Dashi Country, Liusha City, and the Royal Palace.
Zhu Jingyuan looked at the telegram sent by Dianbo and read the words "The First Year of Ankang" several times.
Of course, the word "Ankang" is an auspicious word, but it always feels like a "salted fish".
Probably Ankang is originally a common name for a kind of fish.
It may also be that I heard too many blessings such as "happiness and health" in my previous life.
Choosing an era name called Ankang gives people a tendency to not want to struggle, to just sit back and make money for enjoyment.
This will definitely make the countries in Europe and the West feel at ease.
But the question is, does his father really think so?
With the current situation, in the next few decades, if the Ming Dynasty does not have any additional strategic goals, even if the emperor lies down completely and sleeps, there will be an unprecedented prosperous age.
As long as dad doesn't mess around with things in the wrong direction and exerts too much force, and just does what he needs to do step by step, he will definitely be a hero in the end.
But this does not mean that the emperor can really lie down.
According to Emperor Shizu's logic, the current state of the Ming Dynasty is a rising tide.
The huge victory and unprecedented colonial development, coupled with a new round of industrial revolution, will cover up all possible problems now.
Even if wrong decisions are made on many things, it is difficult to quickly discover them through social feedback.
If it was supposed to be a ten percent increase, a mistake could cause the result to be ten percent lower.
At this time, relevant personnel can quickly detect abnormalities and have to correct them immediately.
If it should have increased by 100%, it increased by 80% because of a mistake.
The relevant personnel simply cannot discover the existence of the error, let alone know what is wrong. Of course, it is impossible to truly correct it.
These mistakes will be hidden under the tide and will only appear when the tide goes out.
When the victory dividend, colonial dividend, and industrial revolution dividend are all reduced to a limit, researchers will be able to look back at their past actions and discover the problem.
The most dangerous thing is that by that time, the problem may have expanded to the limit.
It has expanded to the point where it is difficult to truly resolve.
It is only in good times that you need to be more careful.
Especially the unprecedentedly huge Ming Dynasty.
If you are undecided about something, it is better not to make a choice for the time being than to make a hasty choice.
Continue to do nothing.
My father should have this understanding.
Zhu Jingyuan put down the telegram and paid New Year's greetings to his grandfather and parents who were thousands of miles away.
Then he went upstairs with his guards and maids, and looked out at the scene outside the courtyard from the tower of the old palace.
The street in front of the old palace is the only street in the old city of Liusha City.
There were few buildings on both sides of the street, and they were all very dilapidated.
In the past six months, old houses that were too close to the street have been demolished.
The streets were then widened and repaved, while several cross streets were extended on both sides.
With the cross streets as the axis, a large number of three-story townhouses have been built around it.
All use a completely unified design of two bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen and one bathroom, with a usable area of 80 square meters.
The entire Liusha City is a large construction site, and the same work on different projects can be carried out at staggered times.
Therefore, all construction workers will participate in most engineering projects.
It’s just that the time node for participation continues to roll forward.
The number of workers actually involved in the construction of residential buildings and the number of workers actually involved in the palace project was nearly 10,000.
Many women in their prime and half-grown children also help with chores on the construction site.
They are all simple three-story buildings with completely unified standards. Once you become proficient, your speed will become faster and faster.
Tens of thousands of workers continue to work hard in less than half a year
More than 400 three-story buildings were built in succession.
Each building has four units, each with six houses, for a total of 9,600 units.
These houses are just enough for more than 23,000 immigrants, including workers who have just been issued orchids, plus the remaining single orchids.
The original immigrant families and the workers who had just acquired Hu Ji's concubines all lived in separate houses.
Hu Ji, who is still single, lives in a room for two people and a building for four people.
Immigrants would arrive later in the year, so more houses of the same type were being built and renovated.
The ownership of these houses belongs to the palace, and their current nature is low-rent housing provided by the palace.
The monthly rent for each house is only two yuan, which is almost one-tenth of the workers' wages.
Workers can rent these houses forever, and the palace will not drive people away.
However, when this basic housing quantity meets the demand, the construction team will begin to build traditional Ming-style courtyards with blocked doors and single courtyards.
These detached houses were gradually sold to immigrants as their real homes.
Low-rent houses with two bedrooms and one living room continue to be rented out, leaving them for young people who have just started to live independently, as well as new immigrants who have just arrived in Liusha City.
Among these large numbers of temporary houses, the first floors facing the street are all shops with doors opening outwards.
More than half of the shops are leased to the "material supply company" of the royal family consortium.
They can provide a city with almost all necessary goods.
