New Province Construction Corps.
Here are endless cotton fields.
A tattered dugout, the tattered quilt that sealed the entrance was lifted up from inside, and a beggar with matted hair and beard, dressed in rags, crawled out.
It's hard to tell the beggar's actual age. His eyebrows and beard are almost merged into one, and his skin is dark and full of wrinkles.
The beggar was holding a pencil and a wrinkled little notebook in his hand.
The man squatted beside a cotton plant and carefully observed the junction with the soil and the roots and leaves of the cotton.
After thinking for a while, he quickly wrote something down in the small notebook.
After a few minutes, there was a rustling sound in the dugout.
Two men dressed similarly to the previous one crawled out.
One of them felt hot as soon as he climbed out, so he took off his tattered cotton jacket.
The temperature difference between day and night in Xin Province is too great, and it is unbearable to sleep in a cave at night without a cotton jacket.
The man who was recording the plant's condition in a small notebook turned around and smiled.
"Just get through these few days and I heard the 70,000 yuan allocated by the Northeast Construction Corps has arrived."
"This time I'll use my public office for personal gain and get the three of us some good gear. At least we won't get cold hands and feet sleeping here at night."
The last person who crawled out smiled happily subconsciously, but then he thought of something and his expression became gloomy again.
He and the second person who crawled out exchanged a secret glance.
The two were wondering whether to tell Mr. Cheng the news they had heard.
In fact, the 70,000 yuan had arrived in the Corps’ account a month earlier.
But the Construction Corps was short of money everywhere, and they didn't dare to ask how much money was left.
When Engineer Cheng learned that he had received funding from a sister company, he was so happy that he couldn't sleep for two days. He stayed up all night to come up with a plan for breeding new varieties.
In particular, a piece of information sent from the Northeast Construction Corps' guesthouse in Shanghai fascinated them all.
This is what people learned from the consulates in Shanghai. It turns out that Egypt has a kind of long-staple cotton, which is not only of better quality than the one they developed, but also has a yield of more than 140 kilograms per mu!
The guesthouse in Shanghai has already asked a foreign trade company to buy this kind of seeds.
Moreover, they will continue to collect planting information in this regard and send it to you.
Engineer Cheng is ready to do a great job and is now leading them to look for the most suitable experimental fields for growing Egyptian cotton.
The cost of developing a cotton variety that can produce hundreds of kilograms per mu is bound to be huge, and generally speaking, it can only be supported by funding from the highest levels.
The 70,000 yuan allocated by their brother unit in Northeast China seems like a lot, but it is only enough for them to conduct the first and second phases of the trial.
Cheng Lishun did not notice the two assistant researchers' private actions. All he could think about was the future cotton that would yield 100 kilograms per mu.
It was not until the three of them rushed back to the institute and made a phone call from the Corps Headquarters, directly asking for Cheng Lishun.
A dozen or so researchers looked at each other, sighed, and shook their heads. It seemed that the higher-ups could no longer hide the truth and were ready to confront Engineer Cheng. Who knew how much of the money was left?
The Corps Headquarters called to discuss project funding.
People told Cheng Lishun very sincerely that out of the first batch of 70,000 yuan, there were only a little over 20,000 yuan left...
Before Cheng Lishun could get furious, the Corps told him with a smile that the follow-up 300,000 yuan allocation for the Northeast Construction Corps' guesthouse in Shanghai had arrived.
Only 50,000 of the 300,000 troops will be allocated, and the rest will be allocated to the projects of their group.
Cheng Lishun gritted his teeth and agreed. He knew that the Corps was being quite respectful by doing so.
After all, the Corps is short of money everywhere, and there are many more important things to do than researching cotton.
"Oh my god," someone said, unable to believe their ears after hearing Cheng Lishun's story. "Have the Corps gone mad? They're so generous as to give us 270,000 yuan?"
"Engineer Cheng, are they kidding you?"
A large group of "beggars" looked over, their eyes full of anticipation and anxiety.
Cheng Lishun slammed the table in annoyance.
"Those stingy people in the Corps, don't you know?"
"They promised to leave us so much money only because their sister company said they want to see results in four years!"
"In five years, they will need at least 30,000 acres of young plants."
The group of people then curled their lips, it was indeed true!
If the other brother unit did not put forward this condition, the Corps would probably only leave them a small amount of the money.
But Cheng Lishun has one more thing he hasn’t told you.
The director of the Northeast Construction Corps’ guesthouse said that if the project ran out of funds halfway through its research, they could come to him again to solve the problem.
Cheng Lishun did not intend to tell everyone this information because he was afraid that the people below him would act recklessly.
No one knows how much attention and expectations Zhang Hongcheng has for Cheng Lishun's project.
As long as the cotton seeds of Cheng Lishun's project team can be released five years earlier, they will just be able to catch up with the large-scale agricultural layout in the early stage of reform and opening up.
Not to mention anything else, if the major construction corps in the country had started planting large quantities of this long-staple cotton since the early 1980s.
Relying on the gradually growing domestic cotton textile market, the construction corps that were in trouble in the late 1980s and early 1990s will no longer be able to be self-reliant.
As long as we have enough long-staple cotton raw materials by then.
No matter how foreign forces suppress our exports and raw material imports, large cotton mills can largely avoid that tragic ending by relying solely on the huge domestic cotton textile consumer market.
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