Liberating Malaya, liberating Singapore, liberating the Dutch East Indies—these consecutive victories did not make Chen Ke ecstatic. Or perhaps they only made him happy for ten minutes or so. Chen Ke’s train of thought did not linger on the victories, unable to move forward; very quickly, his mind entered the realm of post-war matters.

What was the nature of this war? For Chen Ke, this was not a problem at all. Chen Ke would absolutely not refuse to advance just because some people might treat this war as an "imperialist struggle for hegemony." Chen Ke firmly believed that Li Runshi would absolutely not see it that way. This was also the explanation Chen Ke gave to the Standing Committee of the Politburo and even the Enlarged Meeting of the Standing Committee when Comrade Li Runshi was elected General Secretary of the People's Party.

If anyone else had said such things, or if Li Runshi had said them, it would certainly have been treated as an excuse to push Li Runshi onto the stage. However, when Chen Ke said this, everyone felt they could accept the reason. Comrades in the work highly recognized Comrade Li Runshi's abilities. Although this young comrade had a somewhat impatient temper, Comrade Li Runshi's angle of considering problems, his train of thought, his steps, and his grasp, elaboration, and response to issues made the comrades agree with him very much. Li Runshi was absolutely not a person who would procrastinate or avoid a problem just because it was thorny. In this regard, Comrade Ren Peiguo was the same.

"We do not want to annex these countries, nor do we intend to establish puppet regimes. The imperialist system will not have any good results. Hitler's speeches are admittedly lies, but the content he cites is true. Irish Prime Minister de Valera recently condemned Britain in a speech for its constant aggression against Ireland. Palestine, the Middle East Gulf, and Iran are all trying to resist British control openly or secretly. Even in India, the source of the title 'Emperor of India' on the British King's head, the Indian people are resisting British control."

Chen Ke expounded his views very seriously. For Chen Ke, if it were not for the precipitation and accumulation of thousands of years of Chinese culture during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, if not for the inherent ideological vitality of the great Chinese people, and the backbone of China that emerged from this cultural and ideological vitality, China would likely have truly failed completely.

"The difference between these countries and Britain, and the difference between these countries and regions and China, is basically consistent. These oppressed countries have not entered the industrial age, do not have a modernized state system, and lack the ability to confront foreign countries in terms of ideology, system, industry, and organization. I do not mean to mock them, but we must admit that they are indeed more backward than Britain. In this era, backwardness means being beaten."

China's liberation came so swiftly. In the People's Party's internal education and school education, there was no blind denial of the Manchu Qing's efforts in industrial construction. They only criticized and analyzed that because the Manchu Qing did not understand industry and lacked an understanding of the industrial system, it led to low investment efficiency and a very backward industrial level. After the People's Party took over the Manchu Qing's investments in industry, they fully utilized these precious industrial investments of China.

Since the People's Party had opened its eyes to see the world, the comrades would not think that those regions were inherently backward. Everyone was very clear that the regions now controlled by China through war had no industrial system, and even fragmented, unilateral industries were very scarce and backward. These regions had merely joined the cycle of the capitalist commercial system, and the products they provided were all raw materials.

"From any angle, especially from the angle of China's own national interests, we cannot view these regions from the perspective of imperialist wars for colonies. We must treat them differently." Chen Ke used these words to make a temporary conclusion.

If one insisted on viewing it from the angle of imperialist colonial war, Chen Ke's words could be understood as an absolute intention to annex Australia and New Zealand. Malaya and the Dutch East Indies would be divided into several or even a dozen small puppet states. But Chen Ke's original intention was truly not so. The comrades were also very clear on this point.

China itself was a vast major power. After the establishment of New China, the People's Party truly penetrated into various regions. Only then did they discover that the gap between different regions was staggering. The productivity level of many remote areas was close to primitive society, and the social structure was still in the era of slavery. Socialist transformation in these areas even had to involve struggles against slave owners.

The only way was to let everyone go to school, to snatch the children out of the scope of the old productive forces, and to transform those regions by improving the level of productive forces. Social transformation was naturally surging forward, but quite a few comrades "pessimistically believed" that to let those regions thoroughly enter the new era, to a large extent, they still had to wait for the people of those old systems to die to change customs and habits step by step. The core regions of China accepted new things faster, and the cost of upgrading China's core regions was far smaller than that of the remote, backward regions.

In the domestic socialist system transformation, countless laughable and tearful things occurred. In the Yunnan and Guangxi regions, work teams would struggle against slave owners as oppressors in the morning, struggle against the act of buying and selling women by the masses in the afternoon, and in the evening, they had to gather the people they had struggled against to attend production skill classes and personal hygiene classes together.

That passage from Engels was repeatedly mentioned in China's revolutionary work: "The ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in the minds of men, in their increasing insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch. The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that 'reason has become nonsense, and good works a plague,' is only a proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place."

