Chapter 16: Agricultural Fieldwork

Ma Qianzhu thought to himself that this shyster was once again pushing his “rule of law” ideology. He said, “That’s not good, is it? Even the Ming dynasty nominally says that a prince who breaks the law is subject to the same punishment as a commoner. For you to write it so clearly in the legal articles, I’m afraid it’s not justifiable.”

“Dugong, it should be this way. To rule by law, there must be laws to follow. In the past, we had too many unclear laws and too much room for political maneuvering, which is inconsistent with the spirit of the rule of law.”

Ma Qianzhu said, “I have no objection to clarifying this with legal articles. I’m just worried about whether it’s appropriate to have such a sentence in every law. I think the articles on the status of senators can be included in the constitution as a single clause. There’s no need to put it in every law—speaking of which, you haven’t even drafted a constitution yet. The Common Program can only be considered a party charter, not to be confused with a constitution!”

“I also think it should be this way. Otherwise, won’t the naturalized citizens be dying of curiosity about the contents of this Common Program? Besides, after thirty or fifty years, this clause will just be there to provoke the naturalized citizens—it will attract hatred. A single ‘two less, one lenient’ policy, which isn’t even a legal article, has been criticized for decades,” Wu Nanhai said. “On the one hand, we talk about everyone being equal, and on the other, we openly declare that senators are superior and will last for a thousand generations. This is not only schizophrenic, but also gives a great pretext to future opposition. Confucius’s ambiguous sentence ‘punishment does not extend to the great officers, rites do not descend to the common people’ has been used to criticize him for ages. For us to create a system where senators are ‘more equal’ is meaningless except to set up a target for the naturalized citizens. In my opinion, this article shouldn’t even be in the constitution. We can just operate in a black box. Anyway, with the Common Program and the Court of Honor, if a senator really has a legal problem, they won’t go to a normal court. Why write it down?”

In the end, it was decided not to write this article, but to write into the constitution the lofty status of the Senate as the founder, leader, defender, and guide of the state.

Next, they discussed the Planning Council’s proposal to relocate some factories to Qiongshan. Bopu Port itself was not a natural deep-water port, and its current cargo throughput had reached a saturation point. To further increase cargo turnover, large-scale port construction was necessary.

“Currently, the annual import of thermal coal from Hong Gai alone reaches 120,000 tons. This doesn’t include the import of coking coal and other bulk commodities. The phenomenon of cargo backlogs and port congestion has already appeared. It is very necessary to disperse the industrial enterprises in Lin’gao.”

Because there was already an industrial relocation plan after the capture of Guangzhou, the main focus of the dispersal was the shipyard. The equipment and workers of the Bopu Shipyard, except for a small portion to maintain ship repair and small-scale shipbuilding capabilities, would all be relocated to Hong Kong Island to set up a new factory. In addition, the Lin’gao Glass Factory and Porcelain Factory, which consumed a large amount of coal and had both raw materials and products coming from outside; the paper mill, which required a large amount of straw and water; and the wood processing plant, whose raw materials were basically all imported, would also be relocated to Qiongshan County as a whole.

This would not only utilize the transportation capacity of Haikou Port, but also reduce the density of the non-agricultural population in Lin’gao County, alleviate the housing pressure, and facilitate local food supply: Qiongshan and Wenchang were both major agricultural counties.

“I have no objection to the relocation, but it’s a pity about the factory buildings and kilns that can’t be moved,” Cheng Dong said with some regret.

“Actually, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Most of these kilns were built in a hurry and are not of high standard. There are many hidden dangers. The remaining factory buildings can be used by other factories,” Zhan Wuya said nonchalantly. “Besides, after so many years of use, even if their lifespan isn’t up, they would need a major overhaul. This is a good opportunity to upgrade the industry while relocating.”

Next, they discussed some details of the mainland campaign, and finally, the arrangements for the senators to go to the countryside for fieldwork and investigation.

“The general principle is that senators serving in industrial and mining enterprises will not be arranged for fieldwork. They will mainly conduct ‘tours,’ which will be completed within three days. Senators in administrative departments will be divided into groups for social research in the countryside for a week. If they apply and their work can be arranged, a longer period is also possible. Zishan has already made a schedule for the fieldwork. Who goes where and for how many days is all arranged. Each department must also have someone on duty…” Ma Qianzhu said.

“Everyone has to go?”

“Everyone. Of course, each department has to arrange for a senator to be on duty. We’ll probably arrange for one-fifth of the senators to go for research each time, and everyone will go in turns,” Ma Qianzhu said. “We should go down and see the real situation more often, and not always be intoxicated by the numbers in the reports.”

The autumn wind was gradually getting colder. In Hainan during the Little Ice Age, there was still a thin layer of frost in the early morning when a cold wave hit. This was the time when the busy autumn harvest was gradually coming to an end. A convoy of freight wagons—one of which was a two-wheeled carriage for the exclusive use of senators—was traveling on the highway from Lin’gao to Chengmai and Haikou.

