After sending Yinchang to take office in the Fengtian Governor's Yamen, Song Biao returned to the military department and held a small meeting in the Governor's Yamen Secretariat, and deployed four things: first, to sort out the list of all officials and the total number of vacancies in the three eastern provinces; the second is to sort out the map of the three provinces and the data of each prefecture and county; the third is to sort out the new deal matters and draw an outline; Fourth, it is necessary to set up an agricultural reclamation section to be in charge of agriculture and reclamation, and to seize the time to popularize the planting of soybeans in various localities along the railway, introduce improved seeds, popularize planting technology, and improve water conservancy matters in soybean-growing areas.

After the end of the dispute between Zhao and Song, Song Biao really became the king of the Northeast, and this status allowed him to quickly recruit several local staff who were proficient in government affairs, such as Yuan Jinkai, Su Huichen, Qian Ying, Wang Yongjiang, Wang Shuhan, Tan Jiwu, Jin Dingxun, He Zhongyun, Guan Haiqing, etc., all joined the Governor's Yamen Secretariat organized by Yuan Jinkai for Song Biao during this period.

Yuan Jinkai's official addiction is not small, Song Biao originally just wanted to set up a secretariat, but Yuan Jinkai persuaded him several times, meaning that the level of the department was too low, and it was not easy to recruit talents.

Whether it is a bureau or a department, for Song Biao, who is the governor of the three eastern provinces, it is only a difference in words, and the meaning is different for others, so Song Biao listened to Yuan Jinkai's opinion and set up the Governor's Yamen Secretariat, which was promoted by Yuan Jinkai as the Secretariat, and consisted of five sections: clerical, confidential, supervision, special service, and foreign affairs.

Yuan Jinkai has been active everywhere in these days, and has pulled many people who are well-known in the three eastern provinces to join the secretariat, before these people join the company, Song Biao will take time to talk to them in detail alone, ask everyone what they are good at and ideas, and everyone else is okay to say, especially Wang Yongjiang and Wang Shuhan, who are known as the two kings, are indeed people with more brains, Jin Dingxun, He Zhongyun, and Guan Haiqing are not simple.

Just after a rough discussion, Song Biao can perceive that these three people belong to people with a strong sense of revolution, to say how powerful the penetration of Yueben in the Kanto region is, it can be seen from these three people, Jin Dingxun graduated from the law department of Meiji University, Guan Haiqing and He Zhongchun studied at the Yokohama Business School of Yueben, these two people did not graduate and hurriedly ran back to China with Jin Dingxun to organize the resistance against the Russian army.

Although they have not graduated from secondary school, Guan Haiqing and He Zhongyun are not young students, the former is twenty-seven years old, Xiucai was born, and the latter is thirty years old, and he has a reputation for raising people, and they are all born in local squire families in Jilin Prefecture.

These three people all have a revolutionary consciousness of opposing the Qing Dynasty and the Manchurians, and their words and deeds are not very out of line, so Song Biao left them in the Foreign Affairs Section to continue to observe.

In order to facilitate the regular handling of official business, after Song Biao set up a secretariat in the governor's yamen, he separately transferred one of the many newly built buildings of the military department to serve as the office building of the secretariat; in addition to the secretariat of the governor's yamen, there was also a separate secretariat in the military department, with Shu Fangde and Jiang Fangzhen serving as the chief adjutants of the secretariat.

Although he didn't think that Yuan Jinkai could have much insight in the new policy, Song Biao still asked Yuan Jinkai to reorganize a copy of the "New Deal Book of the Three Eastern Provinces" in the secretariat, as the outline of the new policy, and this one was taken out for the Qing political axe and officials from all over the eastern three provinces.

As for the "Five-Year Plan for the New Deal of the Three Eastern Provinces" in Song Biao's hand, Song Biao does not want to take it out for the time being until he has sufficient capital and finance.

