"This is not a way to live at all, the Brazilian plateau is really raised by the stepmother, and the pit is dead." On December 10, 1678, Liu Houfei, commissioner of the Bac Ninh District Administration, held a fruit tree in his hand and said to himself with some irritation: "But fortunately, we are clever and self-reliant to come up with a way, otherwise we would not have died!" ”

When the new government came to power, it carried out a so-called "southward" policy, that is, to attract the capital, technology and manpower accumulated in Brazil to the south to develop the Pampa Plain, which was still in the hands of the Spaniards, and to this end it also carried out some ugly actions, such as recruiting horse bandits with suspicious identities into Spain to sabotage, such as sending people to assassinate Spanish religious figures, such as directly sending troops into the Pampa Plain to coerce the Spaniards to bow their heads.

All of this, while all of this was achieved smoothly because of the strong national power of the East Coast, it greatly damaged the international reputation of the East Coast – at least Liu Houfei himself believed so – and at the same time led the country in the wrong direction and facilitated the development of other countries. Just as a well-known businessman in the Jiaohe port area said, it is extremely wrong for people on the east coast to pour more national strength and resources into the Pampa Plain and ignore the development of the tropics. Because the market is there, if you don't occupy it, someone else will occupy it, you don't sell sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, the Portuguese will sell it, the British will sell it, the Dutch will sell it, the Spaniards will sell it, and even the Courlands will benefit from it.

There is some truth to this statement, but it is not entirely absolute, because the East Coast government has only cooled Brazil's tropical plantation industry, not killed it with a stick. What's more, New Huaxia Island is the one that produces the most cane sugar, sisal, rubber, coffee, cocoa, pepper, vanilla, coconut, dye (some industries cannot produce dye plants on a large scale) and other tropical plantation products on the east coast.

However, this is really fine at the national level, but if you stand in the position of a local official like Liu Houfei, it is more uncomfortable. Because the previous boom cycle of tropical commodities has brought them extraordinary profits, local governments are more financially well-off, can better engage in construction, and officials are more likely to be promoted. But what the hell is going on here? Declining investment, waning policy incentives, and tightening of capital pipes have created endless nightmares for local officials in the Brazilian Altiplano.

You see, the Dutch West India Company, which was originally confident in investing in the East Coast, is now asking people around the corner, is the East Coast government going to "give up" to the Brazilian Altiplano? Will it be able to get enough investment in security, health care, and transportation construction in the future? You know, the Dutch West India Company took a fancy to this place and paid to hire a large number of German hillbillies from the Old World to open plantations, originally for the above three conditions. Otherwise, wouldn't people invest in Guyana? Won't you invest in Tobago? Won't you invest in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa? It's not because of the chaos, the harsh environment, and the poor infrastructure!

But all these complaints don't seem to have much effect now, and the Executive Committee, which is in charge of the country's direction, seems to be going its own way! They even put forward a "noble" goal for this purpose, that is, they are afraid that the people will indulge in tropical plantations, which have great side effects, so they must vigorously develop industry and agriculture, put the country on the right track, and use "healthier ways" to make profits.

Regarding this statement, Liu Houfei, commissioner of the Bac Ninh District Administration Office, scoffed. In his view, factories are hard to earn money by producing mechanical parts, daily necessities and weapons, but tropical plantations are also hard to earn. They didn't steal, they didn't rob, they didn't cheat, so why can't they be treated equally? The plantation work is a little heavy, the environment is a little worse, the labor mortality rate is a little higher, but the rewards are big enough! Moreover, it can also drive the development of many industries, including food processing, navigation and transportation, and seedling selection, which is still worth investing heavily in. No matter how bad it is, it should be on an equal footing with other industries, rather than the current reduction in bank loans, the reduction in the distribution of labor resources (the government has reduced the number of Polish laborers allocated to most of the state-owned plantations), and the construction of supporting infrastructure is so far away that some nationals who have already settled here are tempted to move to the south, not to mention those whose contracts have expired, which undoubtedly have a great negative impact on the local economy of the Brazilian highlands.

