Sun Xu sat on the double-decker carriage and looked at the city that shocked him as the carriage continued to advance.
Along the way, Sun Xu’s biggest feeling was that there were so many people and cars!
Not only are there many people and cars in the train station square, but even after leaving the train station square and coming to the road outside, there are also many people and cars.
There are various carriages coming and going on the asphalt, including public carriages carrying many people, but there are also various two-wheeled or four-wheeled private carriages, many of which have a taxi hanging on the top. lettering signboard.
In addition to these private or public carriages carrying passengers, there are also more freight carriages carrying a large number of goods.
These freight carriages generally have four wheels and a simple structure. They are far less bulky than the passenger carriages. Many of them don't even have a carriage, just a carriage board.
Goods are piled on top or packed in wooden boxes or sacks.
As a super city with a population of more than three million, and also having the densest and most complete range of factories in the country, Songjiang City has a massive amount of materials coming in and out every day.
From across the country and even around the world, a large number of goods arrive at Songjiang's port or train station by ship and train every day.
A variety of fresh fruits, vegetables and meats from the inner suburbs of Songjiang Prefecture and nearby counties, as well as rice, wheat and other staple foods from Huguang, Northeast, North America and other regions.
Various spices, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton and various agricultural products from all over the world.
And more are various industrial raw materials from various places, such as high-quality anthracite from Guangning County, Lianzhou Prefecture in the south, and ordinary coal from Datong, Shanxi, Tangshan, Hebei, and Liaodong in the north.
Various steels from Dangtu, Hebei, Liaodong and other regions.
There are many other metal mineral raw materials, such as copper, silver and various metals, etc.
The above-mentioned various industrial raw materials and agricultural and livestock crops needed for daily life are constantly flowing to Songjiang Prefecture from all over the country and even the world. Many of these industrial raw materials are not only consumed by Songjiang Prefecture itself, but a considerable part is transferred to other places. .
Songjiang is not only an industrial super city in itself, it is also the most important material transit port in the Chu Empire. Goods from all over the world are transited here and then transported to other places by ship or train.
Such a huge influx of materials every day, coupled with the export of an equally large number of various industrial industries, will inevitably lead to great local demand for transportation capacity.
This is why Songjiang City maintains a large number of horse-drawn carriages!
The transportation demand is so great that the carriage will not be enough without it!
Because the operation of the entire city, people's daily necessities, material exchanges in factories, and cargo transfers, all transportation is inseparable from horse-drawn carriages!
In order to meet the demand for cargo transportation, Songjiang City even has super-heavy carriages that are rarely seen in other places. These super-heavy carriages can even carry a load of about three tons.
A carriage with such a large load can only be seen in a place with a good traffic environment like Songjiang City, and cannot be seen in other places at all.
The load of the carriage is closely related to the road conditions and of course the distance.
For example, military carriages with the most complex terrain conditions and very strict distance requirements. Generally speaking, the maximum load of military carriages in the Chu army will not exceed one ton. This is only limited to situations where the domestic roads are good. use.
If the road conditions are average, or simply in Central Asia, overseas territories, etc., the carriage's load capacity is usually only three to four hundred kilograms (the common standard in World War II countries).
In this case, you don't need to be picky about the terrain. You can walk on gravel roads, but you also have to walk on mud roads. You may even occasionally climb mountains and wade in rivers... and you have to travel 25 to 30 kilometers every day.
Why is it this distance? Because this is the standard daily marching mileage of the Chu army.
Therefore, military carriages may seem to carry less weight, but in fact the requirements are the most stringent. Most of the military horses are also high-quality draft horses.
The Chu army's standard for horses used in logistics is that the height of a horse drawn for artillery must be 1.55 meters at the withers, and the height of a horse drawn by a carriage must not be less than 1.5 meters!
Well, this standard is actually based on the Toyoshu horse... because the average shoulder height of the Toyoshu horse can reach 1.55 meters, making it a very excellent draft horse.
Generally speaking, the horses with the highest average shoulder height in the Chu Empire Army are not the horses used by the cavalry, but the draft horses of the artillery troops, especially the heavy artillery troops!
The above is about military carriages. If it is a civilian carriage, the load capacity will be much greater.
In some places with relatively good road conditions, you can even see a horse or mule pulling a cart carrying a load of several hundred kilograms, or two horses pulling more than a ton of cargo. Of course, these are only limited to short distances. regulated transportation.
