Chapter 358 - 173: Brushing Past Each Other

Chapter 358: Chapter 173: Brushing Past Each Other

The people in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region prefer Small-tailed Han sheep with a less gamy flavor. Hailufeng Company’s high-quality sheep would surely attract a large number of customers. After all, who doesn’t like a good product at a great price?

After giving Liu Zhiben and Wu Song some instructions, Jiang Miao headed south back to Lingnan with Lü Weibin.

As for United Mining Company, he had already given Lin Yonghua and Lu Mingyuan the necessary instructions yesterday at noon.

The train traveled south.

And just as Jiang Miao left Monan.

An inspection team of over a hundred people arrived at the Tamin Chagan Base. The team was composed of the soybean research team from the Zhelimu City Agricultural Research Institute, soybean research teams from several agricultural research institutes in the Northeast provinces, and representatives from the Beidahuang Group.

The reason they hadn’t informed Jiang Miao in advance was mainly because this inspection tour wasn’t organized by the Zhelimu City Agricultural Research Institute, but by Academician Li Peiwu from the Cyrus Agricultural Research Institute Oilseed Department and the Beidahuang Group.

By the time they contacted the Zhelimu City Agricultural Research Institute, Jiang Miao’s high-speed train had already reached Jinling. The two parties had just missed each other.

Nevertheless, Academician Li Peiwu and the others still made their way to the Tamin Chagan Base, led by Dr. Zhang Zhiyong of the Zhelimu City Agricultural Research Institute.

「Beside the gravel road at the north gate of the base.」 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Even with the scorching sun beating down, Academician Li Peiwu and the others didn’t stop. He crouched down, looking at the soybean plants before him, which were already full of pods.

He carefully counted the pods on one of the soybean plants—a total of 26. He then checked the pod count on several other plants and found they generally had between 24 and 28 pods each. Based on the pod count, he instantly estimated the soybean yield to be around 315 kilograms per mu.

"Manager Liu, how do you manage these soybeans?"

Before Liu Zhiben could answer, Zhang Zhiyong, who was standing to the side, spoke up to explain, "Academician Li, I can answer that question. Our research team has been in contact with General Manager Jiang before, so I sent a group here to follow up. As a result, we have records of how these soybeans were cultivated."

After speaking, he took a printed document from his briefcase and handed it to Academician Li. "This details the cultivation of these soybeans over the past two months."

Academician Li quickly took the document and began to scan it carefully. After a moment, he looked at Zhang Zhiyong, his eyes wide with shock. "Zhiyong, are you sure these records are correct?"

Zhang Zhiyong shook his head with a wry smile. "They are. I guarantee it. Besides, this isn’t our team’s project. Even if we were to fabricate the data, there’s no benefit in it for me."

Hearing this explanation, Academician Li Peiwu immediately realized the logic in it.

With no significant stake in the matter, Zhang Zhiyong’s team indeed had no motive to falsify data for Hailufeng Company. Of course, this didn’t completely dispel Academician Li’s suspicions. The main issue was that the estimated yield per mu for this soybean field was simply too high, yet its management was incredibly hands-off.

Since being planted, they hadn’t been irrigated at all and had only been sprayed with pesticide and a foliar fertilizer once.

Even with nearly 180 millimeters of rainfall in Zhelimu City over the past two months, such a hands-off approach to management shouldn’t be possible.

Unconvinced, Academician Li went deeper into the soybean fields and had several researchers conduct random sampling of the pod count per plant.

The results were the same: 24 to 26 pods per plant.

"The pod counts are all nearly identical, and this isn’t even a genetically modified variety? How is this possible?" Academician Li was starting to question his own reality.

Just then, a pickup truck drove past on the nearby gravel road, then suddenly stopped.

A middle-aged man and Wu Song got out of the truck.

The middle-aged man shouted to an executive from the Beidahuang Group in the crowd, "Manager Liang, is the Beidahuang Group here to buy forage too?"

Manager Liang heard the voice and turned around, only to see it was Wang Fa, the purchasing manager for Celestial Fragrance Dairy from Ji Province. He smiled and replied, "Manager Wang, you’ve misunderstood. I’m here to inspect Hailufeng Company’s desert farm."

As he spoke, Manager Liang suddenly realized something. "Manager Wang, are you here to purchase forage?"

"Ah?" Wang Fa looked a bit awkward, but he answered truthfully, "That’s right! We’re planning to pre-order 5,000 tons of hay and 5,000 tons of silage. Our own pastures don’t have enough capacity, after all."

The reason Wang Fa had rushed over to Monan to purchase forage was mainly because of major problems with alfalfa production in America this year. Its core production area, California’s Imperial Valley, had suffered a severe drought, causing a nearly 15% reduction in output. The total production for the year was projected to be only around 17.5 million tons.

Furthermore, in another major American production region—Idaho—a train carrying hazardous chemicals exploded near an alfalfa production area. This scattered a large amount of toxic and harmful substances over hundreds of thousands of mu of alfalfa fields, causing severe contamination.

As a precaution, imports of alfalfa hay and silage from America had recently been suspended.

This caused the international price of high-quality alfalfa hay to skyrocket. The current landed cost for premium Purple Alfalfa hay had already reached 3,100 yuan per ton.

Celestial Fragrance Dairy needed to import a significant amount of Purple Alfalfa hay every year, which, combined with the Green Corn Silage and Green Stored Alfalfa purchased from Monan and the Northeast, was necessary to maintain a stable supply through the winter.

Imported forage already raised their costs considerably. Now, with the skyrocketing price of imported Purple Alfalfa hay, production costs were pushed even higher, forcing Celestial Fragrance Dairy to seek domestic forage suppliers.

And so, back in June, they had discovered that Hailufeng Company’s Gannan Branch was selling large quantities of high-quality Purple Alfalfa hay and silage.

Having just placed a large order for Purple Alfalfa hay and silage from the Gannan Branch, Wang Fa received news that Hailufeng’s branch in Monan was also preparing to sell soybean vines for fodder, and that their production capacity was enormous.

So he had frantically flown from Gannan to Zhelimu City.

Manager Liang was a little surprised. "General Manager Wang, you’re buying that much?"

"Better safe than sorry. Imported forage is too expensive this year." Wang Fa had no intention of telling him that he had just purchased 10,000 tons of forage at a price of 2,300 yuan per ton. He quickly made an excuse to leave. "Manager Liang, my apologies, but I need to get back to headquarters to arrange for the transport of the forage."

"Ah? Hailufeng Company doesn’t include shipping?" Manager Liang was even more surprised.

"We’re in a hurry," Wang Fa lied with a straight face. The real reason he chose to arrange his own pickup was that Hailufeng Company hadn’t yet established a sufficient transport fleet in the North. If they contracted it out to another logistics company, the price would be much higher. It was better to send their own transport fleet.

In any case, Celestial Fragrance Dairy’s parent company was the New Hope Group. As a major feed manufacturer, they had their own logistics and transport fleet within the country.