Chapter 394: Republic of China: Starting from the First Class of Whampoa Chapter 404 House of Comfort

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

After the storm over the National Salvation Bonds passed, the order of production and life in Xinyang returned to normal again.

Everything that happened in Xinyang City was merely a microcosm of the entire Henan South.

On the ridges of the fields outside Xinyang City, the accumulated snow had not yet melted completely, revealing patches of black-brown soil.

Everything seemed to herald that this year would be a year of harvest.

Liu San squatted at the edge of his own field, clutching a small brown glass bottle in his hand, given to him by the military doctor of the Military Police Corps.

"This Western medicine is truly miraculous; after taking it three times, my body has gradually improved."

Liu San shouted to the neighbor in the field, and there was finally some ruddiness on his face.

"Who says otherwise?"

The neighbor also stopped his hoe, wiped the sweat from his head, and echoed with a laugh.

"Liu San, your twenty mu of fertile fields finally have no one eyeing them!"

Hearing these words, Liu San recalled the chaos of a month ago.

The Military Police arrested people all over the world, and the entire Xinyang City could be said to be in utter chaos.

After great chaos comes great order.

As for the Mao De Tang family, a series of charges were pinned on them.

All their cultivated land was confiscated, and then redistributed to the tenants below according to population.

Although on the surface the land was still public property, as long as the fixed grain tax was paid on time, the land could be cultivated continuously.

After paying grain to the Youth Army for three full years, one could permanently possess the land.

"Calculating it, the grain now handed over to the government is even less than the tenant rent previously paid to the landlord."

Liu San sighed: "That's right, no middleman earning the price difference!"

Although he had land and belonged to the self-cultivating farmers.

But most of the companions around him were tenants and long-term laborers.

He knew of the hard lives of his companions.

Now they also had land to cultivate, and in this lifetime they had never felt the soil in the field to be so dear.

Everyone was hoeing the grass in the field when a neat sound of footsteps came from not far away.

It was a squad of Youth Army soldiers marching in step.

After Jiang Dingwen resigned, an infantry regiment of the Youth Army was stationed in Xinyang.

This squad of Youth Army that came to the fields brought no weapons, most carrying farm tools.

The soldiers rolled up their sleeves, without a word, jumped into the water ditches or fields, skillfully helping farmers weed and dredge ditches.

This unit, besides training, became the best production and construction corps in the locality.

At the same time, signs for the "Low-interest Agricultural Loan Office" were hung at the entrances of the county governments of various counties.

This was a special fund personally approved by Lv Muzhi, used specifically to help farmers restore agricultural production.

Any farmer whose family lacked seeds or farm tools, or whose family truly could not make ends meet, could apply.

The monthly interest was only five fen, the procedures were extremely simple, but the review was extremely strict.

Conducted by Youth Army garrison cadres going door-to-door for review, specifically checking whether village tyrants and landlords fraudulently claimed this low-interest loan and resold it for usury purposes.

This move of drawing firewood from under the cauldron further blocked the path for banks and gentry to engage in usury.

For farmer households like Liu San who had lost their plow oxen, they filled out a form at the office and received a subsidy for buying an ox within two days.

After the plow ox was bought, by helping other farmers plow fields on weekdays, they could also earn some extra income.

On the land of Henan South, an unprecedented surge of vitality was rising with the melting of the spring snow.

At this time, south bank of the Yellow River Levee, outskirts of Zhengzhou.

Red flags fluttered up and down the river levee, with a hubbub of voices.

Nearly ten thousand soldiers and civilians were working together to reinforce the Yellow River Levee.

Digging earth, carrying baskets, tamping down.

Lv Muzhi wore a greatcoat, standing on a commanding height, holding binoculars in his hand.

Besides training and preparing for war, the Youth Corps' main task at present was to transform the local water conservancy system.

Dredging the existing water ditches.

For places that relied on the weather for food, water conservancy facilities were also increased, striving to cover more places with irrigation channels.

Among those repairing water conservancy, there were also many Japanese prisoners captured previously.

The Youth Army indeed fulfilled its promise, leaving these Japanese a way to live.

However, the price was that the Japanese prisoners had to do hard labor day and night to atone for their sins as aggressors, until the war ended.

On the land of Henan South, captured Japanese soldiers could be seen everywhere, in rags, working hard.

When these Japanese soldiers were captured, it was midwinter, and at that time every Japanese soldier wore a greatcoat, leather hat, and cotton hat...

But now the Japanese prisoners had only a few single-layer clothes on their bodies.

Originally, the warm clothing on their bodies had all been confiscated by Lv Muzhi, disinfected and sewn and modified, with obvious Japanese markings removed, and all given to the poor common people within the jurisdiction.

As for the Japanese prisoners themselves, they could only endure the cold.

Japanese who could not endure it, once they shirked work or lost their capacity for labor, would be directly cremated.

Japanese soldiers in single-layer clothing, in this spring cold, swung hoes, mattocks, and iron shovels with all their might, carrying loads on their shoulders and backs.

Only by moving could the devils' bodies warm up; otherwise they could not withstand this below-zero cold at all.

At mealtime, the commoners and soldiers participating in labor gathered together, and the devil prisoners gathered together, dividing into two groups to eat.

The devils drank rice soup clear enough to reflect a person's shadow, holding a bun made of mixed flour, with sand mixed in that made their teeth ache.

As for the Youth Army soldiers and commoners' group, they at least had sufficient oil and water, eating a big stewed dish.

Pork, cabbage, vermicelli, and lunch meat cans and various ingredients were stewed into one pot, then eaten with steamed buns.

Regarding the source of the lunch meat cans.

Lv Muzhi held shares in many enterprises in the United States, especially in the enterprise specializing in producing military canned food, which also had Lv Muzhi's shares.

Among them was the most famous Hormel Company.

Back then Lv Muzhi bought the bottom and purchased a large amount of that company's stock, becoming a major shareholder of the company.

Every year's dividends, Lv Muzhi required the Hormel Company to offset with military canned food.

A large amount of super low-priced, high-calorie canned food and instant food were thus able to enter Lv Muzhi's Youth Corps.

Besides this, there were also necessities such as vitamin tablets circulating in the Youth Corps.

These low-priced imported goods were connected with Lv Muzhi's action of buying the bottom low-priced stocks back then.

It could be seen that the stock bottom-buying action was entirely designed around war logistics.

It was precisely these arrangements that could as much as possible let these three hundred thousand Youth Army soldiers eat their fill and eat well.

Of course, these things the devils could not enjoy; they could only obediently gnaw their own mixed-flour buns.

"Sir... give me another bite to eat... I'm so hungry I can't move..." After a devil licked every grain of rice in his bowl clean, he gestured asking for more food.

A Youth Army soldier holding a spoon looked this devil up and down, smiling and saying: "Kojima-kun, where is your Bushido spirit?"

"Bear with it a little longer; in six more hours it will be dinner time."

"Nani, bear with it? Dinner doesn't even have buns, only a bowl of congee!"

"This taste of starvation, I really can't bear it anymore!"

The devil smashed his bowl onto the ground, and the earthenware bowl shattered with a clatter.

Immediately after, a rifle butt directly smashed into the back of this devil's head.

Two Youth Army soldiers then took advantage of the situation to escort this devil away.

"Well done; there are commoners here, don't shoot and scare everyone!"

"This devil has gone mad; send him to Anle House!"