Chapter 216: The Conference (Part 4)
Delegates like Fu Buer arrived at East Gate Market over the course of several days. Some were visiting transmigrator-controlled territory for the first time; others were regulars here. Regardless of who they were, the safety, cleanliness, and convenience of life under transmigrator control left deep impressions on all of them. For many, the county seat had been the most prosperous place they'd ever seen. But East Gate Market's prosperity was on an entirely different level. Even those who had traveled far and visited Guangzhou, the premier port of South China, could see that East Gate Market's attention to detail surpassed it.
The delegates' spending at the market greatly stimulated consumption. Though each delegate received meal tickets, their attendants were not provided for. Moreover, many delegates wanted to try the "baldies'" food—especially the scrambled eggs with tomatoes at the Commercial Hall restaurant. Its sweet-sour flavor whetted the appetite and went perfectly with rice. There were also green, tender pods—the staff said they were called "Holland beans"—fried up sweet and crisp. Vegetable florets shaped like flowers, some white and some green. The white ones were firm and crunchy, the green ones soft and tender. Each had its own distinctive flavor.
The Commercial Hall restaurant's cooks had been selected from among the chefs who'd come over from the Gou manor. Though Ming-era cooking habits and techniques differed from modern ones, professionals were professionals. After training from several "gourmands," they quickly surpassed the transmigrators who had been filling in as cooks in the canteen. The Commercial Hall restaurant hired them as soon as it opened. The county-wide conference was the perfect opportunity to advertise the establishment.
Some pleasure-seeking gentry simply gave their meal tickets to their attendants and arranged their own board at the restaurant with silver. Sales of scrambled eggs with tomatoes surged so much that eggs became scarce even in the transmigrator canteen—scrambled eggs with tomatoes turned into tomato egg-drop soup, which drew many complaints.
Wu Nanhai had no complaints. Supplying various new vegetable varieties to the conference delegates was his idea. Compared to high-yield grain crops, farmers in the past had no motivation to grow new vegetable varieties—after all, greens and cabbage were edible enough, so why bother with another variety? Diverse vegetables were the demand of the leisured classes. To get farmers to grow them, one first had to win over the stomachs of the wealthy and idle, letting them create the demand.
The conference organizers deliberately let these delegates eat, drink, play, and sightsee at East Gate Market for a few days, letting them fully experience that the sky was bluer, the water greener, and the food tastier in transmigrator-controlled territory. Only then did the general meeting begin.
The County-wide Militia Joint Defense Conference—or as later histories would call it, the First Lingao Political Consultative Conference—officially convened on the second day of the second month, the day the dragon raises its head.
Early in the morning, dedicated reception staff came to the inns to escort delegates into the city. The meeting venue was the open-air cinema inside Baireng City. This cinema had fairly complete facilities, especially the installed sound amplification equipment, making it very convenient for meetings.
The delegates all changed into their finest clothes. When they came out, they saw the reception staff were young men and women. The boys wore near-black navy blue short jackets with two patch pockets and stand collars. The jackets opened down the center rather than to the left or right, with a row of straight black round wooden buttons, fastened tightly at the collar. Combined with their inch-short hair, they looked clean and sharp. The girls wore similar navy blue tops in a pullover style, with a handkerchief-like cloth backing at the shoulders, and blue pleated long skirts below. Both were simple and attractive. Only their hair was somewhat alarming—clearly they'd been shaved bald recently, and their hair was still just short stubble.
The reception staff were students from Lingao National School. These children, originally purchased from Guangzhou, had received over two months of education, learned literacy, and been repeatedly subjected to ideological conditioning. They were relatively reliable personnel now. Having them serve as reception staff was practice in social skills—after all, they would be the main source of cadres for the transmigrator regime in the future.
Originally, Xiao Zishan had considered the issue of propriety between the sexes and wanted to send only boys. But Du Wen made a fuss, calling it discrimination against women. Yu Eshui also pointed out that so-called propriety between the sexes had never applied in the countryside, especially in southern rural areas. Women were the main force in agricultural production, so rural women generally didn't bind their feet. Appearing in public was quite normal for them. Having female reception staff would at most make delegates assume they were servant girls bought by the short-hairs.
