The shamisen was plucked by a chrysanthemum hostess, and played a brisk melody, which made people feel like a spring breeze. Suddenly, there was a continuous burst of plucking sound, one after another, which made the audience's emotions also rise. When the rhythm of the tapping sound couldn't get any faster, it suddenly stopped, followed by melodious Japanese singing.
Outside the window, the grass is green and the flowers are red, and the waves are undulating. Several men and women wearing Taoist attire and Wufu were sitting in the glass pavilion of the Kikuya main store facing the harbor, sipping tea and quietly listening to the performance and a cappella performance of Kikuya Yamamoto, the hostess of the Kikuya.
Yamamoto Kiku is the wife of Grandpa Shigesumi Yamamoto. Grandpa settled in the Malacca Peninsula, remarried and had children. Now he is contentedly waiting to die - he is in his seventies and almost eighty, and he can only live for a few more years. !
And Yamamoto Kiku, who was in her twenties and had a son, actually lived a wonderful life in the United States of New Zealand. For a woman like her who is young, beautiful, has business acumen, and is willing to climb the ladder at all costs, it is very easy for her to get ahead in the land of the United States of New Zealand. And she also found a popular industry - cross-border marriage!
She arrived in Xinzhou with Xu Liuliangxing's "marriage ship". Because she was smart, diligent, and particularly willing to learn and work, she was quickly appreciated by Liu Liang, Xu Liuliangxing's big boss in the United States of Xinzhou. Not only was she not "sold" He went out and became a clerk at Xu Liuliang Company, and was later promoted to shopkeeper. Later, she got involved with Zheng Xi and became the latter's lover. Therefore, she left Xu Liuliang to start a business and opened the Chrysanthemum House.
Kikuya's main business is also "marriage", but it has developed based on the "marriage industry" to provide "one-time sex" for a large number of singles in Xinzhou United States, that is, to open a brothel!
It sounds very vulgar, but considering the gender imbalance in the United States of New Zealand, this industry must still exist, and it is very profitable.
Because Kikuya's financial resources are getting stronger and his backstage is as hard as steel plates, his market share in the marriage industry is also getting higher and higher. Now he has replaced Xu Liuliangxing and become the boss of Xinzhou Marriage Industry.
And the person who can make Yamamoto Kiku play and sing like a geisha is certainly not an ordinary person.
The people who came to the Kikuya main store today, besides Yamamoto Kiku's mistress Zheng Xi, were Yao Ohashi who had just returned from Kaqing Kingdom, Shimazu Nokichi's brother Shimazu Nobu and his uncle Kaguyama Naohisa.
Now Princess Naiji of Jiaqing has arrived in Washington, living in Yao Daqiao's mansion in Washington, waiting to meet Zhu Hehao.
Yanjiu, Shangjiu and Yao Daqiao took the opportunity to have fun in the chrysanthemum house to have a private meeting with Zheng Xi, the big boss here in the United States, and get a feel for each other's trump cards.
The singing stopped abruptly, Yamamoto Kiku looked calm, nodded slightly in greeting, then stood up and left.
Seeing Yamamoto Kiku leave, Zheng Xicai smiled and said: "Listen to the tunes, look at the sea view, and take a leisurely stroll. This is the life of gods! The United States is vast and sparsely populated, and everything is abundant. There is no need to worry at all. Just live a good life. The Kaqing country used to be a little poorer... but it will be better after joining the United States. The south is too dry, so come to the north, and everyone will go eastward along the river. Along the river To the east, in the area of the Great River Basin, the river forks, all the way to the north and all the way to the south. We will level the way to the north, and you will level the way to the south. Isn't that okay?"
The big river Zheng Xi mentioned is the Columbia River, and the bifurcation he mentioned is where the Snake River joins the Columbia River. If you start from Pazhou and follow the Columbia River-Snake River all the way west, you will probably be the main section of the historically famous Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail, which crosses the Big Rock Mountains (Rocky Mountains), is actually relatively flat and basically follows the river. Although these rivers are not necessarily suitable for navigation, they can be used to irrigate crops.
