Wasteland Border Inspector

Chapter 228 The Predicament of Shi Province: A Cruel Reality!

One dark cloud after another swept across the sky, obscuring the already sparse moonlight intermittently.

Only a few scattered rays of light fell on the river surface, swaying with the waves.

The three arrived at the riverbank. The current of the Baishui River was even faster than during the day. Waves crashed against the embankment, splashing up tiny water droplets that shimmered faintly in the night.

Perhaps they have figured out the risks beneath the river and are no longer afraid of unknown sources of infection.

Looking at the river before him, Cheng Ye's previous tension subsided, and he felt a touch of the same emotion he had felt when they first met.

How beautiful!
If he were to settle down in Dabo Town in the future and build a residence and office, he would definitely want to be like that sophisticated old man, Tang Si, and have his office facing the Baishui River, with a huge floor-to-ceiling window so that he could see the vastness of the upstream and the winding downstream at a glance.

Then, he placed a large walnut desk, the same kind as Towns's. When he got tired of dealing with pioneering work, he would stand up, walk to the window, and gaze at the rushing river in a daze.

What a treat that must be!
Just thinking about it makes me feel happy, and even the tension I'm feeling right now is eased a bit.

"The Demon Eye Sponge is 40 meters underwater. During the day, Inspector Luo and I went down several times, causing him a lot of trouble. If we can get through tonight safely, we can start looking for the core containment tomorrow. We are not far from victory!"

Cheng Ye pointed to the center of the river and explained.

Wang Kang looked around, his gaze falling on the water before finally returning to the dock.

After contributing four iron claws, the crab fusion that was brought ashore was casually tossed back into the water by Cheng Ye and carried downstream.

But the marks left by the battle could not be repaired: the crushed flagstones, the shattered concrete walls, the large pools of blood on the ground, and the two remaining, enormous crab claws.
Wang Kang couldn't help but gasp in astonishment; it wasn't hard to imagine just how terrifying the battle had been today.

But before he could overcome that cognitive barrier, he couldn't see anything, only heard an explosion by the river, and then there was no more sound.

"Yes, this was left behind by the fusion of the Netherwater Cave Crab before it died."

As he spoke, Cheng Ye glanced at Rokuk, whose lips twitched slightly.

After patrolling around the banks of the Baishui River, perhaps due to his unlimited stamina, Wang Kang was no longer sleepy.

"I'll go back and lead people to patrol the town, so as not to disturb your and Inspector Luo's work."

He was well aware of his own limitations; staying would not only be of no help but might even be a hindrance. With that, he turned and left decisively, walking briskly towards the camp.
Watching Wang Kang's figure disappear into the night, Cheng Ye and Luo Kuke strolled along the riverbank all the way back to the dock, where they sat down side by side on the steps leading into the water.

The river water lapped against the steps, and the cool water vapor splashed up landed on the mask, quickly forming a layer of white mist.

"If you're sleepy, you can sleep a little longer. We'll take turns on duty." Cheng Ye turned his head to look at Rokuk, whose dark circles were much deeper than Rokuk's, clearly indicating that he didn't have any physical talent.

“No need.” Rokuk shook his head. “As long as there are no abnormalities between midnight and four in the morning, we can go back and catch up on sleep before dawn, and then start preparing for containment at ten o’clock. There’s plenty of time.”

After he finished speaking, the dock fell silent.

Both of them looked exhausted, with only the sound of the rushing river and their intermittent breathing echoing softly in the night.

They sat there for more than half an hour until the clock struck midnight. Then the two of them got up and slowly patrolled the riverbank.

The Magic Eye Sponge seemed to have truly given up on its actions against Big Wave Town; the river was calm and still, with no sign of any crabmen coming ashore.

When Rokuk sat down on the steps again, his eyelids were drooping with sleep, so he broke the silence first: "Inspector Cheng, after this mission in Dabo Town, you should be going out to carry out field missions, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. We can't stay in the probationary stage forever." Cheng Ye nodded. "So, Prosecutor Luo, do you have any good suggestions?"

For inspectors in Happy City, in this day and age, fieldwork skills are clearly more important than inspection skills, because the former can expand personal influence to other parts of the wasteland and gain more power, while the latter can only affect their status within the city, or rather, only at the checkpoints.

This can also be seen from the fact that senior prosecutors are often away from home; after the Great Expansion era ended, the focus of prosecutors' work had long since shifted.

"I wouldn't call it advice; I'm just a third-term prosecutor. In terms of familiarity with the wilderness, I certainly can't compare to Prosecutor Liu Bi."

Rokuk smiled, his tone becoming more relaxed. "However, Prosecutor Liu hasn't been on many field missions in recent years, so he's probably not very familiar with the changes in the wilderness. I, on the other hand, spent five whole years on missions from 29 to last year, so I'm probably more familiar with the situation in the surrounding provinces."

