I saw everything

Chapter 393 An Unfavorable Start to the Year

The new year arrived amidst a blizzard.

2032, April 1.

Jiang Miao arrived in the Zhelimu region in southern Inner Mongolia.

As one of the three early core development areas of the Hailufeng Group, the Zhelimu region has not only developed a highly developed economy over the years, but is also one of the few regions within the Asia Union that still maintains open-field agriculture.

His itinerary for this trip north included spending more than a week in Beijing to meet and discuss matters with senior executives of the Asia Union, followed by his second stop in the Jerim region.

I came out of the airship station.

Even with snow falling heavily on the road, the prosperity on both sides is still evident.

As a region whose main industry is agriculture, there are a large number of small towns scattered throughout the area.

However, these towns are quite different from traditional rural towns.

The biggest difference lies in the transportation system.

Zhelimum City does not have a large core city like other regions. Instead, it is composed of small and medium-sized cities that are evenly distributed and interconnected by a well-developed elevated light rail line.

In 2025, at the end of the golden age, the population of the Zhelimu region will be approximately 280 million.

By 2032, the region's population will have soared to 677 million.

Of course, this was not due to the natural reproduction of the local population, but rather to the influx of a large number of immigrants, mainly from rural areas along the coast of North China and the banks of the Yellow River.

In the car, Jiang Miao looked at the development yearbook of the Monan branch over the past few years.

Currently, the open-air farm area in Zhelimu League is 6473 million mu, and the main cash crops are soybeans, rubber grass, and corn.

Its industry also revolves around the deep processing of soybeans, rubber grass, and corn.

For example, rubber grass that has undergone further variety improvement can be harvested once a year, with a planting cycle of about six and a half months. The yield of raw rubber is about 2300 to 2600 kilograms per mu (approximately 0.16 acres), and it can also produce about 400 kilograms of inulin by-products, as well as a large amount of organic fertilizer raw materials.

Currently, there are approximately 1000 million mu of rubber grass in the entire Zhelimu region, which can produce 2300 to 2600 million tons of raw rubber and about 400 million tons of inulin annually.

According to the data, three second-generation varieties of rubber grass have been developed. The main improvement directions for these second-generation varieties, in addition to yield, are the types of molecular structures of their rubber.

With so much raw rubber, a wide variety of processing industries have naturally emerged.

The natural rubber industry in the Zhelimu region is currently the largest in the Northern Hemisphere.

The reason it is limited to being the largest in the Northern Hemisphere is because...

The reason is that there is also a rubber grass plantation of about 1000 million acres in the Victoria Desert in southern Australia, which is the largest natural rubber producing area in the Southern Hemisphere.

Australia is currently a new hotspot for major agricultural groups in Seres.

One reason is that a large number of low-lying coastal areas in Southeast Asia have been submerged, such as the Red River Delta, Bangkok in Siam, and the Mekong Delta. These areas are densely populated, and the global sea level has risen by about 11 meters this year compared to 2025.

Australia became the main destination for the influx of people into these flooded areas.

In addition, there are STEM talents who immigrated from Europe and North America.

There were also immigrants from Japan and South Korea.

With all of these factors combined, Australia's total population has now exceeded 1.84 million.

It's worth noting that in 2025, Australia's native population was only around 2700 million. In less than seven years, its population increased by 1.47 million, which shows just how massive the influx of immigrants from all over the world has been.

Fortunately, this is also one of the goals of the Asian Union.

Australia has now become a melting pot of people, with local whites, Cyreans, Javanese, Siamese, Annamese, Japanese, Koreans, Western Europeans, North Americans, South Americans, and more all present.

Furthermore, the Asian Union has very strict regulations that prohibit a single ethnic group from establishing its own exclusive community. Instead, they must live in dispersed communities, thereby breaking down traditional racial prejudices.

Such a large population appears to put significant pressure on Australia's natural resources.

However, this is actually a very wrong idea.

Even without various new technologies, Australia's natural resources can still support 1 million people, and under extreme conditions, it can support 3 million people.

Moreover, this was during the Platinum Era.

Australia’s Great Artesian Basin, with an average elevation of less than 200 meters and very flat terrain, can be transformed into a vast area of ​​arable land with abundant water resources by building large-scale desalination plants along the southern and northern coasts and then using the natural drop in elevation to transport water into the basin.