Therefore, the development value of this piece of land that Zheng Xi privately promised to King Jiaqing is still quite high!
Of course, the Columbia Basin and the land that develops from the basin to the northeast are more valuable, have a more humid climate, and the main stream of the Columbia River has stronger navigation capabilities, and the waterway can be opened to the northern edge of the Columbia Basin. From the basin to the east, there are two plateau lake areas with high development value. From one of the more easterly plateau lake areas, go further east and wind around the big stone mountains for four to five hundred miles, and then you can enter the Great Plains of North America...
Although the northern route through the Big Stone Mountains is not as good as the Oregon Trail in the south, it is nothing compared to the big mountains in western China. The more troublesome thing is to cultivate and establish strongholds along the way - from the Gulf of America to the east and into the Great Plains of North America, you have to walk more than 2,000 miles. If there are wild lands where supplies cannot be obtained along the way, the logistics of the eastward advance will not be able to keep up.
Therefore, in Zhu Cihong's plan, the biggest historical mission of the local tyrant king in his life is to advance eastward step by step and steadily to open the passage to the North American Great Plains.
...
Washington, White House.
The rich king, wearing a neat arrow suit, sat quietly in his study. A cup of tea was no longer hot in front of him. From breakfast till now, he has been grading exam papers - the papers for the "Wife-Seeking Examination".
He only has 600 "sisters-in-law" to marry, so he has to carefully select the ones who are most useful to him - preferably middle- and upper-class elites from all walks of life, and they must be distributed in Washington, Shanhaigang, and Bozhou. The four most important central cities in the United States, including Zhouzhou City and Kinmen City, and their surrounding areas.
Although the current United States claims to have four states, the truly important areas are these four cities—half of the population of the United States lives in these four cities and their surrounding countryside.
As long as he can control these four cities, Zhu Hehao will control the entire United States!
Therefore, before the start of the "marriage test", Zhu Hehao ordered the palace chief Shi Chen Yonghua to conduct background checks on all candidates - a detailed check was impossible, and at most it was a questionnaire.
After completing the survey, classification was carried out and all the more than 10,000 candidates were divided into six categories: "scholarship, agriculture, animal husbandry, business, mining, and hunting." The so-called scholars include officials, teachers, soldiers, etc.; the so-called farmers refer to farmers; herdsmen refer to ranchers; merchants refer to industrial and commercial people; miners refer to gold diggers; and hunters refer to fur traders.
The seven to eight million people in the United States of New Zealand can generally be classified into these six categories.
In order to attract talents from all walks of life, Zhu Hehao also customized six sets of examination plans for the examinations of these six categories of status - otherwise, all the people who get admitted will be scholars, and none of the others will be able to do it!
The taxis of the United States of New Zealand are no better than the taxis of the Ming Dynasty - everyone in the United States of New Zealand has a gun! Therefore, the status of scholars is not as high as that in the old continent, and it is difficult to oppress other classes...
Just when Zhu Hehao was immersed in reviewing the examination papers, there was suddenly the sound of light footsteps outside the study, and then the office door was opened. Two figures flashed in one after another. Zhu Hehao just glanced at them, and the King of the United States immediately put down the examination paper in his hand and stood up to greet them.
There are really only a handful of people in the New World who can make Zhu Hehao, the king of the United States, stand up from his chair. Today's visitor is a young woman wearing a kimono. She came with Zhu Hehao's Japanese side chamber Xu Jingzi.
As her name suggests, Xu Jingzi is quiet and comely, with fair skin, dignified facial features, a baby face, a bit short, wearing a red double-breasted jacket, and looks very cute. She bowed to Zhu Hehao and said sweetly, "Your Majesty, Princess Jiaqing has arrived."
Zhu Hehao looked at Shimazu Nokichi, who was wearing a red kimono, and nodded gently, "Auntie, are you safe on your journey?"
Shimazu Noyoshi also smiled and bowed slightly, staring at Zhu Hehao with a pair of beautiful eyes: "His Royal Highness, I wonder if your Highness has invited me to come over. What do you want to discuss?"
