Chapter 369 - 240: Temporary Members

Chapter 369: Chapter 240: Temporary Members

"What about lodging?"

Jin Xiuying asked. Liu Xiufen thought for a moment and said, "Why don’t we just have them stay in the public cafeteria? Spring will be here in about half a month anyway."

"No. They’ll freeze without a heated kang."

Third Master Zhao shook his head. Everyone looked at each other, their gazes finally settling on Zhao Wendong. Zhao Wendong felt like laughing. ’It’s one thing for the others to look at me, but Uncle Weiguo, why are you staring at me too? You’re the production team leader!’

"First, let’s take a count of those who have come seeking refuge. If there are any who can be settled with families in our village, we won’t enroll them as temporary members. Those who can marry into a family can do so, and those who can remarry can remarry. If there are children, any family in the village that wants to adopt can do so directly."

"Good, good, that’s a great idea."

Liu Xiufen clapped her hands happily. The few bachelors in the village were a major headache for her, and now here was a chance to add to their families. The others were also very satisfied with Zhao Wendong’s plan, and Third Master Zhao patted Zhao Wendong’s shoulder in gratification.

"Not bad. You little rascal, you’re always full of clever tricks."

"What do you mean, ’clever tricks’? Aren’t I just trying to help the people in our village? Seriously, you old man, you really don’t know how to give a compliment."

"Hahaha! Alright, let’s go with that for now. What about the rest of them? Where will the temporary members live?"

Zhao Weiguo was amused and then asked about the arrangements for the remaining people.

Zhao Wendong spread his hands. "You guys find a place for them. How would I know which families have extra space?"

What Zhao Wendong said was true. He really didn’t know the specific situation of each household in the village, but Third Master Zhao and Zhao Weiguo did. After discussing for a while, they identified a few families with extra space on their kangs.

"Oh, right. Don’t make people offer up space for nothing. We should give them some sort of compensation. The temporary members staying in their homes will have to give them something as well."

"Alright, got it. You don’t need to worry about these things!"

With the course set and a solution in hand, the members of the team committee seemed eager to get started. A flourishing population had been an unshakable village policy for millennia, and now that there was an opportunity to rapidly expand Dragon King Pond’s population, they actually started hoping more people would show up at their door. Of course, they would never actively go out and recruit people. After all, Zhao Wendong had said they could catch fish to feed everyone, but whether they could actually catch enough was still an unknown.

"By the way, Little Shanghai has almost finished repairing that big boat. It needed a part, and he went to help apply for it. Once the part arrives, the boat can be used normally."

Zhao Weiguo remembered Zhao Wendong saying he wanted to take people out to sea, and going to sea definitely required a boat, so he told Zhao Wendong about the situation.

"Okay, got it. By the way, if we want to go to sea in the future, we’ll need more motorized sailboats. We have to get our hands on some engines."

Zhao Wendong’s words put Zhao Weiguo in a difficult spot. Engines were precious these days.

"That might be hard to get, don’t you think?"

"Hard or not, we have to get them. Otherwise, when the time comes to go to sea, we won’t have enough boats. I seem to recall a few other production teams have motorized sailboats, don’t they?"

Zhao Weiguo thought for a moment and nodded. "Yes, a few of the production teams along the coast and the Commune, I think they all have them. The county distributed them uniformly back then. We got ours around that time."

"Alright, I get it. I’ll go find Secretary Yang tomorrow and see what we can do. I need to ask him how the preparations are coming along for the promises those mountain-side production teams made us, and the reward the Commune promised for eliminating the wolf menace in the mountains."

"You’re not going into the mountains tomorrow?"

"No, not for now. There’s not much in the mountains lately. I’ll take care of things at home and rest for a few days."

"That works too."

Once the discussion was over, Third Master Zhao turned on the broadcast system and called for the families who were short of men, women, or children, as well as those with empty kang space. Soon, the families whose names were called hurried over, packing the team headquarters to the brim.

Zhao Weiguo looked at Zhao Wendong and saw him smiling and whispering to Lin Zhiyin. He could only shake his head and step up himself.

"Ahem! I’ve called everyone here to talk about something!"

Zhao Weiguo then explained that people from other villages had come seeking a way to survive and detailed the arrangements Zhao Wendong and the others had devised. On the spot, several childless families and a few old bachelors were tempted. Two widows also became interested. This first call for those "lacking men" was only for widows; women like Baozhu’s Mother and Zhao Wendong’s third aunt weren’t called because their families weren’t in such urgent need of a man, as their sons had already grown up.

The families asked to share their kangs also mostly agreed. People in this era were still very simple and honest. As long as it was an arrangement by the production team, no one would complain even if they were helping for free, to say nothing of the fact that the committee had mentioned a subsidy.

Once everything was settled, the members of the team committee led a large group back to the public cafeteria. By then, Liu Decai and the others had finished their meal, and Liu Decai was in the process of gathering information on each person, one by one.

When the group arrived at the entrance, this first batch of temporary members all scrambled to their feet. A look of terror appeared in many of their eyes, as they didn’t know if Zhao Wendong and the others had brought so many people over just to drive them away.

"Hello everyone, I’m Zhao Weiguo, the production team leader of Dragon King Pond. We just finished a meeting, and I want to explain the situation to you in detail. Since you’ve come here, Dragon King Pond won’t turn you away. But we have rules. If you want to stay, you have to work. You eat as much as you work. Anyone who tries to shirk their duties should leave now. Do you understand?"

The refugees nodded repeatedly, shouting in a jumble.

"I can work."

"As long as there’s food and I can survive, I’ll do anything."