Chapter 159: Winning Hearts and Minds (Part 2)
"Of course you can. As long as everyone stands united, none of this is merely a dream." Wei Aiwen began painting a vision of the future. "You've all been here a month now. How has life been treating you?"
"Nothing to complain about—new clothes, good meals. Where else could we find work this good?"
"They're even giving us shoes," another soldier added, his voice cracking. "When I got my first pair, I couldn't bring myself to wear them. I've never owned such fine shoes in all my life." He wiped tears from his eyes. "Then the Chief told us we had to wear them, that worn-out pairs would be replaced. Twenty-some years I've lived, and I've never had proper shoes..." His words dissolved into sobs.
In truth, these "fine shoes" weren't even cloth shoes—just straw sandals with fabric soles and straps woven from cloth strips. Only marginally more comfortable than pure straw sandals, but to men who had known nothing better, they might as well have been silk slippers.
"But—" Wei Aiwen's tone shifted, darkening. "We poor folk live well now. Do you think the landlords, the qianhu commanders, the bandits will simply sit back and watch us enjoy ourselves? Consider your own experience—you thought reclaiming land in Qiongzhou would mean a better life. What actually happened?"
Every eye in the crowd widened. Wang Tao sensed the moment was ripe and ground his teeth with theatrical fury.
"No! They'll never let us keep the fruits of our labor!"
"Exactly!" Wei Aiwen's voice rose. "Generation after generation, we commoners have been ground down by gentry and officials. They live high while we scrape by, and whenever their coffers run low, they come to rob us poor folk. Before, we had no backbone—we swallowed our tears and our rage. But now? Now the short-hair masters stand behind us. We have their iron ships and fast guns. We have weapons in our own hands. Can we let them continue as before?"
"That depends on whether my gun agrees." Wang Tao struck a heroic pose in the style of Li Yuhe from The Red Lantern.
"We won't agree!" The crowd's emotions finally ignited. The soldiers who had enlisted from the Commune—those with the most vested interest in this new order—were visibly moved, their faces hard with determination.
"And if they try to take it by force?"
"Then we beat the hell out of them!"
...
Wei Aiwen saw the moment had reached its peak. "United together, we can hold our heads high. And we'll have better lives too—no more foraging for weeds. Daily white rice. Fish and meat on the table. Good clothes and sturdy shoes on every back and foot. Everywhere we'll build multi-story buildings and install air conditioning. We'll enjoy warm winters and cool summers. Electric lights will illuminate our rooms—ten thousand times brighter than kerosene. Children will go to school and study. There'll be compulsory education for all. Our nation will prosper—manned spaceships soaring through the heavens, hosting the Olympics!" He caught himself mid-flight. Wei Aiwen groaned inwardly—he'd gotten excited and let his mouth run unchecked, saying things he absolutely shouldn't have. Fortunately, nobody seemed to register "air conditioning" or "Olympics." To these men, the promise of a life free from foraging was the most compelling vision of all.
When the meeting ended, Ma Qianzhu grabbed Wei Aiwen and thrust a thumb skyward. "Little Wei! You're something else! The meeting was a brilliant success. Everyone recalling their past suffering, hearts burning with hatred. With your approach—at the very least—these men are ours now."
Wei Aiwen beamed. "Piece of cake! I've got plenty more ideas for the future."
Inside, he was weeping: My last Coca-Cola—traded away for all that information... Yu Eshui, you beast!
The next day, Ma Qianzhu compiled Wei Aiwen's methods into training materials and distributed them to company commanders for study. Wang Tao was reluctantly "discharged" from the barracks—now technically an "enlisted soldier" rather than a "Chief"—and every company invited him to speak at their themed meetings. This corporate trainer had always earned his living by talking. As an amateur pingshu storyteller, his tales were vivid and emotionally rich, filled with suspense that kept audiences hanging on every word. Before long, his scripts grew increasingly elaborate, until Ma Qianzhu had to remind him not to overdo it.
But "speaking bitterness" education alone wasn't sufficient for their purposes. Drawing on Xi Yazhou's experience in Salt Village, Ma Qianzhu organized the compilation of a handbook centered on the transmigrators' slogan: "Eliminate tyranny, Protect borders, Secure the people."
Simultaneously, they selected the most engaged soldiers from the Commune and provided them with specialized political training.
"The core of political work is cultivating loyalty to us," Ma Qianzhu emphasized at the New Army officers' meeting. "Personally, I believe commoners don't harbor any natural love for officialdom. To them, government is simply authority to be obeyed—nothing like our modern concept of a nation-state."
Cultivating such loyalty couldn't rely on slogans alone. No political theory could match the visceral power of self-interest. After World War II, the CCP had launched massive land reform in liberated zones—capturing hearts, establishing stable bases, and securing endless reserves of manpower. That approach had proven more effective than ten thousand lectures on class consciousness.
