Chapter 382 New Canal

Chapter 382 New Canal

Chapter 382 New Canal

Early 2031.

Summer has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere.

Little Venice in South America during heavy rain.

The atmosphere in its capital, Caracas, was extremely depressing at this time.

Little Venice has not had an easy time in recent years, having suffered from the wheat crop crisis and the sterilization crisis one after another, coupled with the already very fragile economy, causing the situation here to deteriorate rapidly.

Even in Caracas, the capital, the living standards of many ordinary residents have plummeted.

This situation has made this land a hotbed of crime.

Unwilling to join the North Atlantic Union, nor willing to succumb to the Asian Union, South American and part of Central American countries, together with some African and West Asian countries, formed the so-called Southern Alliance.

This force, which claims to be the third largest force in the world, is actually just a mob.

Of course, this is not their fault. After all, among the member states of the Southern Alliance, there is no member state that has the final say. Therefore, when they discuss activities among themselves, there are often constant disputes, and even a situation of parting on bad terms.

If it weren't for the pressure from the Asian Union and the North Atlantic Union, this group of small forces would never have been able to unite.

But at this time, Little Venice could no longer wait for the resolution of the joint meeting of the Southern Alliance.

In August last year, Little Venice anxiously submitted an application for assistance to the Southern Alliance, but it was delayed until February this year and there was still no result.

After more than half a year of fermentation, things finally got completely out of control.

bang bang bang...

Fierce gunfire echoed in the streets.

boom…

A car exploded with a loud bang, and the wreckage of the car was swept by the shock wave and splashed in all directions.

Thick smoke billowed up.

Screams and cries of anger followed.

As chaos spreads, human rationality collapses, and many people begin to frantically release the darkness in their hearts.

at the same time.

New Granada, Little Venice's neighbor to the west, a force that once had a mediocre relationship with Seris, has changed its behavior after entering the Platinum Age and has directly started to lick the Asian Union.

Therefore, New Granada is also one of the few small forces in South America that did not join the Southern Alliance. Another small force that did not join the Southern Alliance is Peru.

These two small forces chose to join the Asian Commonwealth and are currently one of the observer countries of the Asian Commonwealth.

New Granada is a tropical country, so the habitable areas here are not the subtropical or temperate plains, but the plateau mountains.

For example, Bogotá, the capital of New Granada, is located in the Cordillera Oriental, a branch of the Andes Mountains.

The major cities of New Granada are distributed in this mountain range, including the northwestern city of Cúcuta.

The city of Cúcuta is very close to the city of San Cristobal in Little Venice.

At this time, at the border outpost of Cucuta City.

The Asian United Army, which is affiliated with the Asian Union, has deployed a garrison regiment here, with a total of about 1500 people.

This is also one of the prices of joining the Asian Commonwealth. Compared with the North Atlantic Commonwealth, which has not yet been fully integrated, and the fragmented Southern Alliance, the Asian Commonwealth has very strict requirements for its member states. Surrendering all armed forces is a condition that must be met, otherwise it cannot even become an observer country.

After all, the Asian Community does not want to be taken advantage of.

Many small forces have a lot of ulterior motives, and sudden changes often occur within them. If the Asian Federation does not control the local armed forces, it will not invest too many resources in this force.

In fact, the Asian Union is not really interested in resources from other regions on the earth right now.

Mainly, the emergence of many new technologies has solved the previous problem of insufficient resources.

For example, the Little Venice oil industry, which once made Seris want to invest, has now been withdrawn.

The fundamental reason for this phenomenon is the surge in vegetable oil production capacity, coupled with the emergence of photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation, and controlled nuclear fusion, which has led to a sharp decline in the proportion of oil and natural gas in the energy and chemical industry of the Asian Union.

Currently, in the energy sector of the Asian Community, oil and natural gas account for about 14%, while the chemical industry accounts for about 29%.

Although some imports are still maintained.

But that was mainly to deplete foreign exchange reserves.

The Asian Commonwealth provides medical services and obtains a large amount of foreign exchange reserves from around the world every year, but the use of these foreign currencies is a bit troublesome.

After all, for the sake of future generations, all forces are strengthening the protection of rare minerals, which makes it difficult for the Asian Federation to purchase each other's rare minerals even if they have money.