Grain, meat and eggs, dried fruits, canned food, tobacco, alcohol, sugar and tea, cloth, ready-made clothing, jewelry, bags, stationery, tools, kitchen utensils, musical instruments, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, guns and ammunition...
Procurement from the most suitable origins throughout Daming, centralized transportation and maintaining relatively reasonable prices.
This is a company that can naturally achieve a monopoly in the department store industry, but it has not completely transformed the industry into a modern department store, but has dispersed it into a group of stores on a certain street.
It does not completely monopolize the entire department store market. When they operate in any city, they will actively release some industries suitable for local people and will not get involved in terminal industries that penetrate into residential areas.
Therefore, among the remaining shops on both sides of Dashi Jiuwangfu Street, Dashi Wangfu himself also directly manages and operates some of them, mainly selling oil and related tools.
Gasoline, kerosene, lubricants, oil lamps, candles, oil stoves, etc., all highlight a specialty.
Finally, there are a small number of shops leased to individual businessmen who are also immigrants.
Some of them operate restaurants, restaurants, teahouses, and snacks, some sell seafood, fruits, vegetables, and snacks, and some are tailors, cobblers, shoemakers, and so on.
The coverage areas of operators in the three areas overlap with each other, basically meeting the living needs of Liusha City, a small town of less than 30,000 people.
Most of the products that should be available on the market in small cities in the Ming Dynasty are available in the street markets here.
Things that are not available in small local towns may be available here.
After all, Liusha City is the capital of a country. Its status is on the same level as the chief envoy's residence. There is also a prince living there. It also stands on an oil field, and its trade node level is very high.
Most of the goods are imported, and the cost is higher than those in the Ming Dynasty.
Fortunately, ordinary workers in big food countries also have high incomes.
Manual workers can earn twenty silver coins per month, while skilled craftsmen can start at thirty-five.
If a woman is willing to show her face and work as a clerk in a store, or if her children work as a handyman in a store or on a construction site, they can also get a salary of fifteen yuan in silver notes.
Even if the couple is just a manual worker and a shop assistant, they can still earn thirty-five silver coins in a month.
If the thirty-five silver note is directly converted into purchasing power, it is only equivalent to the 3,500 yuan Zhu Jingyuan had in his previous life.
But the actual purchasing power of basic living materials far exceeds the 3,500 yuan in the previous life.
Silver banknotes are directly equivalent to silver dollars, which were created by Emperor Shizu
When it came out, the actual value was approximately equivalent to one tael of silver.
The actual silver content of the silver dollar was only 25 grams, but because of its very exquisite production technology, ordinary merchants at the time did not have the ability to imitate it.
As a result, the actual value in the market is basically equivalent to thirty-seven grams of one tael of silver.
This allowed wealthy private households to dig out their hoards of silver and exchange them for silver coins, allowing Emperor Shizu to directly receive a full 30% of the seigniorage.
At the same time, since the era of Emperor Shizu, the Ming Dynasty has continued to industrialize, its productivity has continued to increase, its colonial expansion has continued, and its resource sources have also continued to improve.
Productivity growth has basically balanced out inflation, so that in the past 100 years or so, the Ming Dynasty's currency has never depreciated significantly.
The current worker's monthly income of twenty taels of silver is basically equivalent to the income of twenty taels of silver more than a hundred years ago, at least the level of the former eighth-grade official.
More than a hundred years ago, a few taels of silver could buy an ordinary piece of silk, and a few taels of silver could buy fine silk and satin.
More than a hundred years later, before the World War, a few dollars could still buy a piece of fine silk.
The wages of the most ordinary workers have soared from a few dollars a month more than a hundred years ago to a few dollars before the World War, which is equivalent to an increase of more than ten times.
By the time the war actually ended in the 34th year of Taiping, workers' wages had doubled again to the level of more than ten silver coins, and the craftsmen of the Great Food Country had reached around twenty silver coins.
However, large-scale short-term wage increases have led to inflation.
It will have to wait a few years, after new factories and farms are put into full production and new products are put into the market, before prices can fall again.
At that time, the living standards of ordinary people in Ming Dynasty will improve again.
The currency of this era was compared to later generations, and purchasing power was mainly lost on relatively high-end industrial products, such as bicycles.
Nowadays, a bicycle is a very high-end industrial product, with at least three bearings, a chain, springs, rubber tires and lubricating oil.
At this time, it generally took twenty silver coins to buy a bicycle, which was equivalent to two thousand yuan for an ordinary bicycle in later generations. Cars are more expensive.