"Please make sure your delegate credentials are properly displayed. Thank you." Li Yuanyuan held an electric megaphone, waving a small triangular flag in her hand, constantly calling out like a tour guide. "Please maintain order and don't cut in line. Attendants cannot enter the venue. Leave your attendants in the market area—we have staff to take care of them."
Having Li Yuanyuan play this role was meant to make delegates aware of women's status among the transmigrators, giving them some psychological preparation for future measures to improve women's rights. Though there were no feminists on the Executive Committee besides Du Wen, and they had no interest in protecting women's rights per se, in this timeline, liberating women meant liberating productive forces. Everyone understood this principle.
Delegates gathered by their respective du and tu administrative units. Each tu had several students as guides, with the leading student also carrying a small flag marked with the specific location—Lingao X Du X Tu. To accommodate illiterate delegates, the flags also bore different plant and animal designs for identification.
After each group was assembled, students led them into the city. Though East Gate Market was always bustling and plenty of locals traveled the roads daily, the interior of Baireng City had always been tightly guarded. Though the earthen walls weren't high, guard towers and gun platforms lined the top, with much barbed wire. The outer moat was several meters deep. Even police and New Army soldiers trained by the transmigrator regime rarely had the chance to enter this forbidden zone within forbidden zones. Rumors about what lay inside had proliferated throughout the county—some said it was like a fairy realm, others compared it to the Buddhist hell of Avici. Opinions varied wildly, so delegates were intensely curious about Baireng City's interior. Now with the chance to see it for themselves, everyone felt rather eager.
Once inside, everything was indeed different from outside. The streets were paved with brick and stone like East Gate Market, with trees planted on both sides. Black-painted wooden poles lined the roadside, topped with white porcelain caps. Below the caps were glass balls—their purpose unknown. The buildings here were different from outside too. Outside, buildings were either red or blue-gray brick, but inside, all were blue-and-white striped houses, perfectly square and extremely orderly. The delegates suddenly realized these buildings' walls and roofs were entirely made of iron!
This discovery was simply sensational. Iron wasn't valuable per se, but in Lingao it was absolutely rare. All iron products here were imported from the mainland. The whole county had only one blacksmith in the county seat who could repair farm tools and make simple daily iron implements. Larger items like proper farming tools were beyond his capability. These overseas visitors not only arrived in great iron ships, but even their houses were made of iron! This alone was enough to inspire awe.
"It's glass!" a delegate suddenly exclaimed in amazement.
Not white window paper, not the mica sheets used by wealthy households, but large sheets of glass, gleaming in rows on the buildings, reflecting Lingao's winter sunlight. A low but utterly amazed gasp escaped from the crowd of delegates.
Huang Bingkun walked along with the group, inwardly acknowledging defeat—no wonder his father, leading forces assembled by Old Master Wu from across the county, couldn't breach this fortress. The quantity of iron inside alone was enough to terrify anyone. Huang Bingkun hadn't participated in the attack on Baireng Fortress. After returning, his father Huang Shoutong wouldn't say a word about the battle. But from the militiamen who barely escaped with their lives, he learned that the enemy's firearms were devastatingly powerful—their side couldn't even withstand a single exchange. He'd thought the militiamen were exaggerating, but now he saw they'd actually underestimated these "baldies."
He thought about how he and his elder brother had originally argued against attending this conference—not only leaving Third Brother's death unavenged, but having to flatter the killers? Thinking of his third brother killed by the baldies, Huang Bingkun still felt irrepressible resentment. But his father had firmly insisted he attend. It seemed Father understood the "baldies'" true strength best.
For now he could only bide his time, observing the baldies' situation, waiting for the imperial armies to someday come and suppress them—then he'd have his revenge.
With this mindset, he observed more carefully than others. He noticed that the buildings here seemed scattered at first glance, but on closer inspection, their layout followed certain principles. Few buildings stood alone; most were arranged in clusters. The gaps between buildings were either sealed with brick and stone, or additional walls and the baldies' distinctive wire fences were built around the cluster perimeters. Thick, high bastions defended each corner. Each cluster had only one entrance, guarded by a small, sturdy guardhouse. The clusters were connected by roads, with various watchtowers and gun platforms at staggered heights—even without firearms, archery could seal off the approaches very effectively.
