Great Power Reclamation

Chapter 2874 Marshal Ye Returns to China
When Marshal Ye's plane landed at Jeep International Airport, it was early autumn.

The Volga River outside the porthole looked like a silver ribbon, and the birch forest on the riverbank was just turning pale yellow. When the wind blew, the leaves fell down like scattered gold dust.

He dragged his suitcase out of the arrival gate and saw the driver holding a sign that read "Marshal Ye"—

He had a typical Eastern European face, blond hair that shimmered light brown in the sunlight, and his uniform was impeccably pressed. Upon seeing him approach, he immediately bowed and took the suitcase.
"Young master, Madam is waiting for you at the manor."

As the car drove away from the city, the buildings along the way gradually changed from steeple churches to log cabins.

As Marshal Ye gazed at the wheat fields passing by outside the window, he suddenly thought of the experimental fields in the military reclamation city.

The winter wheat there is dark green, with the resilience unique to desert plants, while the wheat here is golden and plump, as if it has been soaked in the sun.

The driver suddenly spoke up: "Your uncle wants you to go to the Ministry of the Interior first. He says there's a document that needs your signature."

The Ministry of the Interior building stands beside the city center square, its gray granite walls exuding solemnity.

When Marshal Ye entered the hall, he bumped into his uncle Ivanovic seeing guests off.

My uncle, dressed in a sharp suit with a gold badge pinned to his chest, saw him and his previously serious face immediately broke into a smile. He strode over and patted him on the shoulder.

"My nephew, a top student from the Military Reclamation University, has finally agreed to come back to Jeep!"

His Russian still carries a slight Xinjiang accent—back when he went to visit relatives in the military reclamation city with Ivana, the little bit of Chinese he learned always had a Russian accent, but now it's the other way around.

A huge map hangs in the office, with more than a dozen cities circled in red.

Ivanovic pointed to one of the red dots:
“Your mother always says to let you develop freely, but your grandfather was still saying last night that our family can’t just know how to farm.”

He took a document out of the drawer. "This is an appointment from the state government. You are to go to Belgorod to serve as the deputy director of the Agriculture Bureau, in charge of cross-border seed industry cooperation."

Marshal Ye's finger traced the official seal on the document, and he suddenly thought of his father Ye Yuze's laboratory. The labels on the petri dishes there were always written in red pen with words like "resistance" and "adaptability".

He looked up at his uncle and said, "I studied crop genetics, so I'm afraid I wouldn't be good at administrative work."

"Who gave you permission to do administrative work?"

Ivanovich pulled a thick folder from the bookshelf. “Belgorod has the largest dryland farming experimental station in all of Russia, and they want to introduce China’s photovoltaic drip irrigation technology. You’ll go there, not as the bureau chief, but as a technical advisor.”

He opened the folder, inside which was a photo—a wooden sign planted on the black soil of the experimental station, which read "China-Ukraine Joint Seed Industry Laboratory" in both Chinese and Ukrainian.

As I left the Ministry of the Interior, the driver handed me a cell phone.
"Madam said that you should go to the manor for dinner first, and Grandpa will be there too."

Looking at his mother Ivana's name on the screen, Marshal Ye suddenly remembered how she always said when he was little that autumn in Jeep tasted "like bread"—

After the wheat harvest, the air is filled with the aroma of wheat and the sweet scent of baking bread.

When the oak gates of the manor were pushed open, Grandpa was sitting in a wicker chair on the terrace, playing with a brass pocket watch in his hand.

That was one that Marshal Ye had seen when he was a child; there was a line of words engraved on the inside of the watch cover:

"The land will not let down those who cultivate it diligently."

When his grandfather saw him come in, he put his pocket watch on the table and said, "I heard you grew crops that generate electricity in the northern border region?"

Just as Marshal Ye was about to explain the principle of "photovoltaic desertification control," Ivana came out carrying a baked flatbread:
"Dad, don't scare the child. His uncle has been in the desert for eight years and is tanned darker than the farmers in the jeep."

She pushed a dish of honey in front of Marshal Ye, saying, "Try it. This year's newly harvested linden honey is sweeter than the jujube honey from Junken City."

During dinner, Grandpa suddenly asked, "Do you know why we sent you to Belgorod?"

Marshal Ye shook his head. Grandpa put down his knife and fork and pointed to the fields outside the window:
"The black soil there is the most fertile in the world, but it suffered a drought ten years ago and there was no harvest. Your mother brought back drought-resistant wheat seeds from the military reclamation city to try planting, which allowed wheat to grow in the fields again."

He paused, his gaze falling on Marshal Ye's face. "Now it's your turn."

Marshal Ye recalled the small cloth bag his father had given him before he left, which contained five kinds of wheat seeds, labeled "Gobi No. 1" to "Gobi No. 5".

My father said at the time, "Don't think of a seed as just a seed; it is a messenger that can cross mountains and seas."

