Chapter 1297 - The Engine Finale

The brief Spring Festival holiday of 1633 had barely concluded—winter's snow still clinging to the ground—when the Executive Committee's various organs resumed operations at full capacity. According to the official schedule promulgated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Spring Festival warranted three days of rest. In practice, most industrial and mining enterprises and government offices observed only the first day of the New Year before returning immediately to work.

Time had become the transmigrators' most precious commodity. These same people who had once idled away their days before D-Day now treated every hour as irreplaceable. Were it not for the recognition that Lingao's work pace had already grown punishing, and that naturalized citizens and contract laborers received precious few days off throughout the year and desperately needed respite, the transmigrators' collective inclination would have been to abolish holidays altogether.

As for the transmigrators themselves, most worked from the first day of the New Year through the thirtieth of the last lunar month—year-round without rest, overtime every day. Even the laziest employees, the most indolent students from before, now erupted with tremendous work enthusiasm. Power, as the saying goes, is not only the best aphrodisiac but also the finest stimulant. By 1633, through the comprehensive efforts of the Executive Committee and the Office of Personnel Affairs, the phenomena of "soy-sauce transmigrators" and "basic-laborer transmigrators" had been completely eliminated; every transmigrator now held a leadership position. Even someone like Salina—the archetypal "pure soy-sauce transmigrator"—had become Director of the Spain-Portugal Division in the Foreign Affairs Department while concurrently serving as Chief of the Spain-Portugal Language Materials Section in the Grand Library. Moreover, every transmigrator was given both position and authority, with subordinates assigned to them, ensuring they could fully leverage their expertise. Even those with no particular skills could at least serve as a teaching and research team leader in the Ministry of Education.

Inside the Ministry of Civil Affairs building in Bairren City, work proceeded at a feverish pace. Ever since Operation Engine began, the building had operated nearly around the clock. The resources that Operation Engine gathered were people, and all population matters fell under the Ministry's jurisdiction. Statistical tabulation and refugee resettlement had thus become its principal task throughout 1632.

The workload was immense. Though the collection and transport of refugees had nothing to do with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the moment refugees arrived in Jeju, Taiwan, or Hainan Island, the Ministry took over. Everything from purification to collective data registration to determining each person's final destination fell under their responsibility. Consequently, in 1632 the Ministry underwent a massive expansion, adding not only a large number of naturalized clerks but also constructing additional office buildings and installing newly manufactured office and computing devices.

Confidential officers from Lingao Telecom delivered updated population statistics from Operation Engine's overseas stations every twelve hours. The hand-cranked mechanical calculators and key-operated counters in the Calculation Center clattered away incessantly, producing the latest figures in a continuous stream.

In the spacious office of the Human Resources Division, naturalized clerks updated the wall charts every twelve hours according to the telegraphed figures. These charts tracked refugees across four categories: current inventory at each collection point, attrition, in-transit, and arrivals. This ensured the leadership knew the precise results of Operation Engine at any given moment.

Yang Yun, Director of the Human Resources Division, was always the first among the transmigrators to know the exact figures. He sat now in his office, sipping a cup of strong tea while rereading the summary report on human acquisition under Operation Engine that he had personally compiled up to the current date.

With Kong Youde's execution in Jeju, the recovery of Dengzhou, and the Daoist priest's successful "defense of the Way" before the Cloud-Rise Temple—an event that had thoroughly stabilized the New Daoism's base in Yizhou—the curtain on Operation Engine was gradually falling. Although natural disasters would continue to plague the coastal regions where large-scale population collection had been possible, this nationwide mobilization to gather refugees would not continue after 1633. Consuming too much at once invited indigestion; the Transmigrators' Council needed to properly digest this new batch of immigrants and have them contribute their value as quickly as possible.

Now the latest statistics were in. The final results of the "Number One Project" of 1632—this herculean effort to gather heads with the might of the entire nation—were about to be revealed.

Qimu Island-Zhaoyuan Theater in Shandong: Approximately 280,000 people collected. Of these, over 180,000 were gathered locally; 72,000 came through "potatoes-for-people" exchanges with the rebel forces; 6,000 were Dengzhou remnants who surrendered at Qimu Island when Kong Youde withdrew; and 21,000 were Kong Youde's remaining forces taken to Jeju as captives.

Yizhou in Shandong: 51,000 refugees gathered from southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu.

Hangzhou in Zhejiang: 14,000 Zhejiang refugees gathered.

These were the direct gains from Operation Engine. Of these, 175,000 had already been transported to "settlement locations"—Jeju Island, Taiwan Island, and the various counties of Hainan Island. Another 180,000-plus were temporarily housed in refugee camps at Qimu Island-Zhaoyuan, Jeju Island, Yizhou, and Hangzhou, awaiting transport.