In addition to the three governors, there were also Zhang Xiluan, the general office of the Andong Port Development Bureau, Zhang Yuanqi, the prefect of Jinzhou, Yin Wang Jinghuan of Xingjing Province, Wang Honglu, the salt transport envoy of the three eastern provinces, Ma Tingliang, the governor of Jinzhou, and Jin Liang, the general office of the Fengtian Banner Office, etc., including Qiu Tongfu, the old acquaintance of Tonghua Zhixian County, and Song Biao met with at least more than 40 officials of the three provinces in a period of ten days, but in his opinion, there are very few people who are really capable of implementing the "Five-Year Plan for the New Deal of the Three Eastern Provinces" for him.

Other things can be done by others, even if they are not done well, it doesn't matter, but the matter of soybeans in the Northeast is indeed too important that Song Biao must personally grasp it.

This was the first official meeting of the Secretariat, and after that, Song Biao asked Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun to stay, and asked people to send the agricultural and botanical expert Almoro who had just arrived from Russia. Mr. Nunerico, please.

Lieutenant Colonel Neznamov recommended the Russian botanist Almoro. When Nunerico arrived in Mukden, Song Biao learned that this gentleman was still quite famous in the Russian botanical and agricultural circles, and his level was also very high, so Song Biao immediately asked him to serve as the general adviser of the Mukden Agricultural Research Institute, and hired more than a dozen assistants from the church schools in Russia and Harbin to cooperate with Yufeng Bank and the Far East Commercial Bank to carry out the cultivation of soybean varieties.

Before Dr. Nunerico arrived, Song Biao asked Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun to sit down first, spread out the map of the three eastern provinces and said to them: "I have just said that the establishment of an agricultural reclamation department is very important to the three eastern provinces, if done well, the total annual export volume of the three eastern provinces can surge to tens of millions of pounds, that is, the scale of hundreds of millions of silver yuan." Both of you are candidates for the chief and deputy section chiefs that I think are more suitable, but the question is whether you are willing to take on this burden? ”

Only listened to Song Biao's words, Wang Yongjiang and the two were taken aback and looked at each other.

After waiting for a while, Wang Yongjiang spoke first: "Your Excellency the Governor, if your subordinates want to take on this position, it is related to the people of the three eastern provinces and the imperial court, and your subordinates dare not support it, but they are also fully sure that they can handle this matter well." ”

Song Biao nodded and said, "What are you going to do?" ”

Wang Yongjiang said: "When soybeans are exported to foreign countries, the first consideration is railway transportation, and now there are two railways in the three eastern provinces, one is the Far East Railway built by the Russians, and the other is the Far East Branch Railway from Harbin to the Liaodong Peninsula. We should promote the planting of soybeans along these two railways, and strictly order the cooperation of local officials to plant soybeans along the 60-kilometer line. ”

Song Biao was not in a hurry to answer, and asked Jin Dingxun, "What do you think?" ”

Jin Dingxun thought for a while and said: "Most of the government stewards have a lot of deductions, and it is not appropriate to let the yamen in various places get involved too much, so we should publicize it in the newspapers, and promote planting through the squires in various places. ”

Song Biao sighed slightly, still not in a hurry to make a statement.

Wang Yongjiang retorted coldly: "My lord, most of the people who farm the land are illiterate, and no matter how much propaganda is publicized in the newspaper, it will not have much effect, not to mention that although the three provinces are large, none of the newspapers can sell much." If the propaganda is too good, the result will be flashy, and it will be discredited to the people. The subordinates believe that as long as we promote planting along the two lines of the railway, all those who are willing to plant soybeans will sell high-quality soybean seeds at a low price, and if they have no money to buy soybean seeds, they will all pay on credit, and then sign a contract to purchase them at a fixed price next year, so that the people can rest assured. ”

Song Biao replied: "Your method is more practical, I originally planned to make you the head of this agricultural reclamation section, but I think you are more pragmatic." Deputy Section Chief Jin, you and Section Chief Wang cooperate with each other, and we must do this well. Everything else is forgotten, but this matter is the most important thing for me, if you can't do it, don't appear in front of me in the future, the three eastern provinces have no place for you, if you want to play your personal little abacus in this matter, I advise you to have two more heads. ”

Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun were greatly surprised, and hurriedly got up to pay respects and said, "Please rest assured, Your Excellency, your subordinates will not dare." ”

Song Biao sneered, the reason why he wanted to use Wang Yongjiang as the section chief was indeed because this person was very shrewd, and he felt good in the previous two conversations, and his ideas were very pragmatic, and Jin Dingxun talked about some very unpragmatic topics between words, which made Song Biao feel bad, but this person has a very fine understanding of modern law, and he is always a talent.

