Homo Sapiens

Luzon.

Bantun Island.

Chen Jianxiong, who had recently returned in secret from Hongsawaddy to Luzon, was giving a debriefing to Li Qingye.

"The Hongsawaddy Branch did well. We can finally act more freely on certain matters."

"This time, it was all thanks to the hard work of Domino, Yang Mengjiao, and the others," Chen Jianxiong replied respectfully.

Li Qingye glanced at the development report for the Qingye Group on the large screen. In terms of industry, they had only developed a few short-term projects with quick returns. In agriculture, however, the Qingye Group’s progress was practically meteoric.

A large number of farms had been established within their fully-authorized operational zones in the Shan Plateau, the Salween River Delta Plain, and the Deline Coastal Plain.

It was projected that in the first quarter of next year, the Qingye Group would harvest 3.2 million tons of rice, 1.5 million tons of GMO corn, 900,000 tons of GMO soybeans, 1.05 million tons of rapeseed, 320,000 tons of white sugar, and 350,000 tons of potatoes.

If they included the Lower Irrawaddy River Valley and the River Delta Plain, which were currently being consolidated, the yields for various crops would increase several times over.

Keep in mind, even in its previous struggling state, Hongsawaddy’s annual rice production could reach 27.5 million tons.

And Hongsawaddy’s population was only just over 50 million, with a per capita grain supply of around 500 kilograms, which was actually quite substantial.

Exporting 4 to 5 million tons of grain a year was more than feasible.

Now that these lands were being consolidated, if supported by fertilizer and pesticide industries, the grain production potential could even be boosted to the scale of 100 million tons per year.

Hongsawaddy’s agricultural potential was actually greater than that of its neighbors, Huaguo and Tianzhu. Although those two countries produced a massive amount of grain each year, their populations were also astronomically large.

Hongsawaddy, however, was different. Its population was not large, but its arable land was vast. Combined with its tropical monsoon climate, it had the potential to become a world-class granary.

The reason Li Qingye was concerned with Hongsawaddy’s agriculture was primarily due to the deficiencies in Luzon’s grain production environment, which had flaws in both its social and natural conditions.

Although the security division had delivered a nasty surprise to Archer Daniels Midland, the ABCD’s grain war plan was still moving forward.

Although Homo Sapiens Company was confident it could fend off this attack from ABCD through other means, the inherent problems in Luzon’s agricultural structure still left some vulnerabilities.

He turned his head and instructed, "Phil, notify Gafei and the others. Have them secretly build more reserve granaries throughout Luzon."

"Yes, Boss!" Phil jotted it down.

Li Qingye planned to leverage the covert nature of the Hongsawaddy and Luzon Branches, along with the now much-expanded New Luzon Shipping Company, to facilitate a resource exchange. Luzon would export Coral Cement and Iron Bamboo, while Hongsawaddy would export rice and glass, allowing the two sides to swap resources.

Since the Malacca Strait is an international public waterway, cargo ships were not required to declare their specific goods to the coastal nations of Malaysia, Java, or Xing Island.

This would allow Luzon and Hongsawaddy to conduct their trade covertly. As long as the activities were confined to Homo Sapiens Company’s fully-authorized operational zones, the outside world would have no idea what trade was occurring between them.

Of course, if the five great powers were to use their spy satellites to monitor every port in Luzon and Hongsawaddy around the clock, they might discover the anomaly.

But the question was, short of a major crisis, who would be bored enough to task satellites specifically to watch the ports of two two-bit countries?

Besides, it wasn’t as if these cargo ships were transporting sensitive materials like nuclear fuel or missiles.

As long as they arranged enough front companies and deceptive measures, common goods like rice, glass, cement, and Iron Bamboo would not attract much attention.

There was also no need to worry about whether ABCD would find out that Hongsawaddy was selling grain to Luzon after their grain war failed.

Even if they did find out, so what? It wasn’t as if America would dispatch troops to attack Hongsawaddy just for ABCD’s sake.

At most, they would send an aircraft carrier fleet to the Malacca Strait to harass ships from Luzon and Hongsawaddy.

And even if America were to prohibit their ships from passing through the Malacca Strait, Homo Sapiens Company already had a backup plan ready.

That backup plan was the Siam Branch, currently managed by Domino. The Siam Branch had already cultivated a significant number of Spider Web Managers and had also inserted a considerable number of Soldiers.

By the end of next year, Li Qingye intended to launch the Siam Conquest Plan.

Once a fully-authorized branch was established in Siam, America would be unable to blockade the entire South Sea, no matter how powerful it was.

If Xing Island failed to appreciate the situation and dared to cooperate with America in blockading the Malacca Strait, then Li Qingye would show absolutely no mercy.

At that point, Homo Sapiens Company could secretly push Siam, Hongsawaddy, and Luzon to jointly dig a canal across the Kela Isthmus, just to teach Xing Island a lesson in humility.

Li Qingye arranged for the shipping company to transport several million tons of rice back from Hongsawaddy and store it in warehouses.

As long as they didn’t open the granaries to release the grain, and since the outside world had no way to investigate the internal affairs of Homo Sapiens Company and its front companies, no one would know the exact amount of their grain reserves.

Part of ABCD’s intelligence came from satellite imagery of farmland, which was then analyzed to estimate Luzon’s local grain production.

Another part came from moles like Aquino, who provided official statistics and port import/export data from Luzon.

As for Homo Sapiens Company’s internal operations, ABCD had no way to infiltrate them, so they could only make rough estimates.

The margin of error for ABCD’s estimates was usually small.

After all, they could get a pretty accurate idea of how much grain Luzon could produce locally through satellite remote sensing data.

Furthermore, they controlled the international grain trade, and the only entity that could challenge them, the Zhongliang Group, was unlikely to export rice to Luzon.

From their perspective, there were no major issues with the accuracy of their data.

But they had overlooked an uncontrolled source of grain—Hongsawaddy.

And they were even more unaware that Homo Sapiens Company had secretly established a fully-authorized regional branch in Hongsawaddy.

This gave Homo Sapiens Company the opportunity for covert operations. After all, within Luzon and Hongsawaddy, Homo Sapiens Company was a deeply entrenched local power, and it would be difficult for outside forces to quickly detect the special relationship between the two.

With this new shipment, combined with Luzon’s existing reserves, the total grain reserves in Luzon would soon exceed 10 million tons.

But Li Qingye and Homo Sapiens Company did not announce this. Instead, they continued to fan the flames, letting ABCD continue to stir up trouble.

This was because Homo Sapiens Company needed to use a borrowed knife. They would let ABCD destroy Luzon’s small-scale agricultural economy, and then Homo Sapiens Company would sweep in under the guise of "saving the market," directly annexing the farmlands and farms and making everyone work for them.

Finally, they could sling mud at ABCD and the Aquino, Marcus, and Ayala Clans, using the opportunity to uproot these three families completely.

In this strategic game, regardless of the outcome, the final result would be the complete decimation of Luzon’s farmers, small landowners, and small-farm owners, who would then become food for one side or the other.

Li Qingye knew very well that the best way to destroy a region was to destroy its agricultural system. Once the rural areas—the final safe harbor—collapsed, the region’s resistance would quickly crumble.

Losing their arable land meant losing their final path of retreat.

If, at that point, the cities were also unable to absorb this labor force, vast urban slums would quickly form.

A large portion of Manila’s slums was already composed of landless farmers.

However, Li Qingye had no intention of driving them to extinction. After all, Homo Sapiens Company needed this labor force. The purpose of this "killing with a borrowed knife," besides annexing the land, was to turn these farmers into employees of Homo Sapiens Company.

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