“Prosecutor Luo, please speak freely.” Cheng Ye sat up straighter and became serious. “I do not know much about the wilderness, and the location for my first field mission has not yet been decided. I would like to hear your opinion.”

Being idle is also idle.

Sitting here is really boring, but it would be nice to have an in-depth conversation with a prosecutor who is in the third phase of his case.

"Well, the fieldwork scope of trainee prosecutors is limited; they can only choose neighboring provinces that are close to Shi Province."

Rokuk's smile faded, and his tone became more serious. "Let's start with Hai Province, which used to have the most frequent contact with us. It has now completely declined. Starting around the 25th year of the New Era, Hai Province's tropical climate has become more and more extreme. Summer temperatures remain around 50 degrees Celsius year-round, and during the hottest days of summer, they can even soar to nearly 60 degrees Celsius, making it completely unsuitable for human habitation. Now, only a few scattered large sheltered cities are still holding on, mainly because they can't bear to give up Hai Province's vast aquatic resources."

"60 degrees." Cheng Ye couldn't help but gasp.

This temperature far exceeds the limits of human tolerance, especially when outdoors. Without top-notch heat protection equipment, one would probably become dehydrated and unconscious in less than half an hour.

“I did encounter a caravan from Hai Province at the checkpoint before,” Cheng Ye added, recalling his previous experience. “They brought a lot of dried salted fish and mutated crystals to trade.”

"That's right, these are the seafood products that Haihe Province can offer right now."

Rokuk shook his head helplessly. "In such high temperatures, normal industrial production is impossible. The only way for those large sheltered cities to survive is to go out to sea to hunt. There are far more mutated beasts in the waters near Hai Province than in our Shi Province. If the weather is good, a single voyage can yield thousands or even tens of thousands of mutated fish. We can extract mutated crystals and dry them into salted fish for storage. In addition, there are some unique special materials found in the sea, which are quite valuable."

“But for us prosecutors and for Happy City, there is no need to open up trade routes in the province.”

"We've already traded a lot of those special raw materials from Hai Province in recent years. Even if we stop importing them now, Happiness City's reserves will be enough for one or two decades. Moreover, many precious raw materials now have cheap industrial substitutes. The sheltered cities in Hai Province are also struggling, and can only distribute their goods to private caravans and affiliated caravans so that they can go out to trade for supplies. In my opinion, by the 50th year of the new era at the latest, at least half of those large sheltered cities will have to withdraw."

"Should we also evacuate the large shelter cities?" Cheng Ye paused for a moment.

If a settlement can be considered "large," with a population of at least 300,000, and even such a large settlement has to abandon its roots, then smaller settlements that depend on it for survival would probably find it even more difficult to survive.

"Yes, not only in Hai Province, but also in our Shi Province, two large shelter cities have been withdrawn in the past ten years."

Roco sighed, his tone full of regret, "The mineral reserves in Shi Province are indeed abundant, and they would be valuable anywhere, and are also crucial to industrial production, but in terms of overall development, the limitations are too great!"

He traced his fingers lightly on the steps, organizing his thoughts, and said, "The economy of Shi Province is almost entirely tied to mining. It seems to be holding a 'gold mine,' but in reality, it has fallen into a passive situation of being dominated by a single resource, which has directly stifled its overall development. Take Baishi Shelter City for example. Its economic focus is entirely on mining and primary processing. High-value-added industries such as deep processing of minerals and equipment manufacturing have not even recovered to the level of the old era. They can only sell the refined ore to neighboring provinces at a higher price."

"Locals only earn a meager living through hard work, trapped in a vicious cycle of abundant resources but economic poverty, unable to escape."

"Moreover, the industrial space of the sheltered city is also severely squeezed. Not to mention agriculture, once the external raw material supply chain of nutrient pulp has problems, even our Happiness City will be in a mess."

Rocco paused, then shifted the focus to a more critical issue: "The most critical problem is the brain drain and technological gap. Only our Happiness City has an industrial zone that can train skilled workers and provide technical jobs. Most other sheltered cities in Shi Province are still stuck in the 'relying on physical labor' stage. Young people either go to the mines to earn a meager living or go to other provinces to try their luck in the future. Which would you choose? Definitely the latter. Who wouldn't want to find a job where they can learn a skill and have room for advancement?"

"And caravans have been decreasing in recent years. Firstly, other provinces also have mineral resources. As the reclaimed land of the protected cities in various places has expanded, local resources are basically self-sufficient, so there is no need to travel all the way to Shi Province to purchase goods. Secondly, the protected cities in our Shi Province have focused all their attention on mining and completely neglected infrastructure reconstruction. Damaged roads have not been repaired, and several bridges connecting the surrounding provinces have collapsed. With the roads cut off, vehicles simply cannot pass through. Taking a detour would add hundreds of kilometers to the journey and risk deviating from the safe route. Who would want to go through all that trouble?"

