Chapter 296 - 153: Reconnaissance (Middle)

Chapter 296: Chapter 153: Reconnaissance (Middle)

Jiang Miao wasn’t too worried about what was happening at headquarters. After all, Hailufeng Company was well past the fledgling stage of a year ago.

With all its systems well-established, and with his brother-in-law, sister, Shuya, and others on site, he didn’t have to worry about any major problems.

As for the third matter, the people who had attempted to steal Hailufeng Company’s secrets were a group from An Nan who had crossed the border from Guangxi Province.

According to the details from Jiang Haibo, the group had used illegal channels—the same ones used by migrant workers coming to cut sugarcane in Guangxi Province. From there, they had taken rural highways to reach Shanmei.

Because of this incident, the local Shanmei authorities had already filed a special report with their superiors. For the foreseeable future, any An Nan people hoping to cross into southern Guangxi Province to cut sugarcane were likely in for a rough time.

Jiang Miao also took some time to go online and investigate companies and factions in the An Nan Region that might have a motive. He found the culprits in less than two hours.

The investigation report mentioned that the culprits had a satellite phone on them. Jiang Miao used its number to trace their location.

Having a location made things simple.

"Nanyue Group?" His gaze turned icy. ’Courting death.’

Jiang Miao then followed the connection back, breaching the Nanyue Group’s internal factory network.

He saw their fish meal factories were already at half capacity and skipped right over them. His targets were the factories still in full production, like the Basa Fish fillet line.

He used an operator’s personal phone as an entry point to hack the electronic scale in the additive mixing room. He secretly recalibrated it to register double the actual weight, while ensuring the display continued to show the original numbers.

During fish fillet processing, three types of additives are generally used: water-retention agents, antioxidants, and preservatives.

The antioxidant is mainly vitamin C, and the preservative is potassium sorbate. An overuse of these two wouldn’t cause any major problems.

However, the water-retention agents—typically sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium hexametaphosphate—were a different story. Used in appropriate amounts, they maintain the moisture and texture of the fish fillets, preventing them from drying out and becoming tough during storage and cooking.

An overdose of phosphate, however, would cause the phosphorus content in the fillets to become too high. This affects the body’s ability to absorb calcium, leading to metabolic disorders and an increased risk of diseases like osteoporosis and fractures.

Of course, double the amount wasn’t actually that high. Eating it once or twice wouldn’t be a problem.

Besides, Jiang Miao had no intention of letting these products reach the market. The moment the Nanyue Group produced the tainted fillets and started exporting them, he would anonymously report them to customs in Cyrus and America, as those were the primary export markets for the Nanyue Group’s fillets.

But this alone wasn’t enough.

Jiang Miao repeated the process, this time infiltrating the Nanyue Group’s feed factory—a facility with an annual output of 800,000 tons. He was surprised to find its level of automation was quite high. It even had several advanced proportioning machines capable of injecting precise amounts of trace elements and micro-ingredients while mixing the raw materials.

These machines were computer-controlled, with preset parameters.

He ’graciously’ decided to refine their formulas, specifically targeting their primary products: feed for Basa Fish, South American white shrimp, and tilapia.

After some thought, Jiang Miao settled on the white shrimp. For one, they had a higher economic value. For another, compared to the hardy Basa Fish and tilapia, white shrimp were far more fragile.

Furthermore, Nanyue Group used most of its Basa Fish feed internally, whereas its white shrimp feed was primarily sold to local fish farmers. Once those farmers used the new ’feed’ and experienced massive die-offs, they would undoubtedly go after the Nanyue Group.

He simply adjusted the injection parameters for a few trace elements. The new formula would prevent oxygen from binding to the hemoglobin in the shrimps’ blood, causing them to suffocate and die.

With all that taken care of.

「Before he knew it, it was March 14th. Three days had passed since his arrival in Zhelimu City.」

His inspection of the branch was nearly complete. He had also restructured the management team, transferring a few potentially problematic managers back to headquarters and outright firing others.

His business at the Monan Branch wasn’t over yet, however.

This time, Jiang Miao didn’t ask Lü Weibin or the other local managers to accompany him. Instead, he took Li Zixuan, Ke Yong, and about a dozen other men in four of the branch’s pickup trucks. Their official purpose was to go ’sightseeing’ around Home County.

In reality, Jiang Miao was prospecting for ore.

Hailufeng Company actually possessed the necessary permits and licenses for mining, which it had legally obtained through its connections in the Feed Association.

However, Jiang Miao didn’t plan to begin mining immediately. Nor did he intend for Hailufeng Company to conduct the mining operations itself; he planned to establish a subsidiary for that purpose.

He was getting into mining with an eye toward the future.

With the international situation growing more tense in recent years, Jiang Miao knew he had to take precautions.

While agriculture and mining might seem unrelated, the two are actually closely linked. For instance, the raw materials for the three major fertilizers—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—and many trace element fertilizers have to be sourced through mining.

Nitrogen-based fertilizers can be synthesized from the air using coal or natural gas.

Potash and phosphate fertilizers, however, require mineral extraction. This was especially true for phosphate. The country currently mined over 100 million tons of phosphate rock annually, accounting for roughly 40% of the world’s phosphate fertilizer production. But domestic reserves were down to just over three billion tons, and much of that consisted of low-grade ore, which was too costly to refine.