1890 King of Southeast Asia

Central America, Panama.

Like other small countries in North and South America, Panama does not have much industry, and its mainstay is the plantation economy.

In the plantations, coffee, bananas, pineapples, and sugar cane are mainly grown. Of course, the current hot product - rubber is indispensable.

Like all countries in Central and South America, Panama has a long history of rubber planting and a mature industry.

After the advent of the electrical age, Panama also caught up with the times. The rubber forests continued to expand, and the income from the rubber industry once reached more than 20% of the country's fiscal revenue.

The prosperous economy inspired Panama's pride, and they could strongly reject the Americans' Panama Canal plan.

However, three years ago, oh! Now it's four years ago, a crisis appeared.

"I'm very sorry, we tried many ways, but we couldn't cure them."

Le Tianci looked at the withered rubber forest and said regretfully to the owner of the plantation and the officials who were listening.

"But we are not without discovery. Through comparative analysis of diseased plants and normal plants, we found a fungus that only exists in diseased plants. We think that this fungus is likely to cause South American leaf blight."

Le Tianci is the head of the special project of Nanhua Rubber Research Institute. In 1905, rubber trees in Panama's rubber plantation suddenly became sick and died on a large scale.

The first sign of diseased rubber trees is the leaves, which wither and fall off, and new leaves stop growing;

When all the leaves fall off, the rubber tree basically loses photosynthesis and cannot synthesize enough starch. The rubber tree begins to consume stored energy - used to make new leaves, but it is all in vain;

In the next stage, the heart of the rubber tree begins to turn black, and the plant enters the last stage of life, but until it dies completely, rubber can be tapped - it will only accelerate the death of the plant.

After Nanhua received the news, it did not take it seriously at first. It is normal for trees to wither. Maybe it is caused by climate change?

But things changed soon, and this change made Nanhua pay attention.

In 1906, before the Panamanian rubber dieback incident was over, similar incidents occurred in Costa Rica and Colombia.

Their common point: they all broke out in commercially operated rubber plantations, but only hit one or several rubber plantations.

This incident quickly attracted the attention of Nanhua. Isn't this an infectious disease? High mortality rate leads to low diffusion ability?

So, at the end of 1906, the Rubber Research Institute of Nanhua Botanical Research Institute submitted an application to the Panamanian authorities, hoping to conduct research here.

In 1907, this request was approved, and in the middle of the year, dozens of organizations and individual researchers from more than a dozen countries gathered together.

Le Tianci was one of them, responsible for the administrative operation and management of the entire team.

These people soon discovered the fungus that caused the South American leaf blight, and then began to try to kill these fungi.

However, no organization or individual came up with an effective solution.

It is of course easy to kill fungi simply, such as spraying a large amount of chemicals. Many chemicals can kill fungi and rubber trees.

Only killing the fungus and keeping the rubber trees, not to mention the pollution to the land, the cost alone is unacceptable to the plantation owners.

Fortunately, research shows that the fungus is not very contagious - if the rubber is not in large areas, the diseased plants will hardly affect other plants.

For some reason, Nanhua's research continued until the beginning of 1909, and all the disease samples were collected.

"This may be the Lord's choice. My God, there are almost 200,000 people working in the rubber forest. Lord! Have mercy on your believers..." Hearing that there was no way out, an official sobbed softly.

I don't know if he was pitying those poor slaves or pitying his own rubber plantation.

"Dear Dr. Le, you have been studying for the longest time. I want to know if you have discovered the way this disease spreads. We can't do anything about the destroyed plantations, but we hope to defend the healthy plantations." An old white man said.

He is the owner of this plantation, and he has more than a dozen large plantations under him, mainly planting sugarcane and coffee; there are also several processing plants. Dr. Le is the title disguised by Le Tianci.

Yes, that's right. Le Tianci is affiliated with the Plant Research Institute of the South China Intelligence Department. He mainly studies plant toxins. His sideline is to study the harmfulness of seeds or plants brought back by SCI from all over the world.

"Isolation, absolute isolation, can effectively reduce the risk of infection, but, you know, Panama is too small, and the flow of people will also increase this risk." Le Tianci gave the answer.

"Or, increase the distance between plants, the distance is more than 500 meters, the possibility of infection will be reduced, but strong winds and heavy rains will also increase the possibility of infection.

Or find new alternative crops, maybe there are some varieties that are immune to this fungus." Le Tianci said a lot in one breath.

The old man was silent for a while: "In other words, commercial large-scale planting is no longer meaningful, right?"

