I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 273 Grabbing rice

Although there is no oil in Europe, Europeans are no less enthusiastic about cars than George.

After the St. Petersburg World's Fair, Dailem founded Dailem Company to produce motorcycles for external sales.

Also last year, Armand Peugeot established the Peugeot Company in France, produced the first three-wheeled steam-powered locomotive, and exhibited it at the Paris International Exposition held last year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.

Vladivostok's cars also participated in the Paris International Exposition, once again attracting attention from the audience.

Compared with the RV in Vladivostok, Peugeot's steam tricycle is like a toy, not a product of the same era at all.

George does not compete for food in traditional industries, and the industries he focuses on investing in are all high-tech industries.

In addition to alternating current, George also collaborated with the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences on research in radio communications.

In 1888, the German physicist Hertz confirmed the existence of electromagnetic waves through the "Hertz Experiment" and made radio communication possible.

When Alexander Stepanovich Popov, a teacher of physics and electrical engineering at the Technical School of the Imperial Navy, learned the news, he immediately became acutely aware of the opportunity to change the world.

Popov immediately began studying electromagnetic waves, and the next year he successfully repeated Hertz's experiment.

At this time, Popov's research encountered a bottleneck. If he continued to conduct in-depth research, Popov would need a large amount of financial support.

Popov hopes that the Naval Technical School can provide funding for Popov's research.

The Naval Technical School has limited strength and cannot give Popov enough support.

So Popov came to the Admiralty, hoping to get support from the Admiralty.

The Admiralty believed that Popov's research had no military value and therefore rejected Popov's request.

After knowing this situation, George agreed to provide financial support to Popov and introduced Nikolay to Popov, hoping that the two would jointly conduct research on radio.

Now Popov is building his first radio receiver. If successful, communications in the Russian Empire will no longer be controlled by the British.

The power station in St. Petersburg will not start construction until next spring.

The power station in Vladivostok will be completed in March next year, by which time Vladivostok will become the first city in the world to use electricity on a large scale.

Just after New Year's Day, George received reports that rice-grabbing movements broke out in many Japanese cities, causing continued unrest.

The Japanese had been engaged in the Meiji Restoration for more than ten years, achieving nothing but a lot of debt. They had to sell off the ironworks and shipyards they originally invested in and borrow money to survive.

Under such difficult circumstances, the foreign debt borrowed by the Japanese government was not used to protect the national economy and people's livelihood, but was used to purchase warships. This led to the Japanese people's dissatisfaction with the Japanese government becoming more and more serious.

Last year, Japan's agricultural harvest was poor, and rice production dropped by about 20% compared with previous years.

This year, Vladivostok hired a large number of Japanese and Korean workers to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, so Vladivostok purchased a large amount of rice from Japan to feed the workers building the railway.

Japan originally suffered from food shortages and insufficient supply due to poor harvests.

The price offered to rice merchants in Vladivostok is relatively high, so rice merchants are more willing to sell rice to Vladivostok.

Even if it is not sold to Vladivostok, it will reduce the market supply, hoard it, and wait for the price of rice to rise before putting it on the market.

Since the beginning of winter, the price of rice in Japan has continued to rise, reaching the point where even newspapers exclaimed that "people can no longer afford rice."

Before the Japanese New Year (after the Meiji Restoration, Japan’s Spring Festival was changed to the Gregorian calendar and no longer used the lunar calendar), a rice grabbing movement broke out in Toyama Prefecture.

Toyama Prefecture is located in the central coastal area of ​​Honshu Island, and most residents make a living by fishing.

Japanese fishermen’s fishing methods are still relatively primitive, and their fishing boats are not advanced enough and are inefficient.

When Vladivostok began to develop, George regarded fishing as one of the main sources of food. After the emergence of the internal combustion engine, the Vladivostok Shipyard was the first to apply the internal combustion engine to fishing boats, which greatly improved the working range and efficiency of fishing boats.

The main operating areas of Vladivostok fishermen and Japanese fishermen are Hokkaido fishing grounds.

With their advanced machinery, Vladivostok fishermen naturally catch far more fish than Japanese fishermen.

So before the Japanese New Year, a conflict broke out between fishermen, whose income had been seriously reduced due to insufficient fish catch last year, and rice merchants who were hoarding rice.

Japan has a long history of robbing rice. It happened from time to time before the Meiji Restoration. However, due to the communication and transportation at that time, most of them were sporadic and the impact was not great.

After the Meiji Restoration, Japanese journalism developed rapidly, and information spread faster and more widely.

As a result, this rice grabbing movement has spread to a wider and wider area. Starting from Toyama Prefecture, it has a tendency to spread to all of Japan.

George was very happy that the Japanese had finally woken up.

