Chapter 485 - Emergency Rescue and Disaster Relief
Xiong Buyou knew the county granary's situation well: the accounts and stored grain matched perfectly—it was just that the quality was far below standard. A large portion of the rough rice reserves consisted of aged grain that by modern standards was only fit for animal feed. There were barely a hundred-odd shi of rice fit for human consumption.
So Xiong Buyou had his sights set on the Ever-Normal Granary. Ancient states had very limited communication and transportation capabilities. For ordinary natural disasters, expecting the court to provide relief was unrealistic. In most cases, local officials had to handle things themselves. Besides the county granary, which the magistrate directly controlled, there were also community-stored grain reserves and similar warehouses.
The general idea was that local gentry and grain households would donate some grain each year to build up reserves for distribution during disaster years. The concept and method were sound—the execution, however, invariably went awry. Ever-Normal Granary reserves were often misappropriated by the government, leaving the system existing in name only. Lingao's Ever-Normal Granary building was impressively constructed, but for over a century, not a single grain of rice had been stored there.
Xiong Buyou's plan was to have the County Magistrate issue a notice calling on gentry and landlords to make "charitable contributions" to the Ever-Normal Granary. This kind of charade happened every year, and the gentry were long accustomed to it. When the magistrate came to "solicit donations," they would typically produce ten or twenty shi as a token gesture. This way, they could collect two or three hundred shi of grain.
"That's easy enough." Wu Mingjin was pleased that although the transmigrator collective held actual power over the yamen, they still came to consult him on everything. "I'll issue a notice."
He ordered a notice drafted calling on all gentry and grain households in the county to make charitable contributions to replenish the Ever-Normal Granary rice for disaster relief.
"The bulk of relief grain will still have to come from us." Xiong Buyou told Wu De. "I asked the County Magistrate—he says they can only solicit about two hundred shi of rough rice and miscellaneous grains annually."
"How much do we need for relief?"
"The Planning Committee is still tallying damage," Xiong Buyou said. "But two hundred shi plus what's in the county treasury definitely won't be enough."
"If we have to provide it, then we provide it. Being rulers means bearing some obligations." Wu De said with frustration. "Now we'll also have to exempt some grain taxes. This is turning out to be a losing proposition!"
Since the Australians took the lead, no one else dared refuse. This round of "charitable donations" was exceptionally enthusiastic. Soon four hundred shi were collected from various sources.
Wu De ordered some of the rice distributed to gruel stations throughout the region to be cooked and served to the refugees.
"Pay attention—keep the food rations adequate. They shouldn't fall below people's normal caloric intake levels." Wu De instructed Jiang Qiuyan, who was in charge of refugee health. "Also, bring in some pickled vegetables to ensure salt intake."
"Is that really necessary? Just maintain minimum physiological needs so they don't starve. Keep them alive until next spring."
"No, I don't intend to just keep them alive." Wu De said confidently. "They're going to keep themselves alive."
"What do you mean?"
"Next we'll need to feed them even better." Wu De outlined the plan he had already discussed with the Executive Committee.
His relief plan was simple: work-for-relief.
Work-for-relief had always been an effective method in China's history of disaster relief. It not only saved masses of disaster victims but also created many major public works projects. What had worked for the ancients would certainly work for modern people.
At the disaster relief meeting, the Executive Committee decided to use disaster victims from this calamity as the main labor force and begin comprehensive road construction during winter, including hardening all road surfaces.
"Experience has proven," Shan Daoqian said, "that pursuing cheap and fast construction of simple projects is actually the most uneconomical approach." He added, "The lesson this typhoon taught us is exactly that."
Damage to transportation and communication lines had been the most severe. The hastily-constructed roadbeds had already loosened after a summer of rain erosion. The typhoon had washed out more than a quarter of the total road mileage. Only the county seat-to-Nanbo highway had remained unobstructed—partly because inland areas suffered less from typhoons, and partly because this section had been the first to undergo roadbed and surface improvements to accommodate heavy vehicles.
Wen Desi said: "All disaster victims will be assigned to you as laborers. Working through March next year should be enough to repair all the roads. Never mind anything else—first priority is restoring all roads to service!"
"I'm afraid it won't be that fast..."
Wu Nanhai said: "Spring planting starts in March. We need to help disaster victims resume production and get them back on their land as quickly as possible..."
"The way I see it, why bother helping them resume production?" Ma Qianzhu said casually. "We don't need lots and lots of small agricultural producers. Let's use this opportunity to transform them into industrial workers. We'll buy back their land. This is a great chance to promote large-scale agriculture!"
