Chapter 566: Settling-In Matters

Qiongzhou, this godforsaken place, has been known since ancient times as the "Ends of the Earth," the destination for banished disgraced officials across dynasties, a land rife with miasma and pestilence.

One can well imagine the sort of people who end up working in the official circles of such a frontier region: aside from a few unlucky souls with no backing who were kicked here by the Ministry of Personnel to fill vacancies, the rest are mostly cases of "low rank, high assignment" — juren serving as Vice Prefects and xiucai acting as County Deputies are common sights.

Even so, the official vacancies in the Qiongzhou region have never been fully staffed, and it is often the case that an Assistant Official finds himself "temporarily presiding over all county affairs for the latter half of the year."

This is because those juren and jinshi have tempers too; many, upon discovering they've been screwed over, promptly tell the Ministry of Personnel to shove it... Wouldn't it be sweeter to go home, be the master, and play with maidservants? Whoever's willing to go throw their life away in a miasmic hellhole can go — this lord isn't serving!

Thus a vicious cycle formed: the fewer people took up posts, the larger the official vacancies grew, and the less hope the serving officials had of being transferred back inland. Seeing this situation, others became even more afraid to take up posts...

This kind of dysfunctional situation in the borderlands has been the same since ancient times, a routine part of dynastic life. Never mind the Great Ming — trace it back to the Tang, Song, and Han dynasties, and the situation was exactly the same.

If any official was dazzled by the benefits of a transfer and title, and then got sweet-talked into going to border regions like Liangguang, Qiongzhou, or Guanlong, then that brother supporting frontier construction had a very high chance of being shuffled around the borderlands indefinitely, never to set one step back inside the passes for the rest of his life.

As for later generations... exactly the same!

People of later generations have generally heard terms like "Aid Tibet" and "Aid Xinjiang." In fact, no matter how it's packaged, the core is no different from ancient times: the central authority tries every means to dispatch officials to frontier regions to stabilize society and develop construction.

The methods, over several centuries, haven't differed much either; the greatest motivation remains very practical things like rank and wages. However, the matter isn't that simple; many who go there can only put down roots, and just like ancient officials, wanting to return isn't so easy.

Fortunately, later generations have advanced productivity, with high-speed rail and airplanes solving issues like business travel and family visits, and the level of medical care is worlds apart, so it's much more comfortable than for the ancients.

The duo of Sha Zhengming and Shao Qiang, today inside the Qiongzhou Prefectural Office, encountered precisely this group of officials.

Among them were quite a few frustrated circulating officials, generally down-and-out men without backing. The rest were mostly low-ranked riffraff; at the banquet, there were even figures who had been minor functionaries for generations — these people's ancestors were mostly officials sent here in exile, unable to return inland, and being intellectuals, after a few generations passed down, they became natives.

Yet it was precisely these people who controlled the actual operations of the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture.

The banquet atmosphere was very harmonious. Everyone was unrestrained; the rigid hierarchies of the inland officialdom didn't hold much sway here in Qiongzhou, so Advisory Official Shao Qiang chatted very merrily with these people.

There is a timeless maxim: "As bold as a man is, so vast is the land's yield."

This saying is especially fitting for officials in remote regions.

As long as the returns were acceptable, most of the proposals from Advisor Shao's side were quickly accepted by the officials, saving Shao Qiang a lot of breath. One must know that in the past, Shao Qiang had seen many posts on the BBS where Transmigrators complained about how difficult those moralistic Ming officials were to deal with.

In the end, the Qiongzhou bureaucratic clique led by Prefectural Governor Sun and Shao Qiang reached a comprehensive development agreement: verbal. This sort of thing absolutely could not be put in writing as evidence.

After the banquet ended, everyone dispersed.

As the Military Chief Officer, Sha Zhengming certainly could not stay overnight in Qiongzhou Prefectural City. So after the banquet, he hurriedly made a round inside Qiongzhou City, roughly inspected the city's defense system, and rushed out of the city before the gates closed for the night.

Shao Qiang was not in such a rush; he still had many matters to attend to in Qiongzhou City.

After one night passed, Shao Qiang first led his attendants in commandeering houses inside and outside the city. The future Crossing Faction would need to open various grain firms, commercial firms, and wholesale grocery firms in Qiongzhou, which naturally required many houses and warehouses.

And based on the experience previously summarized by the Business Department, Shao Qiang this time unceremoniously designated an entire street each in the outer Guanxiang area and the inner city.

The accompanying clerks and runners from the Qiongzhou Prefecture immediately stepped forward and began "negotiating" with the merchants on these two streets.

The negotiations went very smoothly; after all, this was the dark old society. When the wolf-like Official Runners came to the door with silver to "negotiate," the smarter merchants all knew what to do. After all, in terms of amount, the compensation was not small. So the merchants all promised to move out immediately... Are you kidding? If they angered the authorities and the various "requisition" and "compulsory purchase" trump cards were played, that would truly be a calamity falling from the sky.

Thus, over the next few days, Shao Qiang rooted himself in Qiongzhou City, beginning to lay out plans in both commerce and intelligence — his attendants naturally included personnel from the Intelligence Bureau. Although Qiongzhou Station was a C-rank Station, the Intelligence Bureau still needed to establish a presence.

Seven days later.

As the morning sun rose over the sea's surface, the agreed-upon fleet arrived outside Shenying Port.

Seven days ago, after receiving the telegram from the Southbound Fleet duo, the Guangzhou side immediately began organizing goods and manpower overnight. Thanks to the New District's developed freight, warehousing, and human resources, the Guangzhou side took less than twenty-four hours to stuff the cargo holds full of grain and industrial products from Taiwan, dispatching a fleet of ten 500-ton-class cargo ships toward Qiongzhou.