The People's Party had already profoundly realized one thing in revolutionary practice: after the Opium Wars, China as a whole had indeed undergone tremendous changes, and even the Manchu Qing's political system itself had very interesting aspects. That is, indigenous Chinese commercial behavior was not suppressed. Wherever the People's Party's railways reached, the originally existing natural trade was immediately and thoroughly activated. In order to earn currency faster, the people threw themselves fully into the tide of trade.

There was nothing that could not be bought or sold. In order to control trade in various localities, the feudal system combined with the budding populist tendencies, and strong local protectionist tendencies appeared. The smoother the logistics, and the greater the gap in productivity levels between commodity circulation regions, the stronger the local protectionism.

If it was like this domestically, then in Southeast Asia, where the general productivity level was even inferior to China's very backward regions, and in Southeast Asia which had already entered the capitalist world trade system, trying to change Southeast Asia through China's forced intervention would be a money-losing act in terms of cost. In terms of efficiency, it was an even more terrible problem.

Rather than letting the People's Party do it themselves, it would be more scientific to let the various parts of Southeast Asia form their own nations and choose their own development paths. China could provide guidance and help, but it could not forcibly intervene directly.

At this time, the comrades at the Politburo Enlarged Meeting could not help but miss Comrade Zhang Yu. As the General Secretary of the People's Party and Minister of Propaganda, Comrade Li Runshi was very suitable to be a leader in overt schemes, but he was not completely suitable for work in these aspects that leaned towards the dark side.

However, everyone soon learned one thing: Comrade Zhang Yu was going back to Zhengzhou to join the Central Advisory Committee. With this advisor present, the comrades suddenly felt much more relaxed in their hearts. As the "Dark Faction" within the high levels of the People's Party, Zhang Yu had always had a great reputation. No comrade in the People's Party dared to use this to mock Zhang Yu. It wasn't how dark Zhang Yu himself was, but that Zhang Yu was particularly able to understand the dark side of the human heart. Ever since Zhang Yu left the front lines due to cardiovascular disease, he had been able to let go and simply went back to his hometown to conduct social investigations. It was not until the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army liberated the Dutch East Indies that Zhang Yu returned to Beijing.

The first generation of leaders in every country had a common characteristic, which was immense prestige. This prestige was a bit feudal from a certain angle; most of the initial systems were established by this group of people, so these people possessed immense influence over the system. Chen Ke was able to possess overwhelming authority, admittedly because he led everyone to walk a path of victory, but even more so because of the victorious system Chen Ke constructed around theory and practice. Chen Ke was the founder of the system, the interpreter of the system. Denying Chen Ke was equivalent to denying the current system. Just as denying Zhang Yu was equivalent to denying the systems handed down by the current propaganda and diplomatic departments.

"Since the foreign devils put the noose around their own necks, then we have an obligation to kick the stool from under their feet." This was how Zhang Yu lobbied within the Politburo. No one was willing to oppose Zhang Yu, although no comrades particularly supported this either. After seizing the entire Southeast Asia, including the Dutch East Indies, China's impulse to continue south was not that strong. The financial pressure was so huge that hundreds of members of the Central Committee of the People's Party felt the immense pressure.

Although Chen Ke had been shouting about a wartime system, China's huge industrial production capacity did not truly face the necessity of a full adjustment. The basic sectors determining the people's livelihood were all state-owned enterprises. The technological updates of state-owned enterprises were related to orders and scientific research plans. To get more technology funding, one had to have orders. After order contracts were reached, every enterprise could improve a portion of its technology and craftsmanship as wished. This was one of the main driving forces for the progress of China's industrial level.

The "Southern Advance Plan" proposed by Chen Ke when he convened the 12-person meeting years ago remained a secret, but China's plan to attack south was already a fact known to all. Regarding Zhang Yu's discovery, the comrades' feelings about the Southern Advance Plan were not necessarily about expanding territory, nor necessarily about nationalist passion, and even less necessarily about the promotion of the socialist system. Everyone was very realistically seeking a larger share for the interest group they belonged to. Even if it wasn't that kind of seeking under-the-table deals to grab benefits, striving for a larger share for one's own interest group within the system was the proper meaning of the industrial age.

Zhang Yu didn't know how to describe this matter either. The most important reason why the 12-person meeting did not agree to actively advance south a few years ago was the issue of national strength. At that time, it was estimated that China needed a total mobilization and needed to throw all production capacity into the war. Now it seemed that the investment required for the war was not as intense as imagined.

No investigation, no right to speak. Zhang Yu had left the front lines for several years, so the Personnel Department arranged for Li Runshi to introduce the latest progress of these years to Zhang Yu.

"Comrade Zhang Yu, we haven't done anything special, just strengthened the Party organization construction." Li Runshi said this at the beginning of the report.

Even though Li Runshi was a candidate he had recommended himself, Zhang Yu still listened very seriously. He was neither condescending nor did he have that self-satisfaction of being a "benefactor."

