Chapter 563 - Sanya City

Hu Xun had no choice. Resistance was impossible. He surrendered his jurisdiction, his warehouse filled with scavenged goods, and essentially his dignity.

The natives of Anyoule Market hid behind shuttered windows, peering through cracks at the new masters walking their streets. These "sea pirates" wore matching tight-waisted jackets and carried long muskets, moving with eerie discipline. There was no looting, no burning, no screams of rape. The tension in the air began to ease.

Then, the gongs sounded.

"All shopkeepers! Ship captains! Heads of households! Assemble at the East Temple!"

No one dared refuse. They filtered out of their homes, a timid herd.

He Fanghui stood on the stone steps of the temple, holding an oversized tin megaphone. He was the appointed Civil Affairs Liaison for the Sanya Region, which effectively made him the Emperor of Anyoule Market.

He swept his gaze over the crowd, inhaled deeply to summon his qi, and bellowed like an auctioneer.

"Fellow Townspeople!"

His voice boomed in perfect Hainan dialect. For good measure, he could have repeated it in Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew, or Wenchang dialect. He was a linguistic chameleon, and he used it to dominate the space.

"By order of the Sanya Construction Command, I announce the following!"

First, requisition. All grain, materials, and assets were subject to Australian seizure. Receipts would be issued; repayment would come... later. Second, curfew. Martial law after dark. Third, corvée labor. All able-bodied residents were now employees of the Construction Command. No one leaves the town without a pass.

"If you obey," He Fanghui shouted, his tin voice ringing off the tiles, "your families and property are under our protection. Follow the Police Team's orders. Do not resist. Do not delay!"

He paused, letting the silence hang. Then he waved a hand.

"Bring them up!"

The police dragged three ragged men onto the stage. They were the looters caught during the surrender.

"This is the price of disorder," He Fanghui stated, his voice ice-cold. "String them up."

A crude gallows had already been erected in the square. The police moved with practiced efficiency. No trials, no speeches. Just the kick of a stool and the snap of rope.

The three men jerked and danced in the air.

Below, the crowd trembled. Several men wet themselves. The message was received: The new masters are civilized, but they are not soft.

Next, He Fanghui turned to the ship captains. "Hand over your manifests. We will purchase necessary cargo at Guangdong market prices. Unnecessary cargo, you keep. Your ships are yours, but your crews are ours until the trade winds return."

The captains handed over their papers with shaking hands.

He Fanghui commandeered the town's public hall as his HQ. The Health Team sprayed the place with disinfectant until it smelled like a hospital. Inside, the Planning Council's "Abacus Army" set up shop. The clack of beads and the scratching of steel-nibbed pens filled the room as they cataloged every bolt of cloth and sack of rice in the town.

"You killed three people," Sun Xiao complained, looking up from a ledger. "That's three units of labor wasted."

"Kill the chicken to scare the monkey," He Fanghui shrugged. "Order is cheaper than chaos."

They moved on to labor allocation. Cooks were sent to the mess halls. Craftsmen—saws, hammers, trowels—were drafted into construction teams. Then came the "Special Service Personnel."

"Sixty prostitutes for a population of under a thousand?" Sun Xiao raised an eyebrow at the register. "This town is a den of vice."

"Good news for us," He Fanghui said. "It means we don't have to force 'decent' women into comfort work."

"Prostitutes are working class too," Sun Xiao said, ever the humanitarian. "Ideally, we should liberate them."

"Liberation can wait. For now, they serve the Great Cause." He Fanghui was a pragmatist. "Keep the brothels open. Just ensure the Health Team inspects them."

While Anyoule Market was reorganized, the rest of the invasion force broke ground.

Four construction sites opened simultaneously: Yulin Stockade expansion, Luhuitou Battery, Tiandu River Outpost, and the designated site for "Sanya City."

At the cleared ground outside Yulin, a massive labor camp rose from the sand. It was a grid of prefabricated huts, centered on Zhuo Tianmin’s Engineering Headquarters.

Hygiene was enforced with military rigor. Latrines were flushed with wastewater; drinking water was boiled and distributed from central cisterns; bathing was mandatory in the communal showers, fed by river water treated with bleach. In this tropical climate, disease was a deadlier enemy than any Ming army.

The warehouses were strict no-fire zones. "No Smoking" signs were posted everywhere. Electric lights were used at night. Grain—the lifeblood of the project—was stored in sealed tin drums to prevent rot and rats.

Two hundred meters from Anyoule Market, the migrant laborers were setting up tents. They would build the new city—Sanya City.

It would not be a renovation of the old market. It would be a new organism, born of Planning Council blueprints.

The layout was a strict grid. The centerpiece: a five-story brick-and-stone City Hall, built like a fortress to serve as a last redoubt. In front, a commercial plaza. Beneath the streets, brick-lined sewers.

"We don't build medieval cities," Ji Tuisi had declared during the planning phase.

Waste would be fed into biogas digesters to fuel streetlamps. Coconut shells—an infinite local resource—would be carbonized in dry-distillation furnaces to produce charcoal and chemical feedstocks.

The water system, designed by Tian Jiujiu, avoided lead and expensive copper. It used aqueducts and settling tanks, feeding into concrete public cisterns. The cisterns featured a coin-operated innovation: insert a token, get 20 liters. A lesson in capitalism and conservation for the new citizens.

Walls? No.

"Walls are obsolete," the plan stated. Sanya City would be defended by wide earthen ramparts and deep, seawater-filled moats. When the city inevitably expanded, the ramparts would be bulldozed to form the foundation for a ring road, and the moats lined to become drainage canals. It was forward-thinking urban planning disguised as fortification.

The goal was clear: Sanya City would be a model. A showcase of Cleanliness, Order, and Australian Superiority. It would awe the natives and provide a civilized vacation spot for the overworked Elders.

To build it, they needed bricks. Shipping them from Lingao was wasteful.

"Make them here," Zhuo Tianmin ordered.

Clay deposits were found near the Tiandu River. Kilns were built. Since local wood was needed for construction (and carbonization), coal was shipped in to fire the kilns. It was a complex logistical chain, but the machine of colonization was beginning to hum.

(End of Chapter)