Chapter 530: Season 2 Book 21 Shadow of War 2 – 4-2 Follow-up Measures for New China
“Thank you. There are three months left before the migration begins, so if you need any support from other ministries, please approach them,” said Prime Minister Lee Youn-yeon, looking at the ministers around him. At this, each of the ministers nodded in reply.
The migration plan for the people of New China that Minister Kim Soo-gyeom had mentioned earlier was a long term project. It was to start in three months and would continue to be implemented over the next three years. The reason why this project was to start three months after prior preparations had been made was that some issues had to be solved beforehand.
The current number of people that were to move was 530 million, which was six times the population of the Republic of Korea. Until now, there has never been such a large number of people migrating in the history of mankind. The Republic of Korea, which had a population of 90 million, 530 million was a number that was hard to imagine.
Since the people migrating were to be split into two different countries, they were able to choose the country they wanted to move to. This would prevent families from being separated and allowed the Republic of Korea to plan the population migrating to each country accordingly so that they could prevent the situation of one country receiving more people than they could hold.
Currently, the agreed number of people that was to move to each of the two countries was 320 million to the Republic of China and 210 million to the Eastern Republic.
Because of the huge number of migrants, the three countries—the Republic of Korea, the Republic of China, and the Eastern Republic—formed a Migration Promotion Committee consisting of representatives from each country. This committee planned the migration, as well as took on the responsibilities and duties related to it.
The first phase of the plan that the Migration Promotion Committee had, was to select 48 million people over the next three months, find out the country they wish to migrate to, and start a project to secure housing for them to live in after relocation.
It was truly a relief that the Republic of China and the Eastern Republic had 42 million vacant houses lying around. This was because, in the last decade, the two countries’ growth had skyrocketed and the enthusiasm for investment in real estate peaked. As a result, various apartments and living spaces were built indiscriminately. In the end, there were more houses than people that needed them, which resulted in vacant houses both in the large cities and small to medium cities alike.
Even so, the investment interest in real estate continued to rise. People, regardless of their financial status, bought the constructed houses with bank loans and waited for the real estate prices to rise. However, when China was defeated in the war against the Republic of Korea, three years ago, it was divided into 13 countries and the economy of China that had previously been growing rapidly, collapsed.
As a result, the bank’s interest rate rose sharply and the people that had loaned money from the bank to invest in real estate were suddenly unable to pay even the interest on the loans. They all scrambled to sell the houses they had bought, which resulted in the real estate bubble popping. The prices of the houses were about half the price they had been before and continued to decrease.
And now, three years later, the Republic of China and the Eastern Republic were having difficulty with the collapse of the real estate market. This was because no matter how much the prices of the houses decreased, more people were trying to sell houses rather than buying them.
At this, the Ministry of Finance and Economy of the Republic of Korea came to a quick agreement with the Migration Promotion Committee to buy all the vacant houses in the real estate market and to put them under the state ownership of the Republic of Korea. The total number of houses that the Ministry of Finance and Economy would be buying was about 20 million houses, with a total purchase cost of 1.3 billion dollars.
Even though the Republic of Korea had the world’s largest economy, 1.3 billion dollars was a huge amount of money. Because of this, the government of the Republic of Korea paid 800 million dollars with investments from 1,200 large companies, and 500 million dollars by issuing supplementary budgets and government bonds.
These houses that they had bought were to be given to the migrants for free for the next five years. Starting from the sixth year, the migrants were to pay 10 percent of the declared value of the house as a yearly payment. In the five years following that, they would be given priority for purchasing the house at the market price at that time. For those migrants that might lack the financial ability to buy their houses, the two countries had agreed to support them by allowing them to purchase them through loans.
When the Ministry of Finance and Economy had first planned for this, some economists raised their objections, stating that the use of an enormous amount of the national finances could cause an economic crisis in Korea. However, most economists predicted that in 10 years the economy of the two countries would grow rapidly, causing the real estate market to do the same as well. This meant that the houses that were currently being purchased at a steal would return huge profits. In the long term, acquiring real estate in both countries would provide a great economic advantage for the Republic of Korea.
