Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 252: Win 2
In the dead of winter, the maid sent out by the Arctic Martial Arts returned.

Beijiwu lay on the comfortable bed. In addition to the fireplace, the room also had state-of-the-art underfloor heating, and even the candles had been replaced with brighter electric lights.

The power system is exclusively used by Arctic weapons, and currently only a small number of people are learning this classified technology.

Some techniques were only taught to people within their own circle, making eunuchs without offspring the best candidates.

The proportion of eunuchs in the palace has increased from one percent to five percent.

The palace had over 100,000 people, so five percent of that would be 5,000.

More than 95 percent of them are foreigners.

Lin Yi slaves and Lin Yi maids, Silla maids and Silla slaves—in short, many people were enslaved from the conquered countries.

Neither Han Chinese nor mountain farmers wanted to become eunuchs in the palace, and Beiji Wu was merciful enough not to hire these people as servants.

Although everyone says they'll do their utmost and even kneels and begs for a spot to become a eunuch, no one actually cries out that they want to be a eunuch.

There was no shortage of palace maids; most of them were sent by their parents to be female slaves, seeking only wealth and status.

In a large family where most households have more than ten children, it was a good thing that King Wu wanted their daughter.

With so many children in the family, I'd give them away for free.

Beijiwu sat in a chair reading a newspaper from the south.

Despite being surrounded by countless beautiful women, Beijiwu has never been a womanizer.

The maids stood on both sides of the study and in the outer corridor. The entire corridor, the study, and the outside were quiet, with no noise disturbing Beijiwu's reading.

"Is the matter done?"

When Wei Lan heard her master ask, she carefully lowered her head. "Yes, master, a total of 100 beautiful female slaves have been selected for you, and they have all been cleaned and educated."

Beijiwu looked down at the newspaper. "You said in your letter that you went to Jiangnan. How did things go there?"

Wei Lan replied, "It's all taken care of. I heard that some beautiful female slaves had been sold to brothels in Jiangnan, so I quickly went to check. I rescued some of them who were being trained, and I also rescued the ones who had already been violated. I sent them back to Lingnan to live their lives. Perhaps they will come in handy in the future."

Beijiwu was somewhat surprised. He hadn't expected the maid to be so capable, thinking of things he hadn't thought of, and giving him no instructions.

"I've never been to Jiangnan. What's Jiangnan like now?"

Beijiwu looked up at the beautiful, elegant, young blonde maid with an aristocratic air.

Although her hair was blonde, her eyebrows were groomed, and she wore a contrasting black top and white skirt.

Wei Lan placed her hands on her abdomen, stood up straight, and answered the questions with neither arrogance nor servility.

"Jiangnan Province is far behind Lingnan. Some places there have imitated Lingnan by building cement high-rises, but most of them are still backward wooden buildings. It is rumored that the demolition and relocation issues cannot be negotiated, and many places are unwilling to delay their business and build houses."

"Aside from the architecture and clothing, the most obvious thing is the gap between the rich and the poor, with beggars everywhere on the streets."

“I met newspaper boys there. They said they were doing the same thing as the newspaper boys who used to be from the mountains, but they could only earn a few copper coins a day, wore tattered clothes, and were often beaten and scolded.”

"When I first arrived in Lin'an Prefecture, I was targeted because of my unusual appearance, which led to many people following me."

"At first I thought it was just their wariness of outsiders, but later I found out that they were a group of people who were lustful and some who wanted to rob people."

"Luckily, I had a pistol with me, which solved the problem."

"Later, I chatted with some local ladies in a quiet teahouse and learned that many women encounter similar situations. Not everyone there can find a wife, which leads some men to follow beautiful women around, and many women are afraid to go out alone."

“I tried shopping on the street, but I encountered people who spoke in a way I couldn’t understand. They cheated me by shortchanging me and always tried to deceive me.”

"The food was also terrible. The beef we ate at the government office and the beef we ate at the restaurants on the street seemed to be two different kinds of beef."

"I've been surrounded by beggars demanding money and not letting me leave several times. Some men even tried to touch my body, which meant I had to shoot to resolve the situation."

"Later, the local government sent yamen runners, and no one dared to approach me anymore. However, I discovered that some of my personal belongings were being lost one after another. When I asked the brothel to redeem me, they extorted fifty times the price."

"My movements there were restricted in every way. Even mentioning that I was looking for beautiful women for you was like a fish falling into mud, making it extremely difficult to move."

“Many people who had nothing to do with this matter came to me and asked me to help their daughters enter the palace. Even though I repeatedly told them that what you need, Master, is only women of foreign races, they still refused to give up.”