What Rococo said is very realistic.

Road networks, as a type of infrastructure, require timely maintenance by surrounding shelter cities to ensure their proper functioning.

Apart from Happiness City, the other sheltered cities in Keshi Province are basically built based on mining areas and resource points, and are far removed from the road network left over from the old era.

Who would invest significant resources to repair these scattered road networks just to make things easier for outsiders?
However, in comparison, neighboring provinces with higher densities of shelter cities and settlements do not have this concern. Many shelter cities were built on former cities, counties, and towns, and maintaining the road network was simply a matter of convenience.

If you repair one section and I repair another, the entire road network can be restored naturally.

"In addition, the sheltered cities in Shi Province are all powered by batteries, and charging facilities simply cannot be laid out in the wilderness. But the neighboring provinces are different. They are restoring gas stations. Some rely on small settlements to operate externally, keeping a 5% share for the locals and taking the rest back. Others simply operate them themselves, specializing in refueling passing caravans."

“Those oil trucks are driven by different people and can travel hundreds of kilometers a day. How efficient is the cargo turnover? Plus, with their advanced technology, caravans naturally prefer to go there.”

As Rokuk spoke, a hint of helplessness crept into his voice.

Cheng Ye listened quietly, his heart heavy. As expected of an inspector who had been on field missions for many years, what he said was the real predicament of Shijiazhuang's development, which was much more specific and cruel than the information he had learned in the buffer zone.

"Prosecutor Cheng, I have reviewed your answer sheet."

Rococo suddenly chuckled, his tone slightly probing: "I borrowed it from Station Chief Ding, you're not angry, are you?"

"It's nothing, just an exam paper." Cheng Ye shook his head.

Now that things have come to this, the two can be considered as having shared life and death experiences.

Through daily contact, he could roughly guess the "abnormal purpose" of this third-phase inspector. In addition, the information Liu Bi passed on to him indicated that Ding Yishan had clearly stated that he could cooperate with Rokuk at critical moments. This meant that even if Rokuk was not Ding Yishan's man, he was definitely a "sane" person.

If we exclude the factor of taking sides, there is no conflict of interest among the prosecutors.

“I saw you wrote that you want to build a water transport system based on the Baishui River. This idea is indeed bold.” Rokuk first gave a very high evaluation, but then changed the subject slightly, “But in fact, Yueye Shelter City tried it before us, but failed.”

"Is it because the risks on the water are too great?" Cheng Ye immediately asked, as he genuinely didn't know the answer.

Moreover, the bottom of the Baishui River is teeming with deadly infectious agents like the "Magic Eye Sponge," making the safety risks of water transport no less than those on land.

“That’s not it.” Rokuk shook his head, his tone certain. “The risks on the water are almost the same as at sea. Ships can sail normally from Hai Province, so why can’t they sail from Linjiang? The real problem lies in the goods being traded!”

"Could it be that Yueye Shelter City doesn't have any traded goods that can generate large-scale profits?" Cheng Ye realized instantly.

"Correct!"

Seeing that Cheng Ye understood immediately, Luo Kuke was no longer sleepy, his eyes brightened, and he felt a sense of relief as if he had found someone with whom he could "communicate on the same wavelength".

"To put it bluntly, our Happiness City is also facing a shortage of traded goods. Take firearms and ammunition for example. They were indeed in high demand during the last great era of development. Back then, there was war and chaos everywhere, and even ordinary people suffered from a severe fear of insufficient firepower."

"But times have changed. As things have gradually stabilized, the conflict between people has shifted from people to people and the source or carrier of infection. The need for conventional weapons is not as urgent."

He paused, his tone becoming more realistic: "Even if we take a step back, it's already the 35th year of the New Era. Which decent sanctuary city can't manufacture guns? It's just that our Happiness City's guns are more robust and durable, but this advantage is only something we can talk about. If we really put it out there to trade, the other party will definitely keep trying to lower the price, and we won't make much money at all."

As for other items traded...

Rokuk shook his head slightly. "You'll understand when you go out on field missions. To be honest, all Happiness City can offer right now are weapons and medicine. It's not that the other things are worthless, but they're far from being 'large-scale' enough to support a sustainable trade route."

The so-called scale level refers to something that can be sold to ordinary people.

Cheng Ye recalled the bounty he had seen in the intelligence space.

Happiness alloy, chip, battery, healing agent.
These high-value items are all traded goods at the 'Sanctuary City' level; ordinary people have no use for them and cannot afford them.

"Can we take things like chips and batteries out and sell them?" Cheng Ye couldn't help but ask.

