this man is not calm

Chapter 470 Insights
This city at the mouth of the Yellow River is wealthy, but it has little history or heritage.

More than 130 years ago, the river's mouth was not the Bohai Sea, but the Yellow Sea.

Even though the history of past and present lives has gone astray, there is still strong inertia when it comes to major events related to astronomy and geography.

The Yellow River, which originally flowed southward, changed its course to the north, resulting in major changes in the old course and estuary in northern Jiangsu. More than 1,400 square kilometers of land were submerged by sea water and lost their sediment supply. The large tracts of fertile land formed by sediments continued to shrink and sink below the sea surface, leaving only tidal flats and saline-alkali land that were constantly eroded by the tides, and fishery resources were gradually depleted.

The coastline has shrunk inland and the ecological environment has also undergone tremendous changes.

Correspondingly, the estuary in northern Hebei was washed by river water containing a large amount of silt, forming a huge plain.

In other words, most of the land in Dongying was actually formed by the gradual expansion of a delta formed by siltation.

More than a hundred years is indeed a bit short compared to the tremendous changes that have taken place in the world, and it is insignificant compared to the more than 5,000 years of Chinese history.

It is not an exaggeration to say that it rose because of the oil city, but this does not mean that apart from petrochemicals and supporting industries, there is nothing else to it.

In order to improve the local environment and find growth points outside the traditional economic model, everyone has put a lot of thought into it.

What Jin Shang and his group saw was a city that was undergoing a difficult transformation.

I have just arrived and am not very familiar with the place yet. Even though I have read a lot of information, I have not had any actual experience, so I cannot say that I have a deep understanding of it.

After resting for a day and adapting to the local climate, Jin Shang and his second uncle Zhang Hua and others went to meet some people to learn about the local business environment.

Li Xuan and Huang Yiyi no longer had to follow him all the time. Some social events were really boring. They were fun at the beginning, but became a bit unbearable later. So the two of them went for a walk nearby and took a few assistants to see the grand spectacle of the wetland park.

June and July are the best times with beautiful weather and bright sunshine.

Li Xuan was walking along the riverside trail, watching the red-crowned cranes flapping their wings in the distance, and took a photo with her digital camera. She then exclaimed with great appreciation:
"In just this short period of time, we have seen more than 20 groups of birds, with more than 50 species living here. It is truly spectacular."

Several wading birds were just a few dozen meters away, pecking crabs, sandworms, shellfish or turtles out of the mud swamps and gravel beaches and swallowing them, going back and forth, creating a very lively scene.

"In recent years, Beijing has also begun to pay attention to the protection of the ecological environment, and the issue of biodiversity has been noticed. For areas that are still in the middle of development or not, experts are generally required to make assessments."

Things like reclaiming farmland from lakes, digging canals to divert water, and reclaiming land to grow rice cannot be done as a matter of course; they require overall planning.

It would be a shame if such a beautiful scenery were destroyed just to develop a few saline-alkali lands with low production.

In ancient times, fertile land was the most important thing and growing crops was paramount. But now, there is no need to be so obsessed. With large-scale mechanized production and powerful water conservancy facility construction capabilities, there is no need to increase the value of land use at the cost of destruction and development. Instead, we should look at the issue of sustainable development from a longer-term perspective.

"There are several purple-red patches over there. They are the Suaeda salsa that Mr. Jin mentioned. They are really spectacular when they grow in size. A little further away, near the sea, they are basically soaked in heavy salt water. They are Salicornia, and they are growing pretty well."

"That's right! This is the first time I've seen it, and it looks different in person than in the photo. What's that thing beside the muddy ditch? It looks like reeds, but also like wild rice seedlings. What is it?"

"Spartina?"

Huang Yiyi responded uncertainly,

"There are a lot of these in my hometown. They seem to be grown in the seaside areas of Liaodong, Jiaodong, northern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi. They were introduced several decades ago to improve the seaside environment, absorb water and create land, and suppress the spread of saline-alkali land. However, it seems that they are a bit rampant here."

This plant has extremely tenacious vitality and grows very well at the junction of lakes and seas, providing a good foundation for the biodiversity of delta mudflats.

In essence, Dongying is a weak-tidal continental estuary with shallow waters of 1.2 to 1.3 meters and the deepest at some places being only seven meters. The average water depth of the Bohai Sea is only a dozen meters. This shows that the Bohai Rim area is an inland water area and is relatively stable.

but……

"Look, the trees on the south side of the ditch are lush and green, the grassland on the north side is growing well, and the slightly taller trees are basically dead. It's June..."