He continued to instruct the two of them: "You must work together, talk less nonsense, do more practical things, and do a good job in this matter, and I will have a suitable appointment in addition." In addition, after the arrival of the Minister of Reclamation Supervision of the Three Eastern Provinces, the promotion of soybean planting in the three eastern provinces will be at his disposal, and what you have to do now is to do a good job of planning, calculate the numbers in detail, how many acres of planting range to promote, how high the expected annual output is, what is the purchase price, what is the expected selling price, how many improved varieties are needed, what kind of goals to achieve in phases in several years, and whether the water conservancy ditches in the soybean planting areas along the route should be invested in labor and financial resources, these must be clearly considered. The more this kind of thing is beneficial to the country and the people, the more we must do things in a down-to-earth manner and be more meticulous. ”

Wang Yongjiang immediately replied: "Please rest assured that your subordinates will do their best to do their best to handle the soybean affairs of the three eastern provinces beautifully." ”

Song Biao approvingly: "It's good that you have this confidence!" ”

At this time, Almorlo. Dr. Nunerico also happened to arrive at the secretariat, this doctor, although young, had already begun to lose his head very early, was not tall, and had the kind of big beard characteristic of Russians, and looked a little scruffy.

This man had a good academic standing in Russian agriculture, and studied under the Russian botanical master Nelyub of the St. Petersburg Institute of Botany. Stankovinč, who had published many papers on Russian agricultural research and the plants of the Siberian cold zone when he was a student, did not worry about finding a suitable job in agriculture and botany, even if Russia was facing a bad situation, and the reason why he chose to work in the three eastern provinces was to a large extent out of special curiosity and admiration for General Song, as well as the positive advice of the Russian War Ministry and Lieutenant Colonel Neznamov.

Wait for this Almoro. Dr. Nunerico arrived at the conference room, and Song Biao also enthusiastically introduced him to Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun, and invited Dr. Nunerico to sit down, ready to ask some questions about the soybean planting industry in the three eastern provinces.

Almoro. As soon as Dr. Nunerico sat down, he couldn't wait to open a file bag and report to Song Biao in Russian: "As for your hope that the Fengtian Agricultural Research Institute will study the contrast between American bean varieties and local bean varieties in the three eastern provinces, although this still needs more planting experiments to compare, it is interesting that we have found some phenomena. By comparing the basic data provided by different regions of the ten eastern provinces and the United States, we can roughly judge that the local bean species and the American bean species in the three eastern provinces belong to the same special surname, because the American soybean was originally introduced from northern China, but the Americans continue to select the improved varieties with higher oil yield in the careful selection and cultivation. The most interesting thing is that the American bean seeds introduced from the Chicago area have significantly higher oil yield and disease resistance in Changchun, Liaoyang, Hunjiang and other places. My analysis is as follows: firstly, the two soybean species have the same surname and have the same ability to adapt to cold regions, and secondly, the land and climatic environment of the three eastern provinces are more suitable for soybean production. In all of the areas that experimented with U.S. soybeans, we found that the results in some of the newly cultivated areas of Changchun and Hunjiang were amazing, thanks to the abundance of phosphorus, potassium and calcium, as well as other essential elements, such as the most important sun. In general, soybeans are indeed the best cultivation in the three eastern provinces. ”

Song Biao thought for a moment and asked, "Does this mean that we can directly introduce bean seeds on a large scale from the United States?" ”

