I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 817 - 715: Resuming Construction and Postwar Recovery

Because the situation in the Middle East Region is considerably better than anticipated, Flame Country decided to adopt a different strategy for constructing the Middle East defense line.

Originally, Flame Country planned to send construction teams and workers from home to undertake the project. However, since there are still ten million people in the Middle East Region, it’s only natural to utilize these people.

Thus, what was initially a defense line entirely built by Flame Country workers became a project where Flame Country sent technical engineers while the workforce from the Middle East Region carried out the construction.

The official organizations in the Middle East Region greatly supported and agreed with this plan because Flame Country’s proposal was for them to build the defense line, while Flame Country provided living supplies as compensation. For the destitute Middle East Region, this was a godsend.

In these cold times, the fear isn’t about having no work but rather having no food.

Agriculture in the Middle East Region has never been particularly developed. Although the Tigris-Euphrates basin is traditionally an agricultural area, years of war and various issues have left it desolate.

Despite attempts before the catastrophe to establish some greenhouses adapted for cold environments with funding, their quantity and capacity were limited.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been left with less than ten million people.

Now they could earn living supplies by working for Flame Country, which everyone struggling with hunger and cold wholeheartedly supported.

Moreover, it was also about defending their homeland, so the people of the Middle East had no reason to oppose this.

The first defense line to be built was in the Aleppo Region. Even though alien creatures hadn’t launched a large-scale attack from this direction, it was giong to be constructed first for safety reasons, thus ensuring peace of mind as the entire Middle East defense line was built.

While Flame Country began constructing the defense line, Lucia helped to open up the railway from Eastern Europe to the Middle East Region, transporting workers who had completed the Eastern European defense line construction to the Anatolian Peninsula. They began building the line in the Great Caucasus Mountains, extending a small section of the defense line towards the Aleppo Region.

Through Kazakhstan, Flame Country opened up a railway to the Middle East Region and began transporting construction teams, engineering machinery, and a large volume of supplies there.

With both countries ramping up efforts, local official agencies in the Middle East Region naturally did not dare to slack off. In addition to deploying all their available military forces to the Aleppo Region, they also started organizing local labor to collaborate with construction teams from both countries.

Despite the slow progress due to long-term malnutrition and the locals’ unfamiliarity with construction work, the construction of the Middle East defense line was commencing as planned.

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While work in the Middle East was in full swing, Chen Xin this time did not proceed to the Middle East.

Even though Chen Xin had demonstrated strong organizational and working capabilities in previous work with Lucia and Europe, the upper echelons, considering the practical circumstances, did not send Chen Xin to the Middle East this time. Instead, they dispatched a senior official to oversee and manage all aspects of the defense line construction in the region.

Chen Xin himself stayed in the country this time with no special additional work assigned to him.

For Chen Xin, this was a rare period of leisure, where he could finish his tasks as usual and return home from work—a truly rare luxury.

Not needing to travel abroad and being able to accompany his parents and family at home was something Chen Xin certainly welcomed.

This led to Chen Xin adhering to a regular schedule, returning home to have dinner with his parents, enjoying the warmth of family.

Chen Xin greatly enjoyed such a lifestyle, feeling the long-missed warmth of home.

Though it’s something you don’t notice normally, being away from home for extended periods and finally returning to live with family, feeling their care, is indeed a rare warmth.

Especially since Qin Lan and Mo Qingyan frequently visited whenever they had time, which made things even livelier.

Even though the threat of alien creatures wasn’t entirely removed, the atmosphere in the country gradually relaxed under the state’s conscious control after the war in the Dongting Lake Region ended.

After fighting against alien creatures for so long, everyone was stressed to the maximum. With the war within the country finally over, it was natural to quickly restore national economy and people’s livelihood, and also relieve the overly stressed individuals, as too much stress can lead to issues.

This could be seen from Qin Lan and Mo Qingyan’s increased visits to Chen Xin’s home, showing that the country was consciously trying to slow down the previously fast-paced operations.

However, the state didn’t completely relax everything at once but kept regulating things orderly.

After all, the European war hadn’t ended, and the threat of alien creatures wasn’t eliminated. A certain level of relaxation was allowed, but it wasn’t time to let the guard down completely.

In the critical Research Center, despite Chen Xin leaving work on time every day, there was still plenty to do—incorporating the military’s new requirements for equipment based on their Dongting Lake battlefield performance reviews, collaborating on research tasks sent from other domestic research departments, and working on departmental research projects...

Receiving instructions from the higher-ups, Chen Xin naturally understood what needed to be done: one aspect involved reasonably organizing so that researchers and staff could reduce overtime and take vacations for relaxation; another was to classify all tasks by priority and efficiently complete urgent work.

This workload was much easier for Chen Xin than coordinating all of Europe, though relatively complex, but manageable.

Without Tang Tang’s assistance, Chen Xin might have had to work overtime instead of leaving work on time every day.

Aside from Chen Xin’s department, most domestic institutions were in a similar state, trying to minimize overtime while efficiently completing work to recover from the invisible losses incurred during two years of wartime conditions.

Thanks to the national policy, Chen Xin managed to find time to return once to his shelter.

During the alien creature invasion, the shelter was abandoned by Chen Xin, and the original Research Center was then turned into the military’s front-line command center.

With the war finished, though a rapid reaction force was still required to counter potential alien resurgence at Dongting Lake Region, the front-line command center was no longer necessary.

Once the military withdrew most of its troops from Dongting Lake Region, the area was returned to Chen Xin’s department.