Lu Ming

Page 268

At this point, the host and guest smiled knowingly, and everything was silent.

At this point, the peripheral audience all smiled knowingly, as if what everyone heard and saw was the same thing.

But that's not the case.

For most of the people who eat melons, Cao Zongbing took his subordinates to Haidong this time to teach the Samoyed country who dared to block the trade route.

As far as Xiong Wencan and other well-informed dignitaries from all walks of life, Cao Zongbing took his subordinates to sea this time to teach the Annan people to grab the territory.

Only the people who traveled across knew that this trip to the sea was not only for Annan, but also to avoid the imperial court's conscript and not to give Emperor Chongzhen an excuse.

After the scene with Xiong Wencan was finished, a group of officials from various yamen in Guangzhou came forward to congratulate.

As for the military officers before the Ming Dynasty, they couldn't make such a big picture.Not to mention going out to "suppress bandits", even if the new general takes office, few civil officials will come to congratulate him.

However, times have changed, and the surname Cao has clearly become a trend now. The tiger occupies the southeast and covers the sky with one hand. ... A good man doesn't suffer from immediate losses... Cao thief has a lot of money and wealth, and he comes to corrupt the official every day... I can't bear it anymore, let's make connections first.

After exchanging cordial and brotherly greetings with a group of civil servants, according to the usual practice, it should be a session for everyone to go back to the city to eat, drink and listen to music.

But this time there are more procedures.

In the next moment, representatives of foreign businessmen from various countries, who had already prepared well and dressed in costumes, lined up.

Seeing the sudden appearance of a large number of Semu people, the crowd of onlookers suddenly whispered.

But that's about it.These blond (red-haired, black-haired, brunette) and blue-eyed gringos showed up and caused little sensation.In previous years, in Guangzhou City, Gein would also see Frangji people regularly.

Xiong Wencan, who had already made preparations, received envoys from various countries one by one.

The procedure is very simple: businessmen line up to bow and salute, and then hand over letters and gift lists written by the governors of East Asia to the governors of the Ming Dynasty.

After Lao Xiong's subordinate took over the document, he said a few words of encouragement, regardless of whether the foreigner could understand it or not, it was dismissed.

Soon, the procedure was short and convenient, but the significant opening-door New Deal completed the historic first order.

On the Lady Jacob, which was not far from the pier, Crowley and Old William's uncle and nephew watched the whole play with relish.

After all the welcome procedures were completed, it was almost noon.At this point in time, the bosses are naturally going to the city to spend their time, and most of the rest of the people are also scattered.And the fleet, which had been in a spectacular formation on the White Swan Pool before, finally came to the moment to disperse and go home. The main battleship turned around and went to the downstream Huangpu Naval Port. The guests, including all the trading ships, all went to the pier in the new area.

Crowley and the others can finally set foot on land now.

In order to welcome the first batch of foreign businessmen, the new area has already made preparations in terms of quarantine, trade, and tourism training.

Chapter 606 Crowley's Fantasy Journey (seven)

Although it is the first time for merchant ships from various countries to come to Guangzhou New Area, how should I put it, most people are very comfortable with it.

To put it bluntly, the new district is an enlarged and upgraded version of Taijiang.For foreign businessmen who often do business with time-traveling forces, the unfamiliar new area makes them feel familiar.Everything here is neat, clean and full of vitality. The unique social rhythm that gathers a large number of people but is orderly makes it unforgettable for maritime merchants who are used to the dirty and chaotic port cities of this era.

Sure enough, a familiar routine, a familiar taste.

The European-style sailboat that followed the frigate to the port of the new area was first towed to the familiar pier by the familiar pilot boat.

Like the Taijiang River, the wharves in the new district are all trapezoidal wharves made of concrete poured with large gabion nets.The difference is that the number of piers in the new area is larger, wider and longer, each of which can accommodate two large sailboats on the left and right.

After disembarking at the designated pier, as expected, there is a hotel area not far away that is specially used to accommodate a large number of foreign sailors.

The hotel area is much larger.Like Taijiang, it has clean beds and a late-night bar.

Considering that the drunkards on the Taijiang side often fight, more bars with different themes have been added in the new area, such as Jack Sparrow Rum Bar and Aoi Gai Noh Izakaya.

The scumbags from different countries now have their own territory and don't have to mix together.

The hotel area is still red brick houses, still isolated by walls, and there are still health and epidemic prevention personnel on standby 24 hours a day.

Thanks to the advanced imported infrared components, epidemic prevention personnel can use the most convenient way to measure body temperature to monitor large-scale infectious diseases.

Most infectious diseases, including colds, which are considered killers in this day and age, begin with a rise in body temperature as the first symptom.In this city where there is a large influx of foreigners, wherever there are crowds, including hotel areas and workers' residential areas, quarantine personnel will measure the body temperature every morning and evening in order to isolate problematic persons in a timely manner.