Of course, Liu Houfei's views can't influence the country's major policies, and in the Brazilian highlands, what we have to think about now is that the local economy is so broken and out of trouble. Places like Hue and Jiaohe may not need to think much about it for the time being, because their environment is humid and hot, and they can only go all the way to the dark in the tropical economy, but like Bac Ninh, there may not be no other way to go.

It is important to know that the climate in Bac Ninh is not as hot and humid as in the north, because it is located on an 800-meter plateau, and the climate is generally subtropical. In addition, the local soil is fertile, the rivers are crisscrossed, and the valleys are everywhere, and it is not impossible to develop agriculture and the food processing industry that will follow it. This was evidenced even decades earlier in the Portuguese era, when the diocese of São Paulo supplied the tropical plantations of Rio de Janeiro with wheat, corn, livestock, fruits, wine, dairy products, oilseeds, and occasionally tobacco, but not on a large scale. Now that the people of the East Coast occupy such a rich land, and the degree of development is even greater than in the past, can't they follow this path and find a new way?

Liu Houfei had already carefully discussed future development plans with local officials and businessmen. In the end, we have to admit that the best way out for Bac Ninh is still the food processing industry, and everything else is limited and not in the priority area.

The development of the food processing industry is actually very particular, and the first problem is the choice of fist products. After holding a number of meetings and listening to the introduction of experts from the two giants of the domestic food industry, the state-owned Dafeng Food Company and the private enterprise Xu's Food Company, the regional administration finally decided to focus on the development of the canned food processing industry.

The biggest reason for this, in addition to the fact that there are relatively abundant sources of fruits and meat in the region, is that these two companies have committed to investing in the Bac Ninh area. Among them, the state-owned Dafeng Food Company decided to set up a branch here, called the Bac Ninh Branch of Dafeng Food Company, specializing in the production of various canned meat or canned fruits, in order to compete with the state-owned Ping An Canned Food Factory, and enter the increasingly lucrative canned food market.

In the middle of last month, Cai De, the retiring general manager of Dafeng Factory, also made a special trip to Bac Ninh County to discuss with the regional administration on the investment of the factory. At the beginning, the Bac Ninh area planned to set up the factory in Bac Ninh district to make use of local resources nearby. However, Dafeng Food Company has concerns about the transportation conditions from Bac Ninh County to the port city of Chang Thuan County, believing that if the production plant is located in Bac Ninh, it will be extremely inconvenient to transport materials and the cost will be greatly increased. After all, the small roads leading from Changshun Port to the hinterland of the Brazilian Plateau are not obstructed by people, animals or small carriages, but if you allow large trucks to pass, it is absolutely impossible, unless you are willing to give up the super high accident rate.

Therefore, Mr. Cai of Dafeng insisted that the establishment of the canned food factory in Chang Thuan County, which has an excellent port (formerly São Vicente Island, later Santos Port) that is not inferior to Hue (Rio de Janeiro), is extremely beneficial to the long-term development of the factory. Otherwise, how to compete with Ping An Canned Food Factory? You must know that although Ping'an Port can only be navigated by small and medium-sized ships with a small draft, the logistics cost is definitely much smaller than that of Bac Ninh County.

Liu Houfei deliberately disagreed with the choice of factory site, but his arm could not twist his thigh, the situation was stronger than people, he was afraid that Dafeng Food Company would set up the factory elsewhere in anger, so in the end he could only coax, Xingwen Changshun County to make preliminary preparations. As a result, the gap between the county located in the coastal zone and other counties in the inland hinterland has further widened, and the trend of uneven regional development has become more and more obvious. And if the traffic problem between Bac Ninh and Changshun is not solved, perhaps this gap will be even bigger, and in the end, the whole region will be working for Changshun County to suck blood.

