Chapter 130: The decision is made
Medicines are hard currency in the wasteland, and there are very few places with the corresponding production capacity.
At present, the Alliance No. 1 Pharmaceutical Factory in Weixing City has been successfully put into production. According to reports, it can produce more than 100 types of medicines and medical supplies.
However, it is not necessary to put all the production processes of so many kinds of drugs into production. Some drugs, such as those for treating stomach problems, skin diseases, and osteoporosis...
These things are certainly not useless, but at least they are not important at the moment.
Fast-acting hemostatics, antibiotics, analgesics, trauma medicines… these are much more important, and the demand for them in the wasteland is much greater.
As for the weapons...
The arms to be sold are certainly not newly produced ones.
Gu Hang’s local tyrant brigade has not been reorganized yet, so where would they get any extra weapons to sell to others?
However, precisely because he wanted to establish a heavy combined brigade, many of the remaining weapons and equipment of the previous Allied Corps became goods stored in the warehouse.
Ossena plans to sell these things in batches.
But you can’t sell blindly.
Selling arms is a sensitive matter.
In her conception, this trade, in addition to obtaining sufficient food supply for Renaissance City, also has a very important point, which is that it should achieve reasonable political goals.
Ossena now attaches great importance to the stability of the Qinggu area.
This is not only because of her personal feelings, but also for the food security of the revival city.
Qinggu District has always been an important trading partner of Fuxing City, and is the thicker of the two major food arteries. If it falls into a long-term chaos, it will also have a great impact on Fuxing City.
The best option is to select suitable trading partners, find the Qinggu Manor owners in the lawful camp, sell arms to them, and arm them.
Ossena hoped that the armed plantations could maintain the order of food production and continue to provide food for Renaissance City; they could resist or even fight back against the looting gangs that grew out of the unrest. It would be best if they could unite to quell the monster tide that had been wreaking havoc in the Qinggu area for several months.
She was determined to handle this matter on her own, with Bradford assisting her and providing some connections and channels.
However, arms sales were beyond Ossena's authority. She was the head of the civil affairs, commerce, and production departments, but she had no decision-making power over arms.
She found Gu Hang.
I can't handle it, so the big boss has to do it.
After listening carefully to Ossena's report, Gu Hang approved her plan.
…
Half a month later.
The food crisis in Fuxing City has been alleviated to a certain extent.
Bradford showed his ability. In the work of restoring food imports, the first phase of the task was completed relatively smoothly. Once the blood supply to the capillaries was restored, the food trade and transportation was resumed in various food producing areas around Fuxing City.
In half a month, a total of 10,000 tons of grain were imported.
An endless stream of Bull convoys and caravans can be seen more frequently outside Fuxing City again.
Of course, this was because of the war and blockade, which led to a lot of food transportation failures and stagnation in various places. Now that Fuxing City has restored the trade routes, those foods will definitely not be stored, but quickly transported here and exchanged for various other necessities of life.
Subsequently, the trade volume may decline, but it can be maintained at approximately 5,000 to 10,000 tons per month.
The food crisis in Fuxing City cannot be completely solved by relying solely on blood supply from capillaries. The food output in the surrounding areas of Fuxing City cannot fully meet the city's food consumption.
However, during this half month, Bradford also contacted an old contact who was traveling to the Western Desert, and learned that there was already a transport convoy from the Western Desert on its way.
The current food reserves can still hold up. In a month, the transport convoy carrying more than 50,000 tons of food will arrive in Fuxing City. During this period, Ossena contacted Gu Hang's agent in Garbage Town, Denison Henry, and purchased a large amount of hot limestone.
The West Desert has a great demand for hot limestone, a good fuel, which is also their main import commodity after selling food. The underground planting factories left over from the pre-war era consume a lot of water resources and electricity.
Water resources are supplied by oases and mined locally; as for energy, it has to rely on large-scale imports.
In this regard, Ossena has a new idea.
So is it possible to extend the power grid to the Western Desert?
