Chapter 524 - Problems Surfacing

The subsidy amount was roughly equivalent to the average price of an ordinary female slave aged sixteen to twenty-five in the Guangdong-Guangxi region, using the Guangzhou human-market price as a benchmark. Specialty "merchandise" such as trained "thin horses" was not factored in.

Anyone receiving the subsidy who wished to purchase a slave would pay the purchase price to the organization and entrust the caretaker cabinet to handle procurement collectively. Those without such intentions could spend the money however they pleased. Anyone who did not currently want to buy an indigenous girl could save the funds and use them later to acquire a Slavic mare.

"At the company where I used to work, the firm organized summer travel. Originally, routes were arranged uniformly; the company footed the bill, but people still complained. In the end, they switched to handing out travel allowances directly—several price tiers, clearly labeled. Want the cheap option? Fine. Want the expensive one? Pay the difference yourself. Don't want to go at all? Also fine. Everyone was satisfied."

This approach had several advantages. First, it accommodated transmigrators who could not or did not wish to partake; everyone received an equal public-funded benefit. The act of purchasing a slave then became a personal choice—buy as many as you could afford, at whatever price point you preferred. If no supply was currently available, wait until there was. This fully met the needs of all.

Second, it made settling past accounts easier.

"Women already allocated—including cases like Chang Shide—would be impossible to untangle if we insisted on pursuing them. It would only hurt comradely feelings and harm unity. Under this proposal, we can declare: anyone who has already received a personal secretary—whether officially assigned or purchased with public funds—will not receive the maid subsidy this time. Those in excess possession of slave girls simply reimburse the caretaker cabinet for the price, and the matter is closed."

"Complete monetization of distribution," Ma Jia summarized. He had not expected Jixin, that perpetually glum-faced fellow, to think so broadly.

"Exactly. Only this way can we quantify 'people,'" Jixin said. "Of course, we also need to organize the supply. Money without goods becomes an empty promise. I suggest we forget about Japanese women: the distance is far, and the Shogunate won't support exporting women anyway. By comparison, Vietnamese women are not hard to procure. Why not have the Leizhou Station purchase a batch? I hear women from northern Vietnam are of good quality. If no one buys them, they can be sent to the textile mill as slave labor."

"Good," Ma Jia said. "Finalize your proposal and post it right away."

After online discussions and written submissions, followed by several rounds of debate and voting, the personal-secretary allocation plan was finalized in early January 1630. Jixin's proposal won majority approval; when it came to women, everyone was skeptical of everyone else's tastes. Some who had brought wives or girlfriends had not yet won over their partners and were already heartbroken at having to forfeit this opportunity. At least a cash distribution left them a glimmer of hope.

Of the Five Hundred, only one held an explicitly opposing stance: Du Wen. Hearing that the maid issue was being openly discussed, Du Wen stormed into the Executive Committee compound and shoved open the door to Ma Qianzhu's office.

"Director! What is the meaning of this? How has our organization become so vulgar—so depraved?" Tears welled in Du Wen's eyes; she was on the verge of crying.

Ma Qianzhu went on sorting the documents on his desk, ignoring her.

Du Wen paid no heed; she plopped into the rattan chair across from him. Dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, she said indignantly, "You're a principal leader—why have you said nothing about this? Trampling on women's dignity and personal rights like this is outrageous!" Once she got started, she could not stop: how certain cadres treated their assigned female secretaries as concubines—working them by day and sleeping with them at night; how women were never considered when promoting indigenous cadres; how indigenous women laborers received no special accommodation but were instead assigned much of the heavy, exhausting work… She concluded by proposing that the Second Executive Committee should include a seat for female transmigrators.

In short, it was a comprehensive indictment of the current state of the transmigrated collective's women's work. Du Wen vehemently demanded that the Executive Committee rectify this. Naturally, she also hoped the "buy-slave-girls-and-distribute-women" plan would be scrapped. Her counter-proposal was to let people "fall in love freely"—to give indigenous women full choice and respect, rather than treating them like merchandise to be appraised and purchased.

