Chapter 90: Employment System (Part 1)

Because Ye Yuming had experience raising rabbits and poultry, Wu Nanhai assigned him to manage the small animals. With rabbit numbers still low, there was no need for specialized housing—just a three-tiered hutch in the yard. But when he went to tend them, he found the creatures listless, barely touching their food. Were they sick? He consulted the specialized agricultural library and found his answer: "Domestic rabbits have weak disease resistance. In damp, unclean environments, they easily contract diseases that cause great losses—especially young rabbits. Housing should follow dry, clean management principles with proper sanitation and epidemic prevention. Additionally, rabbits tolerate cold but not heat. When temperatures exceed 30°C, adults reduce or stop eating; does easily miscarry, reduce milk production, or refuse to nurse—conditions that also induce disease outbreaks. During hot periods, heat prevention and cooling are essential."

Damp? Hot? Rabbits? Why on earth did we bring rabbits to Hainan?! And there was even an Angora pair! He had no choice but to find a shaded, well-ventilated spot. He moved the cages into an empty room and periodically sprinkled water around to cool them down. As for rabbit feed, Wu Nanhai took no responsibility—but fortunately, Ye Yuming had plenty of experience cutting fodder. After each vegetable harvest, cafeteria scraps could supplement the rabbits' diet, and once Wu Nanhai's sweet potatoes matured, he could collect large quantities of sweet-potato vines for feed. The creatures looked listless now, but once they recovered, their reproduction rate would be astonishing.

The first few days were devoted to basic land-clearing. Engineering bulldozers removed stones, roots, and weeds while trucks hauled in excavation waste to deepen the topsoil. Such raw land was suitable only for sweet potatoes. For hybrid rice, Wu Nanhai decided to wait until next spring—he needed to observe how low the winter temperatures dropped. He also planned to plant winter wheat and barley, since barley favored cool climates, tolerated some cold, and matured quickly enough to fit between the main crop plantings.

The farm work proved brutally hard—leveling land, digging channels, plowing, applying base fertilizer. Machinery helped, but the manual labor required remained substantial. Surprisingly, applications to the Agriculture Group poured in, as many had envisioned an idyllic pastoral life. Shortly after farming began, however, some complained of exhaustion or claimed their skills didn't match the work, transferring to other groups. Wu Nanhai found it overwhelming himself and concluded it was better to serve as an agricultural advisor, offering guidance while the farmers Wu De sent did the actual labor. Those farmers worked hard indeed.

After more than a month of adjustment, Wu De's labor team had become remarkably efficient. He used five mutually antagonistic men as captains, deliberately encouraging competition among them. Personal grudges between leaders proved more effective than any intimidation—each captain strenuously drove his subordinates, terrified of falling behind his rivals.

Wu De then introduced material incentives: each day, the first team to complete their labor quotas received extra food. He also implemented "last-place elimination"—every seven days, the lowest-performing team lost four members to the top four teams. If a captain lost all his members, he became ordinary labor and forfeited all benefits. The measure tested the captains' management skills and intensified competition. Those relying solely on violence—beatings and starvation—achieved only short-term results. Oppressed workers soon discovered countermeasures: slack off for four consecutive weeks, and even the loftiest captain would fall. Both sides had to find balance for effective cooperation.

Fu Youdi adapted extremely poorly to this system. As the earliest prisoner captain, he had immediately lorded over the others—never working himself, only grabbing benefits. When four former subordinates became captains, he felt deeply unbalanced. Desperate to maintain his "senior captain" status before Wu De, he increasingly oppressed his subordinates, even cultivating two or three enforcers by skimming rations and establishing a tyrannical mini-kingdom. Hardly a day passed without beatings in his camp. Hatred grew within his team, yet he remained oblivious.

Wang Tian was more honest. Though he also grabbed extra benefits, he didn't oppress his subordinates and worked hard himself. People liked him—but some then slacked off. At first, Wang Tian meekly avoided confrontation; only when quotas slipped did he panic and beat people. When quotas rose, the cycle repeated. The other two captains fell roughly between Fu Youdi and Wang Tian on the management spectrum.

