Chapter 1936 - Data Publication

The reason was simple. After deciding to venture into the new world from the old timeline, Senator Xu—due to his longstanding engagement in medical system informatization business—leveraged his connections to secure substantial medical instruments and equipment for the Transmigration Group, while simultaneously funding targeted donations of extensive medical supplies. Whether this stemmed from public spirit, merely considering personal well-being post-transmigration, or simply a tycoon's nature, the result was undeniable: opening the Transmigration Group's equity conversion list, Senator Xu's name ranked within the top ten. Since Senator Xu was already thirty-five when he transmigrated, and single, he could already be classified among middle-aged uncles within the Senator team generally in their early twenties. Thus, he earned the nickname "Xu Laowu" (Xu the Fifth) within familiar Senator circles.

The post and its hyped replies repeatedly emphasized the so-called unfairness this engendered. It was nothing more than questioning: just because one possessed wealth in the original timeline, should they also control vast wealth in the new timeline? For instance, should a military Senator from a loser background in the old timeline who braved death on frontlines endure seeing most of the world he'd fought hard to conquer distributed to these old-timeline tycoons sitting in offices, while he only received returns from a mere 100,000 basic shares? Take this Xu Laowu as example. He'd possessed some coins in the original timeline, so he could lord it over others in this new world? Though because the issue was sensitive and involved personal attacks on Senators, this post series was deleted by admin shortly after, Senator Xu knew this could only be the next political storm's beginning.

When first seeing it, Senator Xu was shocked, then inevitably filled with indignation. Leaving aside agreed contract spirit and such, just being singled out as an example in this post, fiercely criticized as a negative model merely based on good office working conditions without knowing or understanding his work's hardship and value at all—Senator Xu was a million times unconvinced in his heart. Being chosen as an example was really just the poster picking a soft persimmon to squeeze.

If one opened the roster, besides CEO Wen mentioned earlier and the North American Gang of Three as the Otaku Party's core, listed in the top ten were also incumbent Senate Chairman Wang, Minister of Economy and Industry Zhan Wuya, and Landu who'd paid a high boat ticket price, etc. Even Secretary of State Ma, known as the proletariat's spokesperson, and Director Xiao who usually didn't show off, were actually ranked within the top 50. It was just that these people were either high-ranking and powerful, held guns, or had large interest groups supporting them. A post meant to test waters naturally wasn't suitable for poking these hornet's nests. He, a "decadent and degenerate element" from the old timeline, a technical worker who only knew how to bury his head in work in this new world, undoubtedly became the best scapegoat and stepping stone.

However, thinking again, Senator Xu's anger subsided somewhat. In the end, wasn't this similar to the common conflict between venture capital and employee stock ownership in the old timeline? Initially, capital was undoubtedly urgent and necessary. When you provided help in someone's hour of need, it was easy to get a larger share. But as business continuously developed and grew, employees who became more confident would inevitably be dissatisfied with interest distribution; they naturally hoped to get more. So, there's never anything new under the sun. What he encountered now was just the struggle between VC and employees in the new timeline. Moreover, in this company, management itself was the largest shareholding shareholder. Even if the sky fell, tall ones would hold it up, so what was he anxious about?

Subsequent developments confirmed his judgment. The admin quickly deleted posts and silenced users, and related remarks didn't appear again. No trace was seen in any public meetings or paper records. Obviously, current powers didn't want to open this jar. But Senator Xu's intuition told him this matter wasn't simple. An undercurrent or several undercurrents had already fixed their eyes on this topic, and consequently, he'd also entered the attention scope of certain people or forces. Perhaps in the not-so-distant future, a bigger storm would fall on his head. Obvious evidence: though everyone pretended this post didn't exist, his nickname "Xu Laowu" had already spread widely.

Apart from checking the BBS situation periodically, Senator Xu handled some routine official documents of "waiting for this and that," then began the day's final heavyweight task: checking and approving this week's data statistics report. This work originated from the Second Plenary Session, where Senators expressed that as the plate became increasingly larger, everyone usually knew very little about work progress outside their own turf, especially lacking authoritative statistical data. They believed this situation affected Senators' due right to know and right to participate in and deliberate on state affairs, even triggering a cohort of "soy sauce" Senators to verbally attack the ruling class for data deception. In response to criticism, the newly established cabinet tasked the Planning Agency to take the lead, with the Data Center specifically responsible, to establish a data reporting system open to all Senators.

