Time soon came to noon. Zhao Xin asked He Xiyang, who had returned to his job, to go to the cafeteria to get a sumptuous lunch for Baranov, and he went straight back to Luqi's small container building. As soon as he arrived at the door of the reception room on the first floor, he saw Li Shi waiting through the window.
Compared to He Xiyang, who had dull eyes, Li Shi saw a tall man with a beard walking in from the door. His expression suddenly changed and he was about to ask, but he stared at Zhao Xin's face twice and suddenly He rubbed his eyes in disbelief and was immediately confused.
"Chief, Prince, when did you come?" Li Shixin said that when he came back, except for two Spanish sailing ships, there were no other ships on the pier! Then, he remembered the rumor that Zhao Xin was "not a human being".
"Da Shuan, how long have we not seen each other?" Zhao Xin walked forward with a smile and patted Li Shi's shoulder affectionately.
"More than two years." When Li Shi heard the other party calling him by his nickname, his nose became sore and tears flowed out.
The acquaintance between the two began nine years ago. That year was the fiftieth year of Qianlong's reign. A severe drought affected the five northern provinces, causing Li Shi's family to almost die. At that time, their family of four fled from Shangqiu to Kaifeng. They were so hungry that they could no longer survive, so they had to go to the human market to sell themselves. I originally thought that the family would probably live apart from now on, but unexpectedly, Xu Dayong spent twelve tons of money to buy it collectively, and then went to work as a servant in Xuzhuang in Sheyang Lake.
At that time, he was still a fourteen-year-old boy. When Zhao Xin and others went to Zhuangzi for the first time, they thought this boy was well-behaved and sensible, so they gave him a pack of toffee before leaving. Li Shi never knew what sugar was at that time, but he thought the red and blue outer packaging was really pretty, with a big rabbit painted on it. He gave the candy to his mother, and the family shared a piece. They all thought it was the most delicious thing in the world.
His younger brother suffered a serious illness when he was fleeing. He was very weak and fell ill easily. So every time his mother coaxed him to drink the medicine, she would take out a candy and cut half of it for him to eat. Li Shi couldn't argue with his brother, so every time he finished a piece of candy, he would put the candy wrapper away, and sometimes take it out to secretly smell and lick it.
A year later, when his family took a boat to settle in Beihai Town and saw Zhao Xin's portrait, Li Shi knew who the tall man was who touched his head. His father, Li Erkui, complained to his mother at that time, saying that if he had known that the bag of candy was given by Prince Zhao, he should not have let his second son eat it anyway.
A few years later, Li Shi studied, entered a military academy, got married, and had children. He kept those candy wrappers carefully and never lost any of them. He didn't tell anyone except his wife. In his opinion, those candy wrappers represent the unique connection between himself and Zhao Xin.
In fact, many old immigrants in Beihai Town have this mentality. Not to mention the earliest naturalized people from the island country, among the refugees who came from Henan earlier, there were almost fifty families whose children had been classified into the classes managed by Shen Xuan. Later, when Shen Xuan married Zhao Xin, these families felt that they were superior to others because their children were taught by the future queen. Later, these families formed small circles and married each other. Li Shi's marriage was the product of this phenomenon, and her wife was also Shen Xuan's student.
Zhao Xin originally wanted Li Shi to sit down and talk, but the latter didn't dare to sit down, so the two of them sat and stood. Zhao Xin threw a cigarette to Li Shi and took one in his mouth. After Li Shi lit it with the help of a lighter, he asked: "I heard from Chief Lu that yesterday you went on a blind date to the tribe across the strait. ?”
"Don't mention it." Li Shi showed a bitter look on his face and explained: "I told the people in the tribe that I was looking for people over fifteen years old. When I came to the humble position, I saw that there were more than twenty girls, except for a few who took care of the children. Among the widows, none of the others looked like they were fifteen. There were a few girls who clearly looked like they were in their early ten years, but their parents insisted that they were already fifteen. Even though I was in a humble position, I didn’t dare to agree, so I had to come back and report to Commander Lu first. The situation. The problem is that we have let the word out before, and the chief is afraid that we will regret it, so he comes with the humble position. "
Zhao Xin's heart moved and he asked: "Where are the people?"
Li Shi replied: "He went to the training ground of the tribal militia. I asked Su Ke to accompany him."
Zhao Xin pondered for a moment, with a smirk on his lips, beckoning Li Shi to come forward, and said, "You go find the chief now, by the way, what is his name?"
"Dudu." Li Shi later explained that in the Miwok Indian language, "dudu" means osprey, which is also cormorant.
After hearing this, Zhao Xin nodded and said, "Okay, you go find Chief Dudu right away and tell him this and that."
