Chapter 2318 - Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

He wasn't particularly interested in the finance profession—engaging in the financial industry had merely been because the income was good. In an environment like Lingao, the financial industry's role was very limited; significant development would have to wait at least a few decades. In contrast, he was genuinely interested in the old stories of the Age of Discovery—exploration, trade, the East and West India Companies. He was keen on being a colonist in a new spacetime. He had also participated in preparations for the Southeast Asia Company, but soon realized this company had too little power. It was purely a place to find outlets for pirate merchants attached to the Senate and couldn't be considered the Senate's version of the East India Company.

Finally, he applied to enter the Colonial Trade Department. He soon discovered that although this department had an impressive name, it received little resource allocation within the Senate's system. Despite claiming to be "colonial," its main business was actually import-export trade.

Trade was of course important—Zhou Wei agreed on that point. But in his view, Minister Si was too "peace-loving." Why buy so many things? Wouldn't robbing be simpler?

The obvious result was that he and Si Kaide got along very poorly. Though Si Kaide came from a foreign trade background, he knew little about colonial history and was naturally no match for Zhou Wei in debate.

Although he obtained the pleasure of victory in debate, it did nothing for his "career." In the Colonial Trade Department, Zhou Wei received the position of Director of the Colonial Division as he wished, theoretically managing all Senate colonies in "non-East Asia regions." But this colony amounted to just a stronghold in Hong Gai. Jeju and Taiwan both belonged to the "Mainland," and looking at the Senate's momentum, Vietnam would sooner or later be "Mainland" too.

Zhou Wei thought it over repeatedly—only by getting the Senate to "March South" could he escape the situation where he, the Director of the Colonial Division, accomplished nothing. Fortunately, debates about "Marching South" versus "Going North" had existed since before the Senate entered Lingao City. In recent years, as the plate grew larger and larger, this dispute began surfacing.

Undoubtedly, facing the chaotic northern continent, the relatively barbaric, empty, and resource-rich Southeast Asia could attract Senators' attention more readily. Therefore, from the meetings before the mainland strategy launched, people had opposed the mainland strategy and advocated investing corresponding strength into Southeast Asia instead.

But most Senators considered that if the strategy against Southeast Asia was launched first, it would inevitably result in more naturalized citizens of Southeast Asian indigenous origin in the future population under Senate rule—very unfavorable for population structure. Moreover, going south inevitably had to be accompanied by large-scale colonization. Without controlling sufficient native population, it was difficult to recruit enough immigrants to go to Southeast Asia relying solely on semi-public Senate enterprises like Delong and Qiwei under Ming Dynasty rule.

The final result of discussion was to take Liangguang as the Senate's base territory on the mainland. The native population of Liangguang, especially the Han population, was at least nine million. This number was sufficient to maintain the Senators' main population level.

The Liangguang campaign had gone from advancing triumphantly to recently falling into a quagmire. Though Zhou Wei hadn't expressed many views, he had been paying close attention to the war situation. In his view, the current quagmire could check the mouths of the "Northbound Faction" who advocated continuing north to expand after occupying Liangguang. He could openly put forward arguments for going south—complying with the trend.

Putting forward an argument wasn't hard; the hard part was finding support. After all, this was a change in strategic direction requiring a two-thirds majority in the Senate's General Assembly. Simply "complying with the trend" and relying on the old Southbound Faction's support was far from sufficient—he had to win over the centrists.

Who were the centrists? Zhou Wei thought left and right, and finally decided to start with the industrial sector. In his view, the industrial sector was a major voting bloc, but its presence within the Senate wasn't strong. Most were immersed in their professions and rarely cared about political changes and strategic directions. If their enthusiasm for "participating in politics and discussing state affairs" could be stimulated, let alone going south to establish colonies—becoming Chairman of the Senate or Secretary of State in the future wouldn't be a problem.

After thinking it through, Dr. Zhou began intentionally contacting Senators in the industrial sector. Coming to attend this seminar was also an important link in his plan. After all, he had nothing to do with the chemical industry—his chemistry level was roughly high school, and he'd mostly forgotten it. He didn't understand mechanics, biology, medicine, petroleum... anyway, he had nothing to do with the professions related to the Danzhou Industrial Park.

The reason he came to the seminar was entirely because he'd squeezed in by bragging about having a "raw material solution." He had discussed the specific plan with a few people in the industrial sector, and they were considered "like-minded," having formed a consensus.

But to turn the "consensus" of these few people into the "consensus of the industrial sector" required further work.