In fact, before Vladivostok hired Japanese railway workers, the mines in Vladivostok had already hired a large number of Japanese workers through Japanese human resources companies.

These Japanese human resources companies organized Japanese people to work in the Vladivostok mine.

The conditions for workers are very harsh. They work about 14 to 16 hours a day. Their living quarters are only the size of a mat, and they alternate between day and night shifts.

Workers' salaries cannot be paid in full, and human resources companies will find ways to deduct Japanese workers' wages, with the average deduction rate being around 30% to 50%.

I have to say that the Japanese are really tolerant.

After being squeezed so hard, George felt strange that those workers didn't resist.

No wonder Japan has Ninja Turtles.

When Nicholas learned that Japan was in a rice shortage, his first reaction was that George was causing trouble.

"Don't talk nonsense, this matter really has nothing to do with me."

George was more confident than ever.

"Impossible, you must have done this. You were not the instigator. You are also one of the people behind the scenes." Nicholas did not come to seek justice for the Japanese, but came to see the Japanese's jokes.

Although the Japanese government gave Nikolai a lot of compensation after the Otsu incident, Nikolai's inner grudge did not completely dissipate. He often scolded those damn despicable monkeys.

"If I was the one who planned it, it would be more than just robbing rice."

George hummed, where did he go?

Japan’s problem is not that there is no rice or that the land is barren, but that the Japanese government is exploiting the Japanese people too seriously.

So if George was responsible for this matter, he would directly target the Japanese government instead of the unlucky rice merchants.

Although the rice merchants are not innocent, their responsibilities are obviously much smaller than those of the Japanese government and the aloof Japanese Emperor.

Even the Japanese government is not very responsible. Ultimately, the responsibility for this matter lies with the Emperor.

There is no way, just like the problem of the Russian Empire, the Tsar has the greatest responsibility.

The Emperor of Japan is the supreme leader of Japan. If the responsibility does not belong to the Emperor, then whose responsibility does it belong to?

"You shouldn't hire Japanese people and let them stay in Japan. Japan's rice shortage will become even more serious."

Nicholas didn't care at all about the life or death of the Japanese.

"I want to watch the excitement and use low-cost labor on a large scale. How can there be such a good thing——"

George said it lightly, but his heart was ringing alarm bells.

Although Amur has had abundant supplies in recent years, the crises faced by Amur are no less than those of Japan.

Although Siberia is large, there is not much land that can be developed. It is only harvested once a year, and the land's output efficiency is not high, so Amur's food supply is also at risk.

Now that Amur can import food from Europe, the problem of food crisis is not yet obvious.

What if one day Amur is unable to obtain food from Europe?

George's first reaction was Lao Mei.

The United States, like the Russian Empire, was a grain-exporting country.

But importing food from the United States also faces risks.

Therefore, the food issue must still be controlled by oneself.

When it comes to food, George’s first reaction is Siam.

At the end of the 19th century, King Rama IV of Siam began to open up to the outside world, and King Rama V who succeeded him drew on Western experience to carry out social reforms.

Siam was located between British Burma and French Indochina.

As a buffer zone between British and French colonies, Siam is currently the only country in Southeast Asia that has not become a colony.

Siam is located in the tropics, with three crops a year. The Gulf of Siam and the Andaman Sea are unique natural marine fisheries with rich fishery resources.

Siam is also famous for its tropical fruits and cash crops.

George did not invade Siam, but established an agricultural company to invest in Siamese agriculture. Presumably the Siamese people had no reason to object.

Of course, George cannot come forward in this matter, otherwise it will trigger attacks from Britain and France, which may be self-defeating.

George sent a telegram to Mikhail and asked Murind to do it.

Mulinder has a complex background. As a German, he once served as an official in the Qing Empire and Goryeo. Now as Amur's business manager, he is responsible for the sales of Amur products throughout the Qing Empire.

Let Mu Linde do this, at least it won't be as eye-catching as George's action.

In March, George set out from St. Petersburg to Chelyabinsk to inspect the preparations for the Trans-Siberian Railway.

George was dissatisfied with the progress in Chelyabinsk.

Bridges also need to be built. An iron bridge will be built in Amur, which will take up to a week.

Chelyabinsk takes two months.

George did not hide how the iron bridge was built, and showed Nikolai its benefits early on.

Nikolai also hopes that Chelyabinsk can use an iron bridge like Amur, but before the steel production of the Russian Empire, an iron bridge is basically impossible.

The steel production of the Russian Empire was higher than that of Amur though.

But there are more places where steel is needed.

The Russian Empire not only has to build rail tracks, but also build weapons and ships, so its steel production of hundreds of thousands of tons a year is also stretched.

George was helpless.

Amur railways use steel rails.

Chelyabinsk actually uses railroad tracks.

The Trans-Siberian Railway is expected to last only a few years.

(End of this chapter)