The Great Artesian Basin is currently highly developed, with 150 million square kilometers of open farmland and 12 square kilometers of internal water area.

The 150 million square kilometers of arable land are mainly used for growing wheat, corn, oats, barley, millet, and sorghum.

In contrast, the desert regions along the Australian coast primarily cultivate drought-resistant cash crops such as rubber grass, wild soybeans, and other similar crops.

This agricultural pattern only began to take full shape in 2030. After two years of adjustments, it has finally developed into a major global grain and cash crop producing area comparable to the northern part of Seres.

Two open-air agricultural areas, one in the south and one in the north, ensure that Asia Union's various agricultural products can be supplied year-round.

Although the emergence of indoor farms has freed many fruits and vegetables from relying on open-field cultivation, this does not mean that open-field cultivation has no value.

For example, many food crops and cash crops are still grown on open farmland.

This is mainly determined by the price-performance ratio.

Indoor farms can indeed increase grain yields by more than ten times when growing gene-edited varieties, but this carries certain risks, and the unit cost may not necessarily be reduced by much.

Although there is a relatively high level of acceptance of genetically modified and gene-edited crops within Asia Union, the top management of Asia Union has not blindly promoted them.

On the one hand, research institutions are still studying these genetically modified crops to investigate whether they have serious side effects on the human body.

On the other hand, it's also to be on the safe side.

This is just in case, mainly because indoor farms rely too heavily on modern industry and infrastructure. If the modern industrial system collapses, for example, if the power system cannot supply electricity stably, then the indoor farm will inevitably be unable to sustain itself.

Asia Union's top management is clearly not that bold as to bet all their food production on indoor farms.

This isn't a question of whether or not one has the courage; the risk is simply too great.

The current thinking of the Asia Union's top leadership, or rather the suggestions of think tank experts like Jiang Miao, is to pursue three parallel paths.

This means that open-field agriculture should be maintained at a certain scale, indoor agriculture should continue to develop, and industrial synthetic food technology should continue to be researched and developed.

Only by doing this can we minimize future risks.

For example, in the agricultural new variety research and development tasks of Hailufeng Group, the research and development investment in various new crop varieties that can adapt to harsh natural environments still maintains a considerable proportion.

This is what it means to plan ahead.

If the industrial system of Asia Union, or even humanity, collapses in the future and cannot be restored to normal in a short period of time, then these species that can adapt to harsh natural environments will be the lifeline of human civilization.

...

Unbeknownst to Jiang Miao, his car had arrived at a research base in the suburbs. He had just come out of the underground parking lot.

Li Zixuan glanced at his phone, then whispered a few words in his ear.

Jiang Miao looked at Huang Xiaomi, the base manager who came to greet him: "Xiaomi, please arrange an office for me first. We can discuss the inspection of your base this afternoon."

Although she didn't know what had happened, Huang Xiaomi nodded and said, "No problem, I'll arrange it right away."

Not a moment.

Jiang Miao and his group then arrived at a large conference room inside the base.

Huang Xiaomi guessed that Jiang Miao might have some urgent matters to deal with, so she led her group here: "Boss, this way please, there is a small office in the conference room."

"Ah."

Jiang Miao went into the small office, while the others whispered among themselves in the large conference room. Only Li Zixuan followed him in.

He sat down and took off his coat.

Li Zixuan had already taken out his laptop.

Jiang Miao entered a password and fingerprint to unlock the device, and then opened a video conference via an internal dedicated line and software.

After adjusting the radio settings, he called out, "Old Zhang, I'm online. Has everyone else arrived?"

"Academician Jiang, you've arrived. There are still five people who haven't arrived yet. Let's wait a moment and take a look at the documents I sent you!" Zhang Shaofeng, head of the Asia Union Think Tank Center, said to him.

"Okay." Jiang Miao then opened his phone and found several documents that the Asia Union Think Tank had just sent him.

He frowned after reading the first document, but said nothing since no one else was there.

Li Zixuan, who was in the office, brewed him a pot of tea.

About ten minutes later, all the other invited think tank advisors had also arrived.

Zhang Shaofeng also asked them to look at the documents first, and then announced that they would discuss and make suggestions in half an hour.

Time passed by minute by minute.