The industrial sector was a very large department, concentrating almost half of the Senators. Roughly divided by profession, it fell into four major blocks: Energy, Machinery, Metallurgy, and Chemical Industry.

Among these four, those most dissatisfied with the status quo were mainly the Energy and Chemical Industry sectors. Both were industrial categories that were very important but had long been constrained by resource conditions and unable to achieve breakthroughs, remaining at low levels.

Low level meant being unable to speak loudly within the Senate—giving a sense of being ignored.

Zhou Wei analyzed the situations of both sectors and believed that in comparison, the Chemical Industry sector inevitably had greater grievances than Energy. Compared to Energy Senators, they faced the possibility of losing their lives and suffering serious injuries every day. And the production conditions they had to endure when giving on-site guidance and supervision to naturalized workers were also harsher.

As long as there were grievances, consensus was easy to form. After several observations and probes, Zhou Wei conducted private "deep-level communications" with the Two Zhangs. Both sides "fully expressed their views" and "reached consensus."

Zhou Wei realized the industrial sector's demands weren't actually consistent, but one point was common to all: dissatisfaction with resource allocation.

The Senate was very poor on Hainan Island. Theoretically Hainan had quite a few resources—nothing was lacking. But except for iron, there was a widespread problem of insufficient reserves and scattered production sites. Many resources were also in undeveloped inland areas, making development more difficult.

For a long time, insufficient resources had been a major problem severely plaguing the industrial sector. Industrial output could be said to rise steadily with large percentage growth every year. But this growth was simply negligible in the face of massive demand.

Only by grasping the core demand of "resources" could the industrial sector support his southbound policy.

Sure enough, his simple sentence "Even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice" immediately grasped everyone's hearts. Zhang Hao responded with understanding: "Exactly. Without resources, any plan is useless as a fart!"

Zhang Xiao added immediately: "Massive resources are thrown at Liangguang to farm achievements. They ask us constantly how much gunpowder, how much fertilizer, how much medicine we can provide... Damn it, can I shit these things out? When allocating production materials, there's nothing. When transferring things out, they ask diligently!"

This immediately resonated with the attendees: discounts when starting projects, urgency like sparks when asking for outputs—this was a consistent feature of the Senate. Bargaining had basically become a required course for Senators running projects.

Though everyone knew the Planning Commission didn't piss oil or shit mines, and objectively projects needed overall arrangement based on what was available, emotionally people always felt this distribution was "unfair" and they were "ignored." The frustration after their proposed projects were vetoed or discounted had long filled them with grievances.

"Anyway, we're just tool people." Zhang Hao began fanning the flames. "In the eyes of Ma Qianzhu and his gang, we're just high-level naturalized citizens making the Senate greater!"

This poured oil on the boiling pot. The emotions of the seminar Senators were instantly mobilized. What Senators hated and feared most was being treated as "stepping stones for the Great Cause." Anyone invoking this could achieve miraculous effects. Even Ji Tuisi felt unhappy in his heart, though he soon realized that this Director of the Colonial Division with no professional background had squeezed into this seminar by every possible means—definitely harboring some purpose.

His thinking was quick, and he immediately guessed Zhou Wei's true intentions.

However, he wasn't in a hurry to stop the Senators' complaints and agitation. Ji Tuisi thought: no matter what, what they said wasn't wrong. The Senate's development and scheduling of resources indeed needed attention. Since ancient times, the crying child gets the milk. Having such a catfish jump in to stir things up might not be bad—at the same time, it could also increase the chemical industry sector's voice.

Seeing the atmosphere was right, Zhou Wei coughed. "Everyone knows that all the difficulties we encounter now stem from insufficient production capacity. The reason for insufficient capacity is simply lack of resource supply. To solve it, we must address the resource problem at its root."

In the following time, Zhou Wei expounded on the superiority of going south using his carefully prepared materials. The main content included the "tens of thousands of hectares of fertile fields where triple-cropping rice can be planted casually" in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, "countless minerals along the coastline," "light crude oil that bubbles up just by digging a hole"... These materials represented homework he had done burying his head in the Great Library for months. To be honest, he hadn't been this diligent even when writing his doctoral dissertation.

Though Senators in the industrial sector roughly knew about Southeast Asia's resource advantages, this was the 17th century after all, and Southeast Asia remained a "barbaric land." Senators didn't have much understanding of this region. Now with Zhou Wei puffing it up like this, it immediately transformed into a "land flowing with milk and honey." Everyone couldn't help but yearn for it, and flames of "The Executive Committee Harms the Country" burned in their hearts—though the Executive Committee had been dissolved for years.

(End of Chapter)