Chapter 330 Logistics Innovation
Chapter 330 Logistics Innovation
The mouth of the Yellow River.
After more than a year of continuous construction, a dam with a width of five kilometers and a height of nearly thirty-five meters finally appeared in this estuary delta.
In addition, there is a dam that seems very counter-intuitive, and a large lock that can accommodate 5000-ton ships.
The reason for building dams and locks is mainly because as the sea level rises, the water from the Bohai Sea will inevitably flow upstream through the Yellow River.
If the global sea level rise is capped at 15 meters in the next 30 years, then with Quancheng in Qilu Province as the dividing point, the upper reaches of the Yellow River above Quancheng will still be fresh water flowing down from the upper reaches; while the lower reaches of the Yellow River below Quancheng will be flooded with seawater from the Bohai Sea, forming a vast sea invasion area.
Therefore, at this stage, we must take a two-pronged approach.
On the one hand, we need to curb the rise in global sea levels as soon as possible. The upper limit of sea level rise that is acceptable in China is about 20 meters.
On the other hand, high-standard dams will be built in the low-altitude downstream channels of these rivers, and at the same time, some low-lying areas will be freed up to serve as new lake areas for fresh water accumulation in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
In order to achieve this goal.
Comprehensive resettlement work has been started in the low-lying areas on both sides of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and approximately 877 million local people will be relocated to the south of the desert and the northwest.
In the future, the low-lying areas of the Yellow River below Quancheng will be gradually flooded, forming a lake with an area of no less than 800 square kilometers.
There are pros and cons to this.
The natural disadvantage is that a large amount of plain farmland and towns are flooded.
The positive side is that by blocking the dam, coastal desalination plants can be built to continuously supply fresh water. This lake is a freshwater lake, and there is no problem for ships of tens of thousands of tons to sail.
Therefore, in order to prepare for a rainy day, another dam and large ship lock are also being built at a rapid pace on the Yellow River near the Spring City.
Through these dams and locks.
In the future, it will be possible to ensure that the 5,000-ton navigable river channel in the lower reaches of the Yellow River will run directly from the coast to the vicinity of the Sanmenxia Dam.
In fact, the Yangtze River channel also needs similar transformation and upgrading.
However, the annual runoff of the Yangtze River is relatively large, and it cannot be completely blocked like the Yellow River and the Huai River. It must be connected to the sea.
This brings up a problem.
That is, part of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River will become a mixed salt and fresh water area. Although this will increase the navigation limit of the river, it will also mean that local water use must be treated through seawater desalination equipment.
Under this major future trend, some of the low-lying river areas within the Asian Commonwealth must be sacrificed.
For example, the city of Yangon in Hongsawadi, and the river mouth delta plain where the city is located, can basically only be abandoned.
The future fate of the low-lying alluvial plains, including the Red River Delta, the Mekong Delta, and the Chao Phraya Delta, will be the same.
In fact, Seris tacitly gave up these estuary plains, and the reason is self-evident.
Because these estuary delta plains in Southeast Asia are important local grain producing areas. If these grain producing areas are lost, it will be extremely difficult for Southeast Asia to restore its independent production capacity of staple food in the future.
Of course, Seris would be happy to see this happen.
As the global sea level rises, the inland areas of East Asia, including the southern, northern and northwestern parts of the desert, will receive some of the additional water vapor as the rain belt moves northward and westward, making the local climate even more humid.
Plus the application of various new technologies.
The three regions of Northwest, South of the Desert and North of the Desert combined can add about 30 billion mu of arable land.
In addition, there are already more than one billion mu of arable land, and there is also remaining arable land in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.
The arable land within the entire Asian Union is sufficient to supply the food needs of approximately 40 billion people.
Therefore, in this situation, the flooding of part of the arable land in Southeast Asia is a very favorable trend for Seres.
...
Part of the Bohai Sea Circumference Sea Defense Dam that has been built is not a bare reinforced concrete surface like traditional dams, but a vast area of new arable land.
For example, a large number of cherries are planted on the sea-control dam near the mouth of the Yellow River.
The local cherries also use genetically modified rootstocks, and the latitude is much lower than that of Monan, so at the end of March and the beginning of April, the local cherries enter the harvest season.
All varieties of large cherries and local small cherries have entered the harvesting stage.
There are also many tourists from the surrounding areas who buy tickets to pick fruits on the farm while traveling.
The companies and self-employed individuals who contracted these dam farms also became busy.
