Lu Huitian had always greatly admired Chen Ke, though he did not wish to publicize this fact widely on this particular issue. This was because there were countless people within the Party who publicly claimed to be Chen Ke's faithful disciples. Whether Lu Huitian declared his stance or not was fundamentally meaningless. Moreover, Lu Huitian was a scholar by background, and he attached considerable importance to his own strength of character, whether sincere or feigned. Lu Huitian found sycophancy completely unacceptable. However, this did not mean that Lu Huitian did not support Chen Ke in his heart.

Regarding women's liberation, Lu Huitian originally thought it would be enough to simply give women a few more benefits. Due to his bureaucratic nature, at the level of specific implementation, Lu Huitian also believed that some window dressing and gimmicks would be needed in certain areas, and that would be about enough to solve the problem. But facing the results of the women's liberation movement and Chen Ke's attitude toward it—just like Chen Ke's performance in other policies—gave Lu Huitian quite a shock.

"The core political philosophy of our People's Party is the belief that labor created everything in human society. in the women's liberation movement, we are not simply giving women benefits, but upholding the policy that everyone is equal before labor, giving laborers equal opportunities without any discrimination. Therefore, within our People's Party system, if anyone opposes gender equality and their first thought upon seeing a woman is that she is incompetent, they are essentially opposing the policy that everyone is equal before labor. But let me emphasize once again, political philosophy and policy are not the same thing. Political philosophy is a view of the essence of the world, while policy is the strategy and method derived from this view and the actual situation faced. One must not lean too far to the left and think that because the political philosophy is correct, the practical level must also be correct. Nor should one lean too far to the right and think that if something goes wrong at the practical level, there must be a problem with the philosophy itself. Both of these viewpoints are erroneous views that believe there is absolute truth in the world. There has never been absolute truth in this world; everything is relative..."

Lu Huitian's understanding of the theoretical level was naturally beyond the reach of ordinary people. He could tell which comrades did not fully understand what Chen Ke was saying. And Lu Huitian also had a good idea of whether he himself would lean left or right in his work.

Returning to the Provincial Committee, Lu Huitian immediately convened a Provincial Committee meeting. First, he conveyed the attitude and instructions of the Central Committee, then Lu Huitian continued, "In the coming month, we will continue to start recruitment. And we must clearly publicize the conditions required for recruitment. When recruiting, we must emphasize the selection of men and women. If a position can be filled by a woman, we must treat everyone equally."

This approach was somewhat different from the previous method in Hubei of vigorously promoting slogans like "Female employment benefits the country and the people" and "Women's liberation must be achieved." The comrades were slightly stunned. "Has the women's liberation movement not ended yet?" a comrade asked.

This was a question Lu Huitian could absolutely imagine. Just as Chen Ke had said, some comrades at present indeed viewed the women's liberation movement as a purely political movement and political propaganda, and had not fully implemented this movement at the practical level.

"Do comrades have no confidence in the employment arrangement issue?" Lu Huitian asked.

"The current employment situation is not optimistic. More and more people are coming to Wuhan from the countryside. It is already quite difficult for us to fully settle the men among this labor force. If we put female employment at the forefront again, not to mention how many more problems will arise." Lin Shenhe, the Director of the Hubei Police Department, replied, "If women are willing to come work at the police station, as long as they can pass the political review, I actually welcome them. But the primary condition is that they must have received sufficient education. We won't take anyone who isn't a junior high school graduate. Or they can attend our police academy after graduating from elementary school."

Quite a few comrades felt admiration for Lin Shenhe's "slickness." While saying that the specific situation was not optimistic, Lin Shenhe still provided certain employment opportunities, which was truly admirable.

With Lin Shenhe as an example, comrades from other departments also made similar speeches. The general content was, "Recruiting people is fine, but they must be at least junior high school graduates."

"Fine, then write these conditions into a notice and post it, and vigorously publicize it in Hubei." Lu Huitian said, "Write clearly how many people will be recruited this year, whether men or women are being recruited. Include how many people will be recruited next year, gender requirements, and educational requirements. Also include what kind of help we can provide if people with insufficient education are willing to go to school; write it all clearly. But there is one point: for jobs with no gender restrictions, this must be emphasized and explained."

Lu Huitian's last sentence made many comrades feel there was deep meaning behind it. Xie Mingxian, the Vice Governor in charge of education and propaganda, asked, "So the work regarding women's liberation just passes like this?"