According to requirements, the Data Center would submit a report on the latest weekly data every week, and a quarterly overall situation report every quarter. Simply put, the weekly data report was relatively simple, mainly including business progress summaries, such as this week's purified people count, important materials' imports, exports and inventory changes, industrial sector major products output, commercial sector sales volume, and so on. The quarterly report covered far more aspects, including quarter-dealing effectively controlled area changes, currency issuance and tax revenue, quarterly population changes, quarterly important projects progress, etc. Currently, the weekly data report was only released in network form, while the quarterly report had a paper version issued as needed, mainly provided to Senators stationed outside who couldn't access the internet.

"Data publication, data publication—useless. Everyone just slaps their head to find evidence. When you bring out figures, they say you're forging them!" Xu Laowu complained.

As this work's specific person in charge, Senator Xu's biggest bellyful of complaints was: just how many people actually read these reports that took countless time and energy to summarize and organize. The paper version's effect was unclear, but judging from the web version's page views, the situation was really not optimistic. Naturally, professional departments needed these data, but those Senators who took Senatorial power very seriously and often wanted to "sit and talk about the Dao" to reflect their "Senators participating in state affairs," mostly used "I feel" or "I think" or simply fabrications during certain discussions, completely ignoring serious data.

"You complain daily that the Ming Dynasty lacked digital management, but you yourselves act like Ming bureaucrats!" Xu Laowu continued complaining in his heart while looking at these dense data—he knew very well how much manpower and material resources it took to collect and generate these data. It could be said this was the most important basis for a country and regime to formulate policies and laws, worthy of being called a huge fortune.

However, for future historians and economists, these reports would become the most important authoritative information source, and quite a few Ph.D. dogs would dig out core dissertation material from them. Of course, all this had nothing to do with Senator Xu.

By the time he finished checking the report's data, confirmed it met release format and standards, and submitted it to his direct superior, Minister of Planning Wu De, via internal workflow, the wall's hour hand had already passed 8 PM.

Normally, Xu Yicheng should have gone home to rest by now. But substantial work remained to complete on tonight's shift. Feng Nuo in the "backend" hadn't left either, so he decided to stay here and work overtime. Firstly to keep an eye on inputters—though the Four Heavenly Kings had got off work, in the night shift there were still the "Three Noble Families" whose input error rates were barely passing, so he had to keep close watch. Secondly, both the Secretary of State's Office and the Planning Agency had greeted him: a second Data and Computing Center would soon be established in Guangzhou, and he needed to prepare relevant plans and proposals.

One obvious thing: due to the Senate's electronic equipment reserves' critical state, the Data Computing Center in Lingao would be the most powerful data computing center in their lifetime—these already built facilities and operational equipment wouldn't be considered for dismantling or relocation.

Thus, how to configure equipment and arrange personnel for Guangzhou's Data Center became a rather complicated issue. It was necessary to consider maintaining this Lingao computing center's original scale and capacity, while also enhancing the new Guangzhou center's computing capacity as much as possible, and also considering a third computing center's opening and future spare parts issues.

If only the reserve issue needed consideration, things would be easier to solve. Ever since Feng Nuo took the lead and the Ministry of Science and Technology started that mechanical computer project, the new computing center's design had to consider how to "fully utilize" these devices currently still on paper's efficacy.

"This is a tough nut to crack." Xu Laowu was somewhat troubled. He wasn't clear to what extent the so-called mechanical computer Feng Nuo bragged about could actually achieve, and to what extent it could replace currently used equipment. So he couldn't estimate related equipment needs.

He decided to think it over carefully in the office tonight—he couldn't get anything done at home.

Here he could think about problems and formulate plans quietly. Home wasn't so peaceful. Xu Laowu had two "Living Secretaries" at home, one Chinese and one Western, who'd each given birth to a child for him recently. It was said to be a complete family with a son and daughter, but a family of five squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment, with two infants who couldn't walk crying and shouting at night, was not a pleasant taste. Xu Laowu often complained about this—running to the 17th century to be a master, only to become a household with extreme housing difficulties.

Naturally, under such an environment, if Xu Laowu could sleep peacefully at home, it would be considered extremely lucky. So his going home now was basically just for eating and sleeping. Even discussing matters with people required going out to the Nanhai Coffee House—or simply sitting on a bench by the residential area's green space.

(End of Chapter)