Chapter 48 Candidate
The people's commune pilot program proposed by Yuan Ruoxiu coincides with a project currently being prepared by the executive committee.
After the North American Gang completed their exploration mission in the abandoned salt field area, before the Executive Committee had time to discuss their report, a pirate attack occurred. Now that the pirate matter has basically been dealt with and the situation has stabilized, the salt field project has been put back on the agenda.
There is not a big technical threshold for reclaiming this abandoned salt field area. Even those who have not actually worked in the salt field have detailed plans for reference in the large database of the Ministry of Information Industry, covering everything from design and construction to production and operation. All aspects of salt production. Although limited by the conditions of this era, Chuanzhong's salt fields may not be able to reach the sea salt production level of later generations, but it is not too difficult to control costs while making the salt production rate and quality surpass those of the same era. In the opinion of the Executive Committee, as long as the sea salt production reaches a certain scale, the foreign trade route through the public will be basically guaranteed.
There are two main issues currently troubling the executive committee on this project. One is the defense system of the salt field, and the other is the management system of the salt field. In terms of defense, it is okay to say that according to the recommendations of the Military and Police Department, the settlements of saltworks workers can be located far away from the coast and inland against the mountains. Once an enemy attacks from the sea, the warning from the Yulinjiao post can be used to allow the saltworks workers to advance in advance. Mountain refuge. But the problem of the management system is not so easy to solve. How to rationally organize a group of local people to settle in the salt field, and organize production while also bringing them into the unified civil affairs management of the public, is not that easy to do. .
However, the people's commune plan proposed by Yuan Ruoxiu undoubtedly lit a bright light for the Executive Committee. This organizational form that can merge production, life, and political power management is quite suitable for the people's land reclamation plan in the current period.
After discussion, the executive committee finally decided to establish two pilot communes first, one was the Salt Farm Commune opposite Yulinjiao, and the other was the Farm Reclamation Commune on the east bank of the Tiandu River. The main sources of commune members are some nearby fishermen who originally relied on the sea, landless farmers, and some Li people who want to get out of the mountains.
The commune will uniformly distribute agricultural tools, cattle, seeds and other production materials, and relevant departments will formulate unified production plans and lead the implementation. The administrative organ of the commune is a management committee composed of members. This management committee will be directly responsible to the executive committee. The specific personnel are composed of the technical guidance department responsible for organizing production, the civil affairs department responsible for social affairs management, and the public security and defense department. Jointly served by the Military and Police Departments.
The commune will also be the first to start trial operation of the "labor hierarchy" proposed by Ren Liang, and begin to implement identity registration and labor statistics for all local residents who join the commune. The "labor hierarchy" will be implemented in the commune for a period of time and then the deficiencies will be checked and filled. The improved system will be gradually introduced into other projects under construction. This can also avoid the situation where all projects are launched at once, causing the human resources department to be overwhelmed.
The next topic is about the trip to Yazhou, which is also one of the most discussed topics among travellers. Regarding the plan proposed by Luo Shengdong, the executive committee also announced it at the forum and opened the registration channel. Anyone who intends to participate in this trip to Yazhou can sign up, but they must indicate their participation in this action. motivation and purpose. In addition, the executive committee also specifically explained the dangers of this trip and warned those who wanted to treat this trip as a short trip to give up their thoughts as soon as possible.
Of course, even if you sign up, you still have to pass the strict screening of the executive committee. Because government-sponsored personnel will still account for the majority in this trip, there will be no more than five places left for self-registered participants.
Taking into account security issues, the main body of this team will still be elite personnel from the Military and Police Department. Except for Dr. Johnson who will stay behind, the other five members of the North American Gang will participate in this operation. The reason why the executive committee kept Johnson was mainly because it was necessary to keep a professional doctor in the base camp just in case. In addition, among the six members of the North American gang, only Johnson was raising a family, so it was also because of minimizing his overseas assignments. Human considerations. They will be joined by five other members of the military and police department, and Yan Chujie will travel as the team's top decision-maker. In addition to providing safety protection along the way, they will also complete an inspection of the geography, hydrology, people's conditions and other conditions along the way. If there is enough time, and on the premise of ensuring safety, they will also conduct military reconnaissance on Yazhou Water Village and Yazhou City to collect intelligence information for possible armed occupation in the future.
Each of the three major departments of industry, agriculture, and construction will send one person. If there is an opportunity to trade with local merchants in Yazhou during this trip, they will be responsible for purchasing various raw materials required by their respective departments. Schneider, the person in charge of the Ministry of Finance, personally took action. According to him, he planned to personally inspect "the professional quality of businessmen in this time and space and the consumption power level of ordinary people." At the same time, Schneider also plays the role of cashier and accountant, responsible for coordinating and arranging the expenses that may be incurred by this trip. The Executive Committee spent a huge amount of money to reserve a full ton of silver and a small amount of gold before crossing over. This ton of silver was equivalent to approximately 27,000 taels based on the weights and measures of this period. For ease of use, the Executive Committee also made part of the silver into silver ingots and broken silver in advance.