Therefore, in order to cope with this situation, a batch of oil, natural gas, coal, iron ore and bauxite were imported from various places. These relatively large quantities of common minerals are the core channels for foreign forces to obtain "Huayuan".

In addition, one can obtain some Huayuan by carrying precious metals.

Secretly carrying precious metals into the Asian Union is also the main choice of many foreign middle-class families, because it is difficult for this group to obtain Huayuan through selling mines and the like.

Even though the Chinese yuan, euro, dollar and the like still have exchange rates, in fact, large-scale exchanges are prohibited by all parties.

Many people can only obtain Huayuan foreign exchange through the underground black market.

This was also one of the reasons that led New Granada to join the Asian Union.

Although there were some mineral resources in this place, they knew it would be difficult to maintain them for a long time. In addition, they encountered various crises. After a fierce internal game, the pro-Asian faction gained the upper hand, and then they quickly sold the entire New Granada.

Sometimes, there is nothing wrong in being a dog for a reliable and strong person.

Even if it is completely annexed, ordinary people in New Granada now don't have much objection.

After all, the Asian Union gave too much.

Large quantities of food and industrial products, advanced medical assistance, and living standards gradually catching up with those in the Asian Commonwealth. Compared with the previous days, they felt that this was simply heaven.

You have to know that at the end of the Golden Age, more than 15 people immigrated from New Granada to America every year, while their total population was only about 5300 million.

This reflected the seriousness of New Granada's economic problems.

Generally speaking, immigration-exporting regions have relatively poor social stability and economic levels.

Only about two years after becoming an observer country of the Asian Community, the scale of emigration from New Granada has rapidly dropped from more than 100,000 people per year to only a few thousand people per year, and will continue to decline.

After all, if you can eat and drink well, live in a big villa, have a good job and enjoy all kinds of benefits in your hometown, no one except a fool would be willing to go to America and the European Union.

Now New Granada is gradually entering an ideal society, and everyone sees that good days are coming. Those who choose to immigrate at this time are either groups that are extremely hostile to the Asian Union, or drug lords and gangsters who are being besieged.

The outpost of Cúcuta City is not a small camp with barbed wire as imagined, but a huge fortress.

The building was built through an integrated process and was hoisted over by a transport airship. The construction of the fortress was completed in less than four months. Inside the Cucuta Fortress at this time.

Regiment leader Kou Ying was standing in front of an observation window with a telescope, from which he could overlook the mountain road opposite.

On this road, many vehicles are trying to pass the outpost on the side of the fortress.

"The situation is very serious!" Putting down the telescope, he turned his head to look at Deputy Head of the Group Makaria, Border Management Station Chief Takahashi Motoyasu and others.

Takahashi Motoyasu held a dedicated tablet in one hand and pointed at the photo on it: "According to the data fed back by the monitoring airship, this road is now crowded with civilians who want to escape from Little Venice."

At this time, a multifunctional monitoring airship was floating 2.6 meters above the city of Cucuta.

Through this airship, the ground conditions within the surrounding area of ​​more than 100 kilometers, as long as it is not blocked by mountains, will be photographed by the airship.

In addition, there are various low-Earth orbit monitoring satellites that can monitor the situation in Little Venice at any time. The only difference is that their flexibility and accuracy are not as good as those of airships. However, the disadvantages of monitoring airships are also obvious, that is, their coverage range is limited and they cannot go deep into Little Venice.

Therefore, monitoring departments often use them together.

Kou Ying took a look at the high-definition picture on the tablet. The road was already crowded with cars, and there were even serious traffic accidents on some sections.

"Captain, what should we do?" Macharia looked conflicted.

As a fortress garrison, they do not have the authority to let people enter the country. After all, there are too many people, and if they all pour in at once, a lot of trouble will break out immediately.

But if they don't let these people pass, as the crowd gathers, they may be instigated to attack the checkpoint, and they will have to use force to stop them.

Just when everyone was in a dilemma.

"Report…"

"Come in."

A corporal walked in quickly and whispered something in Kou Ying's ear.

Kou Ying's brows relaxed, and a trace of relief appeared on his face: "Okay, the person who can help us solve the problem is here, let's go over and meet him!"

"Oh?" Takahashi Motoyasu also breathed a sigh of relief.

