Chapter 1401 The problem that tripped up a country (second update, please subscribe)
The weather in mid-May...
Bathed in sunshine as always, although it is not the annoying rainy season, it is always rainy near the equator.
A sudden heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and pedestrians on the street who were caught off guard had to take temporary shelter on the roadside.
Outside the long floor-to-ceiling windows of the official residence's office, rain hit the glass windows from time to time. The thick double-layer bulletproof glass windows completely blocked the sound of raindrops.
While the outside was shrouded in rain, several people indoors were concentrating on studying crops from another country thousands of miles away.
After hastily finishing his trip, Li Yi'an, who had just returned to Chang'an, gathered a bunch of very clear photos on his desk and handed them to Sun Peng'an. Sun Pengan stood up, took the photos and put them into his briefcase.
"Well, gentlemen," he said slowly,
"You showed me that wheat is not growing well in a small part of the Soviet Union; maybe the wheat shown in these photos is only a few hectares. What does that mean?"
Zhang Zheyuan glanced at Sun Pengan and nodded.
Sun Pengan cleared his throat and said:
"Your Excellency, I have taken the liberty of trying to display on a screen the images currently being transmitted from our Hawkeye satellite. Would you like to take a look?"
Li Yian nodded and watched Sun Pengan walk to a row of TVs. Several TV sets are placed on the curved west wall below the bookshelves. These bookshelves are deliberately made short to make room for the TV sets. Normally this row of TV screens would be covered by sliding doors.
Sun Pengan turned on the TV on the far left and returned to your desk. He picked up one of the phones, dialed a number, and just said:
"Let's get started."
Li Yian knew about the "Eagle Eye" satellite. Unlike the Langhaobi synthetic aperture radar, he used an optical lens with a diameter of 1.8 meters provided by Zeiss. It takes clearer pictures than any other previous satellite. The satellite is equipped with the most advanced camera, and its resolution is about 80 centimeters. The "Eagle Eye" reconnaissance satellite is definitely the latest satellite with the best performance.
Although the resolution is good, it is time-consuming, mainly because the film cartridges must be ejected from the satellite at a specific location and returned to Earth under protective gear, relying on radio spikes and tracking from the satellite. The equipment recovers them, and they are flown to the imaging center laboratory for development and screening. The entire satellite weighs about ten tons. There are four film compartments, which can be bounced back and recycled for processing.
However, unlike ordinary reconnaissance satellites, it also has television signal transmission. When the satellite is located within the flight arc of direct communication with a ground tracking station controlled by the Space Exploration Technology Company, it can perform simultaneous television transmission. But when the satellite flew over the Soviet Union, the curvature of the Earth's surface prevented direct television reception, so observers had to wait for the satellite to pass around again before they could watch - in effect, watch the video.
However, this kind of transmission is not digital. The signal transferred from the tape will reduce the resolution. When using wireless telecommunication transmission, the resolution will be further reduced. Because of this, its resolution is only about 2m. .
When the TV screen displayed the image, Sun Pengan pushed a map of the Soviet Union onto Li Yian's desk and pointed with his index finger.
"Your Excellency, what you are seeing now is sent by Hawkeye 2. The orbit is here, northeast, between Saratov and Perm, across the black sand belt of Ukraine."
Li Yian raised his eyes and stared at the TV screen. A large area of land is slowly displayed on the fluorescent screen from top to bottom, with a width of more than 20 kilometers. Not only is the resolution not very clear, but the land appears bare, looking like fields after a fall harvest.
The vast expanse of the plain appears blurry, drifting to the left of the television screen. Then a road appeared in the image, stayed in the middle of the screen for an unknown amount of time, and then disappeared from the TV screen.
"Slow down a little."
Sun Pengan ordered into the phone. The ground passing beneath the camera lens slowed. The high-altitude Hawkeye satellite is still moving at the same altitude and speed in its orbit, but the width and speed of the images in the laboratory of the Image Analysis Office have slowed down.
The image grew closer, and the next image that emerged was of a wheat field hundreds of kilometers across.
"Fix this lens." Cheng Pengan said into the phone. The image slowly stopped moving and finally became stationary.
"Close-up." Cheng Pengan said.
The image was getting closer and closer, the image was very blurry, but it could still be seen that there were large gaps in the land. Apparently this is caused by the wheat seedlings or corns turning yellow and shrinking.
No one will leave the land completely idle there, under special circumstances, but now, the land on the screen is like a patch of patchwork. The picture is not in color, but you can still clearly distinguish where the wheat seedlings are and where. It's bare land.
"Zheyuan."
Ang Lee set his sights on Zhang Zheyuan, and the reason why he ended his trip around the island early was because of his phone call.