The two walked forward for a while, and Li Xuan pointed at the strange scenery that came into view.
"Something's wrong. Is it a pest?"

"The underground must have been eroded by high salt water! The roots of grass are relatively shallow, while the roots of big trees are relatively deep."

"It seems that reducing the salinity of coastal land is not something that can be done overnight, but a protracted battle that seems to have no end in sight."

The salinization and desertification here is different from the salinization and desertification caused by drought in inland areas. The salinization and desertification at the seaside are caused by the infiltration of high-salt seawater. If the rainfall decreases and the evaporation increases, the capillary effect of the soil will absorb the deep salty water to the surface. The water evaporates and the salt remains on the surface, aggravating the salinization of the topsoil.

Treatment requires two approaches at the same time: using seawater chemical technology to extract underground bitter brine, and using water washing or planting salt-absorbing plants on the surface to achieve comprehensive improvements.

Moreover, these methods need to be adhered to for a long time in order to turn wasteland into fertile farmland. If you don't pay attention for a few years or neglect it a little, it will return to its previous state.

Methods such as intercropping, interplanting and crop rotation can not only effectively increase crop yields, but also store fertility and improve soil conditions.

"Hey, that's our experimental field, right? The sea rice is uneven, and looks like tall reeds. If you don't look carefully, you can't tell them apart. And soybeans, can this thing grow by the sea? Green, with red and yellow stems, what is it?"

"Beets can grow well in slightly saline-alkali soil. There are many sunny days here with strong sunshine, which is beneficial to the growth of oil crops. We originally also had cold-resistant varieties of rapeseed, but there is not much land available this year. Most of the land has to be planted with Salicornia and Suaeda salsa, and bamboo willows have to be planted to absorb deep salt. We need to treat the symptoms as well as the root cause."

“That’s very comprehensive!”

The crops were growing well, and Li Xuan was quite happy. After all, it was her family's business. As a woman born in a wealthy family in the south, she had a special feeling for the land. A good harvest was also a sign of a prosperous family business.

However, the wetland park near the sea is a protected area, while the more cultivated land inland is owned by someone. There are many local agricultural reclamation groups and large and small agricultural and animal husbandry companies, and the best land has been taken away by them.

It was definitely impossible for Jin Shang and Zhang Hua to have a ready-made farm. They could only invest money to open up wasteland in remote areas, or cooperate with towns and villages to rent land for use. Of course, this was in the interior of the country, with a dense population and a decent economy. Good places would definitely be in high demand. Jin Shang had never thought of developing a large-scale business here. Instead, he tried to open up the market, cooperate with Xingdao Haihua, and build a test field. If it could grow and develop, that would be great. If not, it didn't matter. He would take his time.

Going further, you will reach the outskirts of the city. There is a piece of wild grassland that was purchased. After being leveled, alfalfa was planted. It serves as one of the local development bases of the animal husbandry company, mainly raising dairy cows and supplemented by beef cattle.

There were nearly two hundred cows walking and eating grass on the pasture. That was not all. There were even more cows in the cowshed area, totaling about five hundred or so.

This scale is not particularly large, but compared with free-range farmers, it is already exaggerated.

Walking on the grassland that exuded the fragrance of soil, Li Xuan and Huang Yiyi approached and watched the milkers at work. Large trucks and forklifts spread grass into troughs, and large tank trucks poured water into pools for the livestock to drink.

"What's on the back of this cow? It's carrying a plastic bag. Are these cows sick and need oxygen?"

"This... I happen to know a little bit!"

Even the secretary Huang Yiyi didn't know about it, but Li Xuan had heard about it.
"There are more and more cows in the park ranch in Beijing, but the space is limited, so they can only be kept in pens. However, cows are livestock that don't go out often, so they are prone to bloating. They often need a veterinarian to perform a small operation to relieve the pain. It's nothing. The school has a research project on greenhouse gas emissions, which says that cow farts account for more than 20% of the total..."

"That's really a waste of time!"

"Not really! It's a scientific research park, and there's a school-enterprise cooperation agreement. In fact, it shouldn't be called bull fart, but bull burp. There's another system for indoors, and specially developed bags are used for outdoor storage."

Frankly speaking, it's not surprising at all.