The next day, on the way to Belgorod, the driver suddenly turned onto a side road. A field of experimental crops appeared outside the car window, with colorful signs planted along the ridges.

The red sign reads "Northern Frontier of China," the blue sign reads "Ukrainian Jeep," and the yellow sign reads "Joint Cultivation."

The director of the agricultural bureau was already waiting by the field, pointing to the wheat seedlings and saying:

“Look, this is a hybrid of your father’s wheat seeds and local varieties, which is both cold-resistant and drought-resistant.”

Marshal Ye squatted down, his fingertips brushing against the fuzz on the wheat leaves. Sunlight filtered through the dewdrops on the leaf tips, casting dappled patterns of light on the soil, much like the reflections of solar panels in the desert.

The director suddenly handed over an agreement: "We want to build a photovoltaic irrigation demonstration area, using your 'power generation on the panels, planting underneath' model."

He pointed to the distant hillside, "There are 5,000 mu of land planned there, half of which will be planted with wheat and the other half with alfalfa. The alfalfa will be used to feed cattle, and the cow manure will be returned to the fields, forming a cycle."

As Ye Shuai looked at the signature section of the agreement, he suddenly remembered the millet seed that Grandpa Kurban had given him.

Before he came to Jeep, he planted it in the laboratory in the military reclamation city, and it has probably sprouted by now.

He signed the agreement, and the bureau chief smiled and said:
"You'll have to give a presentation at the China-Uzbekistan Agricultural Forum next month. Many farm owners want to know how to make the land grow both grain and 'gold'."

That night, while staying in the dormitory at the experimental station, Marshal Ye opened the cloth bag his father had given him.

Five kinds of wheat seeds lay in his palm, like five tiny stars. He suddenly understood why his mother wanted him to come back—the seeds of the military reclamation city had taken root in Jeep, and now someone needed to help them sprout new shoots.

Two weeks later, when Marshal Ye was showcasing the results of photovoltaic desertification control at an agricultural forum, someone in the audience suddenly raised their hand:

"China's technology is very good, but our black soil is different from your desert. Will it be suitable?"

Marshal Ye smiled and clicked on a picture: on the screen, on the black soil of Belgorod, wheat seedlings under photovoltaic panels were sprouting new ears of wheat, and in the comparison picture next to it was the same photovoltaic array in the XJ Desert.

"Whether the land is black or yellow, people need to understand it," he said. "The desert needs sand control, and black soil needs fertilizer retention; the principle is the same."

After the forum, Ivanovic called:
“Your mother transferred some of her shares in the Junken Chain Supermarket, saying she wanted to build a laboratory for you.” Just as Ye Shuai was about to say no, his uncle added, “Don’t refuse. This is a wish she made in Jeep back then—to let the seeds of China take root and sprout in Ukraine.”

Marshal Ye stood atop the observation tower of the experimental station, gazing at the endless wheat fields in the distance. The setting sun bathed the photovoltaic panels in a golden glow, and the drip irrigation tape beneath them was hissing as water seeped into the soil, the sound exactly like that of drip irrigation in the desert.

He took out his phone and sent his father a photo: the photovoltaic array on the black soil looked like a blue lake, and on the wooden sign by the lake, a new line of text was engraved:

"Let every inch of land grow with hope."

My phone vibrated quickly; it was a reply from my father, along with a picture—in the laboratory of the military reclamation city, the millet seed had sprouted, with two cotyledons atop the tender green stem, resembling a small "V".

My father said in the message, "Your grandfather is right, the land will not let down those who cultivate it diligently."

As Marshal Ye gazed at the sunset on the horizon, he suddenly realized that the so-called inheritance is the journey of a seed from the desert of northern Xinjiang to the black soil of Ukraine.

It will carry the resilience of the desert and the richness of the black soil, taking root in the wind, sprouting in the rain, and eventually growing into a bridge connecting the two lands.

Just like his father carrying wheat seeds across borders back then, just like him standing on this black soil now, holding seeds from his hometown in his hands.

The wind blows through the wheat field, carrying the scent of wheat and the aroma of earth.

Marshal Ye knew that the story here had only just begun. Just as the red willows in the desert always take deep root, his roots were connected at one end to the experimental fields of the military reclamation city, at the other end to the black soil of the jeep, and in the middle were countless hopes that were sprouting.

In his third month in Belgorod, Marshal Ye Jianying witnessed the first snowfall.

A thin layer of snow had accumulated on the photovoltaic panels at the experimental station, and when the sun shone on them, the reflected light was so dazzling that it was impossible to open one's eyes.

He trudged through the ankle-deep snow to inspect the temperature control equipment buried underground—technology imported from the military reclamation city that could keep the soil temperature above 5°C, ensuring that the wheat seedlings could grow slowly even in the cold winter.

"Advisor Ye, Deputy Minister Ivanovich has arrived."

The agricultural bureau technician jogged over, his breath condensing into mist in the cold air.