The cargo fleet was escorted by six Taijiang-class Frigates. And these six high-speed patrol ships, plus the few that had already arrived, would form the backbone force for Baisha Base to strike at scattered pirates in the surrounding area and set up a patrol network across the Qiongzhou Strait for some time to come.

The arrival of the large 500-ton-class fleet drew the entire populace of Qiongzhou Prefecture out of their homes. Like a whole row of Western-suited strongmen, the common people had never seen such a uniformly orderly, clean and tidy, sleek-lined fleet of large-tonnage ships.

Next, an endless stream of grain, as if the holds could never be emptied, was unloaded from the large ships by laborers moving like an ant trail, ceaselessly from morning till night.

The grain quickly filled the warehouses Shao Qiang had prepared. Thus, inside the newly opened Yonghe Chain Grain Store in Qiongzhou Prefectural City, rice and potatoes began to be sold at fair prices.

And the officials of Qiongzhou Prefecture, after confirming the quality of the grain in the granaries and sold at the grain stores, verified their ally's capability to fulfill promises. Their confidence immediately soared, and they began rolling up their sleeves to head to the countryside, scouring everywhere to recruit civilian laborers for Advisor Shao.

Accompanying the fleet were also many primary industrial goods.

Qiongzhou was a place with few wealthy families and low overall consumption capacity, so the quantity of high-end luxury goods on this cargo ship was not large. Ordinary daily necessities like cotton cloth, towels, sewing needles, and enamel washbasins made up the majority.

Of course, in line with the Transmigrators' consistent principle of absorbing civilian strength to stabilize the region, the fleet's cargo holds certainly also contained a few sets of semi-handmade textile machinery. Since Qiongzhou's local homespun cloth and even kapok cloth were quite famous, and the story of Huang Daopo was widely known, there was definitely a textile industry foundation.

Where there was a foundation, the Transmigrators would certainly come to set up some manufacturing enterprises; their demonic claws would not let go of the hardworking and capable women of Qiongzhou.

The last to arrive with the fleet were the "management personnel" whom Shao Qiang valued most.

The so-called management personnel, of which 50 were the first to arrive, were administrative staff subordinate to the "National Prison System," commonly known as prison guards.

These people would be responsible for the operation of the already under-construction Labor Reform Camp — with the arrival of the high-speed patrol ships, the construction of the Labor Reform Camp had to be put on the agenda, an area in which the Transmigrators had very rich experience.

The remaining several dozen management personnel were low-level cadres the Transmigrators had accumulated over these past few years. These people carried handsome leather briefcases, wrote crooked simplified Chinese characters in their notebooks, and were the backbone of the Transmigrators' administration. Shao Qiang would use these people to control all the industries deployed in Qiongzhou and implement long-term infiltration operations.

By the time everything was settled, it was already half a month after the Southbound Fleet had entered Baisha New Port.

On this day, Shao Qiang, who had been continuously busy with settling-in matters, finally freed his hands from the hectic resettlement work and left Qiongzhou Prefectural City.

The reason for his departure from the prefectural city was to inspect the construction of the "Labor Camp."

A Labor Camp, a place used for the forced labor of "uncooperative individuals," according to the internal rules of the Crossing Faction, was currently under Shao Qiang's responsibility in Qiongzhou, so as soon as he could free his hands, he had to go take a look.

The location of the Baisha Labor Camp was very clear: directly opposite the Baisha Military Port, with only a dirt road separating the two sides.

After leaving Qiongzhou City, they hadn't traveled far before Shao Qiang's party began climbing onto a bumpy dirt road. Fortunately, Master Shao was sitting on a sedan chair at the moment, so there was no risk of twisting his ankle.

Seeing the Labor Camp construction site from afar, a prison guard captain wearing jeans and sporting short hair soon came to greet them. So Master Shao dismounted from the sedan chair and, accompanied by the captain, made a round along the Labor Camp.

The current engineering progress of the Labor Camp was within Shao Qiang's expectations. The desolate beach originally full of wild grass and rubble had now been cleaned up by a large number of locally recruited civilian laborers.

On the land that had undergone preliminary leveling, several temporary wooden huts had been erected. The current engineering focus of the Labor Camp was on a large outer circle where the enclosing wall was being built. Here, the civilian laborers had already dug out a moat, as well as wooden watchtowers for armed sentries.

Now they were just waiting for the treated wooden stakes to be transported over, combined with the iron wire traps shipped from Guangdong, and then a wire-mesh prison familiar to later generations and often seen in American TV shows would begin to take initial shape.

After roughly completing his inspection round, Shao Qiang, fairly satisfied with the engineering progress, patted the captain on the shoulder and said encouragingly: "The Navy is ready and will begin sea patrols in a few days. So you still need to hurry up, lest people arrive with nowhere to stay."

The tall and strong prison guard captain's face was full of smiles: "These civilian laborers in Qiongzhou are still working hard, all because our wages are high."

"Please rest assured, Governor, according to the current progress, within three days, the large communal bunks can be set up."

"Mm, very good." Shao Qiang nodded: "Although Qiongzhou has a hot climate, there will also be cooling periods in recent years, so we still need to have housing ready."

After inspecting the construction site, seeing it was still early, Master Shao, hands on his hips, looked around and suddenly felt a surge of refined interest. He stretched out his arm and pointed at a Mangrove Forest in the distance where blue sky, white clouds, and sandy beach met: "Bring the tables, chairs, and gear; this master wants to relax and eat some grilled seafood!"

"At your command!"

And so, a large wave of people clustered around the master sitting on his sedan chair, carrying seats, tables, iron plate grills, and began heading toward the Mangrove Forest by the sea.