Cows are ruminants and have four stomachs. The rumen is the first stomach, which contains a large number of microbial flora. Food is fermented in it and then returns to the cow's mouth to be chewed, which makes it easier to digest.

Obviously, the rumen is a natural fermentation tank that produces a lot of gas, of which the methane content exceeds 25%. The greenhouse effect caused by methane is 120 times that of carbon dioxide, and the duration is as long as ten years, which is quite exaggerated.

It is nonsense to say that "cow farts" cause global temperatures to rise, but it is certainly not groundless.

At least according to current monitoring, an adult dairy cow produces up to 500 liters of methane per day, and an adult beef cattle produces about 300 to 350 liters of methane.

The amount depends on the food fed, and there will be some changes. It is normal for cows to produce more methane if they eat more fermented roughage.

Generally speaking, the gas produced in the rumen, a natural fermentation chamber, will be excreted from the body through the cow's activities, eating, swallowing, and burping. However, captive cows do not have such good conditions. Inability to expel gas from the digestive tract and loss of appetite are mild symptoms. Severe cases may even compress the internal organs and lead to death.

Therefore, Jin Shang had people develop an air intake, storage, filtration and recovery system, in which veterinarians made a small incision in the bodies of captive cows to collect the gas produced by rumen fermentation. By accumulating a little bit, they could actually get a lot of combustible gas, which, together with the biogas from the fermentation tank, was more than enough to supply the gas generator.

The benefits of an experimental project cannot be said to be very good, but it is quite interesting. The most important benefit is that it can provide sufficient data and materials for the "water papers" of teachers and students of my alma mater.

As for cows that often go outdoors, a set of air bags was developed that the cows can carry to store air. This was purely the product of some "smart" person's spur of the moment idea and his wild imagination. It wouldn't cost much money anyway, so Jin Shang just got started to work on it. It would be a good thing if he could get some patents to embellish it.

But I didn’t expect that someone would do this in Dongying, a ranch that was developed not long ago.

As for its use, it's not that useful. The staff here replace the air bags every now and then, and the collected combustible gas is used for cooking and heating water, so it is more or less useful.

“Talent is everywhere!”

Li Xuan smiled and poked the air sac on the cow's back with her finger. It was already half full. No one knew whether the small wound on the cow's body and the air needle connected to the rumen hurt, but the cow didn't feel it anyway and was eating grass leisurely.

Huang Yiyi was interested in fresh milk, but after learning that fresh milk had to go through sterilization and multiple processes before it could be consumed, she gave up the idea in disappointment.

Later, Li Xuan and Huang Yiyi watched with interest as the rat extermination team used trained minks and dogs and other tools to force the rats hiding underground out and kill them. They also tasted the semi-finished cream cheese, and the bacon and pickled meat that were waiting to be packaged at the food processing factory before they prepared to go back.

When passing by the muddy area by the river, the two were surprised to see that near the mudflat that was originally deserted, there were many people carrying baskets and stirring the mud with a black stick.

They were both men and women, probably in their forties or fifties. There were not many children, but there were some relatively strong old men.

"What are you doing?"

"It should be 'jigging iron bars'!"

This kind of thing is often seen near rivers and seashores. They use a magnetic stick to stir the river sand to absorb the loose iron ore, which is then put into a basket on their back, gathered together and sold. It is very hard work, but they can make a lot of money.

"This... doesn't it mean that Dongying is a relatively wealthy emerging city?"

"They are rich as a whole, but not everyone is doing well! The whole family, young and old, work together, and the daily income ranges from 20 to 30 yuan, to over a hundred yuan. Do you think they will do it?"

"so much?"

Three years ago, Wei Shuangping's salary was just over 2,000 yuan, but this salary was enough for her to get out of trouble and improve her family's life. She could even squeeze in enough to buy a commercial house in Beijing with a loan.

"It's not available every day. Good locations are very popular and can easily lead to conflicts."

After hearing this, Li Xuan pondered for a while before reluctantly nodding and saying:
"It's similar to quarrying and digging sand in my hometown, but... no one cares about this?"

"Manage! Why not! We have to be able to manage it. Grassroots governance is always difficult, and..."

Huang Yiyi said leisurely,

"This is still good, the harm is not particularly serious. The kind that uses oversized electromagnets to collect iron sand and rips the riverbed and riverbanks into pieces is terrifying..."

(End of this chapter)