"No."

Rococo stated bluntly, "We can represent Happiness City to negotiate cooperation agreements with other sanctuary cities, with the city's dedicated freight caravans handling the transportation and handover. However, we can't carry the finished products around ourselves. Firstly, the risk is too great; these things are too conspicuous, and encountering highway robbers on the road would be very troublesome. Secondly, carrying too small a quantity would be meaningless and wouldn't support the guise of a transaction; at most, it would be considered private reselling."

"Did the maritime caravan of Yueye Shelter City eventually go bankrupt because it couldn't make ends meet?"

"Sort of, but it's also closely related to the water system along the river."

As Rocco spoke, he simply took out his defense device, pulled up a map of Shijiazhuang Province, and zoomed in on the Linjiang area. "Look, Linjiang runs through four provinces. The route is actually very good, but there aren't many large sheltered cities along the riverbanks. Most of them are small and medium-sized sheltered cities, or even just large gathering places. If you transport goods to these places, the local demand will easily become saturated, and you simply won't be able to sell them in large quantities."

He pointed to the nodes on the map and continued to explain: "And there are two dilemmas we can't avoid. One is that we will be pressured to lower prices by middlemen. The biggest advantage of water transport is tonnage. Yueye Shelter City can transport a large amount of ore each time, much more than land transport. But if the volume is too large, the surrounding shelter cities will unite to lower the price."

“If you don’t sell, plenty of others will, and you won’t make any money in the end. Secondly, water transport will disrupt the already crumbling land transport system in Shi Province. If you transport so much cargo at once, the land transport caravans from other protected cities will have to rely on carts to haul it little by little, making it impossible to compete. Speaking of which, the collapse of the waterway in Yueye Protected City was largely due to the efforts of other protected cities in Shi Province, including our Xingfu City. After all, if water transport cannot establish a system, we can’t do without land transport caravans.”

Damn, that's reality!
Cheng Ye couldn't help but curse inwardly. If you were to ask who least wanted to see Yueye Protectorate City make a fortune through water transport, Bai Shi would definitely be one of them.

You can ship your ore out to sea quickly and in large quantities, while white stone can only be transported slowly by land. Not only are the costs high, but you also disrupt the market and make it difficult to get a good price. The land transportation system is also on the verge of collapse.

In this way, a consensus will soon be reached in the sheltered cities of Shi Province: as long as Yueye lives, no one will be able to sleep peacefully.

The problem is, if Yueye's water transport collapses, will Shisheng's current predicament be resolved?

It's just a different way of prolonging their existence!
"So there's nothing wrong with you wanting to build a water transport system."

Rokuk removed his mask, breathed out onto the river, and spoke with more certainty, “Our Happiness City is not comparable to Yueye Sanctuary City. No sanctuary city dares to easily disrupt the system we’ve built. But you need to think carefully beforehand about what to transport to the outside world to truly help the sanctuary city’s development. If we don’t find the right trade goods, the transport team will only continue to lose money, and other sanctuary cities will use the pretext of disrupting the market to put pressure on us.”

“There’s no rush to address this issue.” Cheng Ye nodded, already having a preliminary plan in mind. “The construction of the water transport system will take at least one or two years to be completed. I haven’t fully determined what specific goods will be traded yet, but I have some general ideas.”

Once they settle down in Dabo Town and have their own research lab, they can begin to analyze the principles of intelligence.

Manufacturing highly technological products may be unrealistic, but making ordinary items that can achieve economies of scale should not be too difficult.

As long as source track technology is applied to everyday items and meets external needs, there will definitely be no shortage of market demand.

However, from another perspective, after talking with Rokuk until now, he truly realized that Shi Province, despite possessing a vast amount of mineral resources, was facing such a difficult development situation.

Tan Ming, this extraordinary individual, is truly a formidable character.

We may not know whether they contributed to this land while they were alive, but the impact they left behind after their death can cover an area of ​​millions of square kilometers and affect the tens of millions of people living here.

Even a behemoth like Happiness City is struggling in this affected land, its original advantages are gradually eroding, and its disadvantages are becoming more and more apparent, making life increasingly difficult.

Since it's that powerful...

I wonder if the breath that rushed in through the ruptured sponge was effective, and whether Lord Tan displayed his extraordinary power.
Thinking of this, Cheng Ye temporarily put aside his wandering thoughts and asked again, "Then which of our surrounding provinces do you think has the most trading value right now?"

"Guangdong Province!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Rokuk gave the answer immediately, then clicked a few times on the Defense Connect app to zoom in on the Guangdong province area on the map.

Soon, a name with a prominent prefix appeared on the screen.

The prefix is ​​the same as "Super" as in Happiness City, followed by five clear bold characters:

The City of Light and Rainbow!
(End of this chapter)