The Great Reshuffle

The Great Reshuffle was a major shift in Albertian society. The majority of the population shifted from rural, agricultural lives to urban, industrial ones, in only 15 years.

## Before the Great Reshuffle (pre-1950)

In 1941, the census showed that 76% of working people in Alberat were farmers. People were evenly distributed around the country. There was no more than 4 towns per state, and each town barely qualified to be called so. Any person could receive a small plot of arable land from the government, if they so wished.

## Beginning of the Great Reshuffle (1950-2)

Historians today place the beginning of the Great Reshuffle in 1950, when a young farmer by the name of Lambeth Choi gave a speech at the annual Waidan Council Meeting. Having recently visited Wordsmith and seen their advanced technology, Choi now believed that his country was 'backwards' and called for 'the cessation of the agricultural state'. He also made claims that farming is damaging for the human body. While he expected his speech to cause some interest, he did not expect the extreme reaction it received. The council was very intrigued by his ideas, and so they ordered the construction of factories in Waidan. The 'Throw down your tools!' campaign was started to encourage farmers to sell their farming land to the government, for more factories to be built. Other councils followed Waidan's example.

The first factory, Zhangli Industry, was finished in Waidan in 1951. Many more followed - by 1953 there were 21 factories across Alberat, mostly in Warklebury and Waidan. Beautiful houses were built near them to entice workers there. The 1951 census showed that 61% of working people in Alberat were farmers. The new 'factory towns' were still very small, as they were completely new.

Alberat's first factory made goods were not high quality. The few engineers in Alberat mostly designed farming tools, so they were not experienced in anything else. The people of Alberat had no use for them, and the only place that offered to buy them was Shiverlous in Insomnia Central. It is agreed among historians that the reason for this is that Shiverlous did not bother to inspect the products before purchase.

In 1952, Alice Attridge of ADP was elected, under the slogan 'Industrialisation first'.

## Height of the Great Reshuffle (1952-65)

The building of factories over farmland increased exponentially under the new government. The decrease in farming meant that by 1958, Alberat could no longer grow enough to feed its populace, so it began trading with Redding for food.

The 'factory towns' grew in size. The government no longer needed to entice people with beautiful houses. Since such large volumes of people were moving to the towns, land there became extremely expensive. The government sold most of the land to private companies, which aimed to fit people into smaller and smaller accommodation. In 1957, a small attic flat in Warklebury's largest factory town cost the same as 30 acres of farmland.

Since farmland was now so cheap, some individuals bought extreme amounts. By 1959, one man owned 60% of the farmland in Alberat. His name was Liu Cheng.

In 1961, the census showed that 13% of working people in Alberat were farmers, and over half of them worked for Liu Cheng.

## Opposition to the Great Reshuffle

In 1963, Lambeth Choi, in an event nobody anticipated, denounced his former speech, and declared that industrialisation was the 'one true evil'. He said that it 'destroys all individuality, freedom, and leisure'. His disillusionment with the Great Reshuffle was shared by many, and together they formed a group called 'Together for Alberat' (TFA), which campaigned for the old way of life.

In Scotch, TFA members destroyed one of the largest textile factories in the nation.

In 1965, the TFA released a document titled 'The Choi Declaration' in which Lambeth Choi claimed that Alberat had 'accepted dystopia'. He then committed suicide by jumping into the chimney of Zhangli Industry. Subsequently, thousands more people followed Choi's example, taking their own lives in the factory chimneys. They demanded an end to industrialisation. This caused extreme shock in the nation. Eventually, the government compromised with TFA, allowing them to become a political party and banning the building of any new factories.

## Legacy

The effects of the Great Reshuffle are still widely seen to this day. The ADP continued to support industrialisation, whereas TFA were extremely opposed. This tension was the main cause of the Albertian Civil War (1989-2000).