Half an hour passed quickly.

Zhang Shaofeng, who was on the video's nine-grid screen, checked the time and then said, "Time's up. Everyone, feel free to speak your mind and share your opinions."

The slightly sleep-deprived old man with a Mediterranean complex was the first to speak: "I think the expansion of the Squid people in West Asia must be contained. Although West Asia is now a member of the Southern Alliance, the Southern Alliance is too chaotic internally. According to feedback from the intelligence department, this time the Northern Alliance is supporting the Squid people in their encroachment on West Asia. We cannot stand idly by."

"Old Shen makes a good point."

"That's what I thought too."

Another middle-aged man wearing glasses said with a serious expression, "I don't think things are that simple. Judging from all the signs, the fact that the Squid people stirred up trouble in West Asia this time may be because the internal conflicts within the Northern Alliance are too great. In order to divert attention, or rather, to shift the focus of the conflict, they deliberately orchestrated this incident."

At this moment, Jiang Miao also spoke up: "We have huge interests in Egypt and we must curb the expansion of the Squid. If they disrupt the order in Egypt, our previous investments will become ruins."

"Yes, Egypt is indeed a country we cannot afford to lose."

"Yes! We have invested hundreds of billions in northeastern Egypt. If the war is allowed to spread, these investments will definitely go down the drain."

"I suggest helping the West Asia region."

"Should we take direct action?"

"It's not very suitable, but we can give some of our stuff to the Confederacy through a loan arrangement."

"You mean those things from the Xiba region? Is that appropriate?"

"What's inappropriate?"

"Indeed, the Northern Union is so brazen because it thinks the Southern Union doesn't have any trump cards up its sleeve. They've given them before, so what's wrong with giving them one more time?"

"Yes, I agree. The Confederate States of America cannot be weakened any further. After all, a triangular relationship is the most stable."

After discussing for half an hour, the group finally reached an agreement on the first document, and then began to discuss the contents of the second document.

None of the eight individuals commented on the contents of the second document, as it pertained to scientific matters.

Jiang Miao said slowly, "I don't agree with this idea."

"Academician Jiang, please explain your reasoning." Zhang Shaofeng still held Jiang Miao in high regard.

"Everyone has already seen this document, so I won't go into the details. I'm not optimistic about the future of this plan, for the following reasons..."

The document primarily describes a new technology: using nuclear reactors placed in low Earth orbit as an energy source for large-scale low Earth orbit processing plants.

Considering that controlled nuclear fusion devices are currently quite large, miniaturization technology is still under development.

Therefore, some have proposed applying the relatively mature thorium-based molten salt reactor to a space processing plant in low Earth orbit.

The space factory in low Earth orbit is a space project that must be tested within the next five years, mainly for the purpose of producing spacecraft components.

In particular, for large spacecraft, due to their size and weight limitations, launching them entirely from the Earth's surface into outer space is clearly not a viable option.

Therefore, space processing plants in near-Earth orbit came into being.

However, while the concept of a space manufacturing plant is easy to put forward and can be written in any way on a PowerPoint presentation, many professional teams have discovered a host of problems when it comes to actual operation.

One of the biggest problems is the energy source for the space manufacturing plant.

Some might say, "Can't we use solar power to generate electricity in outer space? And can't we use solar power to generate energy for our processing plants?"

However, after further research, it was found that the solar power generation scheme was somewhat unreliable.

On the one hand, the processing plant requires a lot of energy, which means that if solar power is used, the area of ​​the solar panels will need to be very large.

On the other hand, the raw materials for the processing plant certainly cannot be self-sufficient and must be transported from Earth, which means that the space processing plant must frequently dock with spacecraft.

When large-area solar photovoltaic panels and frequent spacecraft travel come together, many research institutions discover the contradictions between them.

It's important to understand that even with the addition of various new materials and technologies, modern space facilities still retain their inherent fragility.

If a spaceship that frequently enters and exits is involved in a traffic accident, the consequence would be the scrapping of a space processing plant with an investment of tens of billions of dollars.

Large-area solar photovoltaic panels would obviously increase the probability of spacecraft being involved in traffic accidents nearby.

Don't say that an accident is impossible.

With spacecraft frequently entering and leaving the spaceport, accidents are bound to happen sooner or later.

(End of this chapter)