Persuading comrades to abandon their sympathy for Zhang Youliang was not an easy task. Zhang Youliang was a landlord, and many comrades also came from landlord backgrounds. To them, Zhang Youliang was more like "one of us." Even though they talked about "people's revolution," facing even this small trial of Zhang Youliang, many people no longer guarded the people so solemnly.

Although Lu Huitian no longer mentioned Zhang Youliang's problem, he never explicitly supported the issue of Zhang Youliang's life or death. Although other comrades also supported the consensus of dealing with Zhang Youliang, no one explicitly expressed whether to kill or release Zhang Youliang. Chen Ke didn't want to say that much either; for Chen Ke, once Zhang Youliang was handed over to the people to decide, Zhang Youliang must die. A mass movement, to put it plainly, was to mobilize the masses and trigger the anger of the masses. This was more effective than anything. The people were also "clear-cut on what to love and what to hate"; once emotions were excited, it was enough to put someone to death. Zhang Youliang had been in Yuezhangji for so long; he must have done many bad things. Finding the victims, then letting the victims accuse Zhang Youliang, and then executing Zhang Youliang by "complying with public opinion" was the best way.

The only problem was that time was tight, and these people were not easy to find. Now time was the crystal sand in the hourglass; every moment was precious. So Chen Ke simply stopped talking about this issue and started assigning other work.

Fengtai County town was now overcrowded. During the flood, surrounding landlords fled to the county town to avoid the flood one after another. And many common people also fled to the county town. Plus the people rescued by the Insurance Corps and their families, the small Fengtai County town actually gathered as many as thirty or forty thousand people. After the flood began to recede, the victims' emotions became even more impetuous. This was also understandable; the flood besieged the county town, and these people were afraid every moment that the water level would continue to rise and swallow even their last shelter. The external environment forced them tightly, so everyone could gather under one banner instead. But after the flood receded, everyone's thoughts were different.

Rich landlords felt going home was unreliable, so they simply prepared to leave for big cities. Landlords without money, or those whose family properties were ruthlessly swallowed by the flood, had nowhere to go. As for ordinary people, they were even more homeless. Anhui people had a habit of fleeing famine; many people tried to strike up conversations with the Insurance Corps fleet members, hoping the Insurance Corps fleet would take them along when sailing.

After this flood, the Manchu Qing was completely powerless to provide disaster relief. To be honest, at the level of an agricultural country, disaster relief was also a matter of doing one's best. If not for the efforts of the People's Party Insurance Corps, many more people would have died.

The expansion of the Insurance Corps was closely related to the deepening of the flood. When recruiting people at the beginning, everyone had no interest. After all, everyone was still not interested in being bandits.

As the grain carried by the farmers was gradually used up, more and more members asked to join the Insurance Corps. Originally, anyone from a decent family could join the Insurance Corps, but later, the Insurance Corps could even be picky enough to only choose the strong and robust to join. The immediate benefits of joining the Insurance Corps were very large; first, one could eat their fill. Secondly, the Insurance Corps was also hiring hands to do some work. After joining the Insurance Corps, family members could get priority for these job opportunities. So in a very short time, the Insurance Corps achieved a leap in numbers.

Magistrate Shang Yuan always thought Chen Ke had ability. After seeing Chen Ke's use of the Insurance Corps' power, he felt even more admiration mixed with puzzlement. As for "eating, drinking, shitting, and pissing," Chen Ke not only led the People's Party and the Insurance Corps to arrange for the people's eating and drinking but also paid more attention to the people's "shitting and pissing." In the several temporary camps in the county town, an important goal of the "Security Team" composed of Insurance Corps personnel was to order the people not to urinate or defecate anywhere. This was something no one had ever paid attention to, but Chen Ke strictly grasped this matter from the beginning. The reason was naturally simple: urinating and defecating anywhere during this flood period could very likely lead to an outbreak of plague. The population density of the county town had reached a dangerous level; if a plague broke out, it would be devastating. The hygiene situation in the county town was the responsibility of the Insurance Corps. Later, when the Insurance Corps began to go out to transport grain, these jobs were handed over to other hired people.

There is a saying: "Manage heaven, manage earth, but can't manage people shitting and farting." But the Insurance Corps managing so broadly made the people extremely dissatisfied. However, "eating someone's food softens the mouth" (one cannot speak against the benefactor); the Insurance Corps' rules were also simple. Once caught urinating or defecating anywhere, the meal for the day would immediately be halved. So although the people caught were extremely dissatisfied, their stomachs would get hungry very quickly. Everyone finally succumbed.

Besides requiring everyone to obey hygiene regulations, the People's Party also established more rules, from washing clothes to taking baths. Fortunately, the flood happened in summer. The temperature was not low, and there was no lack of water. To eat, everyone barely maintained obedience.