Quarantine is the most effective way of epidemic prevention under current conditions.With the weak chemical sanitation system, there is no way to prevent and control after the event. We can only use this "discovery-isolation" method to block the spread of large-scale infectious diseases.

As for the post-quarantine... If the quarantined person is lucky, the cold can still be cured, and they will be fine in a few days.If it is another disease, after the doctor's identification is completed, you can only resign yourself to fate. Anyway, there is no cure, and it depends on your own immunity to fight your luck.

Western sailors skillfully accepted infrared body temperature measurement at the pier, and then poured into the bathhouse in the hotel area to bathe, eat and sleep skillfully.

These scumbags knew very well that they would not be let out in the first few days, so they all recharged their batteries and prepared to go to the bar to have a good time at night.

The lives of sailors at the bottom have nothing to do with those at the top.

Although Crowley and Old William were also monitored, they went to the business district afterwards.

In this day and age, the East India Companies of various countries themselves perform diplomatic functions, so the business district is the diplomatic district.The construction of this area also started very early. The geographical location is superior, occupying a scenic area along the river, and it is not far from the administrative center of the new area, so it can get good travel and security services.

Public construction funds, including roads and greening, are provided by the government of the new district in the business district.However, the commercial halls of various countries are provided by their respective East India companies, which are regarded as pre-ordered goods.

Since the client is not a Ming person, in the end, these shops are built according to the customs of various countries as much as possible. This is not difficult for travelers who have a lot of architectural history materials in their hands.Various Gothic styles, Victorian styles, and Nordic styles, which are familiar to later generations, all appear in the embassy area.

However, due to the lack of building materials and skilled workers, most of these stylized buildings have become a little bit different... four different.Well, anyway, the British don't know what Victorian style is. They are busy plotting to cut off the head of Charles I, so let's make use of it.

Crowley lived in such a "mansion", which was the old William's sincere praise for the Dutch business house, and Crowley agreed with it: it has a running water system with its own small boiler, beautiful tiled bathrooms and The toilets, the dining room filled with ornate Chinese china and the wonderful western fireplaces all wowed the merchants.

After enjoying the comfortable sanitation service and delicious Chinese seafood dinner in the mall, Crowley finally stood on the rooftop of the mall at nightfall and saw the "City of Paradise" repeatedly mentioned by Old William.

The night view of the city that future generations see every day is the most shocking miracle in this era.Even if this night scene is only at the county level, the large sparks at the entrance are enough to make Crowley, who has just arrived, dumbfounded.

Hastily dragging old William out of the shop, Crowley got into a four-wheeled carriage with glass windows.

For the rich, the city is warm and kind.The beautiful carriage was driving slowly on the beautiful hardened road, and Crowley sat in the car, constantly looking at the glowing gas street lamps and the lighted windows on both sides of the road.

In the strange feeling of being bright and dark at the same time, the carriage walked silently for a long time.However, in the end, Crowley still couldn't believe all of this: How many gold coins would the ruler burn in one night for the dense streetlights in a whole city?

"How do Easterners do all this? Are they really that rich?"

Old William chuckled and took a sip of his rum before telling his nephew that as far as he knew, Easterners were as poor as Europeans, and most of the legendary wealth stories were lies.And only in the territory of the Earl of the East will such a bright city appear.

While speaking, the carriage came to a very noisy market.The interpreter of the store, which comes standard with the carriage, pointed to the large stone archway at the entrance of the street and told the two gentlemen: This is called "Zhuangyuan Restaurant".

In seventeenth-century Europe, the dark streets were filled with theft, betrayal and murder.In any city in this era, the streets at night are unsafe places.Even in the warm tavern in the film and television drama, in reality, there are only a few candles lit, which are used to provide a place for whispering schemers in the shadows.

Crowley got lost in the bright and noisy night market.

The night market is full of people, mostly young men and women, but there are also middle-aged people with tired faces.

Crowley noticed that most of the people who came here were low-level people wearing short T-shirts—he could now roughly distinguish the ranks of Eastern citizens.

A gentleman wearing a later-style suit just like this novelty mixed in the crowd and drifted with the crowd.He saw the food stalls hung with gas lamps, the young men and women fighting wantonly, and the vitality and safety of the city.

Next, together with the old William, the gentlemen tasted some novel oriental food: grilled squid, rice noodles, grilled oysters, milk and eggs fermented glutinous rice.

Finally, after reaching out his cuffs to wipe off the grease from the corners of his mouth, Old William said meaningfully: "I think, even with the revenue from the night market, the earl is enough to pay for the lighting expenses."

After thinking about it, Crowley agreed.

A trip to the city at night will make the gentlemen return home full of energy.Of course, the belly can be regarded as a rewarding experience.

