Happy Tycoon

Under Mickey's explanation, a group of people came to this seed bank about three kilometers away from the urban area.

The seed bank stands on the hillside of Svalbard Mountain opposite Svalbard Airport, which has a sci-fi atmosphere. The shape of the gate of the seed vault is very similar to the corner of the alien spacecraft that invaded the earth in the American science fiction blockbuster Independence Day.

Under the leadership of Mickey, everyone walked to the seed bank along a winding road. After getting closer, Yang Jing finally felt the magnificence of this seed bank.

This section of reinforced concrete building exposed outside the mountain is just the gate of the seed bank. The height of this section of the building exceeds twelve meters, and the width is about four meters. A thick door divides the inside and outside world into two parts.

At the entrance of the gate, there is a statue of a polar bear.

Gege asked Mickey curiously, What's the purpose of erecting a statue of a polar bear here?

Mickey laughed and said: There is an interesting story about the reason why a polar bear statue was erected here. The Norwegian government planned to build a seed bank here, but here is the world of polar bears. Near this mountain And on this mountain, there are a lot of polar bears wandering every day. Facing these powerful polar bears, the builders can only show kindness and force, feed them, and defend them with guns, so that they can live in peace with them. Finally, this seed bank It was repaired. Then, after the seed vault was repaired, these polar bears became the natural protection of the seed vault. To express gratitude to the polar bears, the Norwegian government erected such a statue of a polar bear at the entrance of the seed vault.”

The group all smiled.

Mickey continued to explain: This seed bank is built on the mountainside at an altitude of 130 meters. This height is enough to ensure that even if a nuclear war breaks out in the future, all glaciers around the world will melt, and the seawater will not be flooded here. And it is everywhere. In high latitudes, it is cold all year round, and the seed bank is built in the permafrost zone, so even if the air-conditioning equipment inside fails completely, it can still be in a low temperature state all year round. In this seed bank, wheat, barley The seeds of important crops such as peas and peas can last for up to 1,000 years, and the longest-living sorghum seeds can be stored for about 19,500 years.

Yang Jing asked curiously: What is the structure inside?

Mickey shook his head and said, I haven't been inside either, but I've heard others tell about the structure inside. This seed bank is more than 100 meters deep into the mountain, and it's all made of reinforced concrete with a thickness of one meter. Its core area is three side-by-side independent cold rooms at the end of the passage, each 27 meters long, 9.5 meters wide and 5 meters high. The metal door of each cold room is covered with frost.

Currently, only one of the three cold rooms is in use, and the other two are still empty. But this cold room is also equipped with three keys, one of which is worn by the supervisor of the seed bank, and the other is held by the Norwegian government. It is unknown who is wearing the remaining key. I am afraid that only the Norwegian government knows the true identity of the wearer of the last key. Only when all three keys are collected can the cold room be opened.

Chris laughed: This level of security is comparable to the vault at Fort Knox.

Mickey nodded and said, It's about the same. Even if it's not as good as the Fort Knox vault, it's probably not far behind. This seed vault was built according to the standards that can resist nuclear bombs and earthquakes of magnitude 7 on the Richter scale. I don't know whether the atomic bomb can withstand it, but what I know is that a week before the completion of the seed bank, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 occurred here, and many buildings in Longyearbyen collapsed. But there's nothing wrong here.

Chris nodded and said, This seed bank is really strong.

Mickey said: That's natural. In addition to being sufficiently resistant to external forces, this seed bank is also absolutely commendable in terms of internal security. From the entrance to the three cold storage rooms in the core area, there is a road in the middle. There are five explosion-proof steel doors in the 100-meter-long tunnel. Without the corresponding keys and passwords, outsiders can never try to break through there violently. And in this passage, there are people patrolling with guns 24 hours a day. Especially It is the three cold storage rooms in the core area, and it is even more impossible for outsiders to enter.

After a pause, Mickey said with a smile: Less than half a month after the seed bank was built, Crown Prince Magnus of Norway came here in person and offered to take a look at the cold room in the core area, but was rejected Yes. After a while, former U.S. President Carter also came to visit the seed bank, and he also proposed to go to the cold room in the core area, but he was also rejected.

Grid asked in surprise: Is the security here so strict?

Well, it's that strict. After all, the last hope of mankind is stored here, and it is not something that anyone can enter casually. There is a saying that everyone agrees with here, that is, 'Humanity will not perish, this is the final decision' The seeds of more than 800,000 kinds of plants are stored here, and the seeds of genetically modified plants are not stored here at all, which ensures the purity of the species. Therefore, it is an important place for all human beings. However, in such a place, it is only natural that the security is so tight.”

