Chapter One: Drunken Return at 79

  "Xiao Liang, thank you so much this time! If it wasn't for you..." Xia Zhendong raised his cup and said with emotion to Liang Sanping. And Liang Sanping was momentarily stunned.

  Xia Zhendong, he is recognizable. He remembers that when he first came to Qiong Island, he happened to save him and his son on a public bus. The two of them had just returned from visiting their hometown and encountered robbers on the bus.

  "Come on Xia, saying it again would be pointless. I'm just lending a hand, it's what should be done. No need to thank me or anything..."

  Taking a closer look at Xia Zhendong, Liang Sanping felt a little dazed. The Xia Zhendong at this time was not the familiar face he knew later, but rather a handsome and spirited young man with a scholarly air, very similar to his appearance when he first met him.

  Liang Sanping shook his head, thinking he was dreaming. Because just now he was at the wedding of his son who got married in his thirties, how did he suddenly return to decades ago?!

  He glanced at the calendar on the wall not far away, which was prominently written: August 25, 1979! That is to say, Liang Sanping suddenly jumped back from 2013 to thirty-four years ago.

  At this moment, the scene in front of Liang Sanping was both familiar and strange. After a daze, he finally remembered that this was when he saved Xia Zhendong and was making a record at the police station!

  "Xiao Liang ah, I heard Lao Xia talk about the car thing, and at that time, it really scared me! I was worried that something had happened, fortunately nothing happened. Our workshop should thank you too!" The speaker is Zhou Jianping, and Liang Sanping is also familiar with him.

  Later, the two had a lot of dealings with each other. He was in charge of the third trial area of Bao Ting's hot works. This time, Xia Zhendong came to Bao Ting actually for the matter of their third trial area.

  "Comrade Xiao Liang, you're probably here to rely on your relatives this time, right?" Upon hearing Zhou Jianping say this, Liang Sanping couldn't help but smile awkwardly.

  It's no wonder that Zhou Jianping was able to guess, in this era everyone is having a hard time. Those who have a way out mostly want to rely on their relatives. In rural areas, it's really not possible to eat enough.

  At least the farm had enough to eat. In 1979, a farm worker's monthly salary was 38 yuan. Adding the regional allowance of 4.2 yuan in Qiongzhou area, it would be 42.2 yuan!

  In this era, it's not a small amount of money. Moreover, workers also get 30 kilograms of grain coupons every month. This is a great benefit! Although these grain coupons will not be issued to you directly, and only when you go on a business trip or return home for a family visit, the farm will issue an introduction letter and exchange the grain coupons for you, this is also a great welfare.

  In rural areas, it's not just about grain coupons, but even the fixed amount of rations is a big problem to fill one's stomach. Therefore, many people chose to flee to their relatives in state-owned enterprises during this period.

  Even without a formal job with an iron rice bowl, being a contract worker is also good. At least you can eat your fill. Liang Sanping still has parents at home, and his second brother is also at home.

  The whole family relies on that little land to make a living, and this year they're also "cutting off the tail of capitalism". There's no way to do some small business. The shops on the street are like decorations, useless.

  Luckily, my second brother was a teacher at the high school and our family was classified as poor peasants. Life was slightly better off from then on. But the more Liang Sanping grew up, the more he ate into his father's meager resources.

  After the second brother got married, life at home became even more difficult. So the family discussed it and let Liang Sanping go to his elder brother, Liang Daping, who had settled down in Jianghai Farm.

  "Alas... the common people are not full, this is the fault of us who study agriculture..." Looking at Liang Sanping's embarrassment, Xia Zhendong's face showed a hint of sadness.

  "Lao Xia, this isn't just a regional issue. Where in the country isn't it like this now?! Everyone's struggling to make ends meet, and it can't be solved by one or two people in a short time. But at least we can see a glimmer of hope now..."

  Liang Sanping smiled wryly to himself, feeling a sense of relief. Fortunately, he hadn't spoken out about the political changes, as this was a sensitive topic in these tumultuous times. Although the domestic environment had relaxed somewhat after the storm of the past decade had passed, this didn't mean one could speak freely.

  "Enough of this! Old Xia, you're an intellectual, why keep saying things that us rough folks can't understand? Come on, come on... let's all go eat together. Haha..."

  Zhou Jianping warmly invited Lao Xia and Liang Sanping to dinner, while Xia Zhendong also felt that it was inappropriate to express such sentiments at this time. He smiled apologetically and followed Zhou Jianping out together.

  Come out of the police station, you can see that there are low triangular tile houses everywhere. The roads are not cement roads in later generations, but a layer of yellow soil covered with sand. At this time, the road maintenance team would often cover the road with yellow sand.

  The streets were also empty, and the few people who occasionally passed by wore a set of patched, bleached, and faded blue overalls with a pale complexion.