Li Shi couldn't help but nod his head, and occasionally covered his mouth and laughed. When Zhao Xin finished speaking, he repeated it again, then saluted and left.
After talking for a long time, Zhao Xin was also a little hungry. At this time, the guard who had been following him since the morning brought him a lunch from the canteen. Kinmen Fortress is adjacent to the sea, so seafood is indispensable for the officers and soldiers' three meals a day, as well as radish, green vegetables and tofu, but red meat is not often eaten. Although there are tens of millions of American bison in these days, their habitat is in the southern part of California's Central Valley, which is east of Los Angeles. It is 1400 to 500 miles away from Kinmen, which is really too far.
After a hasty lunch, Zhao Xin asked the guards to open Lu Qi's office. He spent more than an hour inside, tinkering with two documents with the same content, and then asked the guard to send them to Li Shi. After finishing all this, he strolled to the conference room and continued to discuss the details of the "Huamei Trading Company" with Baranov.
Regarding the future company flag, Zhao Xin did not agree with the design submitted by Baranov, but asked him to fly the white five-star gear red flag of Beihai Town. Any flag with the symbol of the Romanov dynasty was never allowed to be used. Baranov did not dare to insist. He knew very well that if he wanted to get military support and protection from Kinmen, there was nothing to argue about.
Next, Zhao Xin also mentioned the naturalization of Russians in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. Those who are willing to naturalize must take an oath to apply for a certificate and enjoy national treatment in the future; those who are unwilling to naturalize must apply for a work permit, which will be reviewed every two years. Baranov replied that he had no opinion on the matter, and that other people would have to ask one by one.
The naturalization of Russians in Siberia has been delayed for a long time. At first, Zhao Xin and others thought simply, to expel all the Russians; but after doing the census, they found out that there were tens of thousands of Russians. If they really wanted to expel them all back to Russia, it would consume too much manpower and material resources, so they put it on hold. It has become something that is not mentioned in black and white.
After the Battle of Usolye, Beihai Town had established a firm foothold in Siberia, and was separated from Tsarist Russia by the "Cossack Emirate", so the issue of the status of the Russian population was put on the table again. The "Committee of 29" held several meetings, and it was not until the recent Fuldan City meeting that preliminary results were obtained.
The most troublesome issue for people across the world is Christianity. Keep it, Tsarist Russia will definitely use this to cause trouble; expel it, the naturalized Russians may rebel. After all, this is people's belief for hundreds of years, and it cannot be completely eliminated by a decree.
The final solution everyone discussed was to set up a religious management office to take charge of this matter. The Siberian Governor's Palace will coordinate with the Management Office to dispatch management teams to major towns to "assist" local priests in the daily management of the church. Of course, monitoring them is the most important job.
The person in charge of the management office has not been decided yet, but Chen Qingsong recommended a guy he knew before. Zhao Xin planned to wait until the Spring Festival to go back and meet before making a decision. Now that the territory of Beihai Town has expanded to Shengjing, travelers no longer need to apply for visas every year. They can go directly back to Shengjing during the Spring Festival next year.
In addition, the Civil Affairs Bureau has sent letters to various Buddhist and Taoist temples in Liaodong in the name of the management office, informing them that a conference will be held in Shengjing next May and they must attend. The purpose of this conference is to encourage Buddhism and Taoism to open new monasteries in Siberia. To put it bluntly, it is to compete with Christianity for believers and gradually weaken its influence.
In fact, the situation in North America is similar. In addition to the military struggle between Beihai Town and Spain, how to contend with religious expansion is also a top priority. Demolishing churches is certainly a method, but Buddhism and Taoism must also follow up in time.
The last issue the two discussed was communication. Because Kodiak Island is too far away from Kinmen, the straight-line distance alone is 3,100 kilometers, and the boating distance along the coast is even longer; even Vancouver Island in the north is 1,350 kilometers away from Kinmen.
Zhao Xinsi thought about it and finally decided to dispatch a communications team and a platoon to the settlement on Kodiak Island after next spring.
Baranov naturally didn't know what a telegraph was. Although Beihai Town built a relay station and an iron tower on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands, the Russians were completely confused about it and had no idea what it was for. of. Now he heard from Zhao Xin that there was a device that could communicate with people thousands of miles away, and could even communicate with Baibai City thousands of miles away. He was so surprised that his jaw hit his feet.
In the evening, the discussion between Zhao Xin and Baranov finally ended. The latter will take a boat back to Kodiak Island early tomorrow morning and make follow-up arrangements in accordance with the details finalized today.
Zhao Xin had dinner with Lu Qi, during which the latter talked to him a lot about what happened after the Spanish mission landed. The funniest thing among them was that the Spaniards wanted to buy some faucets from Kinmen.