While housing, the most immediate need for the migration was resolved, various infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and other necessary facilities had to be provided along with housing as well. In addition to this, jobs had to be created for the migrants as well, so that they could earn a living.
It was foreseeable that, if they didn’t prepare for these problems ahead of time, and went through with the migration, the Republic of China and the Eastern Republic could become a time bomb in international society. In other words, they could, in the future, bring great social chaos internationally because of the unprepared migration.
The Republic of China and the Eastern Republic, well aware of these issues, have publicly stated that their reasons for accepting the Han Chinese migrants was to expand the domestic market and economic growth. However, they weren’t foolish enough to invest astronomical capital to accept migrants, even going to the extent of participating in the Migration Promotion Committee. But this was only until they had received sugarcoated proposals from the Republic of Korea that was too good to pass up.
First, the Republic of Korea proposed that the war damage compensation that they had to pay for 20 years following the first Korean-Chinese war would be written off. When China of the Han-Chinese had broken up into three countries, New China, the Republic of China, and the Eastern Republic each had to pay 21 billion dollars to the Republic of Korea as compensation for war damage. Indemnifying them of such a huge amount of money would be welcomed with open arms. Second, the Republic of Korea proposed the investment of around 1,000 Korean companies as well as the construction of various factories in both countries. If this was the case, not only would the economic growth of the two countries benefit, but there would also be jobs for the migrants.
Ministers of various ministries presented the contents of what they had prepared concerning the migration. In the midst of this, it was time for Minister Kim Young-chul of the Ministry of Unification Policies to present on the administrative division regarding the new land that was as large as the current territory of the Republic of Korea.
After the North and South Koreas had been Unified, the Ministry of Unification had changed its name to the Ministry of Unification Policies and had taken on the job of establishing all of the northern state’s administration and its policies. Afterward, it had taken on establishing policies for the three Manchurian states, as well as the eastern and the western states. Because of this, the Ministry of Unification Policies was the ministry to take charge of the large frame of policies for the New Chinese territories that had been absorbed into the territories of the Republic of Korea recently.
Minister Kim Young-chul put his mouth close to the microphone and spread the thickly stacked documents that contained not only the administrative regions, but the policies of those administrative regions that thousands of government workers had worked several days and nights to establish.
“First, please take a look at the screen.”
As Minister Kim spoke, the large screen at the center of the meeting room lit up. Displayed on the screen was the map of the land that had previously belonged to New China, which was now a part of the Republic of Korea.
“I’ll present as we look at the screen. As you can see, we’ve split the new land largely into five administrative regions.”
The new land of the Republic of Korea, colored blue on the map, was largely split into five. First, the north region, previously the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, that was touching the Mongolian border, was transferred into the Republic of Korea’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Second, the north of Heibei, Beijing and the entirety of Tianjin, touching western Manchuria, was grouped into one state and named Buyeo.
Beijing had been the capital starting from the Yan dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasty. This meant that naming the north region of Heibei and Beijing, Buyeo, which had been one of the old Han Chinese countries, symbolically held a lot of meaning.
Third, the south of Heibei and the entirety of Shandong Sheng was designated as Seoju, which was previously the size of Jeolla-do. With this, Seoju became the state to have the most plains within the Republic of Korea. The plains were so wide that it was impossible to see the end of them, and it was bigger than the state of Namju. These plains were to be developed into a specialized farm business to distribute food to the countries suffering from food shortages for free.
Fourth, the north part of the other Shaanxi Sheng was combined with Shaanxi Sheng into a state named Yu.
Lastly, as the fifth state, the southern part of Shaanxi Sheng and Henan Sheng were combined into a state named DongYi. Ancient China had not referred to DongYi as a specific race or culture but rather had made that word into a regional title of their own culture and relative cultural concepts. Thus, since the northeast DongYi included foreign people and towns among the Han Chinese, DongYi was something that could be described as ancient Korean culture.
Giving the central part of China the name of DongYi was similar to giving north Heibei and Beijing the name Buyeo—something symbolically meaningful to the citizens of the Republic of Korea.