For this trip, the executive committee specially approved three thousand taels of silver as operational funds for the action team. According to Schneider, an economic expert, this amount is as unrealistic as a cannon to swat mosquitoes. At this time, silver still had relatively strong purchasing power. One tael of silver could buy two stones of rice. In later generations, the value of these nearly two hundred kilograms of rice would have increased seven to eight times that of the Ming Dynasty. Schneider joked before traveling that the wormhole only has a time limit and not a limit on the number of times it can be used. As long as you keep using the wormhole to transfer rice and silver back and forth between the two time spaces, you can make money much faster than using foreign trade orders to defraud short-term loans. . The Executive Committee was not unmoved by this proposal, but considering that frequent bulk grain sales would definitely attract the attention of relevant departments, it ultimately did not adopt this method of making quick money.
At this time, the legal salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty was not high. Taking Yazhou as an example, the top leader in the civil service system was Zhizhou. From a fifth-grade official, the monthly salary was fourteen shi, which translated into the statutory annual salary of less than a hundred taels of silver. The second-ranking official in Zhou Tong I know that my monthly salary is only eight stones. In the military attache system, if Luo Shengdong is lucky enough to be promoted to the rank of general, his annual military salary will be less than fifty taels of silver. This is still the amount he can get if his superiors are not greedy and have no arrears. In a remote place like Yazhou with a limited socio-economic level, three thousand taels of silver would be an astronomical figure on the market. Whether it was used for trading or bribing Luo Shengdong's boss, this amount was far more than needed. To put it bluntly, if Luo Shengdong knew that this team brought three thousand taels of silver, he might just turn his back upon returning to Yazhou and lead his troops to snatch the silver.
The salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were extremely low among all dynasties. There is a record in "History of the Ming Dynasty" that when Hai Rui was the county magistrate in Chun'an, Zhejiang, he bought two kilograms of meat for his mother's birthday. This can also provide a glimpse into the embarrassment of life of grassroots officials at that time. When Zhang Juzheng was building a house in his hometown, Ming Shenzong gave him a thousand taels of silver, but people at the time said "the amount was too much." This was the limit of the emperor's rewards to important officials in the court. Taizu of the Ming Dynasty set an ultra-low level of treatment for officials. It is no wonder that although he came up with the cruel trick of "peeling off the skin to make the grass stronger" to prevent officials from being corrupt, he still could not prevent the gradual corruption of the entire bureaucracy.
The Ministry of Information Industry also had a public quota. Menghe originally planned to let Liu Zhuo go, but the quota was eventually taken away by female reporter Luo Wudan. After Luo Wudan served as a war correspondent the previous time, he seemed to be becoming more and more courageous. During this operation, she will be responsible for recording and collecting the entire video data, and will issue a series of press releases upon her return to provide detailed coverage of the operation.
In addition, the executive committee selected five people from the registered members to participate in this operation as special observers. In the current situation where the political system of the public is not perfect enough, this can actually be regarded as a disguised form of supervision. During this operation, five special observers will closely monitor whether public officials in various departments have neglected their duties or acted in other ways that are contrary to the interests of the public, and will hand over an independent report to the Executive Committee upon their return.
Finally, there are still a few places reserved for local Ming people. This is mainly to facilitate communication and information collection between the Chuanchuan people and the local people in Yazhou. The Yu family and his son, who have become the veteran leader of the party, were honored to be re-elected because they had visited Yazhou City many times. In addition to them, in order to show their strength and build relationships, the executive committee also specifically named the future owner of Fujiadong. Fuli.
Fu Li has been living in a temporary settlement of Li people outside Base No. 2 these days. He goes to the hydropower station construction site to work with other Li people during the day, and goes to Zhou Hengxing's language class to practice Chinese in the evening. Recently, he has been transferred to Ning Qi's class, and together with other Li people who are not proficient in Chinese, he has begun to receive a streamlined primary education specially provided by Chuan Chuan - mainly based on basic mathematics, with the purpose of allowing Li people to accept Chuan Chuan as quickly as possible. The "Labor Hierarchy" will be introduced next. At the same time, Ning Qi will gather Ming and Li children after school to carry out targeted cultural indoctrination, such as letting them watch some carefully prepared promotional videos.
When a city with tall buildings, a highway full of vehicles, and a huge ocean-going ship appeared on the projection screen, all the children were stunned. Fu Li also asked Ning Qi after class whether the incredible images he saw were images of fairyland.
Ning Qi's answer was still deeply remembered in Fu Li's heart decades later: "This is not a fairyland, this is the new world that the Executive Committee will lead you to build."
(End of chapter)