Hailufeng Company has about 22 acres of cherry plantations in the Bohai Rim area.
Lu Weibin and his team, who took the high-speed rail from the Mobei Branch to the south, are now inspecting one of the cherry farms.
"Manager Lu, welcome to our farm for guidance." Fan Guangye, the director of Bohai Farm No. 14, greeted him with sweat on his forehead.
Picking up a handful of freshly picked cherries, Lv Weibin rinsed them with the mineral water he brought with him, and then ate a few juicy and flavorful cherries: "How many tons of cherries does your farm expect to harvest this year?"
"Manager Lu, our farm has a total of 2000 acres of cherries, which are divided into four harvest months. The average yield per acre of the acres in April can reach about kilograms, which is almost tons of fresh cherries."
After eating a few more cherries, Lu Weibin looked towards the packing yard not far away and said, "Let's go take a look at the packing yard."
"Manager Lu, please come this way." Fan Guangye quickly led the way.
Come to the packing yard.
Dozens of middle-aged male and female employees were packing boxes of cherries, each doing their own job.
Fan Guangye patted the plastic box beside him and said, "This is the express box that the company has recently promoted for internal use."
Lu Weibin knows more about these express boxes than Fan Guangye because he participated in the planning and discussion of the express boxes.
Hailufeng Company has its own express delivery subsidiary, which is called Hailutong Express.
The scale of this express delivery company has surpassed JD.com, making it the second largest logistics company in the Asian Union, second only to Postal Express.
After the business merger and reorganization, Hailutong Express Company now has a number of industries under its umbrella, including: Asia Ocean Transport Company, Sky Air Transport Company, Sky Air Passenger Transport Company, Lutong Highway Transport Company, and Lutong High-speed Rail Transport Company.
旗下拥有7.9万辆各类大货车、358艘运输飞艇、8艘客运飞艇、1艘大型旅游飞艇、2137个物流仓库、3.2万个配送站点，合计有54万名员工。
It also owns 441 transport ships with a total deadweight tonnage of 1738 million tons, a large number of container ships, bulk carriers, and special transport ships, and operates 37 ports.
It is the third largest shipping company in China and the second largest inland river transport company. Hailutong Company is seeking further development in the express delivery industry recently, and the key direction is these express boxes in front of us.
These express boxes are somewhat similar to Meiyajia's goods delivery boxes, but there are some differences in specifications. Hailutong's express boxes are divided into five specifications in total, and colors are used to distinguish their uses for packaging different items.
Compared to these green boxes in front of us, each one can hold a 5-pound portion of cherries.
The packer put the box containing 5 kilograms of cherries into the express box, then picked up the foaming gun next to it and injected the foaming agent based on inulin polylactic acid plastic into the express box. Soon, more than half of the gap between the box and the express box was filled with foam plastic.
Another packer, seeing the foam plastic coming up, took out something similar to a dry ice bag from a box nearby and pulled down a blue pull ring on the bag.
As the pull ring is pulled open, the slow-release refrigerant inside the bag begins to react slowly while absorbing heat inside the box. This thing can continue to react for 70 hours.
Due to the sealing of the express box and the insulation of the foam plastic layer, the inside of the box will maintain a low temperature of about 80 degrees Celsius for the next 5 hours.
“How is the recycling going?”
"According to the feedback from the courier, they open the courier box when delivering the package to the customer, allowing the customer to take away the inner packaging box, while the courier collects the courier box and refrigeration bag."
Lu Weibin nodded: "What about the loss rate of goods?"
"We are currently using express boxes to deliver cherries. Customers have reported that there are no problems with collisions, and the cherries are very fresh and ripe, so the flavor is better."
“What about the cost?”
Fan Guangye recalled: "In this regard... the express delivery company has not raised the price yet, and the unit price is still the same as before."
"Is that so?" Lu Weibin also remembered another reason why Hailutong Company promoted the use of express boxes, which was to reduce cargo damage and at the same time reduce the insurance expenses of express delivery.
He took out his office tablet and checked some internal data of Hailutong Company.
Sure enough, after using express boxes, foam plastics, and slow-release refrigeration bags, their overall operating costs decreased instead of increased.
The reason for the cost reduction.
One is that after the express boxes are fully standardized, the difficulty of sorting has decreased.
Secondly, in the past, part of the express packaging materials in the packaging cost could not be recycled, or the recycling rate was relatively low, while the recycling rate of standard express boxes was almost 100%.
