Chapter 107 The Arrival of Princess Anqing
Princess Anqing took He Yuansi off the boat from the pier. Princess Anqing looked at everything in front of her and felt like she was at Nanjing Jubaomen Wharf.
Although there are more and more people in Beijing, Beijing Nanhu Pier has been transformed into a cargo terminal. Otherwise, loading and unloading takes a certain amount of time, and the width of the canal is limited. Even if the Beijing Canal Pier is widened, it will not be much wider. Vessels docked at the dock for a long time will affect transportation efficiency.
But it's different when you get to Nanhu Pier. Nanhu is a lake with many docks. Can be unloaded with ease.
The canal pier became a passenger terminal.
From the Nanhu Pier, the Canal Pier to the South Gate of Beijing, this area is now the most prosperous area in Beijing, even more prosperous than the city of Beijing.
There is no other reason than that the construction in the city is planned and shanty towns are not allowed to be built at will, but many places outside the city are not so strict. The entire city of Beijing has grown by hundreds of thousands of people in a few months. We can't let people have no place to live.
Even if some residential buildings are temporarily built in the city, it is impossible to meet the demand.
As a result, He Xi could only turn a blind eye to the shantytowns outside the city.
To He Xi, these shanty towns were a sign of disorder, but to Princess Anqing, they were very novel.
The densely packed residential houses and various vendors were a scene that Princess Anqing did not see. The prosperity was naturally not as good as the two sides of the Qinhuai River, but the liveliness was better. Princess Anqing knows that a few years ago, this place was still a piece of white land, but now it has become like this.
Princess Anqing felt incredible.
Princess Anqing knew that the material wealth created by human beings in the hundreds of years after the Industrial Revolution was more than the combined total of thousands of years in human history. Her previous concept of this sentence was still in its literal meaning, but now she suddenly understood it.
Nanjing is also a new city. It was built by Zhu Yuanzhang who spent a lot of manpower and material resources.
Almost all the skilled craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty moved to Nanjing, and all the civil and military officials and noble clans of the Ming Dynasty were in Nanjing, which is why Nanjing is now prosperous. But what does Beijing have? Almost nothing.
In this way, He Xi changed his hands and in just a few years, it reached its current scale.
This made it difficult for Princess Anqing to understand for a while. After she understood it deeply, she immediately felt a sense of sadness. Princess Anqing's sadness could not be understood by He Yuansi beside her. He asked curiously: "Is this Beijing City? Is Father here?"
Princess Anqing said: "Yes. You will see your father soon."
Princess Anqing entered Beijing City under the protection of her guards. However, as soon as she entered Beijing City, the bustling scene of Beijing City was exposed.
The city of Beijing is empty and seemingly uninhabited. There are only large tracts of open space. Only the horizontal and vertical roads on the open space, like a chessboard, look strange.
The roads in Beijing are divided into three classes.
The first class is the main road, which is paved with bluestone and cement.
To be honest, He Xi actually wanted a pure cement floor, but first of all, the quality of cement in this era was not good. Although Liaodong has been improving, it has been proven that if cement is laid on the road, it will crack in a few years and need to be repaired.
For He Xi, this frequency is actually acceptable.
After all, what did municipal engineering look like in later generations? Don’t they all practice every year? Isn’t it easy to use cement in future generations?
He Xi is too lazy to care, whether it is for the employment population or anything else. Future generations are no longer a resource-scarce society, so there will naturally be new ways to play. It's just that the officials of this era did not agree with He Xi's plan.
Qin Shihuang built Qin Zhidao, and it will still be usable hundreds of years later, no, thousands of years later. Now it can only last for a few years, which is really unacceptable. Therefore, the main roads are combined with stones and cement, and the cement is mainly used to fill joints and level them. Stone is used as the main body, and it is also possible to repair it every year in the future.
As for the second-class streets, they are simply paved with bricks.
This is because the brick factory uses steam power, which reduces many processes, greatly improves production efficiency, and reduces the cost of bricks. I dare to do this, otherwise the cost of bricks would be too high and it would be impossible to do it.
