I saw everything

Chapter 391 Small talk
Time flies, and another year is coming to an end.

April 2031, 12.

Jiang Miao spent the last few days at headquarters processing the group's annual report and listening to work reports from the heads of various departments.

After comparing the reports from these department heads with those from his direct business investigation department and finding no major problems, Jiang Miao went home to see his son, Jiang Siyuan, who was born in April of this year.

After saying goodbye to his family, he boarded one of the group's internal travel airships, which were actually 15 passenger airships specially customized by the Haifeng Group for a group of technical personnel and management who required high security.

These airships are currently registered under an airship tourism company under the Hailufeng Group, and can be arranged for Jiang Miao and others to use them whenever needed.

Inside the airship's main hall.

Besides Jiang Miao, there were two other important technical personnel. However, due to their confidentiality and security level, they did not actually need to take this kind of airship. But since Jiang Miao saw that their itinerary was on the same route, he invited them to hitch a ride with him.

"boss."

Jiang Miao smiled and nodded: "Huaijin, Zhiying, don't stand, sit down."

A middle-aged man in his thirties with short hair and wearing square-framed glasses sat somewhat reservedly on the sofa.

"Thank you, boss." The other was a middle-aged man with slightly tanned skin. He was quite outgoing and, as soon as he sat down, picked up the teapot and poured tea for Jiang Miao and his companion: "This is Phoenix Dancong, right? You like this kind of tea too, boss? The customs here in Chaoshan are really quite similar!"

"Hehe...yes!" Jiang Miao took a sip of Phoenix Dancong tea: "I remember Huaijin, you're from Zhangzhou, right? Your customs there should be similar to ours!"

The outgoing Lin Huaijin casually replied, "That's about right."

Jiang Miao looked at the silent Ji Zhiying, not ignoring him: "Zhiying, what kind of tea do you usually drink in your hometown of Hanzhong?"

"I don't know much about tea, I usually drink green tea." Ji Zhiying scratched her temple.

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand, because tea from different regions doesn't have much of a competitive advantage anymore," Jiang Miao said with a smile, shaking his head.

Lin Huaijin, who has long studied new varieties of plum fruit, was naturally well aware of this situation.

Previously, China's tea industry mainly focused on famous local teas, with sales concentrated in the domestic market, while the international market was dominated by Darjeeling tea from India and Ceylon tea.

But now this situation has been completely overturned.

India has collapsed. The Darjeeling tea-producing region has already collapsed. In addition, multiple dirty bombs have been detonated within India. Tea produced in this region has absolutely no market internationally.

The Ceylon tea-producing region has been integrated into the Asian Union's tea system since joining the union.

But what is actually changing the tea production model is the widespread application of new technologies.

In the past, even when Seris exported tea, it was mainly in the form of tea products.

However, nowadays there are agricultural buildings in various places that can completely simulate the natural environment, so tea is produced in various places and people basically do not buy tea products from other places.

Therefore, the original tea garden operators had to change their business model and obtain patent fees in the long term by selling patented varieties, seedlings, and planting technology patents to other cities.

Although tea varieties such as Da Hong Pao, Phoenix Dan Cong, Huangshan Maofeng, and West Lake Longjing have passed their patent protection period, it does not mean that they cannot be processed.

One area that is relatively easy to operate is planting technology and tea processing techniques. As long as a unique production and processing technology can be developed, operators who use the technology for production must pay patent fees to the researchers and research institutions.

This is similar to the transformation of the apparel industry.

Therefore, tea can now be grown in various places, producing a wide variety of tea varieties.

Of course, this does not mean that the tea export industry has completely disappeared; at least the international market still needs tea.

However, the Asian Union is consuming less and less tea produced outside the region. This is not xenophobia, but rather a lack of need for it.

After all, with fully controllable indoor farms, any tea variety can be grown. In addition, fully automatic tea processing machines, fully automatic tea picking machines, and fully automatic tea fermentation machines have significantly reduced the production cost of local tea.

