I See through Everything

Meanwhile, at Nanhu Farm, renovations on the 500 mu of newly leased greenhouse farmland were proceeding rapidly following the completion of the rice harvest.

At the Nanhu Edible Mushroom Base, the planting of 30 mu of White Truffles had begun in mid-July, spread across six batches. The first batch, covering 5 mu, was expected to be ready for harvest in late October.

Likewise, as more greenhouses were constructed, the tissue-cultured Tomato and Ginseng Fruit seedlings from the lab were transplanted into them, row after row.

The Tomatoes would be ready for harvest three months after transplanting, beginning in mid-to-late October.

The Ginseng Fruit would follow four months after transplanting, with harvests beginning in mid-to-late November.

This expansion of production capacity also caused the employee count at Hailufeng Company to swell, with the total number now approaching the 600 mark.

The breakdown was: 114 at headquarters (including reserve employees), 86 at Nanhu Farm, 124 at the Salt Town Farm (including reserve employees for the Yandun Mountain Breeding Farm), 88 at the pier cannery (including reserve employees for the Yandun Mountain Fish Ball Factory), 92 at the Yandun Mountain Feed Factory, and 25 at the Meilong Gold and Silver Processing Plant.

Additionally, there were 18 field sales staff in the Sales Department, 11 at the Qiongzhou Branch, 5 at the City Gold Store, and 7 at the City Specialty Store.

Totaling 570 people.

And these were just the official employees; the South Sea Farm also had a dozen or so temporary workers.

Next, the fish ball factory would also need to hire many female workers for fish processing. However, a large portion of them would likely be full-time employees. After all, it was a semi-automated production line; the staff wouldn’t have to gut the fish themselves, but they would certainly need to handle the meat separated by the machinery.

The management team for the real estate company was gradually falling into place.

The general manager of the Hailufeng Real Estate Company was Su Xiaoqiang. He had previously worked as a project manager at a branch of a small real estate company in Yangcheng.

However, after his boss was sent to prison, Su Xiaoqiang’s job disappeared. Coupled with the difficult real estate market in recent years, he became willing to work for the Hailufeng Company.

Jiang Miao had reviewed his resume and personally interviewed him. He felt the man’s professional skills were adequate, but his personality was relatively "Zen"—which was one of the reasons he was chosen.

After all, Jiang Miao wanted subordinates who were honest and obedient; overly ambitious managers wouldn’t even be on his radar.

As the company continued to expand, some departments and business sectors were also gradually being restructured.

Following the consolidation of agricultural operations into their own division,

the cannery, fish ball factory, and breeding farm were also recently merged and consolidated under the unified management of a new Aquatic Aquaculture Division, with his brother-in-law Zhang Xincheng as manager and Li Xinhua as deputy manager.

Next, a Feed Division was established to oversee the feed factory, with Fang Yi temporarily serving as manager.

The gold and silver processing plant, the gold store, the specialty store, and the headquarters’ central kitchen were merged into a new Brick-and-Mortar Commerce Division, with his sister Jiang Xia appointed as manager.

The Online Store Department was renamed the E-commerce Division, with Zhang Xinyi continuing as manager.

Thus, Hailufeng Agricultural Technology Company now comprised eight headquarters departments: Human Resources, Finance, Legal, Sales, Purchasing, Logistics, Attendance, and R&D.

In addition to three offices: the Chairman’s Office, the General Manager’s Office, and the Environmental Protection Office.

There were also five business divisions: the Agricultural Planting Division, the Aquatic Aquaculture Division, the Feed Division, the Brick-and-Mortar Commerce Division, and the E-commerce Division.

Finally, there were two branch companies and one independent real estate company.

Lü Weibin, who had just been appointed manager of the Agricultural Planting Division, was also so busy lately that his feet barely touched the ground. Fortunately, he didn’t need to worry about Nanhu Farm, as most of the work there was already on track.

His real headache was leasing land in the city and in Hai Feng County for the durian plantations.

Hai Feng County had 350,000 mu of hills and 500,000 mu of mountains. Adding the hilly and mountainous terrain in the city district, it seemed entirely possible to lease tens of thousands of mu.

In fact, it was indeed easy to lease land.

The problem was that most of the available land was fragmented and couldn’t be consolidated into a single large tract, which would inevitably increase management complexity and production costs.

Lü Weibin had no choice but to call in some favors. He started by using his connections in Magong Town and Red Grass Town to secure 14,000 mu of barren mountain land across more than a dozen villages.

This land was divided into three main parcels: the Yandun Mountain Area (3,829 mu), the Nanfen Qingcao Area (5,811 mu), and the Pubei North Mountain Area (5,409 mu).

After securing this land, the only remaining parcels were hillsides that already contained orchards. Dealing with these would be extremely complicated, so Lü Weibin abandoned the idea of expanding the durian plantations any further within the city district.

He turned his attention to Gongping Town in Hai Feng County.

With the Magong Town government acting as an intermediary, Lü Weibin, representing the Hailufeng Company, reached a cooperation agreement with the government of Gongping Town. The plan was to invest in a 50,000-mu durian plantation there.

Although the Gongping Town leadership found it hard to believe, they weren’t about to refuse such a massive cash investment from the Hailufeng Company.

They quickly allocated six plots of forest land to the Hailufeng Company, totaling 52,000 mu.

But acquiring so much land didn’t mean they could start planting immediately.

A lot of preparatory work was needed first, such as building simple roads, constructing small reservoirs, laying irrigation pipes, establishing plantation management stations, clearing trees and large rocks from the wilderness, building firebreaks, and finally, planting the *Ceiba speciosa* trees.

This investment was estimated to cost several hundred million yuan.

However, the investment would be well worth it.

Once the 66,000 mu of durian trees were planted, by August 2027, they could harvest approximately 264,000 tons of durian.

Even at a wholesale price of 30,000 yuan per ton, those 264,000 tons would be worth 7.92 billion yuan.

Of course, this was only a preliminary estimate, as durian cultivation is susceptible to the weather, especially typhoons.

This was why Lü Weibin, when selecting the plantation sites, had specifically chosen areas that didn’t directly face the South Sea, hoping to avoid the direct brunt of typhoons.

However, his worries were somewhat superfluous. Jiang Miao had already prepared for this; the durian varieties he was currently researching were all dwarf types. This was partly for ease of harvesting, but also specifically for typhoon resistance.