Beyond Operation Engine, additional population had been acquired through other means—primarily through several military operations. The occupation of Jeju Island had "naturalized" approximately 40,000 local Koreans, while the capture of Zhongzuo had brought away roughly 20,000 Fujianese. Spontaneous migrants flowing in from Guangdong also numbered approximately 23,000.

Furthermore, after Operation Overlord, Zheng family influence in Taiwan had suffered a devastating blow, making the 40,000-plus Fujianese migrants already on the island easy targets for absorption at minimal cost.

All told—setting aside those still stranded in refugee camps awaiting transport and the Taiwan population not yet absorbed—the Transmigrators' Council had directly added approximately 250,000 controllable persons by early 1633. Once all those awaiting transport reached their destinations, the actual increase would be 430,000. Adding the anticipated absorption of Fujianese population in Taiwan, the total population increase came to approximately 480,000.

Four hundred eighty thousand people. Yang Yun reflected that this was no small number. While it could substantially alleviate the labor shortages plaguing the various industrial and agricultural sectors, all these people needed food, clothing, and housing...

Were it not for the windfall from Operation Overlord, it was hard to say whether the Council's treasury could have borne the burden. He then examined the age and gender ratios among the refugees and, as a former sweatshop HR manager, was highly satisfied: nearly seventy percent of the population consisted of able-bodied men and women between eighteen and forty-five. Children came next, while those over fifty were fewest—less than five percent. Under harsh conditions, the elderly and infirm had almost no chance of survival. The female proportion exceeded forty percent—a remarkably high figure. This was clearly deliberate on the part of the collection points, especially Qimu Island; otherwise it was difficult to imagine so many women could have survived.

For ordinary transmigrators, the high proportion of female refugees simply meant a vastly expanded pool from which to select "female servants." But for Yang Yun and Minister of Civil Affairs Liu Muzhou, the large influx of women would help balance Lingao's alarming gender imbalance. At the current ratio of nearly eight men to one woman, masses of naturalized citizens had no prospect of finding wives—bride prices had already climbed to levels comparable to real estate prices in another timeline.

If men could not marry and have children, they could not establish homes. For people to settle contentedly under the Council's rule, the marriage problem simply had to be solved. When the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps was first established, they had specifically recruited "female soldiers" from the interior to travel to Xinjiang—in essence, to solve the marriage problem for the troops stationed there.

How to solve the immigrants' marriage problem had always been a top priority for the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and they had indeed made some efforts: dispatching agents specifically to Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi to purchase female population; prioritizing the collection and transport of women when gathering refugees; collecting "concubine tax" and "concubine inventory tax" through the Tax Bureau to discourage concubinage in Council-controlled territories. But these measures were mere drops in the bucket against the massive population of single men.

Now a sudden influx of over a hundred thousand young, able-bodied women was arriving—like sweet rain after a long drought. Moreover, the proportion of unmarried or widowed women among them was quite high, perfect for solving the marriage problem of those naturalized citizens who had served the Council for years. This was far more encouraging than awarding them Model Worker titles and medals.

Yang Yun finished his report and went to Liu Muzhou's office.

Liu Muzhou, like Yang Yun himself, essentially lived at the office. Apart from engaging in intimate activities with his life secretary, he ate and slept there. Over time, everyone knew that whenever Minister Liu left the office to go home, he was going to "attend to business." On one occasion, a certain transmigrator came to discuss something with him, and Liu Muzhou happened to be away fetching some personal effects. A naturalized clerk from "Liu's Office" who was responsible for receiving visiting transmigrators accidentally blurted out: "The Chief has gone home to bang-bang-bang."

"Bang-bang-bang" as a euphemism for intimate activities had originally circulated only among the transmigrator leadership, but now the more seasoned naturalized citizens had learned this bit of "Australian slang" and began using it themselves.

At this moment, Liu Muzhou was bent over his desk working. As Minister of Civil Affairs, he shouldered numerous and varied responsibilities. Since Operation Engine began, his workload had multiplied, leaving him short on energy—even his frequency of "bang-bang-bang" sessions had dropped dramatically.

"Old Liu, here's my summary report on population collection for Operation Engine. Take a look." Yang Yun handed over the folder.

"No need to look—I have a general idea of the numbers," Liu Muzhou said. "Our problem now is how to resettle all these people."

"How to resettle them? Most will certainly be settled in Lingao—after all, this is our primary industrial and agricultural base..."

"That goes without saying." Liu Muzhou leaned back into his rattan chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "But a few days ago Wu Nanhai came to me saying he hopes to settle 100,000 agricultural population in Wenchang, Qiongshan, and Chengmai—the three main agricultural counties in Hainan."

"That many?"

"It's actually not that many when you think about it." Liu Muzhou frowned. "That's only a bit over 30,000 per county. Compared to all those reclamation projects, it's still far short."

(End of Chapter)