At this time, Wangfu Street was a bustling and lively scene.
Groups, pairs, men and women, walking on the street, watching, chatting...
There are no elderly people, and the oldest immigrants are middle-aged people in their forties.
Occasionally there are teenagers and half-old children.
But regardless of whether they were boys or girls, everyone was happy and in high spirits.
Most people wore silk and satin clothes, which was unthinkable before the Chongzhen Dynasty.
With the improvement of productivity, clothes that were once only worn by wealthy families have entered the homes of ordinary people.
Of course, most people don't wear them on weekdays.
Because silk is really very delicate and easily damaged, it became a tool for aristocrats to show off.
Nowadays, people usually wear it during festivals and when attending banquets and activities.
Daily clothes are mainly made of cotton and wool materials, while linen has been completely abandoned.
The few people who don't have silk clothes are obviously late immigrants.
They are now planning in the fabric store with their families, deciding whether to go directly to a tailor to order ready-made clothes, or buy fabrics and go back to make a set themselves.
If you buy cloth and make your own clothes, two or three yuan will be enough to make a set of good silk clothes. Finding a tailor will only cost you a little extra money.
There is no pressure on most workers in big food countries. One month's wages are enough to make a set for the whole family.
If it were the people of Xintianfu, they would not hesitate at all. They would buy a new outfit first and then buy something they like.
However, the nature of the people from the Ming Dynasty was still accustomed to living frugally.
In fact, no matter in the East or the West, people in the Old Continent were originally relatively "poor". Countries in Europe and the West were running wildly outwards, while China was crazily inward.
After all it is
A land that has been developed for thousands of years.
Natural resources are almost exhausted, and the fertility of farmland is almost exhausted.
It wasn't until the discovery of the New World that the poor people in the Old World realized that the land could be so fertile and the products could be so rich.
After living in the New World for a long time, it becomes difficult for people to maintain the habit of frugality.
Because even if there is active waste, there will be no shortage of materials.
Even if you don't farm, you can catch lobsters at the beach and rivers, or kill bison on the grasslands, you can still have a lot of high protein all year round.
Coolie slaves could eat several kilograms of meat and beans every month, and their staple food could also be white rice. Small landowners in the Old World did not have this kind of living standard.
Now the resources of the New Continent are in turn nurturing the Old Continent and improving the living standards of the people in the Old Continent. However, the Old Continent is too big and is still not comparable to the New Continent.
When Zhu Jingyuan stood on the upper floor and observed, he also noticed that people no longer had short hair, and the original short-haired gang also began to grow their hair.
Of course, this does not mean that haircuts are not allowed at all. It is also inconvenient to wear a crown if it is too long.
Before the Qing Dynasty, everyone had long hair, but they also had haircuts.
The nature of haircuts for ordinary people is similar to that of girls with long hair in later generations.
They mainly repair the length of hair and modify the shape of beards.
Hair shaving in the Qing Dynasty was equivalent to asking modern girls to shave their bald heads collectively, otherwise they would be shot without mercy.
That is definitely unacceptable.
Zhu Jingyuan watched for a while, then smiled and said to the staff, guards, and maids around him:
"It seems that there are no short-haired gang members in the Dashi Kingdom now..."
Niu Jian smiled and responded:
"The warehouses are solid and you know the etiquette; the people who have enough food and clothing know the honor and disgrace. The people of the food country have enough food and clothing, so they will naturally take the initiative to learn etiquette.
"How could my parents, who have suffered so much in their body and skin, be so willing to become thieves unless their life and death were really in danger..."
Zhu Jingyuan was still nodding his head after hearing the first half, but in the second half, he asked rather playfully:
"That is to say, when it comes to life-threatening situations, for example, if someone catches you and tells you to keep your hair or your head, you can survive by shaving your head, otherwise you will be killed without mercy. Should you shave your hair anyway?"
Niu Jian was silent for a few seconds, and then said seriously:
"The common people are struggling to survive. If they can survive by shaving their hair, they will definitely do it, just like the short-haired gang in the past.
"However, a gentleman values righteousness and principle but despises life and death. He may not hesitate to fight with his life, or he may be patient in order to seek retribution...
"It is common practice in the world to grow hair and tie it with a crown. Threatening to shave your hair is really unreasonable."
Zhu Jingyuan nodded lightly as he listened:
"Yes, ordinary people just want to live a good life, and it doesn't matter to them whether they shave their heads or not.
"The way of the people is that those who have permanent property have perseverance, and those who do not have perseverance. If you don't have perseverance, you will avoid evil and extravagance, and you will do everything for your own sake."