After returning to the shop, Crowley found that many equally excited merchants gathered in the bright smoking room to chat, so he joined in, and they didn't go to sleep until midnight.

Crowley, who came to the modern city for the first time, spent the next week in novelty.

This week, his main task was to accompany Old William on business.

First of all, the old William sold all the saltpeter in the warehouse of the Lady Jacob to the Ministry of Commerce in accordance with the previous contract.The saltpeter and the proceeds from the sale of horses in Hongji Port, Old William settled the account in one lump sum.

Next, Old William and other merchants on board will also look for buyers at the port's exchange to sell other traditional goods in the warehouse, such as Indonesian spices, Indian cotton yarn, gemstones, rice and mahogany.

In addition to business activities, Crowley also followed the old William to visit those old friends.In fact, this kind of visit to the powerful is the most important business behavior of Old William, because he can get opportunities that others cannot get.

For example, to participate in the "Guangao Expressway" foundation stone laying ceremony.

In this plane, there is no opportunity for the development of Hong Kong Island.The Guangzhou New District, which was opened hundreds of years earlier, has actually undertaken all the foreign trade and business activities of Hong Kong in the old world.

As for the Guang'ao Expressway, after traveling across the continent, the strongest voice has been uttered in terms of governance: If you want to get rich, build roads first. This sentence is an unbreakable truth of the plane.

1632年4月25日，农历3月初7日，宜开业、动土、迁宅、修坟。

Located outside the Great South Gate in the south of the old city of Guangzhou, there are already crowds of people waving colorful flags. The originally cramped prime location in Guanxiang, where every inch of land was occupied by merchants, has now been demolished to a large vacant lot, with walls of some houses in the distance On the top, there is still the word "demolition" circled in white and gray.

Thanks to the old William, Crowley took the top spot at the concierge desk set up in advance at the gate of the city today.

A loud voice overwhelmed the noisy scene and was floating in the sky: "Leaders, guests, foreign friends, Hong Kong and Macao...indigenous people, today, I am excited..."

After a long time, after a certain chief executive from the Ministry of Communications finished his stereotyped speech, the two red-robed officials sitting on the guest table raised their arms, surrounded by many old-fashioned officials in long robes and time-travelers in suits. Next, the collective came to the foundation laying pit where the monument had been inserted.

Immediately afterwards, Crowley saw a strange oriental custom: a circle of oriental dignitaries, bowed their waists, pouted their buttocks, shoveled about a pound of soil with a shovel, and collectively looked at the strange machine that was continuously flashing... …with smiles on their faces and motionless, like zombies.

Chapter 607 Crowley's Fantasy Journey ([-])

Roads are the foundation of a regime.

Just like human blood vessels, the more developed the road, the smoother the blood flow, and the full mobilization and utilization of various nutrients will naturally strengthen the body.The reason why industrial countries have social resource mobilization capabilities that far exceed those of agricultural countries is that the upper limit is determined by the construction of basic transportation.

From the old city of Guangzhou to Macau, the straight line is 110 kilometers.This distance is not too long for a country with a territory of thousands of miles.But if the foundation of this 110-kilometer road section was dug and paved with gravel asphalt in the seventeenth century, the road would be too long.

In ancient times, the county magistrate wanted to make political achievements, even if he only planned to build a dirt road several miles long, he had to put down his dignity and go to a wealthy family to beg for alms.

The future is not easy either.The cost per kilometer of a standard plain expressway is 3000 million.When building bridges and drilling tunnels in mountainous water towns, the cost will still be rolled upwards.

In fact, even in the future of economic globalization, there are still many countries that cannot afford to build a highway.Only 200 of the nearly 80 countries in the world have highways.Among the 80 countries, the top two accounted for most of the road mileage.

Yes, the combined mileage of all the countries behind is not as much as that of China and the United States combined.

Such a huge investment in highways means that the new generation of citizens after the country is prosperous and powerful will be accustomed to it, thinking that this thing is probably the same as the vegetable market at the door, it is the county magistrate... maybe it is the government? ...Things that can be repaired if you want... Gou Ri must have approved two bids for my brother-in-law.

However, what most citizens don’t know and don’t care about is that in many impoverished third world countries, a 110-kilometer expressway cannot be built with all the efforts of the country. This is really expensive, and it really doesn’t exist.

Such an expensive road, in the new world, naturally, Xiong Wencan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi in history, could not repair it.However, Lu Xun said that there is no road at first, but when more travelers come, there will be a road.

The Guang-Ao Expressway, which started to break ground today, is only a two-way, two-lane county-level asphalt and gravel road, but in the seventeenth century, it was a proper high-speed standard.

The benefits of building roads to the country and the political power will be known to future generations.In this era, the so-called "official roads" that connect the country's urban and rural areas are actually just concave dirt roads that sink below the water level, and the road surface is full of deep ruts and mud.Only in the city can you see some sidewalks paved with stone slabs.