The four-wheeled carriages used by some freight industries in the empire generally have a long-distance load of seven or eight hundred kilograms, and a short-distance load of just over a ton.
There are very few carriages with a load exceeding 1.5 tons.
As for carriages with a load of two or three tons, there are even fewer. They are generally used as special vehicles for specific purposes. It is really rare for super-heavy carriages like Songjiang to be directly used as regular transportation purposes.
Don't ask why, just ask because it's forced...
There are mountains of goods waiting to be transported every day... How can we transport them without increasing the load capacity?
The huge number of carriages and horses in Songjiang City ensures the normal operation of the city...otherwise, the entire city would have been paralyzed long ago.
And so many horse-drawn carriages drive on the streets of Songjiang City every day, so when outsiders arrive in Songjiang, the first thing that shocks them is not the huge and dense local buildings, but the huge number of horse-drawn carriages there!
There is also the ubiquitous smell of horse urine in the air!
It is said that the new magistrate who just arrived in Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture last winter... This man was born in a mountainous area and grew up in a small town. He studied in Jinling as a young man. After passing the imperial examination, his working experience was in some undeveloped cities with beautiful environment or simply in It was in Jinling City, which had few factories and low population density.
As soon as I arrived in Songjiang, I was completely shocked by the local air quality... I applied for transfer within a month.
In his life, he had never smelled such a strong and long-lasting smell of horse urine, and the smell of horse urine was also mixed with the lingering smell of coal... He fell ill after suffering for a month.
The doctor said that his lungs are not strong enough to adapt to the prosperity of Songjiang, especially in winter. If he continues to stay in the center of Songjiang, he will not live long!
When this employee submitted a letter to apply for transfer, his words were extremely sincere. Many of his words were summed up in one sentence: I really can’t stand the air in Songjiang!
Because of this incident, the environmental system issues in Songjiang City were also taken seriously by Luo Zhixue, who ordered the governor of Jiangnan Province and Songjiang prefecture-level yamen, as well as relevant yamen such as the Gyeonggi Ministry of Health to investigate and formulate corresponding environmental management plans.
It's just... everyone knows the problem: burning coal and horse-drawn carriages.
But no one has a good solution.
After all, you can’t stop urban residents from using coal for heating and cooking, and you can’t stop major factories from using steam engines.
As for the coal used by ships and trains, compared with domestic coal and industrial coal, it is not much.
Think about it... How much coal are used by these three million people just for cooking and boiling water every day? And how much coal is used in the huge number of factories!
Songjiang City alone uses more coal than many small and medium-sized provinces combined... Of course, the economic size of Songjiang City is also stronger than the entire provincial economy of many provinces!
Behind the highly developed economy is huge and intensive coal consumption. If the same coal consumption is placed in a vast province, it is nothing... but if it is placed in the palm-sized Songjiang urban area, it will be a big problem.
As for the problem of carriages, there is nothing we can do... Without so many carriages, the people of Songjiang would starve to death... because massive amounts of grain, fruits and vegetables are piled up at the port or train station, and they cannot be transported without carriages.
So everyone knows the root of the problem, but no one has a good cure. They can only propose some improvement plans for the problem itself, such as strictly enacting horse management laws and asking horse owners to collect horse excrement and urine when driving carriages. It must be collected, horses cannot be allowed to poop at any time, and then the horse manure and urine are collected and transported to other places to be used as farmyard manure.
At the same time, Songjiang Prefecture proposed a plan to build urban railways. It planned to build railways in the urban area to pass trains and serve as the core force for transporting people and goods in the city, so as to reduce the transportation volume of horse carriages and reduce the number of horses in the city.
This horse problem is relatively easy to solve.
But coal pollution to the environment is difficult to solve... Not to mention the current Chu Empire, even in the original time and space of the twentieth century, coal pollution was a problem that was difficult to solve. The famous London did not start to control the pollution caused by coal until 1956. air pollution problem.
Now Songjiang City is also facing this problem, but it is not too serious. It has not yet been awarded the title of Fog City, so it can barely withstand it.
As for the future... of course we will talk about it later.
You can't just abandon your own industry just because the air is bad.
If you want factories and development, you will inevitably encounter these problems... As for wanting development and environment at the same time, I can only say that ideals are beautiful, but reality is cruel.