Minister Kim Young-chul spoke in detail about the new names of the newly created states for 30 minutes. President Choo Un-hee and the other Ministers nodded while listening to his explanation, expressing their affirmation at the meaningful state names.
“Ah! There is one more thing. Some wanted to change the current Middle Manchuria to Balhae, while we were discussing the region of the states and state names. Please consider this as well.”
This wasn’t the first time that the name Balhae was brought up. It was a name that came up three years ago when the Dongbei region had been transferred to the Republic of Korea.
“Mm, Balhae…I agree. It’s a good name,” said President Choo Un-hee first.
“I also think that this is a good chance to change the name to that,” agreed Prime Minister Lee Youn-yeon as well. All of the Ministers, some even applauding, agreed to the suggestion as well.
Minister Kim Young-chul, his face bright, smiled and continued. “Thank you. Then I will work on establishing the name of Middle Manchuria to Balhae.”
“Yes, please do. I like the other states’ names, as well. You’ll need to work closely with other Ministries regarding this, but please do go ahead with the names that we’ve decided on today.”
“Yes, Mdm. President!” Minister Kim Young-chul bowed his head, thanking the president.
“So! Whose turn is it next?”
“It seems like it’s my turn, Mdm. President!” Minister Lee Du-won from the Ministry of Environment stood up, raising his hand slightly. He walked to the screen.
It seemed like he was going to present while looking at the screen.
“The dust from China has been a problem for us until now. If we take down all of the existing industrial complexes and make a large farm instead, I expect the dust problem to be solved without any further issues. I will explain more of this in detail when the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs presents. Putting that aside, I will first speak about countermeasures against the dust storms that have always occurred at our peninsula with the western winds during spring.”
Minister Lee Du-won spoke briefly about the topics he would be presenting and turned his gaze towards the screen. Out of nowhere, the screen displayed the regions that were affected by the dust storms on a digital map.
“As you can see on the map, the current regions causing the dust storms are here, the desert regions of China and Mongolia: the Taklamakan, Badain Jaran, Tengger, Ordos, and Gobi desert regions, as well as the Loess Plateau located near the middle of the Yellow River.”
Whenever Minister Lee Du-won spoke of a region, the parts of the digital map flickered in various colors indicating the severity of dust pollution and showed the west winds’ travel route with red arrows.
“I’m sure you all know, but the Manchurian Plateau has been crossed out from the list of the regions causing dust storms, as it has been turned into a lush forest.”
Three years ago, the united Republic of Korea had expanded its territories to Manchuria. The first thing the Ministry of Environment did was to stop the desertification of the Manchurian Plateau. There, they planted 300,000 trees that were genetically modified to adapt to dry soil and temperatures. Through these efforts, the Manchurian Plateau had turned into a green forest area in just a matter of three years. Genetic research was also being carried out so that trees could be planted and made to adapt in other regions, as well.
“Based on the success we’ve seen from the Manchurian Plateau, we are planning to initially plant 1 million trees in the Inner Mongolian Highlands and the Loess Plateau, which are the regions that are harming us the most. The researchers have already developed trees that are fit to adapt to the environment of these regions.”
Along with Minister Lee Du-won’s explanation, the screen showed the type of trees and the explanation about the trees that would be planted in the Inner Mongolian Highlands and the Loess Plateau.
It was a wide range of trees, some seen from tropical environments and some seen from cold environments. It seemed like this was possible because the trees had been genetically modified.
“What’s this? There are palm trees, too?”
A few ministers asked with a surprised face. Unlike the desert, the highlands were usually cold regions. They were surprised because palm trees, which were usually only seen in tropical environments, were to be planted in that area, as well.
“Yes! It’s a type of tree that our researchers worked very hard to develop. Haha.”
“That’s amazing! It seems like we can now see palm trees that were originally only seen in places like Jeju-do in the highlands, as well?”
“Not just the highlands! We can probably change the trees along the roads in Seoul to palm trees too.”
“Oh! That would be very exotic. Hahaha..”
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