This thinking went against the grain, jumping from simple relief straight to strategic considerations. The attendees exchanged knowing glances: not a bad idea. The transmigrator collective's guiding principle in agriculture was large-scale production. They didn't need a multitude of smallholders. Using a natural disaster to transition this group of farmers off the land wasn't just about increasing directly-controlled labor for the transmigrators—it could also serve to break down the old rural order.
"Since most people don't want to do land reform," Ma Qianzhu said, "we need to seize opportunities like this."
"Taking advantage of people's misfortune—isn't that a bit unseemly?" Wu Nanhai expressed concern.
"Without sheep eating men, how would there have been an Industrial Revolution?" Ma Qianzhu was unconcerned. "Besides, these are fair transactions. As long as there's no coercion, no one can object."
Thus the decision was made: all collected refugees would be converted on the spot into laborers under commune control, assigned housing and private plots according to commune member standards, with children enrolled in school.
Those willing to sell their land would have it purchased by the Agricultural Committee. Those unwilling could keep it—though in practice, once someone became a commune member with production and labor completely controlled by the commune, keeping land would only let it lie fallow anyway. Eventually they would sell to the Agricultural Committee regardless. This so-called "freedom to sell" was mere window dressing.
"These methods are really..." Wu Nanhai expressed regret.
"Compared to nationalizing all land, don't you think we're being quite merciful?" Wen Desi said. He had no interest in land reform games but great interest in comprehensive land nationalization.
Thus the fate of the several hundred already collected in refugee camps and the thousand-plus soon to be collected was decided. Their land gradually fell into Agricultural Committee hands. In some severely affected areas, entire villages' worth of land changed hands this way. However, the land gains weren't as great as imagined. Families with more land typically had better disaster resilience. Most refugees were economically disadvantaged poor peasants and tenant farmers.
Besides establishing refugee camps to receive fleeing disaster victims, the Civil Affairs Committee also conducted relief based on each village's disaster situation—disaster-affected villages were exempted from that year's "reasonable burden." For villages not severely affected with only crop damage, Wu De's relief plan was to have them engage in self-help production. Delong Grain Trading Company would provide loans for rebuilding homes and also lend seeds for buckwheat and other famine-relief crops—these grew quickly, were cold-resistant, and were very suitable for emergency planting in late autumn and early winter. By the following spring, they would lend disaster victims rice seeds and farm implement loans.
Calculations showed the currently mobilized grain was nowhere near sufficient. The seeds alone for spring planting would be a major expense.
With modern management experience and large numbers of well-trained, certified low-level administrative personnel, disaster relief quickly got on track. The scenes of refugees begging throughout the county seat soon disappeared, replaced by orderly refugee camps. Meanwhile, relief operations for affected villages proceeded methodically.
But Wu De wasn't entirely reassured. A major characteristic of grassroots administration was that no matter how good the intentions and determination at the top, it was very difficult to control every low-level administrator's actions—especially when regulations and systems were imperfect and had loopholes. A single grassroots administrator's malfeasance was enough to tarnish the image of all administrative personnel. This was a situation he absolutely didn't want to see.
From ancient times to the present, post-disaster relief invariably became a feast for local power-holders. This was an open secret. Even the court was helpless—knowing full well that relief funds and grain sent down would be skimmed at every level, with barely a tenth reaching disaster victims, they still had to keep sending it. Otherwise, natural disasters would spark popular uprisings—and sometimes even after allocating funds, rebellions happened anyway. The important difference between a flourishing era and a declining era was that in the former, some disaster relief actually reached the victims, while in the latter, it was completely divided up and pocketed.
"Ultimately, it comes down to declining administrative capacity." Wu De said in conversation with Ran Yao. "In flourishing times, institutions operate normally, and official corruption hasn't yet affected administrative execution capability. As corruption becomes increasingly severe, the administrative system's execution capability declines along with it."
Now, for disaster relief, many students still in training programs had been deployed to front-line work. Through their hands, large quantities of relief materials were being distributed—and much of this material, for anyone with intent, wouldn't be difficult to embezzle. Mixing some sand and chaff into rough rice, as long as the amounts were controlled, would absolutely escape notice. And common people didn't possess modern citizens' keen awareness of reporting and defending their rights.
Registering disaster victims was another task with plenty of exploitable loopholes—just like the welfare programs Wu De had seen in the past: people who needed assistance didn't have it, while many living comfortably collected welfare and played mahjong. Given that modern governments with powerful grassroots control still left so many loopholes, how much worse would it be for the transmigrator collective operating under conditions dozens of times more difficult? Wu De knew perfectly well he couldn't personally verify whether each person receiving relief grain or tax exemptions had actually suffered disaster. If anyone wanted to muddy the waters, the chances of going undetected were high.
"You mean you want us to do anti-corruption work?" Ran Yao understood his meaning.
(End of Chapter)