Chapter 478: Earning Academic Credits

After the meeting ended, each department immediately returned to its office to begin estimating how much of this labor force was needed for their various tasks, then quickly submitted the documents to the Ministry of Revenue; now that every department was overflowing with wealth, hiring some Workers posed absolutely no pressure for them.

The Ministry of Revenue, however, was already swamped and even had the urge to die; their already massive workload had now increased by another item, inevitably making their work go from bad to worse. The Ministry of Revenue was the most exhausting department, operating almost year-round without rest, and it was also the department with the most new officials added each year, yet this small increase was a drop in the bucket because there were not many students graduating from school.

It would take at least five years before graduates were numerous enough to be chosen at will, because the birth rate of newborns was currently increasing significantly every year, and the first batch of young people would soon be at the age to marry and have children, such as Shaoyin.

The Ministry of Revenue was truly at its wit's end, so it had no choice but to join forces with the Ministry of Education to pull those senior students out from the warm heated beds in their homes, making them work in the name of practical experience. Of course, it was not for nothing; officials received salaries, and students received academic credits, which was beneficial for their graduation.

The students were very happy to take on this work because they were mainly responsible for taking the census; roughly calculating by ten thousand people, they would line up one hundred people into a long queue, which meant just one hundred teams, and a few students were responsible for one team, so they distributed the task very easily.

First, they counted the number of people and created a roster; second, they temporarily gave names to those who did not have them. To prevent those people from forgetting, they would write the names on their foreheads with a pen and instruct them not to wipe them off; if they wiped them off, they would not be given food, which was more effective than beating them. At the same time, they would also give them a bamboo tag of a different shape, on which was written which team and which number they were; when they needed to find someone, they could find the corresponding person according to this thing, because names could not avoid having duplicates.

Those who already had names did not need to be given new ones, but everyone would still be asked what skills they possessed, which was specifically recorded, and after registration, they would be made to line up and go to the Ministry of Revenue officials to be carefully examined; those with no abilities at all could just go back to sleep.

Among them, Chenshui was specifically requested by Xiong, and he had already told Baifeng about this matter because Chenshui had extremely sensitive hearing; if trained well, he could play an unexpected role on the battlefield. As for how to train him, the military camp was the best place.

All those with good physiques and skills would be given priority for selection by the various departments; these departments had to provide temporary housing and the food needed for hiring the people they recruited. Once the hiring ended, they would be made to return to the centralized housing cleared out by the government, waiting for the next labor opportunity.

After the people with skills were picked, there were still many vacancies in the rest of Huaxia, or rather, it was not so much vacancies as it was using those Citizens to do miscellaneous chores. The people who originally did the work were happy and relaxed after hearing this; anyway, the work they did was bitter and tiring, and the income was just so-so, so it was not as good as farming their own land, only they did not have the chance to leave.

Afterwards, the Ministry of Revenue released jobs such as transporting coal, transporting firewood, cleaning toilets, and sweeping, and promised rewards. The rewards were low; the food earned from working for one day was enough for one person to eat for five days. If one had a family, they could almost save nothing; wanting to get rich by relying on this was very difficult.

But even for this work, there were many people scrambling for it, because the food given by Huaxia for one day's work was half of a normal Huaxia Citizen's daily ration, enough for them to eat their fill; if they did not work, it was just thin, watery gruel to hang onto life.

Because they lived collectively, the possibility of food being stolen was very high. The Ministry of Revenue stated that if they felt it was unsafe, they could first deposit it with the Ministry of Revenue and come to collect it whenever they wanted; they could also take it back themselves that same day, but if it was lost, it would not be replaced.

The Ministry of Justice did not explicitly state this matter, but in the places where those people lived, they repeatedly preached and emphasized that all crime was prohibited within Huaxia City. Because it was a special period with special groups of people, Huaxia's current laws did not apply to them because they had not been formulated yet, so Baifeng issued temporary legal provisions.

Everything such as theft, robbery, fighting, insults and bullying, murder, arson, and rape would be punished according to the severity, with the minimum being ten lashes of the whip followed by being demoted to a Slave, and the maximum being the death penalty.

This provision deterred a fairly large number of people, but there were still many who had no concept of law, or simply did not think that the people from the Ministry of Justice could accurately find them.

Most of the people were sent to New City to be managed and resettled by the New City government. There were also more than two thousand people left in Huaxia, and the places where they lived were chaotic, filthy, and dirty, leading the Ministry of Justice to have to add more legal provisions: those who urinated or defecated at will would be punished with one lash of the whip for urination and two for defecation; they could supervise and report each other, and those who were not caught on the spot, but stood by watching without persuading or reporting, would be punished with the same crime.

That day, the arms of the people from the Ministry of Justice were a bit sore from whipping, but fortunately, the effect was very significant; the next day, various feces were no longer seen in their living areas.

The identity tags for these people were also rushed out; the wooden tags stamped with Iron could not be forged. If lost, they could be replaced, but it required paying food; if there was no food, then do not replace it, but without this tag, they could not receive food or work, forcing them to be careful at all times not to lose the tag.

Gradually, order was formed there as well. In one room, there was a room leader who helped with safekeeping and was also responsible for managing order and counting the number of people. Of course, this room leader was not fought for; they chose them themselves, and once chosen, they reported to the Ministry of Revenue manager there; if it was discovered that the identity was obtained improperly, they would also be severely punished.

Because Huaxia's supervision of crime was high-intensity, mainly because the Ministry of Justice was very responsible, there was currently no situation of official corruption. Baifeng knew that this problem would be unavoidable in the future, so he set the punishment intensity very high; the highest was skinning and stuffing with Grass.

The document regarding the naming of New City was issued, which ignited great enthusiasm among the Citizens who were idle during Winter; they all began to rack their brains to think of a nice name to report. They were not doing it for those rewards, but mainly because being able to do the same thing as the King sounded very impressive.