Chapter Sixteen: The Overlooked Target

  "Xiao Liang, you should know that the vegetables supplied to Xiangjiang are all allocated with a fixed quota. Moreover, each province has its own allocation, so it's hard for you to intervene in this aspect..."

  Liu Lao Yi raised his hand and said to Liang San Ping, "Although the top leader has expressed a desire to carry out some reforms, the specifics of how to reform, or even whether to reform at all, are still being debated..."

  The rest of the words, Liu Lao did not say much. But Liang Sanping knew in his heart that this old man was advising himself. The movement at the top level would lead to a huge fluctuation below.

  These old people have experienced too many movements in their lifetime, and in those ten years they almost went through everything. As "old activists", their memories of these things are extremely profound.

  Moreover, a more important issue is that all the grain, meat and vegetables currently exported to Hong Kong from mainland China are subject to quotas and quantitative restrictions, with each province and city having its own allocated share.

  "Liu Lao, why must we focus on Xiang Jiang?! There's a place not far from us where the demand for vegetables is actually quite high! Why haven't we seen it?!"

  Liang Sanping burst out laughing, but didn't say directly what was wrong. Liu Lao and others heard this and couldn't help but be stunned. So close to China, yet lacking in vegetables?!

  Where is this place?! Liang Sanping didn't make any further explanation, smiling and letting everyone get up and walk around. After dinner, take a hundred steps, live to ninety-nine.

  The restaurant is still a distance from the hotel, and everyone can discuss this matter while walking back. By the way, they can also exercise.

  Don't look at Liu Lao and others who are not young anymore, but the old folks often patrol the rubber forest in Lin Duan. Their physical strength is not bad at all.

  "Not far from us is: Japan!" Liang Sanping finally didn't keep the suspense for too long, after everyone had a guess he smiled and said out his answer.

  "Exporting vegetables to Japan?!" Liu Lao and the others were stunned. In 1979, Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations had indeed normalized, and trade between the two countries was also going well, with a trend of gradual growth year by year.

  But Japan imports fewer things from China, and instead exports a lot to China. These include engineering machinery, machine tools, chemical equipment... and other high value-added, high-tech products.

  China exports more raw materials to Japan. Even so, no one thought of exporting vegetables to Japan!

  "Japan's land is very limited, and apart from arable land, there is hardly any land available for planting vegetables, and the varieties are also limited. So all along, they have been relying on a large number of imported vegetables during the winter-spring transition season!"

  Liang Sanping couldn't help but laugh, still feeling a sense of pride in his meticulousness. In his past life, Qiong Island was the main base for planting out-of-season vegetables and even the main supplier of winter vegetables nationwide.

  So he was very familiar with the planting, production and sales of local vegetables. In later development, Qiongdao's vegetables were not only supplied to the domestic market.

  Even some specially cultivated varieties are used for export to the European Union, Russia, Japan, South Korea and other countries to earn foreign exchange.

  The natural conditions of the large greenhouse make Hainan have a unique geographical and climatic advantage. This advantage was later almost fully exploited and expanded with national support.

  "Japan's total vegetable cultivation area is 8.208 million hectares, with greenhouse vegetables accounting for 318,000 hectares. This accounts for one-tenth of the country's total arable land area, with an annual output of 31.1 billion kilograms and an average yield of 3,780 kilograms per hectare. Japan has a strong vegetable consumption habit, with each person consuming an average of 254 kilograms of vegetables per year, ranking second in the world after Italy."

  But then Xia Zhendong furrowed his brow and recalled, "The country with the highest per capita consumption of vegetables in the world is Italy. They have an average annual consumption of 306 jin (about 150 kg) per person. And Japan's vegetable self-sufficiency rate has reached 99%. In this regard, it's hard for us to catch up..."

  As for Xia Zhendong's reported data and conclusions, Liu Lao and others all thought they were correct. However, they looked at Liang Sanping, waiting for him to give them an explanation.

  Indeed. Japan's vegetable self-sufficiency rate is very high, even reaching 99%. However, they also have times when they lack vegetables and rely on imports. For example, in February, there is a shortage of small amounts of onions and garlic. And by August, there is a shortage of small amounts of tomatoes and cucumbers. During these seasons, the vegetables they need can only be imported from abroad.

  He paused for a moment, and then Liang Sanping said with a smile: "For example, in 1976, Japan imported 86,262 tons of various vegetables. The transaction amount reached 8 billion yen. At the current international foreign exchange rate of 1 US dollar to 360 yen, that's over 200 million US dollars!"

  "Hiss~~~" Liu Lao and others heard this, couldn't help but take a breath of cool air. Good guy, that unremarkable vegetable transaction is over 200 million US dollars! Our current foreign exchange reserves are only around 10 billion or so!

  This guy is gone, and one-fifth of foreign exchange has come in.