Though Huang Bingkun was a xiucai, influenced by his father and with practical experience repelling bandits, he understood military matters quite well. With the baldies' tight defenses, government troops couldn't break through without five or six thousand men and Western cannons. Huang Bingkun's spirits sank further.
Huang Shoutong's instructions to his son had been simple: right now, no one in the county had the strength to oppose them. Hard resistance would definitely lead to no good outcome.
"The baldies are playing a game of chess in Lingao," Huang Shoutong had said during the briefing before his departure. "How large this game is, I still can't see. But they're playing like masters—move by move pressing forward. Our little Huang Family Village can't resist them. The only strategy is to 'delay.'
"The baldies' ambitions are plain for all to see, but the gentry and wealthy households still harbor thoughts of 'using bandits to control bandits,'" Huang Shoutong continued. "Since the baldies have occupied this county, they naturally won't tolerate other bandits encroaching. So they'll certainly go all out to suppress bandits and repel pirates. Our county has long suffered from bandit troubles, and most gentry are short-sighted—they'll find it hard not to be tempted.
"The general trend is what it is—we can't swim against the current. Fortunately, this county has two or three hundred villages, with at least three hundred people attending the conference. Levying grain and labor involves tangled and complex interests—even officials find it thorny, let alone a few overseas baldies. As long as you subtly prompt those wealthy households in small matters, there'll naturally be those who raise objections. The more discussion, the more complications; the more talk, the more delay."
Huang Bingkun thought his father's "delay" strategy was sound, but when it came to actual implementation, how should he proceed? He was pondering this when two sedan chairs approached from behind. One was an official sedan with its curtain raised, carrying the County Vice-Magistrate Wu Ya. He couldn't see who was in the second chair, but he guessed it was probably Old Master Wu's secretary Wang Zhaomin.
Even these two key figures from the county yamen had come—these baldies certainly commanded respect. But this only increased his sense of pressure. The yamen sending representatives meant Old Master Wu had reached some sort of agreement with the baldies—not just tacit acceptance, but possibly even support for their actions.
These officials—good for nothing but making things worse, Huang Bingkun thought bitterly. Probably bought off with the baldies' silver. They'd just serve their term and leave, leaving endless troubles for the local people.
Arriving at the shell-shaped tiered cinema, the delegates found it quite novel. But soon, guided by the male and female students, they took their seats by du and tu districts. On the central stage were some strange shiny objects trailing long black leather cords. A short-hair walked up and put his mouth to one. Suddenly, a booming "Wei, wei!" sound filled the entire venue, startling everyone.
Thus began the First Consultative Conference. The Executive Committee had spent several weeks preparing for this meeting. Of course, the so-called "consultative conference" wasn't really about consultation—it was about notification. The goal was to make the local villages preliminarily accept transmigrator rule.
Following the principle of slowly boiling the frog, the transmigrators' first-step goal was simple: levy grain and labor from the villages. The transmigrators weren't fairy godmothers who could endlessly pour silver into this land—that would only cause inflation, and the transmigrators currently lacked the light industrial products needed to recapture that currency.
Light industrial products required a complete industrial system. This system couldn't be built by the transmigrators alone with the two thousand locals under their control. They had to obtain broader labor support from the local population. Only then could they free their most reliable commune members from the simplest labor-intensive industries like logging, quarrying, and brick-making, and train them as Lingao's first generation of industrial workers.
The transmigrator regime's currency was backed by grain reserves. To guarantee currency security while supporting an ever-growing non-agricultural industrial population, they had to stockpile more grain. Peaceful means like purchasing alone couldn't effectively guarantee grain security. This was point one.
Second, only through grain levies—a disguised form of taxation—could villages in the natural economy feel the change in rulers. At the same time, this would show them the transmigrator regime's superiority over the traditional government in how taxes were used.
(End of Chapter)