Chapter 850 The Beginning of the Food War

After assigning the task to Li Yabo, Chang Haonan left the compressor research.

Studying thermal effects is a relatively simple and straightforward part and can be left to students.

But that new mechanism——

Considering that it corresponds to the thermal effect, it can be temporarily named the cold ablation mechanism. After all, it may involve a completely new theory, so Chang Haonan still has to come in person.

Well... since we are going to do materials research, the prerequisites are naturally equipment and materials.

It would be the same even if Chang Haonan had a system.

According to his previous speculation, the cold ablation mechanism is strongly related to the basic theory of molecular dynamics.

The research equipment required would not be something that can be obtained with the current small-scale equipment.

In addition to equipment, several full-time researchers who do not supervise students may be needed.

And postdoc.

Of course, all of this depends on the new laboratory under construction.

Otherwise, there would be no place to put the equipment or even the people at the school headquarters.

After sorting out the primary and secondary relationships here, Chang Haonan turned directly and went to Tang Lintian's office.

The latter was flipping through a document at this time.

Judging from the two newspapers on hand, they were probably just delivered.

Hearing the footsteps approaching from outside, Tang Lintian raised his head and saw Chang Haonan appearing at the door.

"Professor Chang?"

He put down his pen and documents:

"What a rare guest... How come you have time to come to my place today?"

The last time Chang Haonan took the initiative to go to Tang Lintian’s office was when he hadn’t even graduated from college.

It also indirectly led to the latter's can of good tea exposing its location, and finally he was attacked.

At that time, Tang Lintian was still the dean of the School of Aeronautical Science and Engineering.

After that, the two met either outside or in Chang Haonan's office.

"Something about the new lab."

Chang Haonan sat directly opposite Tang Lintian's desk, and the latter, as usual, took out a tin can from a corner of the filing cabinet.

Du Yishan has retired, and Chang Haonan and Liu Zhenxiang don't drink tea much.

As the president of Beijing Aviation University, it is highly likely that no fourth person would dare to come directly to him to ask for money.

Chang Haonan, who was not in a hurry for the moment, was waiting for Tang Lintian to make tea, and at the same time he inadvertently glanced at the two newspapers placed next to him.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a warning: abnormal drought may lead to a reduction in soybean production, and we need to be vigilant about the harm caused by extreme climate to humans.

"Global warming is an imminent problem, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a warning of production cuts"

"!"

When Chang Haonan saw these two titles, he was shocked.

He had seen a similar plot in his previous life.

This was the first round of attack launched by the United States at the strategic level after China joined the WTO.

But that time seemed to have happened around 2004.

Now that China has joined the WTO one year ahead of schedule, the Americans, who suffered some losses in the past few years, are obviously getting a little restless.

So it's only been three months, and I can't wait to do something.

Two cups of tea were quickly placed on the desk.

"New laboratory..."

Tang Lintian sat back in his seat and was about to continue what he had just said, but he soon noticed Chang Haonan's glance to the side, so he temporarily changed the subject:

"It says soybean futures have more than tripled from last month, and there's no sign of relief."

"Um……"

Chang Haonan nodded absentmindedly, picked up the cup and blew twice:

"Although soybeans are not a staple food, they are a major oil crop after all, and can be considered a semi-necessity for survival. Once there is a risk of insufficient supply, the price will not rise according to the supply and demand relationship, but will continue to rise until some people can no longer afford it."

Tang Lintian was just picking up two newspapers to read, but after hearing what Chang Haonan said, he became interested:

"Professor Chang also studies some economics?"

After asking this question, I felt that it made sense, so I added:

"Oh... I almost forgot you were still in charge of this large state-owned enterprise..."

Chang Haonan took a sip of tea and shook his head:

"It has nothing to do with that."

“I don’t really understand economics, but I’ve read some history.”

He put the cup back on the table.

"During the Spring and Autumn Period, in order to destroy the states of Lu and Liang, Guan Zhong of Qi suggested to Duke Huan of Qi that he should buy a kind of fabric called '绨' produced by these two countries at a high price, and at the same time sell them grain at a very low price. Seeing the profit, the states of Lu and Liang ordered that all the land in the country should be planted with 绨."

"After only a few years, the grain production in Lu and Liang was basically zero, and they could only rely on imports from Qi. At this time, Duke Huan of Qi suddenly ordered the whole country to wear silk, so that the silk of those two countries could not be sold. At the same time, he suddenly raised the price of exported grain, which directly caused a round of famine. He defeated two major threats without bloodshed..."

"The history books are rather vague about it, calling this operation the Silk War, but the core is actually food. After all, when people are forced into a corner, they can go without clothes or houses, but if they don't eat, they will definitely starve to death."

Tang Lintian, who majored in science and engineering, naturally had not read "Guan Zi", which was relatively unpopular even among the pre-Qin works.

But listening to Chang Haonan's convincing story, I knew it was unlikely to have been made up on the spot.

Besides, there is no reason for the other party to make up such a story to comfort himself.

"So what you mean is... the Americans hope to raise the price of soybeans so that our country will give up growing grain and switch to growing soybeans, and then cut off our food supply in a few years..."

Halfway through his words he felt something was not right.

After all, Lu and Liang were just two small countries.

China obviously cannot be put on directly.

"no no……"

Chang Haonan also showed an expression that he couldn't bear to look directly at:

"Our country has controls on staple food, so there is basically no way to make plans on it..."

In the last round of negotiations to join the WTO, China and the United States exchanged a package of conditions, which included the opening of most agricultural markets.

This also includes staple food.

But even though it is open, the red line for arable land and production targets are still there, and it is impossible for the whole country to grow soybeans.

Tang Lintian thought so too and immediately breathed a sigh of relief:

"Then you mean..."

Chang Haonan pretended to think for a while before answering:

"I guess the other side simply wants to target our soybean industry."

"You see, our country does not have enough arable land, and most of it can only be used to ensure staple food production. Soybeans themselves rely on imports. Now that prices have skyrocketed, soybean farmers will definitely expand their planting areas, and downstream companies will also rush to buy soybean futures from the international market to prevent prices from rising even higher."

“Next year, or at the latest the year after, they will announce that production has not fallen as expected, causing soybean prices to plummet…”

Although Chang Haonan didn't finish what he said, it is not difficult to guess what happened next.

Except for a small number of companies that are backed by the state, most downstream companies will probably go bankrupt as a result.

Soybean farmers who hastily expanded their planting areas will obviously also face huge losses.

The most troublesome part is——

In the previous life, China was able to win the war for staple food. Although brilliant operations played an important role, the final analysis was that it still had nearly 20 billion mu of arable land in the country to back it up.

No matter how bad the situation is, we won’t really have no food to eat.

But the soybean industry clearly does not have this advantage.

Its own self-sufficiency capacity is very weak, and related industries are still dominated by private and collective enterprises, so it is impossible to enforce discipline like state-owned enterprises.

And now stockpiling soybeans...

Apparently it's a bit late.

Therefore, Chang Haonan couldn't even think of any good solution for a while...