The internal changes within Homo Sapiens Company went unnoticed by the outside world.
This was thanks to the company’s closed internal economy and its extremely strong capacity for secrecy.
「May 3, 2023.」
Li Qingye had been staying on Bantun Island, part of the Luzon Branch, for over half a year. In his spare time, away from his research on genetic technology, he took a moment to review the company’s internal briefing for the first quarter.
According to key metrics:
In the first quarter, Homo Sapiens Company’s results were as follows.
In the basic raw materials sector, the various subsidiaries under the Industrial Division produced a total of 270 million tons of steel, 32.27 million tons of electrolytic aluminum, 2.41 million tons of refined copper, 420 million tons of cement, 14.42 million tons of glass, 32.57 million tons of anti-fungal plastic, 73.6 billion cubic meters of methane, and 143 million tons of petroleum. They also generated 5.36 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
In the finished goods sector, they produced ships totaling 27.36 million deadweight tons, 21.13 million vehicles, 3,725 aircraft, 57.36 million mobile phones, 27.36 million laptops, 13.55 million desktop computers, 29.68 million tablets, 730,000 units of medical equipment, 1.67 million units of engineering equipment, and 75.23 million work-type exoskeleton suits.
Li Qingye wasn’t surprised by these figures. After all, the total number of Homo Sapiens Company employees was rapidly approaching the one billion mark.
According to the company’s Human Resources department:
Currently, Homo Sapiens Company has 670 million employees at its Southeast Asia Headquarters (which includes the Assam and Ceylon Branches, among others).
After some adjustments and the relocation of a portion of its natural human employees, the Dongba Branch still had 128 million.
The Mad Branch, Moon Country Branch, Seven Sisters Island Branch, and Maldives Branch combined had 34 million employees.
The Suez Branch had 121 million employees.
The newly established West Pacific Branch had 21 million employees.
This brought the total number of employees to a massive 974 million.
Furthermore, the number of migrant workers in the first quarter of this year reached a new high, with an increase of 27.63 million.
The largest source of these migrant workers was Tianzhu, followed by the Far East, An Nan, East Japan, Xiba, South Korea, and a number of small East African nations.
Li Qingye looked up. "Bagheera, why has the number of migrant workers from the Far East dropped? I recall there being 8.76 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Why has it fallen by over a million?"
Bagheera, head of the Internal Affairs Division, quickly replied,
"Sir, it’s because the Far East Region recently improved many of its social benefits. Additionally, the fungal crisis has triggered a massive replacement cycle for plastic products, so their factories are running at full capacity."
Li Qingye raised an eyebrow. "I see. It seems the pressure we’re putting on them is forcing them to change."
Bagheera had a clear picture based on data from both the Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs Divisions.
"Yes, Sir. But according to our assessment, it’s a desperate measure. With the worsening foreign trade environment, their domestic consumption is ultimately limited. And since they aren’t self-sufficient in many resources, the underlying problems are just being temporarily masked."
Li Qingye remained noncommittal, asking with curiosity, "How are the real estate prices in Tuchuan?"
"The same as always. They’ve stagnated."
Li Qingye smiled. "Then I can rest easy. It seems we can still excavate more human resources from the Far East."
When it came to absorbing human resources from other regions, Homo Sapiens Company had a policy of turning no one away.
Unlike other powers, Homo Sapiens Company viewed all human resources as valuable. They were willing to unconditionally accept anyone, from highly-skilled professionals to ordinary laborers.
The reason was simple: Homo Sapiens Company possessed bio-chips and other new technologies that could rapidly transform ordinary workers into highly skilled talent. Therefore, a large population was not a burden but an accelerator for growth.
Furthermore, by siphoning off human resources from other regions, the company could effectively cripple their rivals’ growth potential.
Once human civilization entered the twenty-first century, it became a foregone conclusion that small, sparsely populated nations could not sustain a fully industrialized, all-encompassing supply chain.
The benchmark for being "small and sparsely populated" was having a population below 300 million.
In other words, only a handful of powers in the world were qualified to maintain a complete industrial chain.
Why was Lucia’s industrial development so poor? Because with a market of only 140 million people, it simply couldn’t sustain a complete industrial chain.
Currently, only four powers in the world possessed relatively complete industrial chains: Homo Sapiens Company, the Far East, America, and the European Union.
A glance at the human resources and geographical regions of these powers revealed just how demanding the requirements were to operate a complete industrial chain.
A population of three hundred million was just the starting point.
One also needed sufficient resources, a high-quality populace, and a stable, well-developed internal environment to maintain the operation of the entire industrial chain.
All of these conditions were indispensable.
Take Tianzhu, for example. It had a sufficient population and territory, but unfortunately, the severe remnants of its caste system and an extremely hostile internal business environment held it back.
Or consider Kangaroo Country: vast territory, abundant resources, and a relatively stable domestic situation, but its population was far too small.
Then there was the Redwood Federation in South America. Its population and resources were barely adequate, but its economy was secretly controlled by America, which treated it as an economic colony to be perpetually harvested.
Most people understand the importance of mineral resources to a major power.
But few realize that human and market resources are just as crucial.
Homo Sapiens Company was now aggressively siphoning human resources from other regions precisely to shrink their rivals’ available labor pools and markets.
Although Homo Sapiens Company faced overt and covert boycotts from the world’s major powers in global trade, the human resources it "harvested" indirectly captured a portion of the global market—and that capture was permanent.
A population is a market.
For a mega-corporation to achieve a self-sustaining internal economy, it needs a massive workforce to support it.
And the human resources devoured by such a mega-corporation are permanently removed from the free market.
In other words, with Homo Sapiens Company’s total workforce at 974 million, the free market had effectively lost the market share equivalent to 974 million consumers.
This was nearly one-eighth of the entire global population.
Losing a market of 974 million people meant that the economies of the powers championing the free market would inevitably decline.
Market resources, much like mineral resources, were critically important to every nation in the current global landscape.
And since market resources are inextricably linked to every living person, it is nearly impossible to create new markets out of thin air.
The reason Homo Sapiens Company was met with hostility from Europe and America was that after absorbing all those human resources, it did not open its internal market to them.
To be precise, Homo Sapiens Company did, in fact, abide by the rules of free trade.
However, the company’s products were extremely competitive, and it could precisely regulate the consumption habits of its entire workforce.
Under these conditions, so-called "free trade" lost all meaning; it was impossible for outsiders to gain a foothold in Homo Sapiens Company’s internal market.
Moreover, Homo Sapiens Company was constantly seizing the remaining resources in the free market as well.
Homo Sapiens Company had established numerous trading firms in Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and Latin America, propping up local collaborators to seize market share.
Through countless open conflicts and covert struggles, Homo Sapiens Company had already secured a dominant position in the global medical, mining, agricultural, food, and transportation sectors.
This situation was extremely detrimental to industrial and financial nations.
However, for agrarian and resource-based nations, as long as Homo Sapiens Company was willing to support them, their development was quite promising.
Take Persia, for instance. Through a series of collaborations with Homo Sapiens Company, Persia sold its oil and natural gas to the company and, in turn, purchased agricultural and industrial goods from it.
Besides consuming a portion of these products domestically, Persia also engaged in re-export trade, selling large quantities of Homo Sapiens Company’s products to the Central Asia Region. As a result, their standard of living improved dramatically.
Similarly, small coastal nations in the Africa Region also used re-export trade to help Homo Sapiens Company expand its market into Inland Africa.
Homo Sapiens Company was simultaneously siphoning global human resources while expanding its markets. This two-pronged squeeze placed immense pressure and impact on the world’s industrial and financial nations.