Ma Qianzhu continued organizing files throughout Du Wen's torrent of complaints. Only when she paused did he speak:

"Ah Wen, this tendency of yours is very bad." He leaned back in his rattan chair. "A leader's first duty is to unite the majority. Do these so-called issues you've raised unite the majority?" His voice was soft, his tone mild, but the severity beneath silenced Du Wen.

"Think about it: of these five hundred, how many are women, how many are men? What is a basic principle of democracy? You should thank the Party and government for the sixty years they spent drumming the concepts of gender equality and women's-rights protection into the public. The inertia of those ideas hasn't yet vanished from most of the men in this collective. But those who would do as they please have long existed." Ma Qianzhu's voice grew sterner. "Do you want to give them a chance to take full advantage of democracy?"

Du Wen shivered. Hearing her most revered Director Ma speak so solemnly, her former boiling zeal instantly cooled by ninety-nine percent. She twisted her handkerchief: "Aren't you a principal leader of the Executive Committee?"

"The Executive Committee has been dissolved. I am now serving in the caretaker cabinet, and this term ends in less than thirty days."

"That's just a formality…"

"Formality or not, public opinion must be respected," Ma Qianzhu said. "You'd do better to focus on your theoretical writings."

Seeing that further argument was futile, Du Wen took her leave. At the door, she could not help adding, "Director! Are you just going to let them do as they please?"

Ma Qianzhu did not respond.

After leaving his office, Du Wen was still unwilling to give up. She continued canvassing privately—only to find, to her disappointment, that the female transmigrators seemed uninterested in the issue. Some said their boyfriends or husbands would never want any "slave girl"; others remarked that if it was just about buying someone to do housework, they would like to buy one too.

Astonishingly, one girl said that, so long as her position as the principal wife was secure, she would not mind if her man had a few concubines. "Keep the number to four or fewer, and I'll consider it—but I must have absolute authority!"

Reading such comments, Du Wen wanted to weep but had no tears. She left the dormitory, muttering under her breath, "Backward! A disgrace to women!"

At last she found Li Mei. Li Mei had been distracted for days—not over the secretary-distribution business, but over news of the Executive Committee's dissolution and the upcoming Second General Assembly.

The Li family had been swept into the transmigration by pure accident; they had become unwilling members of the collective. Yet over the past year and a half, they had done rather well. Li Mei even felt that getting sucked through the wormhole was a blessing in disguise. In the original timeline, she and her husband were already retired. Her daughter-in-law's career had been smooth, but without a powerful patron, upward mobility was limited.

In this timeline, her old man had become a naval adviser. Judging by his health, he could easily serve another decade or more; once the Navy's cadre roster expanded, he could retire at least as a lieutenant general or admiral. As for her daughter-in-law—currently Director of the Li-Region Affairs Office and concurrently Precinct Station Political Instructor—Li Mei estimated that whether she developed along the ethnic-affairs track or the public-security track, her future rank would not be low; eventually, she could turn into a vice-ministerial figure.

Her son's situation was less satisfactory, but the family's basic standing in this new world was secure. The next step was to work on elevating the family's social status and accumulating more wealth.

Her Women's Cooperative had been bustling for a year. Strictly speaking, it had not yet turned a profit: goods, building materials, and construction labor had all been obtained on credit—she had to use revenue to service those debts. After deducting costs, she still owed the Finance and Monetary Commission the agreed-upon twenty percent of net profits. She had reinvested the remainder entirely.

At present, the Women's Cooperative's balance sheet was far from satisfactory. But as immigrants continued to pour in and East Gate Market flourished, business was improving day by day.

Yet the dissolution of the Executive Committee and the ensuing discussion about the Second General Assembly gave her a foreboding feeling. She seldom visited the internal BBS herself, but a few days ago her son had shown her the discussion pages, and they worried her.

