation plan.”

“If we satisfied the requests of every department, a million people wouldn’t be enough.”

“Naturally.” Liu Muzhou sat up straight and picked up a document from his desk. “These are the demand figures submitted by the various departments. Even if we account for all currently available population, the shortfall is probably over one hundred and fifty thousand.”

Yang Yun was unconvinced. No leader ever complained about having too many people working for them, especially when they didn’t have to pay their salaries. Apart from the big boss, the lower-level bosses in meetings argued about nothing but money and people. If every department got as many people as they asked for, what was the point of an HR department?

“The meat isn’t even on the table, and the wolves are already getting impatient,” Yang Yun joked. “Every department has its own interests to consider, but we should follow the Planning Department’s opinion. After all, the Planning Department has the overall perspective.”

“You’re right.” Liu Muzhou considered it and agreed with Yang Yun. Since the first batch of refugees from Operation Engine had been brought back, Elders from various departments had been constantly approaching him, overtly or covertly, about the issue of refugee allocation. Wu Nanhai’s request, in particular, was hard to refuse, as he had received a lot of help from him in daily matters…

Now that Yang Yun had put it this way, it did seem that it wasn’t worth getting involved in this kind of allocation, which could easily offend people. It would be more appropriate to simply follow the rules without getting involved. Having made up his mind, he said, “Our department won’t express an opinion on this matter. Let the Planning Department have the headache.”

Yang Yun returned to his office. In fact, he had already begun secretly compiling a population allocation table according to the Planning Department’s requirements these past few days. Although Wu De hadn’t specified how many people to give to which regions and departments, he had already provided “guideline ratios” and “basic principles” for the specific allocation.

Allocating indentured servants was a very tedious and detailed job. Without the help of computers, relying solely on manual calculation and compilation, it would take several months just to get a clear picture of the basic situation of these four hundred thousand-plus people. In the 19th-century United States census, it often took seven to eight years from the end of the census to the release of the statistical data. The Yuanlao Yuan had the three great artifacts of computers, a local area network, and databases, which allowed the statistical summary to be completed in less than a month, producing very detailed classified summary reports.

From the beginning of their purification, every refugee had to fill out a personal information form. This form not only contained basic information such as gender, date of birth, place of origin, and marital and family status, but also their profession, skills, education level, original family economic status, religious beliefs, and political status. The so-called political status referred to whether they had obtained any Ming dynasty official rank or held any form of “public office,” including officials, clerks, soldiers, officials’ servants, “public servants,” local headmen, guild leaders, and various other official or government-backed positions.

This personal information form was the raw material for Yang Yun’s classification and summary, and also the basis for their allocation to various sectors. Generally speaking, people with artisan backgrounds would be assigned to the industrial or construction sectors; then further divided into various industries and enterprises based on their skills. Those from merchant or shopkeeper backgrounds would go to the commercial sector; fishermen to the fishing company; sailors to shipping companies or the navy; and intellectuals, after initial screening, the more “reliable” ones would go to the administrative sector, while the rest would be assigned to the education sector as literacy teachers…

Children under the age of fourteen were, as a rule, not allocated. They were uniformly received by the education department as students.

There was no disagreement with this allocation system. The problem was that ninety-five percent of the available population were illiterate farmers. If they were allocated purely based on profession and skills, then this entire population would go to the agricultural sector—which was clearly not feasible. Therefore, a considerable portion of them would be assigned to various industries as “apprentices.” This was how the burgeoning industrial and tertiary sector workforce in Lin’gao had come into being. The competition among various departments for the immigrant population was also concentrated in this area.

Currently, the allocation of labor was skewed towards the industrial sector. The industrial sector had taken the majority of the indentured servants imported before Operation Engine, with a particularly large proportion in metallurgy, mining, construction, and equipment manufacturing. The primary and tertiary industries came second.

However, at the recent State Council meeting jointly held by the Government Administration Council and the Planning Department, the policy of “establishing food security” had been proposed. The goal was to increase the food self-sufficiency rate of the Lin’gao regime. The population directly under the jurisdiction of the Lin’gao regime was now close to one million. Large-scale reliance on imported grain was not only a heavy burden on the finances but also a significant drain on shipping capacity.

Yang Yun estimated that Wu Nanhai’s proposal to allocate one hundred thousand people to three agricultural counties was riding on this favorable wind.

But Yang Yun thought to himself that the Planning Department’s ideas were far more complex than those of these department heads.

Based on the “guideline ratios” and “basic principles” provided by the Planning Department, Yang Yun had already drafted a preliminary population allocation plan.