Thirdly, the cargo loss rate has dropped by nearly two orders of magnitude, especially in the transportation of fresh products, where Hailutong has achieved the highest customer satisfaction.
As for the increased weight and volume of express boxes, these two negative impacts can actually be solved through technology.
At present, the express boxes of Hailutong Company are all made of ultra-light and high-strength silicon bean silk material. The overall weight is lighter than ordinary plastic boxes, only about 14% of the weight of plastic boxes of the same specifications.
In terms of volume, in fact, many express boxes and crates had different specifications in the past, resulting in a decrease in the volume utilization of containers. Standardized express boxes can improve the space utilization of containers.
Overall, the use of new standard express boxes has significantly reduced the overall cost of express delivery.
This is just like how containers play a huge role in reducing costs in the development of shipping.
Lu Weibin observed the market development of Hailutong Company in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, and found that their business expansion in these two regions was quite fast.
Especially after the per capita income in Southeast Asia has increased significantly, the consumption power of local people has also been increasing day by day.
Consumption of temperate fruits like cherries is soaring in Southeast Asia.
In Hailufeng Company's own stores across Southeast Asia, large cherries priced at RMB 15 per pound are sold out every day as soon as they arrive.
After all, Southeast Asia has a population of 7.1 million, and the current average monthly income per person is around 3417 yuan, which is slightly lower than that in China.
The current average monthly income per capita in China is 4259 yuan, while in Japan it is 4758 yuan, in South Korea it is 4205 yuan, and in Mobei it is 5584 yuan.
Obviously, the Mobei region, which is sparsely populated and centered on agriculture, animal husbandry and mining, has the highest per capita monthly income in the Asian Union.
The substantial increase in per capita income in Southeast Asia has naturally led to strong consumer demand.
The large amount of temperate fruits and vegetables produced in Serbia and the tropical fruits and vegetables produced in Southeast Asia are actually complementary industries.
Of course, in addition to consuming vegetables and fruits internally, the Asian Community also exports large quantities to other parts of the world.
In this process, a large amount of trade was generated.
In order to smooth out the obvious trade deficit, the Asian Community, through various industry associations, centralized the purchase of mineral resources and specialties from other regions.
Compared with South America, which has been hit hard by leaf blight, they are barely self-sufficient in food this year. Therefore, agricultural products such as fruits, beef, pork, dairy products, and wine produced in South America still need to be exported in large quantities to the Asian Commonwealth, and then obtain low-priced staple foods and industrial products from the Asian Commonwealth.
On the contrary, after West Asia and North Africa chose to embrace the Asian Community, they were not only not affected by the food crisis, but became more stable.
After all, these two regions are mainly desert environments, and no matter how bad the environment is, it won’t get much worse.
For example, in Egypt, as the large-scale development of the Qattara Depression continues to advance, the scale of local cash crop cultivation has continued to expand, not only absorbing a large number of unstable young and middle-aged laborers, but also making them suppliers of agricultural products to surrounding areas.
In this project, Seris's overseas enterprises naturally did not do business at a loss. Egypt's fresh water and power generation industries are basically firmly controlled by Seris's overseas enterprises.
From the logistics data of Hailutong Company, Lu Weibin can see how amazing the development speed of Seris' overseas enterprises is.
With the support of overseas markets, Hailufeng Company's major industries can develop further.
However, compared with other overseas companies that like to expand into South America, Africa, West Asia and other places, Hailufeng Company is relatively conservative and currently focuses on developing Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.
After inspecting the packaging field, Lv Weibin just walked out and stopped again: "Director Fan, you have to pay attention to the weather."
Hearing this reminder, Fan Guangye nodded immediately: "Thank you, Manager Lu, for the reminder."
"The weather has become increasingly abnormal in recent years, especially in the spring, when the temperature suddenly rises sharply and then drops sharply a few days later. This is a very negative situation for agricultural production."
Fan Guangye asked curiously, "Manager Lu, I heard that after we complete the Antarctic solar energy development project, we will be able to control the global climate?"
"Who told you that?" Lu Weibin smiled and shook his head.
“I saw someone analyze it this way online.”
Lv Weibin casually explained: "The Antarctic solar energy development project is still a long way from regulating the global climate, but in another 20 or 30 years, climate control may be achieved."
"Twenty or thirty years? That's not far away." Fan Guangye felt that this progress was already very fast.
(End of this chapter)