What they want is energy. The hot limestone is also used to generate electricity.
Then building a high-voltage power grid and transmitting electricity directly would have much lower transportation costs than using ox carts or cars to transport hot limestone one truck at a time.
Moreover, the cost of directly exporting electricity is also cheaper.
Ms. Wu Jiarong has deployed a reactor generator unit around Weixing City. Ossena also appeared at the opening ceremony.
After being connected to the grid, almost all of the Reliance Stone power generating units were shut down.
It is no longer needed. The power generated by a set of reactor generators after being connected to the grid is enough to support the production and life of Fuxing City and Weixing City with a total population of one million.
Even, some are wealthy.
Abundant and cheap energy has brought about tremendous changes.
The hot ashstones were not eliminated, but they could all be used as fuel for vehicles. The mass-produced Iron Bull trucks could run freely without power plants competing with them for fuel; the extra energy could be used for things that seemed a bit extravagant in the wasteland, such as air conditioning.
The air conditioning factory in Fuxing City has expanded its production capacity. Ossena is preparing to deliver a batch of air conditioners to the shelves of the alliance stores before the weather turns to summer.
People from the outer city may not be able to enjoy it, but they will have hope. Anyway, they have no worries about food and clothing, and if they really want to buy something, they can buy it by accumulating work points. And those people in the inner city who are more actively integrated into the existing system, if they have the ability, will be assigned to a higher level, and then get a bonus for meritorious performance - such as the hard-working staff who joined the Grain Trade Bureau this time. Their bonus is enough for them to buy an air conditioner and spend a cool summer comfortably.
Even if there is a quota for electricity usage, it doesn’t matter. The part that exceeds the quota for the job level can be afforded by spending work points because electricity has become cheaper.
In fact, it was the same for everyone in the city. Those who couldn't afford air conditioning could always afford electric lights or some other electrical appliances, and they could use them freely.
These are all visible improvements in the quality of life.
After the reactor power generation units were connected to the grid and electricity prices dropped, the two cities under Gu Hang's command became cities that never sleep.
Later, as various industrial products that use electricity are mass-produced and enter thousands of households, this kind of scene based on developed energy will become more and more common.
As electricity consumption increases, what should we do if there is not enough electricity later?
Just build another reactor generator unit.
Of course, surplus electricity can be sold as a commodity.
It is a good idea for Ossena to sell electricity to the Western Desert, and the technology to build a transmission network is currently available.
However, the difficulty of building a high-voltage transmission network over a distance of thousands of kilometers is secondary; the most important problem is the difficulty of maintenance.
There are many dangers along the way. Monsters may be better, as they have a strong desire to attack humans, but they will not touch the creations built by humans.
However, the looters along the way are hard to say for sure.
There is no particular benefit to them in interrupting and destroying the power transmission grid, but they can use this method to commit blackmail.
Ossena mentioned this idea to Gu Hang during a report.
Gu Hang smiled and asked her to include this in her long-term plans.
"When I level this road, we can build our high-voltage transmission station all the way there."
…
The distance of thousands of kilometers to the west from Fuxing City seems far away, but it is actually not as far as imagined.
In just a few days, Perbov's battalion had advanced rapidly into a range of 200 kilometers with Weixing City as the center.
Before the awarding ceremony, Pobov received an order from the Governor-General, requiring his troops to do this after completing their preparations.
His unit was the first in the Xifeng Brigade to be fully staffed. In half a month, not only were the troops in place, but all the heavy equipment and vehicles were also basically packed in.
But before all the equipment was in place, he couldn't wait to take action.
Some very small settlements, with only a few dozen or a hundred people, are very hidden and difficult to find, so forget it; those with more than a thousand people, especially those that have registered in the alliance and are "part of the alliance", are easy to deal with.
When it comes to this scale, the monk can escape but the temple cannot.
In fact, most of the settlements can be recovered without fighting.
They considered themselves to be a member of the Alliance. In the past, the Alliance had no interest, no ability, or some other reason, so they did not have direct administrative jurisdiction over them.