Jeju Island: An estimated 50,000 indentured servants to be settled. This would create a five-to-four balance against the local Korean population. Combined with the large-scale recruitment of Korean security forces from Jeju and the introduction of subsequent immigrants, linguistic assimilation could be completed in about a generation, ensuring that Jeju Island would become the Yuanlao Yuan’s “island of cattle, horses, sheep, and citrus…”

These 50,000 indentured servants would primarily be settled as agricultural immigrants, serving as agricultural and pastoral workers on the farms and ranches directly administered by the Agriculture Committee.

In terms of food supply, before the landing, Jeju Island’s extensive agriculture could barely support 40,000 people. After the introduction of potatoes, food production increased significantly, to the point where large quantities could be exported to supply places like Shandong in 1632, demonstrating its considerable agricultural potential. With the introduction of a large number of immigrants and basic farmland construction, Jeju’s agriculture would not only be self-sufficient but could also export a considerable share of agricultural and pastoral products.

Tainan area, Taiwan: Currently, 10,000 refugees have been settled locally, with plans to settle another 25,000. The majority of these 25,000 would be Fujianese people captured from the Fujian coast during Operation Overlord, plus some refugees from Shandong.

Using Fujianese immigrants as the main body clearly did not meet the Yuanlao Yuan’s requirement of “breaking down closed regionalism.” However, the water and soil adaptation in Tainan was not yet complete. Northern immigrants suffered from acclimatization issues and had a high mortality rate. Fujianese immigrants adapted relatively better to the Tainan region and had a higher survival rate. Including the Tainan agricultural reclamation joint team that had landed earlier, the total immigrant population settled in the Kaohsiung-Tainan area would be 40,000. There were also over 40,000 people who had been organized to immigrate earlier by sea lords like Zheng Zhilong, who could be annexed.

The Tainan area began land reclamation in the autumn of 1631. Later, with the desperate investment of a large number of slaves in land development, Wei Bachi had completed his planned 100,000 mu of reclamation by December 1631. Although this was “new land” with limited yield, Tainan had good water and heat conditions. With rotation planting of rice, sweet potatoes, and beans, they could harvest at least seven to eight thousand tons of grain, twenty thousand tons of sweet potatoes, and several thousand tons of beans. Even after feeding the approximately five to six thousand surviving slaves who needed to be supported locally, they could at least achieve self-sufficiency.

Tainan’s agricultural potential was not only much greater than Jeju Island’s but also higher than Hainan’s. With sufficient labor and investment in basic farmland infrastructure, the Tainan area would become the Yuanlao Yuan’s granary.

As for the immigrants who were already in Tainan, since they had managed to survive in the past, the land they had cultivated could support them. At worst, they might not eat their fill, but they wouldn’t starve to death.

After subtracting these immigrants, the remaining 345,000 immigrants would all be settled on Hainan Island. Of these, about 60,000 children under the age of fourteen would be handed over to the education sector for education and training—orphans were actively collected during refugee gathering, so the proportion of children among the refugees was quite high. The remaining 280,000 people would be the pool available for allocation to the island’s industrial and agricultural sectors.

Of these, the Sanya Special Administrative Region would receive about 10,000 people. Although mining development in Sanya relied mainly on slaves, the development of Sanya itself also required a large population. In particular, the Agriculture Committee planned to establish tropical plantations there, which were typical labor-intensive enterprises.

In addition, the southern counties of Hainan would also be supplemented with some agricultural population to ensure their existence. The Han Chinese population in the southern counties of Hainan was extremely small; even including hidden households, some counties had only a few thousand people. Apart from a county seat, there was hardly any sense of government presence. These counties were expected to receive 40,000 immigrants to strengthen their population base. Besides agriculture, they would also engage in forestry and mining development. Changhua was a special case among these counties: the industrial sector planned to establish a large cement production enterprise there. The industrial workers, miners, and the labor needed for the preliminary road construction for the future development of Shilu would require about 10,000 immigrants.

The remaining 220,000 people would be mainly settled in the northern region. How to allocate these 220,000 people became the biggest point of contention between the industrial and agricultural sectors.

Looking at the absolute numbers, the agricultural sector had already gained a huge advantage. But on closer inspection, this population would be difficult to make productive in the short term. The ones who could immediately become productive were obviously in the traditional agricultural counties in the north of Hainan Island. The land currently controlled by the Yuanlao Yuan, whether it was directly managed by state-owned farms or taxed farmland, was over ninety percent located in the northern counties.

This land was either well-cultivated for many years or had been improved through farmland reconstruction. With sufficient labor input, it could immediately produce an agricultural “sputnik.” Wu Nanhai’s private lobbying of Liu Muzhou was clearly aimed at this.