As for waiting again, use cinders.
After waiting again, it didn't appear in the planning of Beijing City. They were all small roads in the streets and alleys, just dirt roads. If your family feels that it is inconvenient to travel, you can just think of a solution yourself. The government will not care about it. At least He Xi has not thought about how to deal with it.
Although Princess Anqing is used to seeing large-scale imperial construction projects, such large-scale construction is very rare. But the more she looked at this, the more entangled Princess Anqing became.
Soon, Princess Anqing came to a temporary government office, which is also a rare building complex in Beijing. It is where He Xi's office is located. Many government offices below He Xi are crowded here. This is where the Shuntian government office planned by He Xi is located. .
If He Xi doesn't use it in the future, it will be returned to Shuntian Mansion.
Princess Anqing is here, so someone will naturally notify He Xi. He Xi went out to welcome Princess Anqing into He Xi's residence.
Princess Anqing entered and took a look and found that He Xi's residence was just a small courtyard with three main rooms, which were both study rooms and bedrooms. The east wing was used as a reception room, and the west wing was the archives office. People could hardly turn around after entering. There were too many He Xi rooms. The files Xi needs.
As for the courtyard outside, it is where officials from all over the country wait to see He Xi.
Princess Anqing was originally very resentful that He Xi left him in Nanjing and ignored him, but after seeing He Xi's living environment, she couldn't help but feel distressed and said: "You live here? The servants in the family are better than Stay spacious.”
An Qing was telling the truth. There were more than a dozen houses in the entire courtyard, but the problem was that these were not just for He Xi. He Xi's entourage and office staff are all here. It's a bit crowded. Nanjing He Mansion is essentially a princess mansion. Although it is not as good as the palace in terms of size, Zhu Yuanzhang loves Princess Anqing, which can be regarded as special treatment for He Xi. The size has not been improved, but the area has been increased.
Some of the elders in the family live in a more spacious place than He Xi. For example, although Yang Zhen is not often in Nanjing, he has a courtyard in He Mansion in Nanjing, which is not much smaller than this courtyard.
But He Xi herself felt that it was actually pretty good.
Compared with the small houses of later generations, which have a courtyard to themselves, a bedroom and a study room of nearly 100 square meters, what else do you need? It's just that He Xi has a lot of office workers, and when he gets busy, there are dozens of people coming and going in the courtyard.
But at night, only those few people were on duty.
He Xi said: "Many places in Beijing have not been fully constructed, and housing is in short supply everywhere. I don't want to be too extravagant."
Princess Anqing said: "You are not selling the land in Beijing. We must buy a big piece this time, right next to the palace. We cannot wrong you."
He Xi was speechless. He was selling the land to collect banknotes, but he didn't want to collect his family's banknotes. Yang Zhen has been in Beijing during this period. As He Xi's staff, he participated in the construction of Beijing city. After all, He Xi's identity prevented him from dealing directly with the businessmen below.
This does not comply with the principle of identity reciprocity.
Moreover, when He Xi talks to these businessmen, no matter what they talk about, these businessmen dare not refuse to agree. To the backstage of these businessmen, this is He Xi's use of power to suppress others. He Xi did it several times before he understood this truth. Only by asking Yang Zhen to talk to these people could he hear the truth.
Only then can we truly have a good negotiation. He Xi just needs to communicate with these businessmen in the background.
So Yang Zhen is indispensable.
But Yang Zhen is not in the Northeast, which does not mean that Xuanyang Society will not make money. After all, there is no problem with He Xi and King Yan's influence on the Northeast, and He Xi treats his family's business managers in the same way that later generations would treat professional managers.
From the perspective of the entire Ming Dynasty, they are the most respectful and relaxed. Plus Yang Zhen as a role model.
Now Yang Zhen is already one of He Xi's staff. Although there is no official position, the status is very different. This gave the business managers of the He family a strong motivation. In addition, Xuanyang Club had people taking care of them above and the layout below was complete, so there was not much difficulty.
So make a lot of money.
But I make a lot of money, but who can I compare it to.