"Faucet?" Zhao Xin looked confused.
"That's what happened." Lu Qi pushed away the rice bowl, picked up the tea cup, took a sip, and spoke slowly.
It turned out that according to the previous communication between Brother Diez and Rucci, the camp of the New Spain Provincial Mission was arranged in a designated area five hundred meters northeast of the fortress, with the Indians more than a hundred meters to the south. trading market.
The reason for this arrangement is that there is a large reservoir in the market. It is convenient for the Spaniards to go there to fetch water, and they save the need to connect a separate pipe.
In the early days, if the Indians who came to Kinmen needed water, they would fetch water from the well in the fort. Later, as more and more Indians came to the market, considering the security and confidentiality of the base, the logistics team asked the engineering team to lay a PVC The water pipeline leads directly to an open space in the north of the market, where a circular PVC tape reservoir with a capacity of three tons of water was built. It is 1.8 meters in diameter and 1.2 meters high. The surrounding and top are also made of color steel plates. Provide a cover to prevent dust and breakage.
The main reason for using this thing is that it is easy to install and disassemble. If you want to change the location one day, just put out the water, remove the bracket, and roll up the tarp, and two or three people can carry it away.
When the reservoir was first built, the Indians in the market were very happy. What surprised them most was the faucet at the water connection. Groups of guys often gathered there to twist and turn and have a great time.
The Indians were like this, and the Spaniards were no better. When a craftsman heard about it from the handyman who fetched water, he immediately came to the reservoir, looked at the faucet above, turned it on and off, and even took out a wooden ruler to measure it repeatedly.
The guy thought about it for a long time and told the people at the mission when he returned. As a result, a group of people came to visit together, even Brother Fermin de Rasuen, the chairman of the Franciscan California Mission. coming.
So on the way to the prisoner of war camp in the afternoon, Brother Diez, who served as the translator, told Rucci about the matter. Lu Qi smiled dumbly and explained that it was called a faucet.
Brother Dietz said, we are willing to pay a high price to buy a few. I wonder if you can agree?
Lu Qi's words of agreement slipped to his lips, he immediately swallowed them back, and then changed the topic. Because he suddenly remembered that he had read about the history of faucets in a book.
Don't underestimate an ordinary faucet. In another history of time and space, it was not invented until 1845 by Rotherham, an Englishman. Before this, whether in the East or the West, if people wanted to drink water, they had to go to the river or find a well. In cities with fountains, you could also find fountains, and the water quality was not guaranteed.
That is to say, only the rich and powerful have a choice. They can purchase water delivery services to their doorsteps, or send people to fetch water from clean water sources. For example, it is well known that the powerful people in Beijing only drink water from Yuquan Mountain. Every morning when Xizhimen opens, a long line of water trucks will come in to deliver water to the Forbidden City and every home in the city.
The key reason why the faucet was not invented and popularized until the mid-19th century was the rubber pad inside, which was only realized after the invention of the "rubber vulcanization method".
The problem is that except for the hundreds of acres of rubber planted by Zhao Xin in Bacheng, all rubber production areas in the world are in South America, which is a colony of Spain and Portugal. For Europeans right now, the biggest use of rubber is as an eraser. Once the Spaniards discover the accessories in the faucet, the purpose of the rubber will also be exposed.
Of course, if you don’t master vulcanization technology, you can only stare blankly even if you know it; but will it lead to the emergence of the “rubber vulcanization method” in advance, so that Europeans can further improve their industrial technology? You must know that rubber is known as "industrial adhesive".
Although a small pebble is inconspicuous, the ripples caused by being thrown into the water can spread over a large area. As a time traveler, Lucci knows the butterfly effect very well.
How cool it is to have a generational difference, to bully whomever you catch, and to torture whomever you want, especially in a second-rate country like Spain.
Sure enough, after hearing this, Zhao Xin slammed the table and said, "We can't sell it! Our war with Spain is not over yet, so what good things can we do?"
Then, he told Lu Qi what he had arranged for Li to do at noon. After hearing this, Lu Qi kept saying "fuck me", thinking that only you, Boss Zhao, can do such a thing!
Just wait, there will be a good show tomorrow.
The most advanced water supply system in the 18th century was in England. Steam engines were applied to water diversion projects and started the innovation of replacing wooden pipes with cast iron pipes. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the New River Company, the world's first water company, would be born in London. However, because tap water was very expensive at that time, and the cost of laying pipes and other costs required a worker's two years' salary, not many people used it at all. The London City Government once wanted to enforce it, but there were too many opponents. After that, Xinhe Company continued to operate for 20 years before it started to make a profit.