After listening to the report, Zhang Yu, led by Li Runshi, took a train to Anhui to visit the Computer Research Center of the National University of Defense Technology. China's locomotives had begun to gradually switch from steam locomotives to internal combustion locomotives, and trains had also begun to speed up. The sleepers of several main lines were changed from wood to concrete.

"Why put the transistor and computer center in Anhui?" Zhang Yu asked after getting on the train. Just as Fengtai County was once the center of the Chinese revolution and had now returned to the status of an ordinary Chinese county. The glory of the past seemed as if it had never happened.

"Climate reasons. The air humidity north of the Huai River is not enough, and there is a lot of floating dust, which is not very suitable for the production of these precision equipments. We also have plans to place new mature production bases in the newly liberated Malaya in the future, where the air is more suitable for these precision components." Li Runshi answered.

"Is this Chairman Chen's opinion?" Zhang Yu asked casually.

Li Runshi laughed: "This is the opinion of the scientific and technological workers."

"Oh?" Zhang Yu instantly became interested. "Many industries moving to the coast and moving south is also the suggestion of frontline staff?"

"Some are suggestions from scientific and technological workers, and some are suggestions from the commercial departments." Li Runshi's answer to this carried a tone of considerable satisfaction.

Zhang Yu nodded. This kind of change was indeed refreshing. Breaking away from Chen Ke's guidance on specific work, China's technology industry seemed to have entered a brand-new realm. This was the common expectation of Chen Ke and the upper echelons of the People's Party. If the technology department became Chen Ke's one-man department, what would happen after Chen Ke died?

Zhang Yu was once responsible for struggling against the matter of stealing Chen Ke's XXX speeches within the technology department. That major rectification tidied up the technology department severely. All those guys who considered themselves Chen Ke's disciples and grand-disciples, and tried to use this identity created by themselves to obtain special status, were mostly driven out of the technology team, or at least marginalized. Zhang Yu was not afraid of offending people at all. This was firstly a unanimous decision of the Politburo Standing Committee, and one of the 5+2 members of the Politburo was certainly not someone those who tried to use "Chen Ke's spirit tablet" could confront.

Of course, the sequelae of doing this was that a group of people who claimed to be "industry experts," "of noble character," "of outstanding strength of character," and "unafraid of power" had no competitors, so they jumped out to be academic tyrants. The rectification of this gang that started a few years ago was the responsibility of Propaganda Minister Li Runshi. Zhang Yu held back and did not ask Li Runshi how exactly he did it. He wanted to see with his own eyes what the technology team looked like after two purges.

The fist majors of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei were electronic technology and nuclear technology. After a strict investigation, Zhang Yu wore a visitor badge and visited the heavily guarded scientific research institution accompanied by Li Runshi, who also wore a visitor badge.

As soon as they entered the research institution, they saw that both sides of the central hall were covered with blackboards. The picture frames of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Chen Ke were squeezed to positions right up against the ceiling. The blackboards were written full of various research lectures and experimental seminar times. Zhang Yu looked for a good while but did not understand what these lectures were about. It just so happened that a lecture was about to start, so Zhang Yu went to that conference room to attend the lecture.

Most of the people coming and going in the corridors were young people, very young people, looking to be in their twenties or thirties. Even some who were around fifty were dressed simply and walked hurriedly. What was revealed in their steadiness was a vitality of seizing every minute and second.

The conference room was quite large, but there weren't many people. He saw a young man with messy hair, looking just over twenty. A tuft of hair on the back of his head stuck up towards the sky; obviously, he hadn't been awake for long. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes like a cat washing its face, lifted a large glass jar of tea and drank wildly, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and began to lecture.

The content of the lecture was about the problem of electron transition. Drawing and writing a bunch of experimental tables, this young man began to talk about the research project he was responsible for. These cutting-edge technologies were like listening to a heavenly book for Zhang Yu, and Zhang Yu didn't intend to pursue advanced studies here anyway. He carefully observed the members present. There were those older than the one on stage, and those younger. Everyone was listening seriously. There was no putting on airs, nor anything else. There were even a few who stood up and left seemingly rudely after listening for a while. Neither the lecturer nor the listeners paid any attention to this.

Quite interesting! Zhang Yu said to himself in his heart.

After visiting several lectures in a row, this kind of performance was the norm. Whether young people or middle-aged people, their attitude when speaking was very natural. There were elders questioning the young, and young people questioning the elders. No talk of responsibility, no talk of empty politeness; everyone spoke, everyone had their own ideas. When the arguments seemed unfriendly, everyone started issuing "Go Read Books Cards." Listing various materials and experiments.

The thing Zhang Yu found most amusing was that a debate was triggered by heaven knows what experiment, and everyone wasn't sure which process to adopt first. Finally, that elder took out a coin to decide the experimental order. Hearing the words "Let's flip for it!", a look of suppressed laughter appeared on Zhang Yu's face.

After inspecting a round, Zhang Yu praised: "Good job."

"Democratic centralism. Everyone must have the right to speak," Li Runshi replied.