"Father, we only need isolation, we can do..."

"Shut up, I didn't ask you!" The old man glanced at his son behind him.

"From the perspective of cost, risk, and benefit, it may be better to switch to sugarcane or coffee." Le Tianci nodded.

"Yes, instead of taking a huge risk and betting that the rubber trees will not get sick, it is better to plant sugarcane. At least, you can see the harvest in one year..." The old man did not have too much reluctance, but smiled.

It takes five to seven years from planting to harvesting rubber. The harvest is very high, but in the face of this risk, the income is not very attractive.

Panama does not have many people, and the workers who harvest rubber are all working everywhere. In this case, it is a joke to completely isolate the rubber forest.

Unless you raise workers yourself, but the cost is too high. Except for harvesting, rubber forests do not need anyone to take care of them. This is the charm of rubber plantations, low cost and high income.

Use slaves? Not to mention that slavery has been abolished in name, the cost of Panamanian rubber is already much higher than that of Southeast Asian rubber. If the cost is increased, there will not be much profit. It is better to plant sugarcane than to have slaves.

Moreover, the cost of using slaves is much higher than that of hiring workers...

...

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Le Tianci took a dozen researchers and left the plantation. After two days of bumpy ride in a carriage, they arrived at the west coast, where an ordinary passenger ship was parked.

Climbing aboard and entering the second deck, the lights came on, and various experimental equipment told the difference here - this is a world-class laboratory, although there is nothing to praise in the eyes of later generations.

"Tianci, how many spores have you collected?" The captain came over and naturally put his left hand on Le Tianci's shoulder.

"It's okay. This time we harvested about 300 grams. With a little cultivation, we can cover several large plantations." Le Tianci opened the suitcase and took out a jar from it.

The spores of dead leaf fungi are very heavy, heavier than water. If they are in nature, they can only spread a few hundred meters at most.

"It's a pity that artificial cultivation will degenerate at most to the fifth generation, otherwise there would be no need to collect plants so troublesomely." The captain took the jar and looked at the powder inside.

"I will send this thing to Brazil later, and then we can go back home." The captain stretched and was a little excited.

"Don't be so excited. Your children won't recognize you when you go home." Le Tianci opened the refrigerator expressionlessly and took out a bottle of Coke.

"How is that possible? Although my daughter was only one year old when I left, she already knew how to call me dad. I also sent her many photos. She must remember me!" The captain retorted loudly.

"What are we doing this time?" Le Tianci took a sip of Coke and made a refreshing sound.

"Investigate a certain fungus?" The captain looked around. No one? Are you trying to fool me?

"What are the hazards of this fungus?" Le Tianci looked at Coke with some regret. He still liked beer, but he tried not to drink during the mission, not to mention that this was in the laboratory.

"I know that it makes the rubber leaves wither. It won't affect our return. At most, it will be sterilized and inactivated. What's the big deal? It's just half a month of isolation." The captain said in a puzzled tone.

"We have not found an effective means of fungal inhibition. In other words, you and I are now a high-risk group, and terrorists who may destroy an industry with an annual output value of hundreds of millions of yuan at any time." Le Tianci took another sip.

"For safety reasons, I can already realize what we will experience when we return home."

"First, we will be arranged to an isolated island far away from the islands. All our personal belongings will undergo at least three full-scale disinfection and sterilization, and our clothes will be burned directly."

"We will be isolated on the island with the rubber seedlings for half a month. If the rubber trees are still healthy after half a month, we will go to another isolated island with the people who disinfected us for a second disinfection."

"I know all this, it complies with the safety procedures." The captain took out a bottle of beer. He didn't like to drink it, but it could make Le Tianci irritable.

"What about shaving?"

"Shaving hair will grow back in a few days."

"This time, there will be eyebrows, beards, and some unspeakable places... cough! Are you sure that your daughter can recognize you without eyebrows and beards?" Le Tianci's mouth corners slightly curled up.

"Beard?" The captain is 31 years old, with a beard, and he has grown a beard according to Chinese tradition.

"Captain, the last batch of goods has been unloaded." The first mate interrupted them.

"Set sail, next stop is Peru." The captain nodded to Le Tianci and placed the small jar of spores on the table.

"Send a message to the Peruvian United Copper Mining Development Group, the Hermes passenger ship has set sail and is expected to arrive at the port in four days. Let the "guests" set off and wait at the port."

Le Tianci heard the captain's roar outside and couldn't help but grin.

"Hermes... a simple business war..."