The town of 'Zaranj' at the westernmost point of Aqionghan...
As the town in Balochistan Province closest to Iran, it is not dominated by either Aqionghan or Iranians, but by the local Pashtuns and Balochistan people.
This was the starting point in the 1990s for the CIA to popularize poppy cultivation techniques, and it is also the core region of the Golden Crescent drug economy.
Refining heroin requires not only raw opium but also a series of chemical substances...
High-yield drought-resistant genetically modified poppy seeds, fertilizers, processing materials, these are all things Aqionghan itself lacks.
Out of the 30 million people in Aqionghan, about a tenth rely on the heroin industrial chain for their livelihood, most of whom are farmers.
However, farmers can never access the largest dividends of the industrial chain. The raw opium they cultivate and extract, when sold to warlords, can at most ensure they make a living.