Doing fieldwork in the countryside at this time of year, with clear weather and a suitable temperature, would not cause too much resistance among the senators to go on a long journey and stay in the countryside for a few days.

Now, apart from a few, no senator was willing to travel far in the hot weather. After all, only Lin’gao had ice and water-cooled air conditioning. Even at this time, the senators who were assigned to go to more remote and less populated places had some complaints.

When Yun Suji heard that he was being sent to Qiongshan, he was very happy. For the past three or four years, he had been cooped up in Lin’gao, working on agriculture and water conservancy up close all day, and falling asleep to the sound of the food factory’s whistle at night. He had never even been to Haikou, so he had the idea of going to Qiongshan for research.

Although he was in the Ministry of Light Industry, his work at the food factory and his part-time job as an agricultural technician for the Tiandihui gave him a deep connection to the agricultural sector. He asked Wu Nanhai to submit a research project to investigate the production and living conditions of the state-owned farms and immigrants in Haikou, and it was approved smoothly.

Before he left, he said to Wu Nanhai, “Old Wu, we still have a lot to do in Haikou.”

He was referring to the agricultural department’s carefully designed agricultural reclamation blueprint for Taiwan Island and Hainan Island.

Historically, the Hainan Agricultural Reclamation, founded in 1952, was the third largest in the country, after the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and the Heilongjiang Agricultural Reclamation. It had a total population of 1.05 million, including 213,000 employees. Its production bases, scattered throughout Hainan, not only grew rubber and tea, but also more than twenty kinds of tropical cash crops and famous fruits such as coconut, betel nut, pepper, coffee, sisal, cocoa, oil palm, cashew, southern medicine, lychee, longan, mango, pomelo, jackfruit, grape, guava, and rambutan.

“That’s right, that’s right. What we want is an American-style single-crop economic zone.” As soon as he mentioned the agricultural reclamation plan, Wu Nanhai instantly became excited.

For the agricultural department, after three years of development, they believed that the Tiandihui, which mainly improved and upgraded traditional agriculture, had matured. Although the potential of the Tiandihui system was great, to go to the next level required meticulous work. After the planning cadres could work independently, the few remaining senators in the agricultural sector began to consider another direction for agriculture: how to establish large-scale plantations, or in other words, to replicate the Hainan agricultural reclamation system.

A plantation is a large-scale, intensive commercial agriculture that grows a single cash crop in a tropical region. In the old world, it was widely distributed in Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Plantation agriculture often involves large-scale production, and the plantation has a complete set of production and living facilities. In these regions, there are many special plant resources, such as natural rubber, coffee, cocoa, tea; bananas, pineapples, mangoes; oil palm, sisal, tobacco, cotton, and jute, which occupy an important position in the world’s cash crops.

The agricultural department believed that a small-peasant economy could solve the problem of food, but to contribute to the Senate’s great cause of conquering the stars and the sea, the plantation model was the future direction of development. All plantations had a complete set of production and living facilities, including not only agricultural and transportation machinery, but also a road system, agricultural product processing plants, agricultural machinery repair shops, power and water supply, as well as education and health facilities. This complete set of facilities was the reason they had worked so hard to transport people to the south. They were not to remain peasants living in the countryside, but to become human resources. A plantation was directly managed by a manager and staff hired by a company, which was a clear difference from a personally operated farm. What came out of a plantation was an industrial worker, not a traditional farmer. Industrial workers were very useful whether they were soldiers or colonists. This was also the reason why the human resources department used the agricultural sector as a human resource reserve after Operation Engine.

From the beginning of the landing, when they established the first commune at Bairen Beach, they promoted the state-owned farm model and adopted enterprise-style management. But due to limited conditions, to this day, these farms—with the exception of the Nanhai Model Farm—including the farms later established around Kaohsiung, were still not standard large-scale plantations.

In addition, due to the long-term policy of “enterprise specialization,” which did not allow “enterprises to run society,” the supporting facilities for the plantations had always been incomplete. Although a Tiandihui was established as a substitute, under various restrictions, the supporting facilities for the state-owned farms were still a long way off.

This was also a source of resentment for Wu Nanhai. This general assembly had merged the state-owned enterprises under the Planning Council, solving the ownership problem, and no longer mentioned “enterprise specialization.” In particular, the policy of restricted and unrestricted shares after the proposal of “mixed ownership” was also conducive to the agricultural sector absorbing private capital, which was a good opportunity for a great leap forward.

In his view, the Tainan Plain was the most ideal place for plantation construction, followed by Hainan Island, especially the few counties in the south, which had a lot of land, a small population, and suitable water and heat conditions, making them very suitable for large-scale development.

Due to limited resources, the agricultural department had just established a few large-scale plantations in Sanya and had also settled 30,000 immigrants in a dispersed manner in a few traditional counties in northern Qiong with a good agricultural foundation.