Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 1401: The Problem That Stumbled a Country (Second Update, Please Subscribe)

The weather in mid-May...

As usual, bathing in the sunshine, although it is not the nasty rainy season now, it is always rainy near the equator.

A sudden heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and pedestrians on the street were caught off guard and had to take shelter from the rain temporarily on the side of the road.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the official residence office, rain occasionally hit the glass windows, and the thick double-layer bulletproof glass windows completely blocked out the sound of raindrops.

While the outside was covered in rain, several people inside were concentrating on studying the crops in another country thousands of miles away.

Li Yian, who had just returned to Chang'an after a hasty trip, gathered a pile of very clear photos on his desk and handed them to Sun Pengan. Sun Pengan stood up, took the photos and put them in his briefcase.

"Well, gentlemen," he said slowly,
"You showed me that wheat is growing poorly in a small part of the Soviet Union; perhaps these pictures show only a few hectares of wheat. What does that mean?"

Zhang Zheyuan glanced at Sun Pengan and nodded.

Sun Pengan cleared his throat and said:
"Sir, I have taken the liberty of trying to display on the screen the images currently being transmitted from our Hawkeye satellite. Would you like to take a look?"

Li Yian nodded and watched Sun Pengan walk to a row of televisions. There were several televisions placed in the curved west wall below the bookshelves. The bookshelves were deliberately made very low to make room for the televisions. Normally, this row of TV screens would be covered with sliding doors.

Sun Pengan turned on the TV on the far left and returned to the Excellency's desk. He picked up one of the phones, dialed a number, and simply said:
"let's start."

Li Yian knew about the "Eagle Eye" satellite. Unlike the Langhaobi synthetic aperture radar, it uses an optical lens with a diameter of 1.8 meters provided by Zeiss. It takes clearer pictures than any other satellite before. The satellite is equipped with the most advanced camera with a resolution of about 80 centimeters. The "Eagle Eye" reconnaissance satellite is definitely the newest satellite with the best performance.

Although its resolution is good, it is time-consuming, mainly because the film box must be ejected from the satellite at a specific location, returned to the earth under the protection of the protection device, and recovered by the radio spike signal and tracking equipment emitted by the satellite, and then airlifted to the image center laboratory for development and projection. The entire satellite weighs more than ten tons. There are four film chambers that can be ejected and recovered in sequence.

However, unlike ordinary reconnaissance satellites, it also has television signal transmission, which can be synchronized when the satellite is in a flight arc that is directly communicated with a ground tracking station controlled by SpaceX. But when the satellite flies over the Soviet Union, the curvature of the earth's surface hinders direct reception of television, so observers must wait for the satellite to circle around again before they can watch - in fact, watch a video.

However, this transmission is not digital. The signal transferred by the tape will reduce the resolution. When transmitted using wireless telecommunications, the resolution will be further reduced. For this reason, its resolution is only about 2m.

When the image appeared on the TV screen, Sun Pengan pushed a Soviet map onto Li Yian's desk and pointed at it with his index finger.

"Sir, what you are seeing now is sent by Hawkeye 2, and its orbit is here, northeast, between Saratov and Perm, across the black sand belt of Ukraine."

Li Yian raised his eyes and stared at the TV screen. A large area of ​​land slowly appeared on the screen from top to bottom, with a width of more than 20 kilometers. Although the resolution was not very clear, the land looked bare, just like a field after harvest in autumn.

The vast plain was blurred and drifted to the left of the TV screen. Then a road appeared in the image, stayed in the middle of the screen for an unknown amount of time, and then disappeared from the TV screen.

"Slow down."

Sun Pengan ordered into the phone. The speed of the earth passing under the camera lens slowed down. The "Eagle Eye" satellite in the sky was still moving at the same height and speed in its orbit, but the width and speed of the image in the laboratory of the Image Analysis Office had decreased.

The image got closer, and what appeared next was a wheat field several hundred kilometers wide.

"Fix this lens," Cheng Pengan said into the phone. The image slowly stopped moving, and finally stabilized.

"Close-up shot." Cheng Pengan said.

The image was getting closer and closer, and it was very blurry, but it was still possible to see that there were large gaps in the land. This was obviously caused by the wheat seedlings or corn withering and shrinking.

No one there would leave the land completely idle, except under special circumstances. But now, the land on the screen looks like alopecia, piece by piece. The picture is not in color, but you can still clearly tell where the wheat seedlings are and where the bare land is.

"Zheyuan."

Li An turned his attention to Zhang Zheyuan. The reason why he ended the island tour early was because of his phone call.

