Chapter 340: Full of Evil
The construction of Hongku Port is in full swing .
Terminal facilities, warehouses, staff dormitories, staff canteens, distribution stations, roads, water plants, and large gas storage tanks are expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye.
at the same time.
Xu Yingcheng, the head of the port management company, was not in the port area at this time, but was about 5.3 kilometers northwest of the port area.
On the armored vehicle, Xu Yingcheng opened the roof, stood on it, and looked around with a telescope.
In front of you is a dry sandy land. Don’t think that this is a warm and humid coastal plain just because there is the Red Sea on the side.
In fact, this is one of the driest regions in Egypt, with a typical tropical desert climate controlled by the subtropical high-pressure belt.
Except for some drought-resistant weeds and small shrubs on the seashore, the areas closer to inland are basically bare sand, Gobi desert and rocky mountains.
And before us, a special team is busy working in this desolate land.
They are from the agricultural technology team of Haitian Agricultural Group, also with a size of 500 people.
Miliang Aragon, the leader of the agricultural technology team, also stood on the roof of the car: "We have reclaimed 20,000 mu of land so far."
Putting down the telescope, Xu Yingcheng looked at the plan map handed over by Mi Liang.
The above lists the coastal plain areas of Egypt's Red Sea Province. The coastline of the entire Red Sea Province is about 1,200 kilometers long. The coastal lowland plains cover an area of approximately 20,000 square kilometers, and the inland secondary plains also cover an area of approximately 20,000 square kilometers.
This 40,000 square kilometer area is within 45 to 90 kilometers from the Red Sea coast.
The Smart Man Company has reached an agreement with Egypt to lease this area for agricultural production for a period of 50 years. The rent per square kilometer is 15,000 gold yuan per year, totaling 600 million gold yuan per year.
As for how the Homo Sapiens Company develops and utilizes this 40,000 square kilometers of desert plains.
The agricultural technology brigade of Haitian Agriculture is responsible for the construction of the first batch of 100 square kilometers of experimental fields.
"Manager Xu, the power supply equipment must be improved as soon as possible, otherwise we won't be able to pump water."
Xu Yingcheng waved his hand and said, "Don't worry, the next batch of transport ships will bring equipment from a gas-fired thermal power station with a generating capacity of 500 megawatts, which is enough for you to use."
"I have leveled the farmland here and can start releasing water in the near future."
Mi Liang pointed to a piece of farmland where drainage ditches and dams had been dug.
"By the way, the New Luzon Shipyard will send two nuclear-powered canal-opening ships over in a week."
"What is that?" Mi Liang looked surprised.
Xu Yingcheng took out his tablet computer, pulled up an internal equipment overview, and handed it to Mi Liang.
Mi Liang looked through it carefully.
The design of the canal-digger is similar to the previous Haili, but the canal-digger has special tracks and can be amphibious on land and sea. It uses two thorium-based molten salt nuclear reactors with a total power of 100 megawatts.
The canal-digging equipment at the bottom can dig a huge ditch with a depth of 20 to 50 meters and a width of 80 to 120 meters.
When a canal-drilling ship is in the canal-drilling working state, its excavation speed is 2 to 3 kilometers per hour if the ground is sandy; if the ground is rocky, its excavation speed is 500 to 800 meters per hour.
“This thing can be used to dig a canal, right?”
"This was originally developed for digging a canal. To develop the coastal plains of the Red Sea Province and the deeper sub-plains, the seawater must flow naturally into the farmland to reduce future operating costs."
Mi Liang also nodded: "Indeed, if we rely on water pipelines, we will definitely need a pressurized water pump, which will consume a lot of energy."
"Moreover, the river channel, which is 120 meters wide and 50 meters deep, can fully accommodate 10,000-ton transport ships, which will also be of great help in transporting grain and agricultural machinery in the future."
Mi Liang returned the tablet computer and said, "The company is more thoughtful."
After looking at the farmland, the two came to a seedling base built on the seaside.
This seedling base is open-air, and you can see lush rice seedlings at this time. In order to facilitate the subsequent planting, the agricultural technology team has already grown the seedlings in advance.
Xu Yingcheng walked to the nursery field. All the nursery fields were soaked in sea water, but the rice seedlings were not affected by the sea water at all and were still growing well.
He squatted down and pulled up a rice seedling: "I heard this is the latest improved variety?"
"Well, this is the genetically recombinant perennial sea rice - Sea Rice No. 14."
"Perennial? The kind that can be harvested repeatedly after planting?"
Mi Liang nodded: "Yes, with the tropical desert climate , we can achieve three crops a year and harvest continuously for five years."
"That's great stuff! But how's the rice yield?"
"As long as there is enough topdressing, the yield per mu is about 800 kilograms."
Xu Yingcheng did some calculations: "800 kilograms per mu? Three crops a year... that's 2,400 kilograms per year. 40,000 square kilometers is 60 million mu, which means 144 million tons of rice can be produced every year."
"If all 40,000 square kilometers are transformed, this output can indeed be achieved."
Xu Yingcheng narrowed his eyes slightly and asked: "Is this rice protected from theft?"
"Don't worry! The company has made preparations." Mi Liang shrugged with a smile.
As a special type of genetically recombinant rice, Haitian Agriculture is naturally not unprepared.
Not only were genetic treatments performed to make the seeds sterile, but three types of high-temperature resistant . These toxic proteins not only made the rice leaves full of highly toxic substances, but the rice itself also contained toxic proteins.
The reason for inserting the toxic protein is euphemistically called "killing insects".
Killing insects is indeed one of the purposes of Haitian Agriculture to insert the toxic protein gene. Ordinary insects will be directly poisoned to death if they eat the leaves and rice of Sea Rice No. 14.
Locust swarms, including those that frequently break out in Egypt, are not immune to these toxic proteins.
Another purpose of Haitian Agriculture is to prevent Sea Rice No. 14 from being stolen.
These three toxic protein genes are among the core genes in the rice gene sequence. If these three toxic protein genes are knocked out, the rice will lose its salt- and alkali resistance and insect pest resistance, and will not be able to grow rice.
What’s even more terrifying is that these three toxic proteins are resistant to high temperatures and can withstand temperatures of around 240 degrees Celsius without decomposing. Their toxicity is equally effective against humans and livestock.
An average adult will be poisoned and die if they eat 3 grams of Sea Rice No. 14.
If it is so toxic, why does Haitian Agriculture grow this kind of rice?
The reason is that Haitian Agriculture has the technology to process these toxic proteins, and this processing technology is called "virus fermentation technology."
As long as some special genetic recombination viruses are used, these three toxic proteins can be destroyed and turned into ordinary amino acids, water and carbon dioxide.
After this harmless treatment, sea rice can be eaten directly, or further processed and refined into rice flour, starch, and rice bran oil.
Farmlands irrigated with seawater will inevitably become completely salinized in the future, and only sea rice can be grown there, and no other crops can be grown.
The behavior of the Sapiens Company is obviously full of malicious intent.
Of course, the Red Sea Province itself is a tropical desert, so land salinization doesn’t really matter, and Egypt should thank the Homo sapiens company for developing this place.
As long as these 40,000 square kilometers of coastal plains are developed, it means that Egypt's rice production will increase by 144 million tons.
Moreover, Egypt has a total area of 1 million square kilometers, of which 950,000 square kilometers are deserts, all of which have the potential to be developed into sea rice fields.
Although the Homo Sapiens Company will inevitably take the vast majority of the profits, the leftovers will be enough to feed Egypt.