目前市场上1甲级的茶叶价格，普遍在15到18块钱一公斤左右；2甲茶差不多是50到100块钱一公斤；最好的3甲茶，也才300到1000块钱一公斤。

A fully automated indoor tea garden can produce approximately 150 to 280 kilograms of tea per acre per year.

This yield per mu is astonishing. You should know that traditional tea gardens only produce a few dozen kilograms per mu each year. For example, Darjeeling in Tianzhu has an average annual yield of about 37 kilograms of black tea per mu.

The current production capacity is only possible thanks to a major technological breakthrough.

This also led to a sharp drop in the prices of various agricultural products.

As for those "master tea" brands that want to continue to pursue brand premiums or exploit consumers, they actually have very little room to survive now.

The fundamental reason for the decline of these enterprises is the change in production relations.

Master-crafted tea? Are there any tea-managing services available?

What is managed tea?
This is a new business model where tea enthusiasts who have a long-term need for tea can purchase a tea tree online and entrust a professional tea garden management organization to manage it, paying a certain management fee each year.

For example, Jiang Miao owns 5 mu of Phoenix Dancong tea.

This is also a preferred way for many wealthy people to obtain tea.

There are also orchard and vegetable garden subscriptions similar to tea garden subscriptions. Even if you require the management to use fully organic farming methods, as long as you have the money, everything will be fine.

Of course, in Jiang Miao's eyes, organic farming was just a gimmick.

After all, with the support of various technologies, vegetables and fruits can be grown almost without the use of highly toxic pesticides, and through specific environmental stimulation methods, the flavor of the products can be guaranteed to be almost the same as that of wild-grown products.

However, Asia Union's agricultural technology has now reached a new stage, and with the large-scale promotion of the Agricultural Building, Jiang Miao has not called for the destruction of organic farming.

He's happy to see someone willing to be exploited.

In the past, before agricultural technology evolved, Jiang Miao would never have spoken well of organic farming.

After all, traditional organic farming is too time-consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive, and the yield is very low.

If, as some people have touted on the internet in the past, the whole country adopts organic farming methods, then the prices of grains, vegetables, and fruits would probably skyrocket by more than ten times.

This is not an exaggeration; it is simply the truth.

By 2031, the relevant agricultural technologies will have reached a new stage. Currently, Asia Union's open-field agricultural areas are concentrated in regions that are convenient for mechanization, such as the North China Plain, Northeast Plain, Southern Mongolia Plateau, Taklamakan Desert in Western China, Great Artesian Basin in Australia, and Sichuan Basin.

Apart from the Yangtze River Plain and the Mekong River Plain, where there are still some individually operated small farms, most other areas have been converted from farmland to forest.

For example, in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the area of ​​open-field farmland has decreased by about 47% in recent years compared to 2025, and it continues to decline.

There's no other way; the farmland on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau is too fragmented. If we continue with open-field farming, a large number of people would need to remain in the towns and villages, which would be detrimental to the Asia-Pacific Alliance's strategy.

Given current technology, the amount of resources required to lift an ordinary person out of poverty in a city is vastly different from that required in a rural area, and the rate of return also differs significantly. Within the Asian Union, regions with higher levels of urbanization generally have higher overall economic levels, higher per capita income, and higher per capita public resource consumption.

This is not to advocate that urbanization is good.

Urbanization must be considered in light of the broader technological context and management systems; otherwise, it is merely wishful thinking.

For example, in Brazil, although urbanization is indeed high, there are many slums in the cities. The presence of a large number of urban poor has led to a deterioration of urban security.

Asia Union's urbanization was achieved through the benefits of technology.

The ubiquitous agricultural buildings now provide stable jobs for a large number of farmers who have moved to the city. In addition, the ever-growing service industry and small-scale industries have stabilized a large number of farmers who have moved to the city.

Everyone has a job and generally has a good income, which further promotes urbanization.

This is actually very easy to understand.

Imagine two regions, each with a population of 1000 million. In one region, 80% of the population is from rural areas and 20% is from urban areas; in the other region, the entire population is from urban areas.

Given similar wage levels, the latter requires at least three times the size of the service sector as the former.

