Chapter 317 - 317: Too Much Freedom

「Meanwhile.」

After training for a month in Xiangjiang, Wang Zidong, Uncle Liu, and the others finally completed their initial training and began flying to Africa in batches.

Their first stop was the Moon Islands, northwest of Mad Island.

After more than two months of working overtime, the entire Moon Islands had been completely transformed, with all sorts of infrastructure springing up from the ground.

The most important facility of all was the geothermal power station located on Great Moon Island.

Although the Moon Islands lacked energy resources like oil and natural gas, it did have a dormant volcano. Therefore, Jade Energy Company built a geothermal power station underground on Great Moon Island.

The Great Moon Island geothermal power station had an installed capacity of 3,200 megawatts, which was more than enough to supply the region's population of 850,000.

Upon his arrival, Wang Zidong was assigned to the petrochemical base on Great Moon Island.

He followed his team leader, Chen Yongzhen, to the dormitory area.

"Xiaowang, flip through these books when you have time."

Taking the huge stack of books, Wang Zidong asked with some trepidation, "Team Leader, do I have to study all of these?"

"Yes." Chen Yongzhen smiled and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry. These are just foundational books. If you don't understand something, you can ask me or look it up in our petroleum department's internal database."

"GULP! I'll do my best." Although his head was swimming, Wang Zidong didn't give up easily.

His roommates were also Chinese people from all over the country. Many of them had their heads buried in books or were looking up information on their phones. The atmosphere felt a bit like studying for grad school entrance exams.

Wang Zidong greeted his roommates, and they briefly introduced themselves to one another.

"Brother Yang, is there oil here?"

Hearing Wang Zidong's question, the square-faced man with glasses shook his head. "No. If there were, the Moon Islands wouldn't be so dirt poor."

"Then why build a petrochemical base here?" Wang Zidong was completely confused.

Yang Ziqiang closed his reference book. "Not all petrochemical bases need to be built near oil fields. Take Xing Island, for example. The Moon Islands has similar potential. We can import oil from Africa, process it, and then sell it back to Africa, while also resupplying passing ships."

It dawned on Wang Zidong. "I see."

In reality, they didn't know that Mad Island did have oil and natural gas.

The geological strata of Mad Island are typical igneous rock. According to geological surveys by the Homo Sapiens Company, the region contains at least 7 billion tons of shale oil and 800 billion cubic meters of shale gas.

Additionally, there are also undersea oil fields in the strait between Mad Island and Monomotapa to its west, but the extraction risks are relatively high.

The strategic position of the Moon Islands is extremely important. Developing agriculture here would be a thankless and arduous task. The Homo Sapiens Company has designated its industrial role as port services, petrochemical processing, trade transit, and a security base.

Only the food and grain needs of the Moon Islands will be supplied by Mad Island.

This is part of the internal division of labor for the entire Mad Island regional branch.

The Moon Islands and the Seven Sisters Islands do not produce grain or agricultural products; instead, they focus on service industries, processing industries, and military bases.

Mad Island is responsible for producing minerals, grain, and agricultural products, as well as some industry.

Wang Zidong and the others had no choice but to study desperately while also beginning some auxiliary work.

The equipment for the entire chemical plant was developed by the Homo Sapiens Company based on technology from the Donghua Group, and later absorbed technology from the Xingdao Chemical Company.

The Homo Sapiens Company's chemical technology has its own unique characteristics, making it somewhat different from that of other chemical companies.

For example, in the diesel blending workshop that Wang Zidong's team was in charge of, the anti-knock agents and other additives were all developed by the Homo Sapiens Company itself.

Furthermore, adding urea to diesel can effectively reduce pollutant emissions. However, the Homo Sapiens Company improved upon this technology, using a genetically recombinant bacterium to modify the diesel, reducing pollutant emissions during combustion by about 76%.

...

As for Uncle Liu, who had come with Wang Zidong,

he was assigned to manage the warehouse at the Moon Hotel.

The Moon Hotel was not for accommodating Homo Sapiens Company employees, but was specifically for outside tourists.

The warehouse manager handed a tablet to Liu Bingtian. "Lao Liu, can you take stock of how many eggs and fresh vegetables we have left in the warehouse?"

"Alright." Liu Bingtian took the tablet. During his training at the Xiangjiang recruitment base, he had learned how to use various electronic devices.

After successfully controlling the tablet with voice commands, he had the system's assistant switch the interface to all Chinese.

Then, he began to check the inventory of eggs and fresh vegetables.

Currently, a large portion of these items still needed to be shipped from the Southeast Asia branch, so inventory had to be reported promptly to facilitate transfers from headquarters.

"Team Leader, do artificial eggs count as eggs?"

The team leader, who was checking the beef inventory, replied while taking notes, "Artificial eggs have their own separate list, under artificial foods."

Liu Bingtian opened the list for artificial foods and, sure enough, found the entry for artificial eggs. He looked at the labels on the shelves and then scanned them.

A large case of artificial eggs contained six 5-liter bottles of liquid artificial egg.

"Forty-seven cases left in stock."

The system would automatically use the data to calculate historical inventory changes and thereby analyze daily consumption rates.

This was also one of the key areas monitored by the company's supervision department.

After all, the number of dishes that could be made from one bottle of artificial egg could be estimated. By combining this with how many meals the hotel served and how many guests it received, the supervision department could analyze the situation with perfect clarity.

There was a metric called the "ingredient waste rate." According to the Homo Sapiens Company's scientific calculations, an excellent kitchen department should have an ingredient waste rate below 1%, with 2% being the passing mark.

If the ingredient waste rate exceeded 2%, the kitchen department of that food service enterprise would have to explain the reasons for the waste to the supervision department.

When it came to management, the Homo Sapiens Company never played with ambiguity. Instead, it organized dedicated professionals to establish strict, scientific, and reasonable standards.

This was something Li Qingye had always emphasized.

After all, ambiguous standards only made it easier for some people to engage in fraudulent activities.

Although there were conscientious New Human employees and strict Soldiers, making it difficult for natural-born employees to cause trouble, Li Qingye would not give them any opportunity for backroom dealings.

Take the Moon Hotel's kitchen management, for example. The amount of ingredients used had to correspond to the number of dishes served.

You say you used to cook at such-and-such restaurant and always used this much cooking oil and seasoning? The company's standards are too harsh? You can't meet them?

Fine. Since you can't do it, go haul bricks on a construction site. We'll find someone who can.

The Homo Sapiens Company's strictness in all production links was implemented meticulously to the very end, with absolutely no room for negotiation.

The company could tolerate its employees eating and drinking their fill, but it would never allow them to waste resources wantonly. Especially when it was avoidable, wasting resources was a shameful act. It was a matter of principle.

It was precisely because of such a strict management system, as well as a large number of self-denying, publicly devoted New Human employees and Soldiers, that internal resource waste at the Homo Sapiens Company was suppressed to a minimum, and all kinds of production efficiencies were extremely high.

If Homo Sapiens Company employees were as wasteful as Americans, and also implemented some kind of free market that allowed private operation of service industries and commerce,

then the Homo Sapiens Company would need to increase the production of many products by at least two to three times just to maintain the current standard of living.

Sometimes, so-called "scarcity" isn't due to insufficient production, but because market self-regulation has spiraled out of control, causing products to be "liberated."

This is a case of giving too much freedom.