However, this obedience seemed to reach its limit as the flood receded. Someone had already started pestering the Insurance Corps asking to borrow grain. It looked like they were going to leave Fengtai County to flee famine. Anhui people had a tradition of fleeing famine; this behavior was understandable to Chen Ke. But Chen Ke didn't quite want to accept it. Today, when rush-planting and rush-harvesting were about to begin, what impact would it have after the people fled famine?

Yuwen Badu didn't quite agree with Chen Ke's doubts. "Comrade Chen Ke, you think too much. In previous disaster years, after such a big disaster, people without money staying locally would be a dead end. Our Insurance Corps has no reputation at all; those people definitely won't trust us so quickly. Even if you forcibly pull those fleeing people under our banner, they may not be of one mind with us. Instead, those who didn't leave, I think, will be more loyal. Without us, they simply have no way to farm."

This statement was very good. These people had absolutely no ability to restore production after returning home. First, the lack of farming tools would directly affect the efficiency of production self-help. People escaping from the flood instinctively carried valuable things; hoes and other farm tools might not be the most valued wealth in the family. And some large farm tools simply couldn't be taken away. Although the People's Party transported some farm tools back from outside, compared with the scale of tens of thousands of people, it was still far from enough.

Yuwen Badu believed that letting a batch of people go to flee famine would be beneficial to reducing material consumption. In the case of a lack of tools, having extra people wasn't a good thing either.

"Wenqing, are you really preparing to let everyone, men and women, old and young, go into battle together?" Shang Yuan wasn't too sure about this idea of Chen Ke.

Chen Ke nodded, "Correct. I have this plan. I think we always have to give everyone a choice. Letting people go to flee famine now, I feel is inappropriate. The matter of production self-help will start immediately. Can't those people wait a few more days?"

"In that case, I will organize comrades to explain this matter to the people," Shang Yuan replied.

"No need to organize comrades; we just need to explain this matter to the Insurance Corps comrades first. If these comrades don't understand our policy, but go to speak to the people first, isn't that putting the cart before the horse?"

"..., then let the comrades of the Military Commission be responsible for this matter. But what should we say to the people? This can't be left for the Insurance Corps comrades to publicize, right?" Shang Yuan only paused slightly at the beginning; his subsequent answer didn't show any sign of being emotionally affected.

"My meaning is to expand the scale of the army. I think it is necessary to form some new troops. Borrowing the model of ancient military agricultural colonies (*Jun tun*), we will form a reclamation troop. Even if we let people go, I still hope to keep the strong and robust as much as possible. And if the strong and robust can stay, the old and weak naturally won't leave easily."

"Military agricultural colonies? How about using the Third and Fourth Companies for military agricultural colonies first among the existing troops?" Hua Xiongmao asked. He was quite worried about the burden of the officers' and soldiers' families.

"My view is that our army quantity is not too much, but too little. Looking at it now, we need to form a regular brigade with two regiments. The scale will be around eight thousand people. And it is not only the new troops who need to conduct garrison farming; by then, the entire brigade must farm on one hand and fight on the other. We must protect the base area and feed ourselves."

Now the Insurance Corps had about a thousand people, which was already a scale everyone had never imagined. And an army of eight thousand people was far beyond the comrades' imagination. Although many participants had thought about a million-strong army, in this imagination, a million-strong army was just a vague shadow, just a pure aggregate of personnel. In fact, managing this thousand people had already made the Military Commission comrades busy enough to be run off their feet. After the scale expanded eight times, could the existing management ability keep up? Comrades with troop-leading experience all looked solemn. Instead, those comrades without troop-leading experience all showed joy on their faces.

People are strange like this; as long as they feel they have enough people, many things become completely different.

As Chen Ke recounted his views on the future, the comrades in the Party gradually unified their attitude towards Zhang Youliang. Since getting rid of Zhang Youliang was not for personal grievances but within the scope of a political struggle, and moreover, there might be an eight-thousand-strong team in the future, many people thought Zhang Youliang's life or death was no longer a problem. Everyone's discussion focus shifted to the problem of how to arrange production self-help after seizing Yuezhangji.

"No need to wait until later to start; start immediately now. Let Comrade Shang Yuan introduce this problem." Chen Ke pushed the problem to Fengtai County Magistrate Shang Yuan, who was responsible for production self-help. Shang Yuan had been responsible for contacting the landlords who fled into the county town these days. Landlord Zhang Youliang's attitude might be tough, but the attitude of the landlords in the county town was completely different. Chinese landlords did not have enough class consciousness; they regarded being a landlord as a profession rather than a class. Such an attitude determined that they must first guarantee their own lives rather than the ideal of occupying land forever. The manifestation of this attitude in the face of natural disasters was that those small landlords did not strongly oppose the transfer of temporary land cultivation rights. These small landlords also needed to escape the state of having nothing as soon as possible. The flood was fair. Small landlords didn't have surplus grain either.