However, these places had different attitudes when faced with the order from the Governor, who now controls Fuxing City, to accept direct jurisdiction.
Some accepted it with pleasure. Generally, places like this are like abandoned cave communities, extremely poor and struggling to survive.
Some were reluctant, but had no choice. Trucks pulling artillery were lined up, majestic armored vehicles and tanks were in front of them, and soldiers armed with live ammunition were dressed in uniform. At first glance, they were an elite force.
How to resist?
A combined forces battalion under Major Perbov has more than 800 men. In some camps, the entire population may not be much larger than this number, and they may not even be able to muster many guns.
They could only send people out in a cold sweat to negotiate with Pobov.
There is nothing much to talk about, just one sentence: unconditionally surrender all weapons and accept rule.
Immediately afterwards, the civilian officials who came with Perbov's army would follow the army into the camp of the captured survivors.
Their people will do two things in batches.
One is to publicize the policies of Fuxing City in the camp. The political commissars of each company of the First Battalion will mobilize some soldiers with progressive ideas to work with the people from the Ministry of Civil Affairs to do this.
The general meaning is that when you come to Fuxing City, you can get something for your work. You can be assigned a rank based on your work ability and the nature of your work. Once you have a rank, you will have basic living quotas guaranteed, from food to medical care to improved housing.
After this wave, many camps with poor living conditions will basically be stabilized.
Although most people would not easily believe that all this is true...but since there is no way to resist, all they can do is enjoy it.
The second thing they have to do is to analyze the conditions and industries in the camp and assess whether this survivor camp needs to be preserved.
Camps that have no special and important outputs that rely on local resources do not need to be preserved. The population will be collectively migrated to Weixing City to fill in the gaps in various industrial outputs.
Within half a month, four camps were abandoned with a total population of nearly 7,000.
Some places with outputs based on local resources - mainly agricultural outputs - will be retained.
There are three such camps, one of which is a cave camp. The special environment here allows a kind of fungus to be cultivated in the cave. Relying on this fungus, they not only feed more than 3,000 people, but also have a lot of it for export.
However, not all of this cave camp will be preserved. To maintain and expand the mushroom cultivation industry, so many people are not needed. Two-thirds of the population will be relocated, and the rest will be converted to mushroom cultivation workers and managers, with job ranks set. Relevant resources will be transferred from the city to this place, but at the same time, the entire mushroom cultivation industry will become government-run and publicly owned.
Similar solutions were used for the other two plantations with a population of thousands.
In addition to the agricultural workers, mushroom growers and managers who stayed behind, a batch of weapons will be delivered to the camp. Weapons will be distributed to the remaining population on the spot, and militia organizations will be established to enable them to protect themselves.
Perbov's actions over the past half month have added more than 10,000 people to Weixing City and conquered three village-level strongholds with food production.
Although it was a military operation, there was almost no resistance during the entire process.
This is certainly a good thing.
Without a war to fight, Perbov was a little depressed. He remembered what he heard on the plane when he accompanied the Governor to Fuxing City. This time, he was chosen by the Governor to be the commander of the Wind-Extinguishing Brigade in the future, and he came here specifically to make achievements.
Although his actions were fruitful, to be frank, this was due to the prestige of the Governor and the legitimacy of the alliance. He insisted on saying that it was his own achievement, which was a bit like bragging with a shameless face.
The decision was made without firing a single shot. What does this have to do with Pobov?
But he couldn't kill innocent people and take credit for it. The political commissars of the brigade and the companies were all watching him. It was said that a military court was being built in Fuxing City, and he didn't want to be the first guest.
His own conscience wouldn't allow him to do such a thing.
However, it won't always be smooth sailing.
A working group from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Immigration Bureau sent a message for help and then lost contact.
Before they lost contact, they were in "Sanchi Town", doing work related to population migration.
————
I will update more tomorrow! I will also work hard the day after tomorrow!
(End of this chapter)
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