In the end, Lu Yuan agreed to Tan Qing's request. Although the labor force only accounted for a small portion of the 18,000 people, these women, children, and elderly people could also engage in other labor work. What Lu Yuan's camp lacked now was labor, although the labor force mainly consisted of young and middle-aged men and women.

However, women, children, and the elderly are still useful, such as planting cotton, digging potatoes, and feeding pigs and chickens! These tasks don't actually require too much young and strong labor. After all, good steel should be used where it's needed most. Coal production in the coal mine has been stagnant, and now that the number of people in the camp has increased, the coal mine needs a large number of people.

The people in the old camp, who were used to a good life, were not very willing to work in the coal mine. After all, they had other jobs to do. Now, Lu Yuan's jobs were basically full except for those in the coal mine. Moreover, these people in the old camp had followed Lu Yuan and suffered hardships together, so it was only right for them to enjoy life now.

Lu Yuan now knows that although Tan Qing has changed, his men are different from him. Although he has been emphasizing to his men that they must obey the rules set by Lu Yuan, there are still some who are unwilling to listen. They are like bandits, so how could they possibly suffer?

Therefore, Lu Yuan followed Chen Bin's advice and formulated a special work assessment system. You can eat if you want, but you must work. You can use work points to get food, just like in the previous survivor base. There is no free lunch. If you want to eat, you have to work hard.

To prevent a few individuals from secretly slacking off and not working properly, Lu Yuan divided Tan Qing's people into small teams. The team leaders were selected from the elderly people in Luyuan. In this way, the team leaders would assess the daily workload and the performance of each person.

To prevent the team leaders from being assimilated by these people, each team leader only serves for one week. After one week, the team leaders are replaced, thus preventing the team leaders from colluding with their subordinates.

It has to be said that Chen Bin's approach was extremely insidious and effective. Sure enough, some of the charlatans were quickly identified. Lu Yuan didn't have much to consider with these people and simply gave them two options.

The first option was to work in the coal mine for six months and then be reassigned. The second option was to leave the base! Everyone knew what leaving the base meant, so those who had been warned immediately realized they could no longer slack off like before.

As a result, the coal production in the entire coal mine increased dramatically. In order not to lose face, the team leaders of each team worked hard to make their team members suffer, and they secretly held coal mining competitions, because Lu Yuan had even set up a special award.

Three teams are selected each week based on the amount of coal mined. The team that wins first place gets meat at every meal for a week, the team that wins second place gets meat at every meal, and the team that wins third place gets meat at every meal. This makes the competition extremely fierce.

Many teams even insisted on working overtime to win first place, which led to a surplus of coal, which was already insufficient. A tall coal mountain had even been built in a special coal storage area in the camp.

Looking at the pile of black coal in front of him, Lu Yuanxiao couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.

After the top three teams were selected that day, Lu Yuan frowned as he looked at the thermometer in the tent and saw that the temperature had dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius.

"Damn it! The temperature has dropped again! When will it stop dropping?!" Lu Yuan rubbed his hands together and cursed at the thermometer with some dissatisfaction.

At this moment, Chen Bin crawled into the tent, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands. When he saw the brazier in Lu Yuan's tent, he quickly reached over and handcuffed his hands.

"Mr. Lu, I just received a letter from Wu Tian! Take a look!" Chen Bin warmed his hands while pulling a crumpled letter from his pocket and handing it to Lu Yuan.

Upon hearing Wu Tian's letter, Lu Yuan immediately became interested and quickly reached out to take it and open it.

The writing on it was Wu Tian's messy handwriting, but fortunately Lu Yuan could still make it out. After looking at it for a while, Lu Yuan's brows relaxed, and he even shouted with joy when he saw the end.

Seeing Lu Yuan's excited expression, Chen Bin quickly leaned over to take a look.

"Mr. Lu, what did the letter say? You seem quite happy about it!"

Lu Yuan grinned and said, "Cotton! High-yield cotton has been developed! I'll pack up now and head over first thing tomorrow morning!"

"What? The cotton planting is done?"

Lu Yuan nodded: "Yes! I've been waiting for this for a long time! I didn't expect that Wu Tian's people would actually figure it out! It was definitely worth the wait! Here's what we'll do: you stay at the camp and keep an eye on things for me for the next couple of days! I need to go back there myself!"

Chen Bin blushed and said, "President Lu, you were the one who went back last time, why don't you let me go back this time?"

Lu Yuan glanced at the other person and, seeing the blush on their face, couldn't help but ask curiously, "Aren't you the one who hates climbing mountains the most? Why are you willing to go this time? Besides, you're all alone, who are you going back to see?"

Chen Bin blushed slightly and said, "It's nothing! I just wanted to go back and see the other brothers! It's been a long time since I've seen Wu Tian!"

"Wow! You're looking at Wu Tian? There's some bromance going on! Something's not right with you!" Lu Yuan said, looking at the other person with a teasing expression.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!