  At this point, the eyes of several old men suddenly turned red! Good guy, I didn't expect such a huge profit in between. Fatty meat! It's really a big piece of fatty meat.

  After eating, one mouthful can really make a fat man come out.

  "Old Liu! Old Liu, please don't look at me like that with those few teachers." Liang Sanping couldn't bear the wolf-like gaze of several old men and smiled bitterly.

  "Without financial assistance, we cannot conduct research and production planning. Moreover, we also need to find a way to enter the Japanese market, which requires some pioneers!"

  Liu Lao and others heard this, couldn't help but nod in agreement and pressed down their excitement. Indeed, without financial assistance, the project could not have been launched at all. Secondly, if there was no one to lead the way, they would be foolishly entering the Japanese market.

  Forget about making money, what's most likely to happen is that you'll lose so much that you won't even have a pair of pants left.

  "Xiaoxia, we'll rest at Qiongzhoukou for a night and start researching as soon as we get back tomorrow!" Liu said with a wave of his hand, "When the time comes, I'll make a phone call and report our ideas to the department..."

  "Xiao Liang, after you go back, make your ideas into a report. I'll review it and then submit it to the headquarters." As he spoke, Liu Lao took a deep breath, and his eyes gradually lit up.

  "Over 200 million dollars! My old man will go all out to get this project! Haha! Once we get it, the funding for our two institutes won't be so difficult anymore!"

  Everyone chatted and laughed, and before long they returned to the hostel. Liu Lao and others had been rushing around all day, and after drinking some wine in the evening, they went to bed early.

  Liang Sanping was flipping through various books and reports given to him by Xia Zhendong, occasionally highlighting certain areas and taking notes.

  It's no coincidence that Liang Sanping was once nominated by the agricultural reclamation system and even sent to the imperial capital for further study. At least his humble attitude towards learning and his unwavering diligence have never changed.

  At that time, he was just a team leader and took a leave of absence to attend the party school. He relied on his own efforts and obtained a graduation certificate with his fellow students who had high academic qualifications. It is worth noting that Liang Sanping's cultural level was only in elementary school.

  Mixed with a group of high school and even college students to study, the hardships can be imagined. Liang Sanping will never forget the hard work during that period, his old mother-in-law saw that his shoes were rotten and gave him five yuan to buy a new pair of shoes.

  At that time, Liang Sanping was reluctant to spend the five dollars his mother-in-law had given him to buy shoes. He and his wife were living on her salary alone since he had stopped working. How could he bear to part with it?

  Fortunately, after he graduated later, he returned to the unit smoothly and was promoted to a half position. At the same time, he was also assigned to work in the district, and the family's life was better.

  "Japan... shipping, freezing..." Liang Sanping looked at the data on one side, while his brain was constantly turning over. These materials were all collected by the two hospitals, most of which were some technical intelligence.

  Liang Sanping combined these technical intelligence and began analyzing how he should act in accordance with the current national interests.

  "Do we deserve to be poor?! Do farmers deserve your disdain?! I don't believe it!!" Liang Sanping gritted his teeth and said viciously: "I'll let you see that us farmers can also earn foreign exchange!"

  At this time, Commissioner Ge Tai of the Qiongzhou Mouth area was constantly smoking in his study. In front of him were stacks of documents and materials.

  "It's not easy......" Ge Tai sighed, looking at these documents, he had put forward many ideas. But those that were rejected were not a few. The decade-long catastrophe had just ended not long ago, and people's political nerves were extremely tense.

  I wanted to propose some changes and new ideas but encountered strong resistance. It's not that people explicitly opposed me, but rather they were ambiguous on key issues.

  "Everyone is making a fuss, everyone is struggling! How can work be carried out like this?! Are we going to be poor forever?!" Ge Tai angrily threw the lighter on the table.

  Suddenly, he noticed a document on the table. He pulled out other documents and only picked up this one to take a look. It was some file records of Liang Sanping's older brother, Liang Daping.

  Ge Tai returned home and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that Liang Sanping was interesting. So he asked his secretary to find information about this person. Unfortunately, although Liang Sanping's file had been transferred, it had not yet been registered in Qiongzhou Port.

  However, Liang Sanping's background was easy to investigate. And the information about Liang Daping and his brother was placed in front of Ge Tai at this time.

  "Hey! What an interesting little guy......" Ge Tai looked at the file and couldn't help but laugh at the report from the Gui Province.

  Liang Sanping's situation is similar to that of young people who have experienced the past decade's great calamity. The only difference is that because his father was classified as a poor peasant in the early years, he did not suffer any impact.

  Instead, he took advantage of his poor peasant status and actually saved several old rightists. At home, apart from having a bad temper and sometimes throwing punches, Liang Sanping was still considered a good young man.

  "You little stinker, but I have no idea what surprises you'll bring me..."