Yang Jing asked: Then have the seeds stored here been used?

Yes. Mickey nodded affirmatively, The Syrian civil war in September 2015 killed hundreds of thousands of people and about 11 million people were forced to become refugees. In the midst of the war, the main seed bank in Aleppo in the Middle East It was damaged and unusable. The civil war in Syria prompted the Middle Easterners to take out the seeds from the 'Doomsday Seed Vault' for the first time. The Middle Easterners first applied, and after the application was approved, they took out the 325 boxes previously deposited here, totaling 11.6 Nearly 130 boxes out of 10,000 copies of crop seeds. This is the first time since the establishment of the world seed bank.

Mickey shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands, See, this is the greatness of this seed bank!

A group of people stood in front of the seed bank. The Svalbard Airport was opposite the mountain road, and the bay was to the east of the airport. Longyearbyen is in the southeast of the seed bank, and many residents and tourists are shuttling through the small town.

A female bear with two cubs appeared on the top of the mountain above the seed bank. She may have just had a full meal. The three of them just stood on the top of the mountain and watched these people silently, then shook their heads and turned away , and the two cubs behind its butt happily followed their mother while playing and running.

Farther away, the glacier on the opposite side of the bay exudes an almost golden color under the sunlight, which complements the blue sky and the sea, forming a scene more beautiful than a painting.

The air is filled with the fishy smell of the sea, mixed with the fragrance of flowers and plants. Although it is already within the Arctic Circle, there are still tenacious plants that take advantage of the warm and short two to three months of summer to grow, bloom, and bear fruit.

By any measure, the city is anything but brilliant. Bad weather, inconvenient traffic. Even food cannot be self-sufficient and can only be brought in from outside.

But it is such a small city, but it contains a kind of greatness.

That's right, it is because of the existence of this Doomsday Seed Vault that the northernmost city in the world has become great.

Perhaps in a certain year in the future, a nuclear war like that in the movie Terminator will happen on the earth, or a biochemical war like that in the movie Resident Evil will happen, or The Day After Tomorrow or even 2012 will happen. Such a disaster.

After such a disaster, if mankind wants to stand up again, this seed bank hidden deep in the mountain and the seed bank secretly built by other countries will completely become the last hope of mankind.

This city tenaciously bears the last hope of mankind all over the world with her weak body. This alone is enough to call this city great.

As if sensing Yang Jing's thoughts, Dabai leaned over, stretched out his tongue and licked Yang Jing's hand, making Yang Jing laugh. Dabai's thought was very clear - there is still me here, I will defend this city.

At this time, another group of tourists came up from the bottom of the mountain. Among these tourists, there were big and small. It seemed that a big family came out to play together. Of course, these people are also led by a local guide.

Mickey and the tour guide were obviously very close, the two greeted each other, and after a few words of greetings, Mickey led Yang Jing and the others away from the entrance of the seed bank.

Walking down the mountain, Mickey said: Actually, there is not only the seed bank we saw just now in Longyearbyen, there are also two seed banks on this mountain and the inevitable one, one is commissioned by Iceland to Norway. There is a seed bank built by the government, and a Norwegian seed bank built by the Norwegian government itself. However, the two seed banks are not so large, and they store plant seeds owned by Iceland and Norway.

In less than two hours, a group of people finished visiting this small town. Led by Mickey, the group came to a restaurant by the bay for dinner.

Dabai's arrival made the owner of the restaurant very happy. Obviously, the owner watched yesterday's live TV broadcast. However, because there were a lot of people dining in the restaurant, Yang Jing and his group were led to eat in a separate room on the east side of the restaurant. No matter how much the restaurant owner likes Dabai, he will not let Dabai appear in the restaurant.

The food for lunch is very rich, mostly local specialties, such as whale meat and seal meat.

It is worth mentioning that when Yang Jing learned that there were fresh seals here, Yang Jing directly spent 2,000 US dollars to buy a freshly caught seal, and then pushed it to the beach with a small cart, letting Dabai enjoy it there alone This seal—Dabai's meal was very bloody, of course it couldn't eat in this separate room, otherwise Yang Jing and the others wouldn't be able to eat.

Although Dabai likes to eat meat, what he prefers to eat is the fat of seals. Especially at the end of summer, many times after polar bears hunt seals, they don't eat the meat of the seals at all, but only eat the fat.

As for the remaining meat of the seals, it is cheaper for those arctic foxes who follow behind the polar bears.