Marshal Ye turned around and saw his uncle standing in the snow wrapped in a black overcoat, followed by a man in military uniform whose star insignia gleamed coldly in the snow.

“This is General Andrei of the Ministry of Defense,” Ivanovich said, rubbing his frostbitten hands.

"They want to try out your solar greenhouse technology in the permafrost region of Siberia."

Andrei stretched out his hand, his palm calloused from gunshots: "I heard you can make crops grow in the desert, maybe you can do it in the permafrost too."

As Marshal Ye gazed at the vast white wasteland in the distance, he suddenly thought of winter in the desert—the snow there falls dry and cold, and when it falls on the photovoltaic panels, it freezes into an ice shell, requiring manual knocking to clear it.

He pulled a blueprint out of his backpack: "The problem in permafrost regions isn't the temperature, it's the soil's permeability. We can use photovoltaic panels to generate electricity to drive a geothermal circulation system, allowing the permafrost to 'breathe' first."

Andrei pointed to the pipe layout on the blueprint: "Can this bend withstand temperatures as low as minus forty degrees Celsius?"

Marshal Ye nodded, his fingertip tracing the red mark on the drawing: "This design is based on the oil pipeline of Junken City. It uses cold-resistant steel. It was tested in the wind zone of Altay last year and there were no problems."

After seeing the general off, Ivanovich suddenly said:
“Your mother went to the supermarket warehouse yesterday and numbered all the newly arrived seeds from Junken City.”

Marshal Ye was stunned for a moment, and his uncle laughed: "She said she didn't care about you, but she had someone organize the soil data of all the CIS countries and put it on three whole hard drives."

When I got back to the dormitory, there was a package on the table, sent by my mother.

When I opened it, I found a military green windbreaker inside, exactly the same one my father wore in the desert. There was a small piece of cloth sewn into the pocket, embroidered with the words "Rooted" in both Chinese and Ukrainian.

There was also a note in the package, in Ivana's handwriting: "Don't try to tough it out like your second brother. The permafrost is colder than the desert. If you get sick from the cold, no one will make you ginger soup."

That night, Marshal Ye received a phone call from his grandfather. The old man's voice was hoarse from the sound of firewood burning in the fireplace:
"Come to the manor tomorrow, a guest wants to see you." He wanted to ask who it was, but then he heard the sound of clinking glasses on the other end of the phone; his grandfather had already hung up.

The next morning, Marshal Ye drove to the manor. Just after passing the birch forest, he saw a black sedan parked at the gate, its license plate bearing a distinctive white prefix.

As he entered the living room, he bumped into his grandfather talking to an elderly man with gray hair. The moment the man turned around, Marshal Ye recognized him as the chairman of the CIS Agricultural Union—

I saw him in the news last year. His "Eurasian Seed Vault" project has collected crop germplasm resources from 37 countries.

"This is Ye Mao's younger brother?"

The chairman grasped his hand, his palm warm and strong. "I read your second brother's report on photovoltaic desertification control at the alliance conference. It's remarkable."

He pointed to the glass jar on the table, which contained various seeds, and said, “These are drought-resistant alfalfa varieties from Central Asia. I would like to ask you to help me improve them to be more insect-resistant, using your Chinese gene-editing technology.”

Marshal Ye picked up a brown seed and suddenly remembered the petri dishes in his father's laboratory. The seedlings that glowed under ultraviolet light seemed to be growing right before his eyes.

He looked up and said, "We can build a joint laboratory to crossbreed the insect-resistant genes of China with Central Asian alfalfa, making it both drought-resistant and insect-resistant."

The chairman's eyes lit up, and he pulled an agreement from his briefcase:

“I knew I’d found the right person. The alliance has already approved special funding, and the location is in Belgorod. You’ll be the director of the laboratory.”

Grandpa added from the side: "Your mother mortgaged part of her supermarket shares, saying she wanted to build a temperature-controlled building for the laboratory, even more advanced than the one in Junken City."

Marshal Ye's heart suddenly warmed. He remembered his mother always saying that when she crossed the border with her first bag of wheat seeds, the customs officer smiled and asked her:

"Can this stuff be eaten as food?" Now, those wheat seeds have spread into a green sea in the CIS countries.

On the way back from the manor, Marshal Ye detoured to the Jeep branch of the Junken chain supermarket.

On the shelves are XJ raisins, Ningxia goji berries, and jujube cakes with photovoltaic panel patterns printed on the packaging.

The store manager, a Kazakh girl, smiled and handed him a box of yogurt when he came in.
"This is made according to Grandpa Kurban's recipe, with Russian honey added, it's very sweet."

Marshal Ye scooped up a spoonful; the sourness of the yogurt mixed with the sweetness of the honey, much like the fusion of desert and permafrost.

The store manager suddenly said, "Last week, a farmer from Kyrgyzstan came to buy some goods and said he wanted to introduce your solar-powered planting. I've put the soil samples he brought in your office."

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