Chapter 503: Taipei (III)

Wu Sanye's full name was Wu Meng — a convict exiled to Taipei.

What was the charge? Resisting demolition.

Resisting demolition meant using force to oppose relocation, then attempting revenge against society; after the scheme failed, Third Lord was sent into exile.

Back when Xiong Dao, Master Xiong, was demolishing Shanghai Port, Wu Meng — a local power broker and private port operator — failed to grasp his opponent's background and origins, made a grave mistake by resisting the demolition, and after trading a few casual moves with Master Xiong, fled to Taihu when he couldn't hold his ground.

After this, when the Taihu Bandits raided the port, Wu Sanye played the role of Guide Party and Homecoming Corps, and was then captured when the attack failed.

Fortunately, the Transmigrators from later generations still acknowledged the legal concept of "de facto marriage"; Master Xiong also recognized Wu San's prior ownership rights over the private port, so in the end Third Lord did not lose his head — he was exiled to Taipei to do hard labor instead. Property rights could not offset the crime; each matter was handled separately.

Stuffed into the bottom hold with several of his brothers, arriving in Taipei in a daze of darkness, seeing this savage, isolated island and the slaves and savages everywhere, Third Lord had assumed he was finished.

Unexpectedly, before long, Third Lord was back at his old trade: dock management overseer.

Although Taipei was a penal colony for exiles, even here people were divided into ranks.

The lowest status naturally belonged to the South Asian slaves. These were pure consumables, building roads through Taipei's primeval forests and swamps; one shipload of "goods" would be used up in two or three months.

Next came the natives. These "assimilated people," whose villages had been forcibly burned and who were gathered into settlements, basically shouldered all the construction and menial labor in Sulfone Port Town.

The one good point, however, was that the natives had no worries about food and clothing, received wages, and were not sent into the forests to build roads. Furthermore, anyone who could pass a simple daily-Han-language exam would be granted a "Raise the Banner" by the Sulfone Port Township Government, enjoy ordinary-citizen treatment, and qualify to enter the hospital for medical treatment.

The highest rank, of course, were the Han people.

Among these, although there were some criminals sent here for theft, robbery, fraud, and the like, the largest proportion of the population consisted of the "elite" of various clans who had been exiled here in a disguised form.

As mentioned earlier, since the Transmigrators were absorbing population from Great Ming without limit, it naturally followed that many immigrants arrived as entire migrating clans.

The clan powers among them were, without a doubt, a threat to the Transmigrated Nobles' enterprise — at least in the early stages. So the Transmigrators showed no courtesy to these clan leaders, elders, and young masters who came scrambling for power: all were uniformly exiled to Taipei to make a living.

But much like Wu Sanye's case, once these people arrived in Taipei, they actually suffered no particular injustice — the local malaria and the harsh natural environment were punishment enough.

In fact, aside from being unable to leave this place, and aside from information being a one-way input, the Ming people living their lives here were not very different from the people in the Tainan area.

Here there were likewise dazzling arrays of commodities, likewise newspapers to learn about the world below, likewise work to be done. These people who had been exiled in disguise were formerly elite members of the Ming landlord class; they generally lacked neither education nor money, so as long as they were willing to participate in Sulfone Port Town's construction, they could always get by.

And as Sulfone Port Town took shape, many of them had also acquired property here — a different sort of settling down and branching out.

The only problem was that the death rate was too high.

Sulfone Port Town had grown from a seaside wooden jetty. In the early pioneering phase, the dreadful malaria and all manner of mosquito-borne diseases were unavoidable.

Confined by the harsh natural environment here, a great many of the immigrants who arrived in the early period had died within just a few short years. Hidden behind Sulfone Port Town's rapid expansion was a shocking set of immigrant "turnover" statistics that appeared on the Transmigrators' office desks.

Fortunately, no matter how many people died here, a steady stream of all sorts would always be sent in to replenish them afterward — Wu Sanye and his several brothers were one batch among them.

Newly arrived in this place, Third Lord's mood was bleak. Seeing the General's Mansion's lawless style, and himself now pressed into military exile, he figured he'd first have to take a hundred-some-odd strokes of the "sobriety stick" to sober up.

But when the local government clerk finished reading Third Lord's file and discovered that he could not only do arithmetic but had also held his ground for years running a treacherous private salt and smuggling port without collapsing — this was precisely the kind of talent with special "management experience" that Sulfone Port urgently needed right now!

And so Third Lord, the exile convict, was hurriedly put to work the moment he stepped off the ship — Assistant to the General Supervisor of the Yangming Mountain Highway Section, Second Construction Corporation.

Specifically, Third Lord and his several brothers became overseers on the highway section's most forward work segment — the kind of villainous overseers who carried guns, knives, and leather whips.

Third Lord quickly adapted to his new life; after all, managing slaves to do the work was far easier than doing the work himself.

Worldly-wise as he was, he was nothing like those iron-headed simpletons; toward the Second Construction Corporation and the Sulfone Port Town Government above him, Third Lord was filled with awe and dread — he had thoroughly learned Grand Commandant Cao's capabilities back in Jiangnan.

In this way, as an outstanding employee, Third Lord unwittingly dodged several calamities. Having carefully studied the documents issued from above, Third Lord promptly reminded his subordinates: the higher-ups took mosquitoes extremely seriously; they had better do the camp's mosquito-prevention work properly, and when going out normally, wear long sleeves no matter how hot it was.

As time passed, Wu Sanye, having survived the early gauntlet of death, gradually built up seniority and became a veteran of the highway section.

In this process, Third Lord gradually came to understand some things hidden beneath the surface; through various pieces of information, he finally realized that the General's Mansion — now called the Commander-in-Chief's Mansion — this "feudal fief," was exactly what kind of colossal entity.

Now he had been transferred out from the Yangming Mountain work segment and made Assistant Regional Commander Supervisor of the newly opened Jinguashi Highway Section, responsible for driving the 500 "quota" slaves assigned under him to madly fill in lives to open the road, starting from the new town outpost by the sea, laying the gravel road toward Jinguashi meter by meter.

And the fair-skinned Yusheng Shaoye, who was always bumming cigarettes off Third Lord, was Third Lord's colleague in the company and a friend despite the age difference.

Although Yusheng Shaoye was a supervisor like Third Lord, because he came from a wealthy family and wrote an excellent hand, in the supervisor's office he was usually responsible a bit more for desk work.

This Huang Yusheng was precisely one of those exiled clan descendants mentioned earlier.

Cut off from the clansmen he could order around at will, cut off from the immense power he had once wielded, Huang Yusheng's father had fallen ill and died in resentment and emptiness within half a year of immigrating to Taipei.

And the reason Yusheng Shaoye was able to survive happily was thanks to his own disposition. Huang Yusheng was a born optimist; moreover, perhaps because as a young man he had not yet tasted the flavor of power, he felt little resentment about his circumstances — this was probably the fundamental reason he could find his footing and survive in this place.