Everyone hurried to a meeting room downstairs.

Saw the person coming.

There were three middle-aged men in black suits, one of them was East Asian, one was Hispanic, and one was white.

"This is my ID." The middle-aged man with an East Asian face took out a small red-covered booklet with a smile.

Kou Ying took it and confirmed it, then returned it: "Stationmaster Du, is there anything we can help you with? As long as it is within our authority, we can do our best to cooperate."

In response, Du Ruihua smiled and took back the certificate, then handed another document to the other party: "This is the authority we applied for from above, you will understand after reading it."

After checking the documents again, Kou Ying nodded: "No problem, we will complete this task."

The two sides didn't talk for too long and parted ways in less than twenty minutes.

Soon, the chaotic refugees on the opposite road were controlled by an armed force. A large number of vehicles transporting supplies also drove out from the city of Cucuta. After passing the border outpost, they handed over the supplies to the leader of the armed force.

A few days later, new armed forces appeared in the cities bordering Little Venice and New Granada. These suddenly emerging forces took the border area as their starting point and, with the help of a large amount of supplies imported from New Granada, they quickly controlled the deteriorating situation in the local area.

Rather than accepting these refugees, it would be better to support them in gaining the entire Little Venice.

After all, after the establishment of the Asian Commonwealth, the weapons and equipment of each member country were unified into the Seris system, and all other weapons were eliminated and sealed.

Especially South Korea and Japan in the East Asian Monster Room, they had so many eliminated weapons and equipment that their warehouses were full.

These weapons can only be left to rot in the warehouse, so it would be better to provide them to places in need.

As for whether Little Venice is willing to join the Asian Union after the rise of new forces, it is actually irrelevant.

The Asian Community is more Buddhist about this.

Apart from places like Australia, which has a very important strategic location, rich resources and a sparsely populated area, the Asian Union has no intention of forcibly occupying other regions.

After all, a twisted melon is not sweet.

Moreover, the joining of these small forces will only have limited impact on the improvement of the Asian Federation's strength. Instead, the Asian Federation has to spend money and manpower to help them develop, which is simply to alleviate poverty.

New Granada and Peru only gained observer status after they begged the AUC for it.

If Little Venice doesn't want to join, no one will force them.

Supporting their internal reforms was only to avoid the emergence of a large number of refugees, which would bring pressure and trouble to the northwest border of New Granada.

Soon, with the support of a large amount of supplies from the Asian Union, the new forces in the southwest of Little Venice quickly united and controlled the area around Lake Maracaibo in less than a month.

The area is a relatively closed basin, and with large lakes and rivers, rapid advancement by water is possible.

At this time, Little Venice was in great chaos and could not withstand the attack of the Southwestern Allied Forces.

With the fall of the Lake Maracaibo Basin, Little Venice suddenly lost one-third of its core area.

At this time, the Southern Alliance also became anxious and finally agreed to the application for assistance to Little Venice.

But it was all too late.

After all, they have just passed the resolution now, and it will take several more months for the materials to be prepared. As for suppressing the chaos within Little Venice, it is basically like a drop in the ocean of hope.

No one in the Asian Federation cares much about the internal fighting in Little Venice.

If it weren't for the sake of reducing trouble, there wouldn't even be any secret assistance.

Apart from local affairs, the top leaders of the Asia Federation are most concerned about a new canal project in South America.

After all, New Granada, like Panama, is a country with two oceans. In fact, Panama was once a part of New Granada. Later, it was forcibly separated by America because of the Panama Canal.

If the Asian Union wanted to promote the economic development of New Granada, it certainly could not give money directly, so work-for-relief became a very useful strategy.

The New Granada Canal project was approved for research in March last year, and relevant preparatory work was completed by the end of last year. Construction started in February this year.

The specifications of this canal are very high. It is planned to be able to accommodate ships of 10 tons, and it is also a canal without locks.

It starts near Ciudad Jurado, a small city on the Pacific side surrounded by tropical rainforest.

The end point is Ulawa Bay, which is the Atlantic coast.

The construction of the canal will apply a large number of new technologies and has been contracted to three engineering groups, requiring the participation of approximately 15 workers.

In addition, there are a large number of supporting service personnel and facilities, which are very strong support for the improvement of the local economy.

(End of this chapter)