Almoro. Dr. Nunerico shook his head and said, "Although the Americans have a certain selection of bean seeds, I think the work they do is still relatively basic. I recently interviewed some local soybean growers, and unfortunately the soybean cultivation in the three eastern provinces is only small and does not realize the value of soybeans as a special cash crop, but even so, according to some of the soybean seed samples we have taken from rural areas around Shenyang, the gap is actually not large. If local farmers take this into their view, or if we do our own job of selecting soybean seeds, there is no need to import soybeans from the United States. In addition, I recently asked a friend from the St. Petersburg Botanical Research Institute to check some reports, from the current point of view, the main suppliers of international soybeans are still too scattered, Germany itself has a very high demand for soybeans, the scale of local soybean cultivation is relatively large in Europe, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and even Mexico have soybean exports to Europe, the overall scale is still small. Among the world's soybean planting scale, Asia is still the highest, including the total amount of soybeans planted in this region is higher than that of France. ”

Saying this, he took out a document from the file bag and handed it to Song Biao, adding: "This is some of the information I received, judging from the scale of planting in the United States, their soybean planting area is not large, and most of them are used for feed, and they do not pay as much attention to the problem of oil yield as in Europe." In terms of oil yield, which is an important indicator, there is no difference between U.S. soybeans and local soybeans from the three eastern provinces. ”

Song Biao picked up the document and looked through it, and the sources of the information were the St. Petersburg Institute of Botany Research and a German cash crop research company, which recorded the total amount of international soybean transactions in the past few years, as well as the area of soybean cultivation worldwide.

Judging from this data, Asia, Europe and the Americas are large soybean planters, Asia accounts for about half of the total international soybean planting, but in addition to a small amount of soybeans exported to Europe in Ben and India, most of the soybeans are used for local consumption, and the soybean planting industry in Europe is completely in the past 20 years with the development of the oil industry and the oil industry, and the rapid development, especially in southern Europe, the soybean planting scale is very large.

The United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina all have certain soybean cultivation, which is generally used as silage, and the scale of exports to Europe is not large.

Germany accounts for almost half of the world's soybean imports, a testament to the prosperity of the German oil, paint and other food ingredient industries.

When Song Biao almost finished reading this report, Almoro. Dr. Nunerico cautiously persuaded: "Your Excellency, please allow me to obtain some research funds from you here for the Mukden Agricultural Research Institute, and in our recent observations, I can confirm that there are many types of local bean species in the three eastern provinces, as well as wild and semi-wild bean species, which provides us with a very good basis for further study of soybeans." With sufficient funds, time, and personnel, we have every chance to surpass Germany's research efforts in the field of soybeans and breed better hybrid soybeans with higher oil yield, higher disease resistance and high yield. ”

Song Biao bowed his head slightly and asked, "I completely agree with this project, how much money do you need?" ”

Almoro. Dr. Nunerico cautiously replied: "We need about 400,000 rubles a year, and in addition to selecting some good land in various parts of the three eastern provinces for seedling cultivation and observation, we also need more manpower for experimental planting, as well as field visits from the three eastern provinces, including other parts of China, to select wild and semi-wild bean seeds." Although our goal is to breed better economic legumes, it is difficult for us to do this without a huge amount of basic research, so what we need to do is a comprehensive study of leguminous crops, systematically going deep into all aspects. If that is the case, we may need to continue to increase some of our resources, and I personally would like to invite some suitable assistants from Russia. ”

Song Biao weighed it for a moment, and still agreed very happily: "There is no problem at all, it is definitely not a problem in terms of funding, I will always support you and the Fengtian Agricultural Research Institute." I would like to make one suggestion, and that is that the Mukden Agricultural Research Institute must take on some of the work of training students, and you should recruit some suitable Chinese students, guide them in their studies, become suitable assistants, and even assign them to do some research work. As the director of this institute, you have every right to invite other experts as you see fit to work with you. However, whether you are engaged in basic research or cash crop research, I hope that you will be able to breed suitable bean seeds for the three eastern provinces as soon as possible, and continue to improve. ”

Almoro. Dr. Nunerico happily agreed, saying, "This is simply great, there will be no problem, Your Excellency the Governor." ”

Song Biao nodded, and then talked to Almoro. Dr. Nunerico asked: "As a specialist in botany and cash crop science in Russia, in your opinion, the climate and characteristics of the Northeast are suitable for growing other crops...... Or to put it this way, how do you think agriculture in the three eastern provinces should be developed, and what new aspects should be focused on? ”

"Oh."

