50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 885 The "Miraculous" Bolivia
In the 18th century, Bolivia launched a war of independence in order to break free from Spanish colonists.

As a result, the Bolivian army was soundly defeated by the Spanish and was eventually liberated only with the help of Simón Bolívar from Venezuela.

Therefore, Bolivia hailed the foreigner Simón Bolívar as a national hero and named its country after him.

In 1863, rich nitrate deposits were discovered in the Atacama Province on the Pacific coast of Bolivia.

In 1879, Chile sent troops to occupy the mining area, and subsequently Bolivia, together with Peru, launched the "Pacific War" against Chile.

As a result, Bolivia was once again soundly defeated and forced to cede its only coastal province, Atacama, to Chile.

From then on, Bolivia lost its only outlet to the sea and became a landlocked country.

In 1932, Bolivia and its neighbor Paraguay fought the Chaco War over oil resources in the Chaco region of the North.

As a result, Bolivia was defeated again and lost a large amount of territory once more.

But this country with such weak military strength is also particularly prone to producing ambitious individuals, with several military coups occurring on average every year.

At first, the country's residents were a little scared, but the frequency of coups made the residents of the capital numb to it.

It is said that later on, each time a coup occurred, only a few hundred soldiers would participate, while the number of onlookers would be greater than the number of soldiers participating in the coup.

Moreover, regardless of which side the soldiers were on, they rarely engaged in direct firefights with guns; instead, they relied more on melee weapons such as shields.

They do not harm the onlookers, and many will even cooperate if the crowd asks to take photos. Local residents generally refer to these so-called "coups" as "troublemaking."

In short, it's a very strange country, politically it feels particularly naive, like playing house.

Regardless, Bolivia, though extremely poor, is a country with abundant mineral resources.

Among them, lithium reserves are 1 million tons, ranking first in the world; tin reserves are 115 million tons, ranking second in the world.

Bolivia is said to have the world's largest iron ore reserves, estimated at 900 billion tons.

The Mutung iron ore mine alone has reserves of 570 billion tons, accounting for 30% of the world's iron ore reserves.

There's a story behind the Mutung iron ore mine: because Bolivia's economy was very underdeveloped and it was the poorest country in South America, they planned to sell the Mutung iron ore mine to China in order to make some money.

We definitely want this world's largest iron ore mine, but Bolivia is a landlocked country and has no access to the sea to transport the iron ore.

There are three ways to transport iron ore out of the country.

One route transported iron ore westward by rail to ports in the Pacific Ocean, while the other route transported it eastward by rail to ports in the Atlantic Ocean, or southward via Uruguay to ports in the Atlantic Ocean.

But to the west lies Chile, and the two countries have a history of enmity. Bolivia's only coastal province was ceded to Chile, and the two countries are still at odds in the League of Nations over this. So this route is not feasible.

If you go east, you have to pass through Brazil. Brazil and Bolivia have a good relationship, and Brazil allows Bolivia to use their ports to ship goods.

However, to transport iron ore, they would need to build their own freight railway, which is at least 1000 kilometers from Bolivia to the Atlantic Ocean.

The investment required to build such a railway, spanning thousands of kilometers, would be in the hundreds of millions. Bolivia simply didn't have the money to build such a railway, so the westward plan was shelved. Dredging the river to the south was also a massive project, and the cost wasn't much cheaper than building the railway, so naturally, that project was abandoned as well.

Ultimately, Bolivia was left begging for food while guarding the world's largest iron ore mine.

Sun Zhiwei was quite concerned about this information. Considering that his family would need to import 80% of their annual iron ore demand in the future, he planned to visit the Mutong Iron Mine after completing his mission.

After getting off the plane in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, he began to inquire about the transportation options to his destination, Covija.

Covija is located at the northernmost tip of Pando Province in Bolivia, about 1200 kilometers from the capital, La Paz.

The town is located near the Brazilian border in the Amazon rainforest, with an average annual temperature of over 30°C and annual rainfall of over 2000 millimeters.

Covija’s main industry is the entire industrial chain of harvesting and processing “Brazilian chestnuts”, and a company called Tawamanu has a monopoly on the local “Brazilian chestnut” industry.

The Brazil chestnut tree is a nut-bearing tree unique to South America, with a single tree producing up to 300 kilograms of nuts annually. Its kernels resemble almonds and are highly nutritious, offering benefits such as brain health, hangover relief, and liver protection.

Tawamanu has an automated "Brazilian chestnut" production line in Kovija that can process more than 7000 tons of "Brazilian chestnut" fruit raw materials annually.

The residents of Covija are widely involved in all aspects of the "Brazilian chestnut" industry chain.

However, Sun Zhiwei soon received some bad news from the locals.

It turns out that Koviha is located in a tropical rainforest, where the climate is very suitable for mosquitoes to breed.

Therefore, Coviha is a high-incidence area for tropical infectious diseases such as malaria, hemorrhagic fever and yellow fever, and locals also call Coviha "the land of death".

During the construction of the railway to Kovija, more than 1200 of the 2000 construction workers died from infectious diseases, and the railway is now known as the "Devil's Road".

The thought of his mission objectives and his family members being stuck in that kind of place sent chills down Sun Zhiwei's spine.

Sun Zhiwei, who had originally planned to set off immediately, had to take some time to check the space and find the right medicine just in case.

Malaria is manageable; Sun Zhiwei's raids on the monkeys and America's base supplies contained quinoline, a highly effective drug, and there's still plenty left in the storage space.

There are no specific antiviral drugs for hemorrhagic fever and yellow fever.

Even at large hospitals, only symptomatic treatments such as stopping bleeding, reducing fever, relieving pain, and replenishing electrolytes can be provided. A full recovery depends entirely on the body's immune system.

Sun Zhiwei could only prepare some of the medical supplies that might be needed and store them in a specific area of ​​the space so that they could be accessed at any time.

The only thing that pleased him was that Covija had a small airport with a cargo flight that ran every day during the day, which saved him from having to take the "devil's road" and spend several days crossing the rainforest.

After everything was ready, he spent some money to board a cargo flight to Covija.

Koviha, a city in the rainforest. Calling it a city is a bit of an exaggeration; it's actually just a town in the jungle. Apart from the airport control tower, there isn't a single tall building in the entire city.

The reconnaissance team members were living in a house on the edge of the town. When Sun Zhiwei came looking for them, two of the three reconnaissance officers had already fallen.

(End of this chapter)