Why is this happening?

The answer lies in scale. Rural populations have a very obvious characteristic: they are scattered and far apart from each other.

For example, if you were a restaurant owner, would you open a restaurant in a small village or in a city?

You said I could rely on the villagers' spending money.

Then the maximum limit for your restaurant has been locked.

The significance of a city's existence lies in the scaling up, intensification, and clustering of its service industry, thereby enabling high competition within the service sector and driving down service prices.

In cities, large hospitals can maintain a normal balance between income and expenditure, but in a remote town, if there are no large cities nearby, the hospital will definitely be unable to make ends meet.

This was actually a problem that Seris had faced before.

In order to ensure that people in remote areas can access various public services, we have no choice but to build hospitals, schools, and libraries, and maintain bus stations and railway lines.

However, such public services and facilities are destined to be unprofitable ventures.

Although many people say that we shouldn't look at this matter so pragmatically, if we can solve the problem by urbanization, concentrating the population, and relocating people from remote areas, that would be a fundamental solution.

However, technological conditions are certainly essential to achieve this.

Otherwise, it would just be a larger version of Brazil.

Jiang Miao's emergence brought with it a lot of technology, which became the driving force for the comprehensive urbanization of Seris and even the entire Asian Union.

...

Inside the main hall of the airship.

The chat continued.

Lin Huaijin didn't inquire about Jiang Miao's trip, as he knew the importance of such matters. Instead, he talked about space agriculture:

"Boss, the agricultural lab on the Xintiangong-2 space station has recently developed a lot of agricultural technologies suitable for low-gravity environments. When will our company officially start developing space farms?"

"Not that fast."

Ji Zhiying interjected, "Agricultural technology in low-gravity environments is quite difficult."

"Dr. Ji, I heard you research space chemistry?"

Upon hearing this, Ji Zhiying replied in a serious tone: "To be more precise, it is about researching chemical synthesis technology under microgravity conditions."

Lin Huaijin, who had no experience with space agriculture, asked curiously, "Dr. Ji, how much does the space environment affect chemical synthesis?"

"It's difficult for me to explain the specifics in a short time." Ji Zhiying might have some difficulty expressing herself and didn't know how to answer Lin Huaijin's question.

Jiang Miao casually forked a piece of pineapple and said with a smile, "Chemical synthesis in space is indeed more troublesome because in a microgravity environment, many chemical changes will manifest differently than on the Earth's surface."

Lin Huaijin refilled their teacups: "I've heard that alloys smelted in space have a very fluffy and uniform texture, and some peculiar properties."

“That’s certainly possible,” Ji Zhiying nodded.

Just now.

Li Zixuan jogged over quickly.

Seeing this, Lin Huaijin swallowed the words he was about to say.

Li Zixuan, who had come to Jiang Miao's side, whispered a few words in his ear: "..."

Jiang Miao frowned, then stood up: "Huaijin, Zhiying, you two talk, I have something to take care of first."

"Boss, you're too kind. You're busy, Zhiying and I are going to have lunch too." Lin Huaijin stood up.

"Ah."

Jiang Miao left in a hurry.

Inside the airship's private office.

He looked at the report in his hand, a thoughtful expression on his face, along with a hint of surprise.

The report, which Wang Lifeng had handed over to him, contained not only a briefing on the testing of various biological aids, but also a rather sensitive piece of information.

That is, they obtained information about a secret organization in the Little Venice area. There wasn't much intelligence on this organization, but the intelligence analysis department judged that it might be closely related to the sterilization crisis a few years ago.

Jiang Miao actually knew the relevant information, but he couldn't say it directly.

Unexpectedly, one of the core leaders of these guys was captured by the Asian Union's agents in Little Venice. After reading the report, Jiang Miao did not give any instructions, but instead asked Li Zixuan to leave first.

He was the only one left in the office.

Only then did he open his personal laptop, because he felt that he hadn't investigated intelligence on Europe and America for a long time, and since he had some free time today, he decided to investigate again and update the intelligence database.

(End of this chapter)