Night deepened.
The whole world seemed to have fallen silent.
Dugagu, with its backward infrastructure and already scarce electricity, was even more pitch-black. Only a few lights remained on at the presidential residence and the President's Office.
"Whew-"
Having finished most of his official business, Sankara set down his pen and exhaled a stale breath, then turned his gaze to the documents Ameli had brought over earlier.
"Once I finish this pile of documents, I can pretty much go to bed."
Sankara spoke to himself as he moved the pile of documents he had temporarily set aside in front of him.
"Tick, tock, tick, tock-"
By then, the clock on the wall read 10:15 p.m.
Half an hour later.
"???"
After an initial read through some of the documents, Sankara nearly began questioning his entire existence.
"The country has a total of forty-eight million mu of land, nearly half of it irrigable farmland, yet last year's nationwide output of staple grains was only 1.2 million tonnes!? No fucking wonder people are starving to death!"
This was the first time Sankara had sworn since coming to this world.
Because he simply could not believe these figures were real!
The Republic of Burkina currently had a population of over 22 million. Even if each person consumed only 200 jin of the most basic grain a year, that would still require at least 2.2 million tonnes of grain.
Yet last year, the Republic of Burkina had imported only 280,000 tonnes of staple grains. Added to last year's staple grain output, that came to just 1.48 million tonnes, leaving a grain shortfall of nearly 32.7%.
In other words, nearly 7.2 million people across the country had no staple grains to eat!?
And that was only a preliminary figure calculated mathematically. If actual circumstances were factored in as well, such as grain having to be used to feed livestock, or the extravagant waste of high-ranking officials and the wealthy... if all those were included too.
The figure could be even more dire. Even if the final result was that over ten million people had no staple grains to eat, Sankara would not be surprised!
"No, how can it be this outrageous!?"
Sankara did have some understanding of the situation in the country. Otherwise, he would not have immediately imported a large shipment of grain from the Soviet Union at a high price after obtaining its loan, then sold it at a low price.
But he had never imagined it would be this outrageous. It had already exceeded the limits of what he, as a normal person, could imagine.
"This shouldn't be happening!"
The more Sankara thought about it, the more outrageous and strange it seemed. He leafed through the documents again, found some of the figures he wanted, and muttered to himself while calculating on scratch paper:
"The country has a total of forty-eight million mu of farmland. Although, in this world right now, each mu produces an average of only 400 jin of grain, we would still need to use less than a quarter of that land.
"In other words, using eleven million mu to grow staple grains would basically solve the problem of feeding the entire country!"
Then why could the Republic of Burkina produce only 1.2 million tonnes of staple grains a year? What was all that farmland being used for?
Sankara kept turning the pages. Then he felt that he might be too angry to sleep tonight!
Why did the Republic of Burkina, despite having 48 million mu of farmland, produce only around 1.2 million tonnes of grain each year? Why did hundreds of thousands of ordinary people still starve to death every year?
Because over 40 million mu of land across the country was being used to grow cotton!
That was right!
Sankara found the answer to the problem in the documents that followed. The country had only 48 million mu of farmland in total, and 40 million mu of it was being used to grow cotton!
As for why so much farmland was being used to grow cotton?
Naturally, it was because cotton was worth money!
Or rather, because France, the colonial master behind the Republic of Burkina, needed it. They needed the Republic of Burkina to grow cotton, then sell it to them cheaply.
They would then turn this cheaply purchased cotton into various finished products and sell them to other countries at high prices, or even sell them back to the Republic of Burkina.
Cotton that cost 200 North African francs per jin on the international market could probably be bought from the Republic of Burkina by the French for just 120 North African francs, or even less.
Then they would sell the finished products back to the Republic of Burkina at twice or even three times the international market price.
And then there were the landlords within the Republic of Burkina itself.
Although cotton prices were not much higher than grain prices, even just 1 North African franc more was still more, let alone the fact that cotton's profit margin was actually far higher than grain's.
To make money, the landlords used all their land to grow cotton.
And most importantly, nearly eighty percent of the country's land was in the landlords' hands. Of the remaining twenty percent, most was inferior farmland that was not particularly fertile and produced low yields.
As for the insufficient grain output caused by using all the farmland to grow cotton, that was not their concern.
In their own words:
"It's not like I'm the one starving to death anyway. Besides, why should I care about this problem? Don't you have money? If you don't have grain, don't you know to buy it with money? I think you're just too lazy, and that's why you're starving to death!"
"Damn it, this is going too far!"
Another curse burst from Sankara's mouth. With nowhere to vent his fury, he could only spring up from his chair and slam a fist onto the desk, using physical pain to suppress the anger inside him.
"Huff-huff-"
Sankara paced in circles, constantly taking deep breaths, trying to regain his composure this way.
Several minutes later.
Sankara regained his composure and sat back down in his chair.
Forcing down the anger inside him, Sankara opened the pile of documents detailing the country's agricultural situation again and continued reading.
"Tick, tock, tick, tock-"
Time slipped quietly by. Only after even the insects outside the window had stopped chirping did Sankara finish reading the pile of documents from beginning to end.
By then, the clock on the wall read 3:15 a.m.
Sankara had spent a full five hours successfully making himself too angry to sleep at all. His earlier remark about resting after finishing the documents had also successfully become a flag.
Now Sankara truly could not sleep a wink!
"Damn it, these aren't ordinary landlords anymore. They're a bunch of utterly black-hearted capitalists who crack bones and suck out the marrow, who won't stop until they've squeezed the last drop of blood from the people. Even American capitalists would look at them and say, 'Holy shit.' So we have to hit them with an iron fist!"
At that moment, Sankara's eyes were filled with murderous intent.
In his heart, he had already sentenced these landlords to death-and death by a thousand cuts at that!
"Tomorrow... no, this morning, I have to call the Ministry of Agriculture officials in for a meeting. And the Ministry of National Defense-they have to come too!"