Chapter 74 of 100

Chapter 74

14 min read3,516 words

The convoy slowly entered Baotou. In just over a month, they had almost crossed the entire country, from the southern city of Wuhan, crossing the Yangtze River, and finally passing through Tianjin and the capital, all the way back to Baotou. Yang Yuanzhao had gained a lot, but the most important task at hand was not to sort out his gains, but to plant cotton.

21,000 acres of cotton could be considered a foundation for a closer relationship with the Shanxi merchants. Agriculture, the traditional primary industry, was something the government could not fully liberalize even in the 21st century, let alone in this era. Planting cotton in Baotou was not common in the city's history, and such a large-scale operation was unprecedented.

At the Baokeng Company's base, Yang Yuanzhao met with the welcoming Wei Ming and two landlords. They had already prepared everything that needed to be done over the past month, waiting for Yang Yuanzhao and Yang Yue to return to proceed with the next steps.

"Yuanzhao, how do you plan to set up the greenhouses?" This was a question Yang Yue had asked countless times. Yang Yuanzhao had always smiled, but now that they were in Baotou, he could no longer hold back.

"The materials are here!" Yang Yuanzhao looked at Liu Shu and asked, "Brother Zelun, has the cargo from the De Mei Trading Company arrived?"

"It has arrived. The delivery person said not to open the boxes easily, so I didn't. They are all stacked in the warehouse!"

"Let's go and see our materials!" Yang Yuanzhao said with a wave of his hand.

The materials were prepared by Yang Yuanzhao in Shanghai, including 60 tons of urea, about 30 tons of other fertilizers, and some agricultural machinery. Urea was the focus.

Urea, a basic organic compound, could be synthesized by Yang Yuanzhao. The 60 tons took him quite a while to produce, and he even had to obtain a lot of sludge for some trace elements to complete the final formulation. As for the greenhouse materials, they were simpler, being lightweight and based on the plastic bags of the future, rolled into rolls 3 meters wide and 50 meters long.

Dozens of tons of items were piled in the warehouse, slightly crowded but initially categorized.

Without looking, the largest pile in the center of the warehouse was the fertilizer. The pungent smell of urea made the people who followed wrinkle their noses slightly. Yang Yuanzhao, however, remained the calmest among them. Although he had never used urea in the fields, he had understood its properties in the laboratory and knew it had a pungent smell.

Yang Yuanzhao's gaze fell on the other end of the warehouse, where the plastic film was wrapped in canvas. He pointed to the pile and said, "Have them bring the materials out!"

The senior executives of the Baokeng Company, each with hundreds of servants, especially the two landlords responsible for recruitment, waved their hands, and a dozen strong men came forward to carry the film. 600 acres of film, not too much but not too little, piled up like a small mountain.

Yang Yuanzhao walked forward, picked up a roll, and opened the canvas, revealing the semi-transparent plastic inside. The greenhouse could not be completely transparent, as this would be detrimental to the greenhouse setup. To address this, Yang Yuanzhao increased the thickness. Compared to modern agricultural films, this one was thicker, and its effectiveness was yet to be known, but it was sufficient for ordinary greenhouses to plant some cotton seeds.

"Is this glass paper?" Yang Yue, surprised, walked up. Transparent and as thin as a cicada's wing, this was his first impression of the film. The moment he touched it, he knew it was completely different from glass, though it had good light transmission. It was soft, and most importantly, it felt insulating.

The most important aspect of a greenhouse is this. A glass greenhouse, if not properly sealed, would be ineffective. However, this flexible material, when used in large pieces, almost eliminated the need for sealing. Glass, on the other hand, required connections and adhesives, making sealing a significant issue.

Yang Yue keenly grasped the advantages of this material. His American education allowed him to see many extended functions of this plastic. This was an extraordinary material, and he eagerly asked about its composition and origin.

Yang Yuanzhao was helpless in the face of Yang Yue's sudden scientific curiosity. Plastics, a type of polymer, would not emerge until the World War II era and would only be developed extensively after the war. Without the resources from the future, it would have taken a long time to experiment and produce this plastic, even if he knew the direction. In just over a month since his arrival, it would have been almost impossible.

Yang Yuanzhao set up a demonstration in one of the greenhouse areas. During this time, Wu Guangren and Zhao Shuming, besides recruiting personnel, focused more on this project. They built a row of one-meter-high walls with blue bricks and then constructed a frame with bamboo and wood. When Yang Yuanzhao returned, he had already inspected them, and each one was very sturdy, so no adjustments were needed, allowing him to focus on other tasks.

He gestured for Yang Yue to help, and the two of them unfurled a roll of plastic and set it up over the greenhouse frame. The semi-enclosed form perfectly covered the greenhouse, and the plastic's good elasticity meant it only needed slight fixation to form a complete greenhouse.

"Great, it's really convenient!"

Yang Yuanzhao nodded and pointed to the completed greenhouse. "Set up the 600 acres of greenhouses according to this!"

Soon, a group of people began working on the 600 acres of land. Because they were planting cotton, the Baokeng Company hired more than 1,000 people. Setting up the greenhouses was not a difficult task, and with Yang Yuanzhao demonstrating the key points, the 1,000 people spent only three days completing the entire setup.

After the greenhouses were built, Yang Yue spent most of his time in the first greenhouse, thoroughly understanding and testing it. He found that while it was not as advanced as the specialized greenhouses at the agricultural college, it was far superior to ordinary glass houses. It could handle not just a small cotton seedling project but even large-scale agricultural research.

Agriculture had always been Yang Yue's interest, and planting cotton was just an application of research. Previously, setting up a greenhouse in Baotou was inconvenient, but now, with the ready-made greenhouse, Yang Yue became very interested. He continuously arranged the greenhouse, making it less like a simple cotton seedling room and more like a research center.

Yang Yuanzhao did not discourage Yang Yue. Yang Yue was one of the few agricultural scientists in China, and while he knew some aspects of agriculture, he was not comprehensive. Planting cotton or other greenhouse vegetables were minor issues. The real game-changer was high-quality, high-performance seeds, such as high-yield wheat or hybrid rice.

China, with its vast land and abundant resources, had already shown its potential by the late Qing Dynasty. While other powers had populations in the millions, China had already surpassed 450 million. The large population put immense pressure on the country, and food was always in short supply. If the food problem was not solved, even if Yang Yuanzhao developed the northwest well and Baotou's industrial output surpassed that of the Ruhr in Germany to become the world's first, it would be like a castle built on sand. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the future was a clear example of the consequences of one-sided development and neglect of other areas.

Yang Yue's research was still in its early stages, and even the agricultural laboratory was under construction. Yang Yuanzhao did not disturb him. The Baokeng Company, following the plan, began building the greenhouses, especially the interiors. They purchased a large number of small bowls from Taiyuan, Tianjin, and even Wuhan, neatly arranged in the greenhouses. After Yang Yuanzhao and Yang Yue adjusted the formula, adding base fertilizer and some chemical fertilizers, the trays were neatly placed in the 600 acres of greenhouses. The 21,000 acres of cotton planting finally entered the substantive stage.

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