Coincidentally, Dafeng Food Company intends to set up a factory in Changshun County, and Xu's Food Company (formed by the merger of the former Xu Ji Oil Mill, Xu's Dairy, Xu's Orchard and many other enterprises) also intends to open a factory in Changshun County because of its low logistics costs. Moreover, their new factory is similar to Dafeng Company, which is mainly engaged in canned food, and it is all from the Natural Science Park to obtain invention authorization.

There is no doubt that this kind of canned food is made of tinplate as a raw material, thanks to the rapid development of materials and machining technology in Tieling County. Unlike traditional glass cans - that is, put meat or fruit into a glass container, loosely plug the mouth of the bottle with a stopper, and then put it in the hot water pool, and then cork the bottle tightly after a long time of inspection and find a way to seal it with something - tinplate cans are not only durable, but also have a shelf life of several times longer, which is conducive to long-distance transportation, and has been warmly welcomed by the military department as soon as it came out.

The shelf life of tinplate cans is longer than that of glass cans, mainly due to two reasons, namely high-temperature sterilization and the advancement of sealing technology. Both of these technologies are by-products of the Academy of Natural Sciences' study of bacteria, and are currently being permanently licensed to interested companies for 5,000 yuan. Among them, high-temperature sterilization is more interesting, because it is in a tank filled with calcium chloride, and the cans of half-cooked meat are steamed at a temperature higher than boiling water until the air is emptied. At this point, the workers seal the small holes in the top lid of the can with tin, while the small amount of oxygen that remains in the can binds to the food and prevents further changes.

The sealed cans also need to be sent to the inspection workshop for inspection, and the method is generally heating. If the food inside the can is spoiled, the gas will burst through the can, which is a non-conforming product. If the tank is intact and not burst, the can is qualified and can be packed and shipped to the place specified by the customer.

Don't underestimate the development of this industry, now with the East Coast people all over the world "chaotic", colonization, trade or exploration activities continue to intensify, the demand for easy to preserve, easy to transport canned vegetables, canned fruits, canned meat, canned fish is increasing, this is a long-term optimistic sunrise industry. In fact, not only Dafeng and Xu's food companies are optimistic, but also the old canners Ping An Canned Food Factory and Mar's Food Company (the former Mar's Orchard, Mar's Ranch and other mergers) have also set their sights on this, and plan to set up factories in the fruit-rich Southern Cone and the coast of Brazil.

Liu Houfei also planned to contact them, but the two companies eventually went to Jiaohe Port and Hue Port, which made him feel quite regretful. But it doesn't have much to do with it, he Liu has brought two big food companies to invest, the hinterland of Beining counties has been developed for many years, the agricultural conditions are very good, can continue to provide raw materials for the production plant in Changshun County, the future of the canned food industry will slowly expand, it is also a matter of time.

"The local area doesn't care about us now, it's stuck in our necks, if we don't want to think of a way, transformation and upgrading, I'm afraid the days ahead will become much more difficult." Looking at the large peach grove in front of him, Liu Houfei shook his head, obviously unable to completely let go in his heart: "It's okay, our tropical plantation can't be built, so let's transform it in the future." Canned food is a long-term optimistic industry, which should be focused on development. In addition, it is necessary to obtain the patent authorization of improved biscuits, chocolates, malt milk essence and other foods from Dafeng Food Company, and then invest in their own development, which should also be included in the agenda as soon as possible. Dafeng factory also obtained the patent from the hands of the Academy of Nature, so many years have made a lot of money, the patent extension is almost over, now to buy, should be able to obtain at a very low price. You know, our Baconin is not only suitable for growing grain, fruits and tobacco, but also very suitable for growing cocoa, and the Northern Seed Company has already cultivated cocoa seeds adapted to the climate of the Brazilian highlands, and it is time to introduce them. ”

"In the future, we will transform and develop all kinds of specialty foods and take the road of the food industry. In this way, the old people of the Executive Committee have no reason to criticize us. Liu Houfei finally thought.