“Every time I persuade a group of people to leave, another group will arrive soon. The food I eat and the things I use for lodging are provided by these people. They control my travel arrangements, and my personal belongings have been searched.”

"Neither my gun nor your presence allowed me to get things done and leave quickly, so I had to spend a lot of time there. It was a terrible experience."

Beijiwu has a general understanding of the situation there. Now it's about time to make arrangements for resettling people in the Jiangnan region.

Arctic Martial was too lazy to deal with those people. Since they were getting rich through hard work, he decided to let them govern themselves.

The Jiangnan region has ports, grain, and a business atmosphere.

From now on, each prefecture and county will be autonomous, and anyone who encounters a problem will have to solve it themselves.

They build their own roads, eat their own food, buy their own resources, find their own ways to recruit workers, and deal with gang members on their own when they encounter them.

Now that it's self-governed, it won't interfere anymore.

The Arctic Army doesn't ignore the lives of Han people; those in Lingnan are also Han people, and they've been taken very well in recent years.

Those people really worked for the Arctic Army and also helped them suppress prisoners from various countries.

"Alright, go and rest. I'm going to the Summer Palace this Chinese New Year. Your group will come with me."

Wei Lan immediately bowed deeply, "Yes, Master!"

After seeing that Beijiwu was alright, Wei Lan left the study and the corridor where hundreds of maids stood, under the expressionless gazes of the other maids.

It's working time now, and the maids must be ready to be summoned by their masters at any time.

Although we don't need that many people, everyone is used to it.

Having something to do is a good thing; if you have nothing to do, you're not far from retirement.

Working and going to work are the meaning of existence, and the key to dedicating oneself to becoming a member of the Shandong Agricultural University community.

Only those who do the work are considered one of us; this is the education and guidance we have received.

Lazy people will be ruthlessly abandoned!
The public sector has only started to downsize in the last two years, while the imperial palace has been downsizing almost every year, and those who are dismissed each time are the ones who can't control themselves.

After learning about the situation in Jiangnan from more than a dozen people with different professions and experiences, Beijiwu finally decided to allow Jiangnan to govern itself.

Autonomy is not for the purpose of enfeoffment, but for the purpose of stability.

Send the surplus population to Japan and the American province of Daming, and the people of the past will surely become independent.

Given its geographical location and development potential, anyone who goes there will inevitably wield considerable power and local interest groups will certainly resist taxes independently.

But Jiangnan Province is different. It's right in front of us; we can take it if we want to, and there's no defense to speak of.

Arctic military forces aim to address the future overpopulation problem in the north.

Those people absolutely refused to go to the Western Regions and Siberia, where the Xianbei people were active.

Not to mention them, even the Xianbei themselves did not want to go to Siberia to live a bitter and cold life.

In just six or seven years, the members of the three tribes in Guinong Province have quickly completed their complete Sinicization, and the whole family has adopted Han names and started speaking the Shannong dialect.

Autonomy is, of course, about shirking responsibility. Arctic militias don't want to pay wages or deal with a whole host of problems, so they're sent to live a more stable life.

The Jiangnan region was essentially the countryside of that era.

It's not that they look down on it, but from the perspective of the northern provinces that have already completed industrialization, the Jiangnan region is still stuck in the agricultural era.

Each province has its own positioning, and it is very necessary to establish an autonomous region to develop private enterprises.

There shouldn't be too many state-owned enterprises. Beijiwu has already completed the public system where farmers in the mountains bear the main responsibility, but this state-owned enterprise production team consumes too much money, and it's impossible for everyone to become a public household.

The establishment of autonomous provinces was also intended to prevent other hereditary lords and bureaucrats from exerting undue influence over those areas.

Regardless of whether the merchants are good or bad, interest groups will unite to strengthen themselves. Arctic Martial wants to see if Jiangnan Province, which is right on their doorstep, can develop technology under the current technological blockade.

If you can keep up, then outsiders can do it too.

The North and South need competition and comparison, otherwise it will stagnate. Arctic Martial Arts is well aware that its wisdom can no longer provide much help, so it is necessary for each team to compete with each other and eliminate outdated production capacity.

The reason it is Jiangnan Province is twofold: firstly, the conditions there are excellent, and secondly, it has a large population with a high level of education, enabling it to develop into a world-class prosperous region.

****
"Mountain Farmers' Daily! Mountain Farmers' Daily! King Wu is on a southern tour, heading to Lingnan for inspection."

"Shan Nong Daily! Shan Nong Daily! Jiangnan Province is now autonomous! No more paying 'friends tax'!"

(End of this chapter)