One of the cadres in the Hubei Provincial Committee who genuinely supported women's liberation work was Xie Mingxian. His question also voiced the doubts of some Hubei cadres. Lu Huitian replied, "Women's liberation is not liberation under the old society, but a lifestyle that women under the new society of our base area must accept. First of all, it is based on the foundation that the state guarantees employment opportunities for the masses. Where were these employment opportunities under the old society? So first there must be employment opportunities, then we talk about opening this portion of employment opportunities to women. It is not that the women's liberation movement ends here, but that the women's liberation movement is now officially entering a new stage."

"Exactly how many positions can be provided?" Xie Mingxian continued to ask.

"That depends on the statistical data; asking here is useless," Lu Huitian replied.

The statistical data came out in a week. In the first batch of recruitment, government departments under the jurisdiction of the Hubei Provincial Government, including the postal service, hospitals, police, and judiciary, needed 44,000 positions. Almost simultaneously, the statistics from the People's Party's Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense also came out. In Hubei, the People's Party's industrial sector provided 187,000 positions. Together, the two sides provided over 200,000 jobs. Moreover, both sides almost coincidentally stated in their announcements that these positions were open to both men and women. Especially in medical and postal units, both sides put forward the clarification that women would be given priority under equal conditions.

After these notices were posted, the whole of Hubei caused a sensation.

In the past, recruitment was mostly done by schools. Especially for junior high students signing employment contracts with the government, it was basically a commissioned training system. This recruitment method, similar to "apprenticeships," had also achieved considerable results. This was the first time Hubei Province had officially recruited labor based on "educational background." The impact of this on the entire society was even greater. As long as one had an education, one could choose a job independently. Not to mention being able to work in a big city like Wuhan; this situation made even some knowledgeable people feel a sense of excitement. Not to mention that these notices described each position.

According to the feedback, people coming to inquire about positions were in an endless stream everywhere, especially the positions provided by government departments, which were the key objects of inquiry. in the imagination of the masses, following the government meant becoming an official. If becoming an official only required one's child to attend junior high school, this temptation was no ordinary one.

By June, which was before the new junior high school semester started, the number of applicants for junior high school in Hubei had more than doubled compared to previous years, and the proportion of women continuing to junior high school was more than four times higher than last year.

Official documents reporting work situations flowed through the People's Party's system. When someone proposed a new method, other places would naturally follow and learn. In September 1913, new junior high school enrollment data was reported. The number of junior high students in the base areas increased by double, reaching 1 million, and the female enrollment rate increased from 10% to 30%. Compared to a year ago, the situation had been greatly improved.

Chen Ke could only be temporarily satisfied with the current situation. The People's Party was not unconditionally optimistic about the increase in the female enrollment rate. Exactly how many of these people had their eyes on government staff positions was a question that was truly hard to explain.

"What we need to do now is mainly to continuously and permanently extract labor from the countryside. Only when the rural labor force decreases can the living environment improve. If there aren't enough people, and female infants also have opportunities in the future, or even opportunities to bring glory to their ancestors, combined with local political propaganda, incidents of infanticide will also decrease accordingly." Chen Ke never held any moralistic attitude at the practical level. "Moreover, the loan agreement we reached with the United States has reached the final stage, and an agreement could be reached at any time. Comrades should also pay attention to this situation. Our demand for labor is very likely to have a big explosion in the short term."

Throughout 1913, Europe and America fell into an economic crisis, which was extremely obvious in the trade between the People's Party and the United States. When goods couldn't be sold, the machinery manufacturing business was even less likely to prosper. Among American merchants, especially those with good intelligence in Washington, there was talk that the US government was preparing to negotiate a government loan with the People's Party. The amount was so large that it sparked all kinds of irresponsible rumors among merchants. From 100 million dollars to 1 billion dollars, the rumors became more and more mysterious.

Neither the US government, the Treasury Department, nor the Federal Reserve came out to refute the rumors. This strengthened the confidence of American merchants; it seemed this big loan was definitely not baseless wind. Moreover, judging by the People's Party's consistent trade methods, they always focused on purchasing mechanical equipment. Stocks of enterprises engaged in machinery manufacturing bucked the trend and rose for a time, with some enterprises waiting for this major positive news to turn from news into fact.

But the matter sounded real no matter how one listened to it; the only problem was that it hadn't become real for a long time. Those companies that had already been forced to the brink of bankruptcy by cash flow problems simply implemented price-cutting sales strategies early on. Mechanical equipment was sold off, and some less terrible companies were just waiting for news. The direct result was that business got worse and worse.

Enterprises with connections in Congress had privately probed lawmakers for information many times, and the news they received was always that Congress was discussing it. As for the content of the discussion, it was quite serious: "Does the People's Party have the ability to protect itself!"

It was precisely because of this concern that Congress had never been able to make up its mind to finalize the decision on this issue.