Almoro. Dr. Nunerico exclaimed and said to Song Biao: "This is a big topic, to put it simply, I personally think that the climate and environment of the three eastern provinces are relatively close to Germany, so I personally think that the three eastern provinces should be more suitable for growing soybean and sugar beet, two cash crops." In the general direction, I think the development potential of agriculture in the three eastern provinces will be very amazing, agriculture is a very broad subject, for example, it also includes animal husbandry, forestry, fishery, etc., from this point of view, the three eastern provinces can have a lot of room for development in almost all fields of agriculture, especially in animal husbandry and forestry, the space of the three eastern provinces is very broad. Including soybeans and sugar beet, the ancillary products of these two cash crops are suitable for processing feed. ”

Via Almoro. As soon as Dr. Nunierico said that, Song Biao remembered the beet matter, and said, "Yes, the beet thing can also be considered." ”

Almoro. "We can bring in sugar beet seeds from Germany and try them in the three eastern provinces, and if the results are good, we should invest in a part of the sugar mills at the same time, preferably more dispersed, to help reduce the cost of processing and transporting sugar beets," says Dr. Nunerico. In the general direction, the agricultural development of the three eastern provinces is certainly inseparable from the commercialization of cash crops and the extensive opening of railways. ”

Song Biao nodded silently, and then he and Al Moro. Dr. Nuneriko simply translated all this to Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun, and then instructed these two people: "I will arrange a Russian translator for you Cory, and for a long time to come, you will need to cooperate closely with the work of the Mukden Agricultural Research Institute." ”

From Song Biao and Almoro. Dr. Nunerico heard a series of good news here, and Wang Yongjiang and Jin Dingxun were equally happy, nodding their heads in agreement with Song Biao's arrangement.

In the international market, the annual international trade volume of soybeans is about 2.5 million tons, with a total transaction value of nearly 100 million pounds, and the total turnover is increasing at a rate of 5% every year. After slow development, it took 20 years for soybeans in Northeast China to occupy half of the entire international soybean export market.

In the past 20 years, the soybean trade in the three eastern provinces has been dominated by Russia and the capital, and even this is enough to ensure that the economic development of the entire three eastern provinces exceeds that of the rest of the country, and the economic scale of the northeast has surpassed that of Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the period of Zhang Zuolin's rule in the northeast.

If this speed can be accelerated, within five years, Northeast soybeans occupy half of the international market, and firmly control the trade dominance of Northeast soybeans, or even directly monopolize the entire trade, how much benefit will this bring?

How much silver will be brought in by the £50 million a year flowing into the three eastern provinces?

Selling oil can make the Soviet Union quickly become the world's major industrial country, and the use of oil in the international industry in the early 20th century is really not as extensive as soybeans.

Song Biao wanted to do this as well as possible at this time. After Dr. Nunerico, Wang Yongjiang, and Jin Dingxun talked for a long time, he had already made up his mind to set up a large number of soybean planting areas along the Dongqing Railway and branch railways, to forcibly promote soybean planting by tax reduction policies and other means, to improve soybean seeds and planting techniques through various means, to improve the water conservancy and irrigation conditions in soybean planting areas, and to do everything possible to increase the excellent rate of soybeans in the three eastern provinces and increase the scale of soybean exports in the three eastern provinces.

In this great era without chemical fertilizers, pesticides and biotechnology, Northeast soybeans are definitely the best soybeans in the world, and there is no one of them, and there is no rival in the international market at all.

Regarding the cultivation of sugar beet, Song Biao also handed over to Jin Dingxun, and asked him to cooperate with the Fengtian Agricultural Research Institute to carry out the relevant introduction work, and if the results are good, he should immediately start to formulate a huge plan to establish a complete sugar industry in the three eastern provinces.

(To be continued)