Chapter 137: Chapter 128, Food Crisis
After the city reconstruction work in Revival City began to set on the right track, the second problem that Osenia urgently needed to tackle was the food crisis.
There was not enough food.
Revival City was a commercial hub and a center for light industry. Now, with the addition of the heavy industry developing at high speed in the waste-hole district of Weixing City, industrial development was booming.
But Revival City did not produce grain.
Although there was a small farm like Mantan River Valley Manor on the outskirts of the city, the output of a single season’s crop was decent if it reached 2000 tons. The yield for an entire year could barely feed the whole city for about ten days.
Considering Revival City and Weixing City as one, it was an urban area with a population scale of one million. Based on the lower-end grain rationing standard, daily food consumption needed to reach at least 500 tons; for a whole year, the required food supply was at least 180,000 tons, with 200,000 tons being a safer provision.
When Gu Hang initially took over the city, the entire city’s grain reserves could last only about fifteen days.
And now, twelve days had already passed, leaving the grain reserves at around nine days’ worth.
The reason for this situation was not just because they were idly consuming the stockpile.
On one hand, following the initial end of the war, when the city’s blockade and the wind disaster had come to a halt, grain trades had resumed to some extent. The grain caravans that had already been on their way finally mustered the courage to enter the city, offloading their cargo and loading up on industrial goods before leaving.
On the other hand, there was aid from Weixing City.
The two synthetic starch production lines in Weixing City were operating at full capacity, day and night. Their combined daily output could reach 100 tons. Excluding what was set aside for local supply in Weixing City’s two districts, the rest was being sent to Revival City.
However, even with these reinforcements, it was still a case of more outflow than inflow.
This was definitely not sustainable.
The synthetic starch production lines couldn’t be counted on for the moment, since the tasks of research and mass production led by Wu Jiarong were quite challenging. The progress of local deployment and development of the synthetic starch production lines was slow.
Even if she devoted all her energy to this, it was unlikely to solve the immediate crisis.
The only option left was to rely on the old method.
Revival City did not produce grains in the first place; its prolonged existence was thanks to foreign trade.
Of course, relying solely on foreign trade meant that the supply of grains would be inherently unstable.
The former Revival City didn’t care. If unstable situations arose, so be it. After all, the inner city dwellers wouldn’t starve; if people in the outer city starved to death, so many would die, and it wasn’t a big deal.
Eventually, there would always be many refugees who would drift in from unknown places and replenish the lost population.
But the current Revival City couldn’t operate like this anymore.
Osenia knew that the high morale among the city’s residents was based on Mr. Gu’s political declarations. People had begun to believe that Lord Governor could bring them a better life, which led them to support the new government and work with great enthusiasm.
However, if they were to face hunger, Mr. Gu’s political declarations would bankrupt shortly after they were made, which would severely damage the credibility of the new government.
Osenia would not allow this to happen.
In the long term, securing food self-sufficiency within the territory of the new Alliance Council was the fundamental solution to the food security issue. But until then, the short-term solution still had to rely on foreign trade.
This task had originally fallen to the first Alliance Councilman to die at Gu Hang’s hand—Wohan. He was the largest grain trader in the old Revival City.
After his death, his grain trading channels were quickly divided up, and the greatest share went to none other than Bradford.
He himself had been a trade magnate, but he had avoided engaging too much in the grain business in the past to avoid internal competition with Wohan. After Wohan’s death, there were no such concerns.
At that time, while he was condemning the Governor’s tyranny in the Alliance Council and shedding tears for Wohan’s death, he was also hurriedly snatching up the industry, fearing that hesitating even for a moment would mean missing out.
With the loss of the war, he ended up a prisoner. He thought everything he had grabbed was lost, but now, it turned out there was a time when it could be put to use.
Of course, not having him didn’t mean it was entirely impossible to manage. All the merchant employees weren’t dead, after all.
Still, with Bradford, who knew many people, and had trade channels in various places outside Revival City to help out, things would be a lot simpler.
And at this moment, he was explaining to Osenia the specific situation of grain trade in Revival City:
“… Revival City’s grain imports can be summarized into two main arteries and a bunch of capillaries,” Bradford was carefully sharing his experience and understanding with Osenia.
“The two main arteries, one to the west and one to the south. The southern one leads to the Green Valley Region. I’ve heard that you, Lady Ossina, were born there, so you should be quite familiar with that area.”
“Yes,” Osenia nodded slightly.
She was indeed familiar with it—she was the daughter of a plantation owner with a tens of thousands strong workforce and had been helping her father manage the manor’s accounts for years.
The Green Valley Region lay more than four hundred kilometers south of Revival City. There was no clear boundary line; it was simply that the further south one went, the better the climate became.