"Sir, since Khrushchev came to power, the Soviet Union's grain production has been increasing steadily. Last year, the Soviet Union's grain production reached 1 million tons, far exceeding the 4000 million tons in the bumper year before World War I. According to the official Soviet grain production target this year, the total is 8000 million tons. Now this target can be detailed as follows: 1.4 million tons of wheat, 7000 million tons of barley, 3000 million tons of oats, 700 million tons of corn, 1300 million tons of rye, and the rest are rice and various legumes. The major crops are wheat, barley and corn."

He stood up and walked around the desk to where the Soviet map was still spread out. Cheng Pengan turned off the TV and returned to his seat.

"About 50 percent of the Soviet Union's annual grain crops come from Ukraine and the Kuban region in the south of the Russian Federation."

Zhang Zheyuan continued, pointing to these areas on the map.

"And that was all winter wheat. That means it was planted in September and October. The crop was already in the shoot phase before the first snowfall in November. The snow covered those shoots and protected them from the frosts in December and January."

He turned and walked back.

"In early December last year, an abnormal snowmelt occurred throughout Ukraine and the Kuban region. These two regions have experienced this phenomenon before, but it has never been as warm as this. A strong warm air current blew from the Black Sea and the Bosphorus in the south, moving northeastward and covering Ukraine and the Kuban. The warm air current lasted for a week and melted the upper layer of snow, which was about 12 inches thick. The young stalks of wheat and barley were exposed. Ten days later, as if to make up for it, the entire region experienced the same abnormal climate type, and was attacked by frost. The temperature dropped to minus 6 degrees Celsius, or even minus 10 degrees Celsius." Even if you are not an agricultural expert, you have heard of the saying "auspicious snow indicates a good harvest." Li Yian said:

"This is extremely detrimental to wheat and will definitely result in a reduction in grain production."

Now, Li Yian has remembered this incident. In another world, the Soviet Union had to use a large amount of gold to import grain from abroad to make up for the domestic gap due to a decrease in domestic grain production this year.

In many sources, this year's grain imports are seen as a symbol of the failure of Khrushchev's reforms - after all, the continuous increase in grain production was once the pride of the Corn Emperor.

"Yes, sir, but not just this one area."

Sun Pengan interjected,

"This year, spring wheat has problems in many places. The photos we are seeing now are all about the situation in other areas. We have consulted agricultural experts. As far as the current situation is concerned, if the Soviets can save 1% of Ukraine's crops, they will be lucky. The losses in other areas may exceed 3/. Judging from the current situation, their agricultural losses are heavy and cannot be compensated."

"That, then, is what you want to explain to me?" he asked.

"No, sir,"

Zhang Zheyuan said,
"The purpose of this meeting is this: According to the information we have so far, the Soviet Union is likely to lose 3000 to 5000 million tons of grain this year. This is what we want to explain to you."

That’s almost a 30% reduction in production.

Anyone can feel from this figure the impact that a production reduction of this scale may have - a large-scale reduction in grain production will definitely cause famine, or affect people's lives.

This will certainly bring about a series of problems.

“And what about the local response?”

Li Yian asked.

"So far, we have not seen any response from Moscow to the reduction in agricultural production, and even in their official reports, there is no mention of this incident."

After thinking for a while, Sun Pengan added:
"Sir, our satellite resolution is not high. But we can see their land from space, and seeing that this year's grain production will be severely affected, it is hard to believe that the Soviets themselves cannot find it."

This is the real problem! Compared to the food itself, they are more concerned about the information revealed behind this matter.

"Is it possible that they won't be able to find out?"

Li Yian frowned. He knew the answer to such a question without anyone's answer. It was impossible not to find the answer.

"They must have discovered this problem. The only question is why there is no news about this in Moscow. This is the most curious thing."

Sun Pengan's answer made Li Yian raise his eyebrows.
Indeed, there must be reasons behind all abnormal events.

"Sir, the food production reduction is not just in one place, but involves the food production reduction of almost the entire country. What is the reason why there is no news from Moscow? Are they keeping it secret, or..."

Zhang Zheyuan added:

"Someone is deliberately creating all this, or someone is deliberately hiding everything."

If this is the case, then there must be some unspeakable secret behind this matter.

"Deliberately concealing..."

In an instant, Li Yian seemed to have an epiphany. Obviously, someone must be deliberately concealing something. Because in the Soviet Union, they have professional agricultural departments to count, record, and track weather conditions and grain production. They would not turn a blind eye to the large-scale grain production reduction that even satellites can detect.

Is it a secret from Moscow?

Apparently not!
It's not just because there is no information on this matter, but also because there has been no fluctuation in international grain prices. Large-scale grain imports will inevitably lead to fluctuations in international grain prices. Now grain prices are very stable, and there is no news that the Soviet Union is importing grain on a large scale.

Then there is only one possibility left - someone deliberately concealed all this.

He was silent for a moment, then said:
"So, what is their purpose in deliberately hiding all this?"

(End of this chapter)