Homo Sapiens

After leaving the research base, Chen Jianxiong began coordinating with Phil to handle the transfer of personnel, equipment, and weapons between their groups.

It seemed as though Chen Jianxiong’s authority had expanded considerably. In reality, Li Qingye still maintained absolute control over the personnel within the Security Department, especially the Soldiers.

Trust always has its limits.

Even when you hold someone’s life in your hands, you can never fully trust them. The necessary precautions must still be taken.

The Fernando Clan was incredibly powerful in the region surrounding Dart Port; they were essentially the local kingpins.

With pawns like Mad in place, more than half of Homo Sapiens Company’s local risks had vanished. All that remained was to gain complete control over the Fernando Clan. Once that was done, Homo Sapiens Company could essentially rest easy in the five southern provinces of Luzon Island.

Many people might find that hard to believe.

But that was the reality of Luzon.

Luzon had never truly been unified. It was a nation in name only, but in reality, it was a confederation of family alliances, like a smaller version of India.

All of Luzon was controlled by over two hundred families of varying sizes. The large clans were entrenched across several provinces, while smaller families controlled individual islands or towns. These families were the local despots, and the Luzon government had great difficulty controlling them, especially when it came to rival clans.

Old Du could only barely control the regions that supported him. Northern Luzon Island, Cianlan Island, and other areas were essentially semi-autonomous.

And with the Fernando Clan, one of Luzon’s five great families, under their influence, Homo Sapiens Company could naturally operate without worry within the clan’s core territory.

This was also why Takasugi Hei had been so certain of his success before. From his perspective, once he had the Fernando Clan’s power at his disposal, dealing with a company like Homo Sapiens, which had no backing, would be child’s play.

「A little over a week later.」

Fang Xincheng arrived on Kalaqua Island once again.

”Boss, this is the termination list.” Fang Xincheng handed over a document.

Li Qingye flipped through it. ”It seems Manager Jing Lan has betrayed my trust. Firing these seven people outright isn’t the right move. I want you to give the evidence of their embezzlement to Wang Xin Ya in the Legal Department. I have a few friends in Dart Port.”

”This...” Fang Xincheng hesitated.

Clearly, Li Qingye intended to send these people to prison, and Fang Xincheng found the thought unsettling.

Li Qingye’s expression turned stern. ”Xincheng, you can’t be too merciful with these parasites. How do you expect to manage the company in the future otherwise? If an employee embezzles company assets and you let them off easy, what kind of deterrent does that create?”

”You’re right, Boss. I was wrong.” Fang Xincheng lowered his head, deeply ashamed.

Li Qingye shook his head. ”Xincheng, you need to remember something. If you want to be a good general manager, you must learn to use both carrot and stick. Fami was hoping you’d go easy on them. He’s certainly good at winning people over.”

As he finished, a hint of scorn entered Li Qingye’s voice. ”Xincheng, if every single person has nothing but good things to say about a company executive, do you really think he’s a good person?”

”Huh?” Fang Xincheng couldn’t quite follow.

Li Qingye handed the document back. ”Every company is made of people, and people have all sorts of interests and needs. Go think it over, and you’ll understand. Now, let’s discuss the company’s future development.”

Although he hadn’t fully processed it, Fang Xincheng committed the words to memory and nodded. ”Boss, here is the development plan for the company’s future.”

Taking the document, Li Qingye scanned it, his eyes taking in ten lines at a time.

Currently, Homo Sapiens Company had only two lines of business: eel fry sales and eel farming.

The eel fry sales operation used ten shell companies and its own fishing fleet as cover, with a plan to sell around 20,000 to 30,000 units of eel fry annually.

As for the eel farming business, the company currently operated three farms: the Kalaqua Island farm, with an annual output of 500 to 600 tons; the Dart Port North Bay farm, with an annual output of 1,000 to 1,200 tons; and the Dart Harbor Coconut Town farm, with an annual output of 1,500 to 1,800 tons.

The international market price for eel fry currently fluctuated between 7,000 and 30,000 US Dollars per unit (5,000 elvers). Meanwhile, the wholesale price for mature eels ranged from 20,000 to 30,000 US Dollars per ton.

As the holder of a technological monopoly, Homo Sapiens Company could maintain high profit margins in the eel fry industry as long as no other company developed a low-cost method for breeding eels.

The eel farming side of the business, however, appeared to be much more labor-intensive. Factoring in the cost of facilities, equipment, labor, utilities, feed, and medicine, plus the survival rate of the eels, the comprehensive cost per ton of mature eels was around 5,000 to 8,000 US Dollars.

The profit margin seemed quite good on the surface, but in reality, the risks were substantial. For instance, the price of fry had skyrocketed that year, increasing the production cost per ton of mature eels by about 2,400 US Dollars.

Despite this, Homo Sapiens Company chose to continue investing in eel farming in order to boost local employment.

The farming and processing division was currently the company’s largest, with a staff of 433 people.

Li Qingye, however, was still not satisfied. After all, the entire Homo Sapiens Company, from top to bottom, consisted of just over seven hundred employees.

And just as he expected, Fang Xincheng was not much of an innovator. The industrial plan he presented only added two new ventures: grilled eel processing and feed processing.

Li Qingye hadn’t held high hopes for Fang Xincheng’s ability to pioneer new industries anyway.

Over the past few months of research and development, Li Qingye hadn’t just been studying bioweapons and biocomputers; he had also set aside some time to research other commercial products.

Looking at the current state of global industries, the energy and mining sectors were difficult to enter. Only agriculture was suitable for Homo Sapiens Company to continue to dig into.

But how to go about developing that agricultural base was another question entirely.

Luzon was not lacking in agricultural resources. The problem was that the ”Big Four” international grain traders—the ABCD companies—had an extremely strong influence there. Furthermore, Luzon suffered from a severe grain shortage, as most of the land was used to grow more profitable cash crops.

If he chose to enter the grain production industry, he would certainly be targeted by the ABCD companies, and he had no desire to attract America’s attention at the moment.

Therefore, he definitely couldn’t enter the grain production industry within Luzon. He had to take a more roundabout approach.

He planned to develop a sugar industry, but one different from the traditional model. Conventional sugar production requires large-scale cultivation of sugarcane or sugar beets, both of which demand vast tracts of arable land.

The local family clans throughout Luzon were incredibly entrenched. Even with the Fernando Clan’s help, it would be difficult to acquire large areas of farmland. Rather than competing with farmers for land, it would be better to forge a new path.

Li Qingye planned to use genetic recombination technology to cultivate a genetically modified seaweed with extremely high starch content. Then, using special catalytic enzymes, he would convert that starch into products like maltose, glucose, and high-fructose syrup.

Compared to the limited arable land on the continents, the ocean was far more vast, and humanity’s development of it was still relatively low.

Starch has an incredibly wide range of applications. It can be used to produce sugars and is also a raw material for industrial alcohol, which in turn can be used as fuel. At the same time, the starch can be used directly as flour or to synthesize artificial rice.

This one product could potentially encompass the food, energy, sugar, and alcohol-brewing industries.

Homo Sapiens Company wouldn’t have to enter the grain industry at first, but its production lines could be converted to food production at any time. This flexibility was crucial for the future.

People can live without love, a house, or a cell phone, but they cannot live without food.

Food is the foundation of stability.