"Your Excellency, since Khrushchev came to power, the Soviet Union's grain output has been increasing steadily. Last year, the Soviet Union's grain output reached 140 million tons, far exceeding the 80 million tons in the harvest years before World War I. According to the Soviet Union’s official grain production index for this year, the total is 1. 400 million tons. Now this indicator can be detailed as: 70 million tons of wheat, 30 million tons of barley, 7 million tons of oats, 13 million tons of corn, 7 million tons of rye, and the rest are rice and various legume crops. It’s wheat and barley and corn.”
He stood up and walked around the desk to where the map of the Soviet Union was still spread out. Cheng Pengan turned off the TV and returned to his seat.
"About 50 percent of the Soviet Union's annual grain crops come from Ukraine and the Kuban region in the southern part of the Russian Federation."
Zhang Zheyuan continued, pointing to these areas on the map.
"And it was all winter wheat. That is to say, it was sown in September and October. Before the first snowfall in November, the crop had already entered the stage of growing young shoots. The snow covered these young shoots and protected them from the 12 The attack of frost in February and January ”
He turned around and came back.
"In early December last year, an abnormal snowmelt phenomenon occurred throughout Ukraine and the Kuban region. These two regions have experienced this phenomenon before, but it has never been as warm as this. Blowing from the Black Sea and the Bosporus in the south A strong warm air flow came, moving northeastward across Ukraine and Kuban. The warm air flow lasted for a week, melting the upper layer of snow. It was about 6 inches thick. The young wheat and barley stalks were exposed. Ten days later, as if to make up for it, the same abnormal weather pattern occurred again, and the temperature dropped to minus 15 degrees. The temperature is even more than 20 degrees below zero. "Even if you are not an agricultural expert, you have heard the saying "Auspicious snow heralds a good harvest," Li Yian said:
"This is extremely detrimental to wheat and will definitely cause a reduction in grain production."
Now, Li Yian has remembered this matter. In another world, the Soviet Union had to use a large amount of gold to import grain from abroad to make up for the domestic gap due to a reduction in domestic grain production this year.
In many sources, this year's grain imports are regarded as a symbol of the failure of Khrushchev's reforms - after all, the continuous increase in grain production was the pride of the Corn Emperor.
"Yes, Your Excellency, but not just this one area."
Sun Pengan interjected from the side,
"There are problems with spring wheat in many places this year. The photos we are seeing now are of other areas. We have consulted agricultural experts. As far as the current situation is concerned, if the Soviets can save U.S. If they have 50 crops, they are lucky. But the losses in other areas may be more than 1/3. Judging from the current situation, their agricultural losses are heavy and irreparable.”
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"So, that's what you're trying to explain to me, is it?" asked.
"No, sir,"
Zhang Zheyuan said,
"The purpose of this meeting is this. According to the current situation we have, the Soviet Union's grain production is likely to lose 30 million to 50 million tons this year. This is what we want to explain to you."
That’s almost a 30% production reduction.
Anyone can feel from this number the possible impact of a production reduction of this scale - a large-scale reduction in food production will definitely cause famine, or affect people's lives.
And this will definitely bring about a series of problems.
"What about the local reaction?"
Li Yian asked.
"So far we have not seen Moscow's response to the reduction in agricultural production. Even in their official reports, this incident was not mentioned."
After thinking about it, Sun Pengan added:
"Your Excellency, the resolution of our satellites is not high. But we can all see their land from space, and seeing that this year's food production will be seriously affected, it is hard to believe that the Soviets themselves can't find out .”
This is the real problem! Compared to the food itself. What they are more concerned about is the information revealed behind the incident.
"Is it possible they can't find it?"
Li Yian frowned. He didn't need anyone else to answer. He knew the answer to such a question and it was impossible not to discover it.
"They must have discovered this problem. The only question is why there is no news about this in Moscow. This is the most curious thing."
Sun Pengan's answer made Li Yian raise his eyebrows,
Indeed, there must be a reason behind all abnormal events.
"Your Excellency, it is not a reduction in grain production in one place, but a reduction in grain production involving almost the entire country. What is the reason why there is no news from Moscow? Is it because they are keeping it secret, or..."
Zhang Zheyuan added:
"Someone is deliberately creating all this, or someone is deliberately concealing everything."
If this is the case, then there must be an ulterior secret hidden behind the matter.
"Deliberate concealment..."
For a moment, Li Yi'an seemed to suddenly realize that someone must be deliberately concealing it, because in the Soviet Union, they had professional agricultural departments to count, record, and track weather conditions and food production. It was impossible for them to connect satellites. It is possible to turn a blind eye to the large-scale reduction in grain production that can be discovered.
Is it because Moscow is keeping it secret?
Obviously not!
Not only because there is no information in this area, but also because there is no fluctuation in international food prices. Large-scale imports of food will inevitably lead to fluctuations in international food prices. The current food prices are very stable, and there is no such thing as the Soviet Union importing food on a large scale. information.
Then there is only one possibility left - someone deliberately concealed all this.
He was silent for a while, and then said:
"So, what is their purpose of deliberately hiding all this?"
(End of chapter)