  On the streets, you occasionally see a few chickens and ducks running by, or a mother pig. This is also one of the characteristics of Hainan Province, where farm pigs are all free-range. So you often see a huge mother pig leading a group of little pigs running around the streets.

  The streets were littered with the droppings of chickens, ducks and pigs, yet everyone walked on the streets as if nothing was wrong. Zhou Jianping, however, got into a Jeep with Liang Sanping and Xia Zhendong and headed straight for the Hot Works Factory.

  The hot spring is not far from the county seat, and it only takes about ten minutes to arrive at a small restaurant in the hot spring area. At this time of year, there are no good decorations in the restaurant.

  Unless it's a hotel for foreigners, most of the time they just simply and casually brush the white wall and that's considered decoration. As for furniture, don't even mention it, just a few wooden stools and a simple square table is enough to be called a restaurant.

  Everyone chatted for a while and then started eating directly. At this time of year, the dishes on the table were quite ordinary.

  Even when entertaining officials like Xia Zhendong, there was only a small amount of meat, perhaps two liang or some diced five-spice pork. The rest were all vegetables, with the better dishes being a plate of stir-fried eggs and a small dish of peanuts.

  Then two local wild vegetables, the location is also in the third district of Bao Ting Rehe Hot Spring Resort. Here to entertain Xia Zhendong, Zhou Jianping was still a bit embarrassed. Feeling slow, but now this world he can't afford to care about so much anymore.

  After three rounds of wine and five flavors, Zhou Jianping finally sighed to Xia Zhendong: "Director Xia, the incidence rate of albinism is too high. This year alone, due to albinism, rubber production has decreased by more than 20%."

  "We've tried many methods, but it's just sulfur. The effect is not good! The General Bureau is very dissatisfied with our reduction in production and has written to us several times about this matter. We have no choice but to swallow our pride and come to ask you..."

  Rubber whitening disease? Liang Sanping's heart was delighted as soon as he heard it, as an old farmer and a grassroots cadre, he was more familiar with rubber whitening disease than anyone else.

  Albinism, this is a plant pathogen. In low-temperature and humid environments, it invades the tender leaves, buds, shoots, and inflorescences of rubber trees on a large scale, directly leading to reduced rubber production, and severe cases can even cause death of the rubber tree.

  This plant disease is extremely deadly for rubber-producing farms. However, there are currently no good preventive measures available domestically.

  They are all using sulfur to continuously spray the rubber trees, trying to defend against this pathogen. But first of all, the consumption of sulfur is extremely large, and secondly, the effect will change with the climate change of that year.

  For example, if the temperature is too low this year and the humidity is too high, it will lead to a situation where fallen leaves are not clean, making it easy for diseases to take advantage of the situation. And by the time you discover it, the disease has already spread widely.

  The rubber trees are spaced so far apart and the trunks are very tall. You can't inspect every single rubber tree. But once you miss one, then due to the density of planting, it will spread to the entire rubber forest, even to adjacent ones.

  Sulfur powder... Liang Sanping couldn't help but sigh in his heart, this thing is useless! The next rain, this sulfur powder will be basically swept away. If you want to replenish it, the cost is higher and the effect is not good. It can only be said that it's better than nothing.

  It turned out that later, Liang Sanping and others used special smoke oil agents and machines to spray. Not only is the cost low, but the effect is also lasting. It's a hundred times stronger than sulfur powder.

  "Lao Zhou, we're not strangers to each other. To be honest, this problem is not just ours here. Actually, all the world's rubber-producing areas are facing this issue."

  "Now, down to business," Xia Zhendong put down his chopsticks and said to Zhou Jianping: "This time I came, first of all, is to take a look at the situation in Baoting and see how serious it is. Secondly, I also want to make a report to the General Administration."

  "It's not just our Guangdong Provincial Bureau, in fact the National Bureau is also extremely headache about this matter. That's why they put so much pressure on us, hoping that our research institute can make some breakthroughs in this area..."

  Zhou Jianping couldn't help but smile wryly, he knew that this matter was actually impossible to resolve. Even if it could be resolved, it wouldn't be something that could be done in a short time.

  If it could be solved, the General Administration would not have left this issue unhandled until now.

  For example, in 1976, the rubber output of our country was only 78,800 tons. In that year, the rubber consumption of our country, which was the third largest rubber consumer at that time, reached as high as 2,175,000 tons.

  Insufficient income to cover expenditure, seriously insufficient! What's even more headache-inducing is that the international rubber price at that time rose from $1,000 per ton to $1,200 per ton all of a sudden!

  That is to say, in order to meet the country's industrial needs, more than $100 million would be needed to purchase 138,700 tons of rubber!