So once the road is completed, then in the Pearl River Delta region with the wealthiest population and the largest population in the late Ming Dynasty, the "benevolent act" of crossing the forces is tantamount to making an indelible advertisement for oneself.Whether it is the poor who have never seen the world, or the landlord class who is often forced by the government to spend money to build roads and bridges, there will be a huge psychological shock in the future.

Coupled with the ability of the road to promote the regional economy, the ability to gather resources, and the ability to mobilize military forces... the benefits of all aspects will increase the power of the crossing regime over the basic market to a large level.

But still the same sentence: the fruit is delicious and the tree is hard to plant.

To be honest, the time-traveling regime was able to announce the groundbreaking of the Guang-Ao Expressway today, which was planned for a long time by the decision-making circle. After many rounds of online and offline arguments, meetings, and mobilization, it finally made a big decision.

Walking in a straight line from the Great South Gate of Guangzhou to Macau, the natural conditions along the way are harsh, with primitive vegetation and water swamps all over the place.The most daunting thing is the Pearl River system.

Where there are water systems, bridges must be built.In the early field surveying and mapping, the dense cobweb-like water system in the Middle Ages indicates that the Guang-Ao Expressway will be built with a number of temporary bridges far exceeding the number of future generations.

There is a saying in later generations who do engineering: golden bridges, silver roads, copper buildings.A bridge costs far more than a road of the same length.

Bridge repair has many benefits for the construction units that take over the work.But for Party A to pay for money, it is a heart-wrenching thing.

This is also the reason why a certain force has repeatedly considered it seriously.Although the many bridges in the plan are convenient bridges with the simplest structure, they are also not cheap, because these bridges must at least be able to pass small steam agricultural machinery in the design requirements.

This passing standard has reached the level of later generations of farmers driving walking tractors to cross the bridge.

In other words, on the basis of using red bricks, stones, wood and other building materials as much as possible, the planned bridge will inevitably use reinforced concrete...at least the key positions such as foundation piles must be used.

A certain force is in the midst of building a modern city, and the price of reinforced concrete with impressive production has already skyrocketed, and then they want to come to the highway, a big eater of materials... Good fortune is hard to give up, even with the usual arrogance and arrogance of the people who travel through. Insensitivity to money, the final passage of this road is really the result of countless internal quarrels.

In addition, in addition to expensive materials, most of the time in the early stage of bridge and road construction, it is necessary to cut off water drainage and dig the foundation. This is also a large-scale labor movement that consumes human resources extremely, and it is not cheap.

In the seventeenth century, the only way to build roads that was easier and cheaper than later generations was demolition.

Not to mention the official land along the Guang'ao Expressway, as long as it is on the county government's register, whether it is real wasteland or land occupied by tyrants, it will be unconditionally taken back in the future.

And for real private land, there will also be a uniform standard purchase price... There will definitely be no nail households here. Being a nail household these days is much more dangerous than it will be in later generations.

In a word, the Guang-Ao Expressway, which was solemnly laid at the Great South Gate of Guangzhou today, is an important means adopted by the crossing forces to integrate and enhance the comprehensive strength of the actual ruling area with a view to the future.

This is also the reason why the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as many people who traveled across the country were invited to a groundbreaking ceremony: Only those who traveled through the road can understand the significance of this road to the regime.

……

The host knows what he is doing, but the guests may not, let alone foreign guests.

Crowley, the gentlemen sitting on the viewing platform, watched the groundbreaking ceremony in a daze, and then left in a daze, in a daze the whole time.

But Crowley and the others are still very happy, because what they care about is not some inexplicable ceremony, but a series of activities in Guangzhou after the meeting.

Before that, only Portuguese businessmen had entered the city of Guangzhou.Today, as representatives of European businessmen, the guests attending the ceremony took this opportunity to visit the city of Guangzhou as a pilot of the "reopening" policy.

Soon after the ceremony was over, someone came to make arrangements.Crowley and the others sat in a beautiful four-wheeled carriage, sandwiched between the convoy, and entered Guangzhou City for the first time.

The grand and famous city of Nantian is no worse than London in this period in terms of size and population.People like Old William are a little better, they have been to other Chinese towns before.It was the first time for Crowley to come to a "regular" Ming Dynasty city. The unique architectural style of medieval cities in the south opened his eyes.

After that, the red-haired and blue-eyed concierges went to the famous "Juxianlou" in Bushikou to have a meal according to the established procedures.

Finally, against the curious eyes of passers-by, the concierges were able to go around the city.The merchants visited many silk and satin houses with great interest, and learned about the fabric market in Guangzhou. Finally, before the city gate was closed in the evening, the guests left Guangzhou and returned to the new district by boat.