By comparison, Lin Xing's performance impressed Wu De most. He divided his subordinates into small groups, assigning divisions of labor based on daily work content. He led by example—eating, living, and laboring alongside his men. He never touched anyone else's share and even distributed his bonus food among his subordinates. But slackers received no mercy; his approach was one of clear rewards and punishments. The whole team respected him—even the former small landlords and rich peasants admired him. One landlord privately invited Lin Xing to become the foreman on his estate.

Among common people, there are indeed heroes, Wu De thought. Unlike modern transmigrators who had access to information everywhere—how had an illiterate poor tenant like Lin Xing learned such skills? Were some people simply born with leadership charisma?

Wu De also gradually improved the laborers' meals. Now they received one dry and one thin meal daily—admittedly, the dry rice was mixed with local grains—but for workers, it was quite good. Some captains still skimmed food, and he deliberately pretended not to notice. This way, ordinary workers grew more resentful toward their captains while feeling the pirates were more conscientious by comparison.

After two continuous weeks of last-place finishes and the loss of eight members, Fu Youdi's team stood on the brink of collapse. In his fury, Fu Youdi announced a one-day food suspension as punishment. The workers who had long suffered under him finally snapped, swarming him with fists and kicks. Even his enforcers were not spared—beaten black and blue alongside him.

The other teams watched the upheaval in stunned silence. Wu De had contingency plans for such situations; he had instructed camp guards that there was no need to enter and suppress—just control the perimeter and prevent escapes. He had intended to let them settle things naturally before sorting out the aftermath, but Lin Xing unexpectedly led men in to quell the disturbance on his own initiative.

When Wu De arrived, Fu Youdi's subordinates knelt before him, competing to denounce their captain's various crimes. Some Wu De already knew about; others surprised him greatly—a thorough education in how no one could play god. Fu Youdi, it turned out, had been secretly hoarding steel tools issued for work. The workers had long noticed that the "Chiefs'" tools were far superior to the crude iron implements they had used before—light, durable, staying sharp without frequent sharpening. Fu Youdi had calculated that Lingao lacked iron products and that tools were imported from the mainland, so these excellent implements should fetch good prices. Though tools were logged during issue, daily work made it impractical to check out and return them constantly—they were stored in a shed. Every few days, Fu Youdi had secretly hidden one away. Under mass exposure, the bruised and battered captain led Wu De to his hiding spot in the grass by the river and surrendered more than a dozen shovels, spades, and steel bars.

The transmigrators present stared at the pile in silence. Were we really smarter than the "natives"? Watching a prisoner stealthily steal items right under their noses, no one dared claim so.

Who would have thought Fu Youdi—meek and inarticulate just two months ago—would descend to this? Watching the workers' angry denunciations, Wu De grew even more convinced that seventeenth-century human nature was no different from the twenty-first.

But Fu Youdi's case exposed many unforeseen problems. No workers had reported his misconduct; they had silently seethed until finally exploding together in a characteristically Chinese-style resolution. Apparently, the prisoner-management policy had shortcomings.

I focused too much on internal contradictions, Wu De thought, rubbing his forehead in frustration. I only thought about keeping them disunited, unable to resist together. I never expected the prison boss I created would also tightly control his subordinates. Even my planted informants never reported on him out of fear. If Fu Youdi had been more than a petty miser—if he'd hidden those tools for a sudden revolt—there might have been casualties. The mutual restraint among people that he had counted on had completely failed to materialize.

Fundamentally, his starting point had been wrong, Wu De reflected. He was still operating on old experience. Though successful at personnel management and brainwashing, those methods only aimed at keeping people orderly, docile, and obedient. That wasn't enough for cultivating initiative. What they needed were local allies—the foundation on which the transmigrators' entire edifice would be built. Constant surveillance, control, and exploitation would never win these people's loyalty.

(End of Chapter)