  At the same time, in 1976, the country's foreign exchange reserves were only $1.255 billion. Over $100 million was spent, which is more than one-tenth of the country's total foreign exchange reserves.

  In 1976, what was the concept of over $100 million?! That year, a second-tier worker's salary was around 42 yuan. The basic salary was 38 yuan, and with regional subsidies and other benefits, it could reach 42 yuan. At the same time, the exchange rate between US dollars and RMB was 1:1.8.

  $100 million is equivalent to 1.8 billion RMB, which equals the total wages of 4.28 million workers nationwide for a month without eating or drinking. At that time, rice was 0.11 yuan/jin, equivalent to over 800,000 tons of grain!

  It was in that year that the large-scale outbreak of white spot disease led to a significant reduction in production in major domestic rubber-producing areas, including Hainan Island, northern Guangdong and Yunnan Province.

  Under such circumstances, the Ministry of Agriculture was severely criticized. Helplessly, the Ministry of Agriculture had to issue a military order, which must be solved within five years and at least find a way to deal with it.

  It's no wonder that the Ministry of Agriculture is under pressure. Steel, coal, oil and natural rubber are the world's four major industrial raw materials, and natural rubber is an indispensable resource among them.

  Without it, many of our industrial research and development and production will come to a standstill. This includes medicine, construction, machinery, chemical industry... and so on. Under the circumstances, the country can only reduce domestic rubber production and use its limited foreign exchange to buy back large quantities of natural rubber for use.

  At this time, Xia Zhendong's arrival was an attitude of the Ministry and the General Bureau of Farming and Reclamation.

  "I came here mainly to deal with this matter. This time, I'm just the vanguard. After a while, our colleagues from the research institute will arrive in Boting together. At that time, we will set up a special topic research group here to study the handling of this problem..."

  After hearing this sentence, Zhou Jianping's heart finally put down. Since the research institute took over, his responsibility can be put down. In the future, as long as the research institute studies it out, won't the thermal plant still be the first to benefit?

  "Lao Xia, can I say something...?" Unbeknownst to him, Liang Sanping, who had been listening carefully, put down his chopsticks. He spoke to Xia Zhendong and Zhou Jianping.

  The two of them were stunned, and Zhou Jianping was somewhat perplexed. Indeed, you little scoundrel saved the lives of Zhou Jianping and his son. But that doesn't mean you can just chime in on anything. This kind of technical stuff isn't something for you to brag about. One is one, two is two!

  Unfortunately, Zhou Jianping didn't know at that time. Later on, whenever he mentioned his old friend Liang Sanping, he would always give a thumbs up. Who in the agricultural reclamation system didn't know Liang Sanping back then?!

  Lao Liang was directly nominated by the Qiongdao Farming System as one of the top ten outstanding young people and was recommended to go to the Imperial Capital for training. In Qiongdao Farming, there are several billion-dollar projects, all of which were specifically handled by him. Moreover, he also studied on his own and made several technological innovations. This allowed the rubber harvesting time to be advanced by a large margin, production increased, and a significant amount of economic benefits was added.

  Who wouldn't be impressed by this skill?! Unfortunately, this is a later generation. The current Zhou Jianping doesn't think the young man in front of him is that impressive.

  "Oh? Does Xiao Liang have an opinion?" To be honest, Liang Sanping's words made Xia Zhendong a little unhappy. Xia Zhendong was from the academic faction and had learned that one is one and two is two.

  There is no middle ground. Xia Zhendong was grateful to Liang Sanping for saving his son, but that doesn't mean he would give up his principles for Liang Sanping. This is a technical issue, and even technicians like himself and his comrades don't have a clear grasp of it.

  Moreover, the country's research on leprosy is not a new thing. Since the outbreak in the late 1950s, the country has been continuously studying this disease. What can you do? In order to develop the originally scarce foreign exchange reserves, it was thrown out one after another, which is heart-wrenching to see.

  But this is not a problem that occurs in one area of the island, but rather it is a problem that occurs in all regions around the world where rubber is planted. This has also been Xia Zhendong's hidden pain since his student days.

  Liang Sanping is just a kid who has just come out of the village, what does he understand?! But Xia Zhendong still suppressed his anger, thinking that he should give Liang Sanping some face in such an occasion.

  "Lao Xia, I know it's a bit abrupt for me to interrupt now. But what I want to say is something I'm aware of..." Liang Sanping said after a moment of hesitation, addressing the two of them.

  "I'm from Guangxi Province, I didn't finish primary school and then I stopped studying. After that, I went to Yunnan Province to work on the railway construction, worked for almost two years. When I came back, I coincided with the Self-Defense Counterattack War, I served as a militia logistics support..."

  Xia Zhendong seemed somewhat impatient, and Liang Sanping put down his chopsticks and said his answer directly: "Triazolone, hot fog machine!"