Among the limited agenda-item discussions, half targeted the Women's Cooperative. Many people questioned the enterprise's legitimacy and whether it infringed on public rights. More seriously, some accused the Cooperative of "embezzling public property—a tool of corruption for certain Executive Committee individuals."

"This is a grave injustice," Li Mei complained at the dinner table to her whole family. "All I did was take the Gou Family Village spoils on credit from the Executive Committee to sell. The proceeds from those sales I turned over to the Executive Committee in full. Plus, unsold inventory has already been settled. I just took a margin as a sales-service fee. How is that embezzlement?"

"I was against your starting a company in the first place. See? Here comes the trouble," Ming Lang grumbled. Discontents at being a mere nobody all along, he was now doubly annoyed at his mother's meddling. "Never mind whether you're being wronged—the 'infringing on public interests' label is stuck to you now and won't come off."

Ming Qiu said, "You really didn't think this through! Trading for profit is one thing, but what you're doing is essentially official profiteering—and monopoly profiteering at that. Pocketing a margin on the transmigrated collective's war spoils, a no-capital business—how could people not be jealous?!"

"If I don't make a margin, how am I supposed to pay off the Cooperative's debts?" Li Mei was unconvinced. "Building the premises, hiring workers, renovations—it all costs money; it wasn't free. Besides, the whole transmigrator community owns a twenty-percent stake; I've handed every penny of that profit share over to the Finance Commission." She went on, "As for taxes—there isn't even a tax bureau yet. It's not that I don't want to pay."

Mu Min had been silent, but now she spoke up: "Mom, I think you should hand over this Cooperative. Keeping it is nothing but trouble. You like staying active—why not take a cadre post at the Commerce Commission? They're short-staffed there. Why put yourself through this hassle—not making much money and being called corrupt? Is it worth it?"

Li Mei thought: right now, it's not making much, but someday it'll be on the level of Walmart. Giving it up? She was truly reluctant.

But what happened next made her even more anxious. Ding Ding suddenly showed up at the Cooperative's office and retrieved the application form he had submitted in Pan Pan's name. He even returned the share certificate and the Cooperative's 1628–1629 fiscal-year financial report distributed to shareholders.

Ding Ding refused to explain why he was suddenly withdrawing his stake; he said only that he and Pan Pan "should focus on their primary duties and not be distracted by other matters."

Li Mei had weathered political storms. She knew this move of Ding Ding's was called "drawing a clear line." It alarmed her. Ding Ding was head of the Propaganda Department; his preemptive line-drawing—was the Executive Committee about to move against the Cooperative? Or had public-opinion pressure grown so severe that Ding Ding felt compelled to extricate himself?

For days, this had been her worry. She was loath to surrender the Cooperative. She had poured immense effort into building it to this scale, and she could see that Lingao's commercial boom was only beginning. As the transmigrated collective's power expanded, her Cooperative would one day become a commercial empire.

But if she did not hand it over voluntarily and a mass campaign descended, let alone a cooperative—the whole family might not survive. She had witnessed the fury of mass movements firsthand; even if her old man were a naval marshal, it would be useless.

Just as she wavered, Du Wen arrived, fuming. She had just seen Mu Min—only to have Mu Min laugh out loud at her spiel and declare, "Men are creatures without endurance—nothing unusual about it." Even if Ming Lang wanted to take a girl, she said, she would not mind. "She'd just be a concubine—useful for cooking, minding children, washing clothes. If she doesn't behave or tries to stir up trouble between husband and wife, beat her until she obeys." Mu Min added, "Let her learn how formidable the principal wife is."

Du Wen's unexpected visit initially made Li Mei think she had come to discuss the Cooperative—after all, Du Wen was also a shareholder and had been one of its most enthusiastic early supporters. To her surprise, the moment Du Wen sat down she launched into talk of "personal secretaries" and "women's rights being violated" and the like, which was quite annoying. But Du Wen was, after all, a cadre; Li Mei had to humor her. She brewed a pot of tea and sat down to listen.

(End of Chapter)