By providing the New Army with living standards that far exceeded those of ordinary local commoners—and even their fellow Commune members—the transmigrators ensured these soldiers would cherish their new lives and view the newcomers as great benefactors. Once their interests were bound together, these men would fight and die for them. For the rootless, utterly alien transmigrators, tempting with tangible benefits was the most effective and fastest method available.
As for Ma Qianzhu's soldiers' committees—under transmigrator management, they had barely begun to take shape. Though many doubted the wisdom of soldier democracy, citing counter-examples throughout history, Ma Qianzhu persisted. His reasoning was simple: after the Sanwan Reorganization, soldiers' committees and Party branches established in every company had produced near-magical effects in transforming old armies. It was like a cheat code—something almost too powerful to be believed.
If the method had worked on Nationalist armies, then their New Army, built from scratch with no bad habits to break, would surely benefit as well.
Naturally, Ma Qianzhu couldn't implement Party branches in the companies—the Executive Committee's right-wingers would have eaten him alive. But soldiers' committees operated under the protective banner of "democracy," and nobody could object to that. To demonstrate the committee's importance, he personally chaired the battalion-level soldiers' committee.
The soldiers' committee had five core tasks: participation in military management, maintenance of discipline, oversight of company finances, conducting mass work, and political education for the soldiers.
The structure completely imitated the Red Army era. At the lowest level, the company, full-company soldier assemblies elected five to nine members for the company committee executive, with one chairman selected from among them. At the battalion level, one representative per five soldiers formed the battalion soldiers' committee, with eleven to thirteen people forming the battalion executive and one chairman. This pattern continued upward through the ranks. No committee maintained standing bodies.
The relationship between committees and military command was carefully defined: committees could only suggest or question specific issues—never directly interfere with or handle them. When soldiers met, commanders were required to attend; no closed-door sessions were permitted. In wartime, commanders could suspend committee activities entirely, preventing the chaos of extreme democratization.
Currently, the transmigrator-managed committees understood nothing about democracy in practice. "Chiefs" required elections—so they held elections. What purpose they served, and how they were supposed to function—everyone remained thoroughly confused. Ma Qianzhu knew this phase was merely pro forma, a foundation being laid for something greater. But he rejected the reasoning that "democracy requires proper foundations." Sometimes, eating half-cooked rice was necessary.
The transmigrators decided that soldiers would begin with the simplest forms of self-management: squad housekeeping, cleaning duties, and food management. Once soldiers saw their interests genuinely protected—once they developed a sense of ownership over their units—enthusiasm would naturally arise, and responsibility for unit construction would strengthen on its own.
Tian Liang was finally released from the Bopu quarantine camp. During his weeks of quarantine, he'd attended daily classes in literacy and simple handicrafts. His body had grown strong on regular meals, and the "textbooks" delivered to the camp each day were now actually legible to him. Tian Liang was pleased—clearly, the masters planned to promote them somehow. At minimum, they'd become stewards of some kind. Why else would anyone bother teaching slaves to read?
In his spare time, he sat with companions of similar age behind the barbed wire, watching the lively scenes unfold on the training grounds across the water. His closest friends in quarantine were three brothers, all surnamed Ruan—renamed Ruan Xiao'er, Ruan Xiaowu, and Ruan Xiaoqi upon arrival.
By now, even fools had realized that the slave-buying masters weren't ordinary gentry. What landlord trained private armies like this? Tian Liang had encountered village militias before—during his years of wandering, he'd suffered at their hands and watched them rob lone merchants on the roads. But those yokels couldn't begin to compare with the men drilling on these grounds. He had even witnessed garrison troops drilling in Guangzhou—supposedly elite regulars. Yet even they seemed inferior to these soldiers.
These men had shaved heads and short jackets, and everything about them radiated efficiency and discipline. Their formation marching was perfectly aligned—even their legs rose in geometrically straight lines. They drilled with constant chanting that echoed across the water. It was eye-opening, though one thing puzzled him: the soldiers carried wooden sticks rather than real weapons. Could such wealthy masters not afford proper spears?
Strangest of all was the thunder. There was no rain, yet constant rumbling rolled across the sky, sometimes continuing all day without pause. Later, he learned it was the masters firing cannons. The masters had cannons? The mystery only deepened.
Finally, one day, he was summoned with his belongings. The time for assignments had come.
Boys under thirteen went to "Primary School"—reportedly for studying. At fifteen, Tian Liang wasn't eligible. Those over thirteen with good arithmetic skills or other talents went to "Technical School." His group, lacking any special talents, was swept into the "Military-Political School."
This school, proposed by Ma Qianzhu, had no buildings of its own. The children were all issued uniforms and assigned to the Training Battalion's "Cadet Squad"—marching alongside the adults and carrying the same wooden sticks.
Tian Liang wanted to know where Guo Fu had been assigned—but girls' assignments were handled on different days. Later, he learned from the food-delivery aunty that girls under thirteen also went to Primary School. Older girls were sent to Technical School.
"I heard that after learning skills at school, they become maids for the 'Chiefs,'" the aunty confided, her voice tinged with envy. "Blessed children!"
(End of Chapter)