In a huge industrial country, as long as you burn coal, the air will not get much better.
The same is true even if you use electricity, because this electricity does not come from thin air, but requires hydropower stations or power plants, but hydropower stations actually account for a very small proportion. Most of the electricity is actually produced in thermal power plants and burned. are basically coal.
On the other hand, nuclear power can effectively replace thermal power, and coal gas or even natural gas can be used to replace coal for domestic heating.
But whether it is nuclear power, coal gas or even natural gas, it is too far away from the Chu Empire.
In the current Chu Empire, coal is still the most important dye, which is indispensable for domestic heating, industrial production, and transportation.
In order to solve the air pollution problem in Songjiang City, the Empire has also proposed some solutions. For example, factories that use large amounts of coal must build their chimneys higher to increase emissions sales.
At the same time, large coal-consuming enterprises are not allowed to be built in the urban center, and existing ones are gradually relocated to the suburbs... After all, Songjiang Prefecture is not only an urban area the size of a palm. In fact, the area of Songjiang Prefecture is quite large. As a suburb, the county is relatively empty.
The transportation problem can be solved through denser urban trains.
Finally, it was proposed to use central heating in winter to reduce coal pollution, etc., but this is not very reliable... because the current civil buildings in the Dachu Empire, especially residences, are generally short and scattered, even in a developed country like Songjiang. In the city, there are only three or four floors of residences, and many are simply one-story bungalows.
It is difficult and costly to adopt central heating.
Generally speaking, Songjiang's environmental problems cannot be solved for a while. At most, various methods can be used to alleviate them, but they will only treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
In this regard, Luo Zhixue has no good solution... and he is quite helpless, because he can't see any hope of solving it in his lifetime!
Even...he had never expected that the most difficult and most helpless problem he would encounter in his time-travel hegemony career would be air pollution!
If you say this, you will laugh out loud at the front teeth of other time-traveling seniors...
But yes, few other time travelers are like Luo Zhixue. After arriving in ancient times, they neither play in love before the flowers and under the moon; nor do they play in political battles in the court, or compete with colleagues or ministers in a battle of wits and courage; nor do they play anything. Fighting with cold weapons, practicing martial arts...but focusing on industry, even fighting has no sense of beauty, making the generals push forward without any sense of existence.
In this way, they will naturally not encounter Luo Zhixue's problems and worries: air pollution!
Because the industry has not developed to a certain level, it is not qualified to talk about such a high-level issue as air pollution!
However, the poor air quality in Songjiang City is not a big problem in Sun Xu's opinion... Although he smelled the smell of coal in the air as soon as he got off the train, and he also smelled the lingering horse urine when he was on the road. It smells bad, but this does not affect Sun Xu's yearning and affection for Songjiang City.
With curiosity and excitement along the way, Sun Xu followed the carriage through the streets and alleys, and finally came to one of the transfer stations, the Pacific Department Store Public Carriage Station.
After getting off the carriage, Sun Xu looked up at the tall building in front of him and a huge sign hanging on the top of the building; Pacific Department Store, and was shocked.
This huge commercial building has four floors in total and covers an extremely large area. It was invested and constructed by the Pacific Trading Company owned by the Song family, a local gentry family in Songjiang. Construction started in the 29th year of Chengshun and was completed and opened for business in the 31st year. It is one of the many department stores that have appeared in recent years.
Because it focuses on mid-to-high-end retail and catering, it has become the most famous landmark building in Songjiang City since its opening, with a huge flow of people every day.
Of course, the so-called mid-to-high-end is only a relative term... People come and go here, and it has nothing to do with high-end luxury. The real rich and powerful will not come to these places for daily shopping and eating.
However, to Sun Xu, this place was still obviously very majestic, and he didn't even have the courage to go in and take a look.
He just looked at it from a distance, and with envy, he carried the luggage bag again and boarded the No. 26 public carriage to transfer.
The public carriage swayed gently all the way. After leaving the most prosperous main urban area of Songjiang City, it arrived at the inland Xicheng District far away from the Huangpu River. This place seemed much backward. Although tall and imposing buildings could be seen occasionally, they would not be as harmonious as The row of tall and elegant buildings along the Huangpu River is so shocking.
After going deep into Xicheng District, Sun Xu got off the carriage at an alley, then followed the address where the food was distributed, followed the road signs, and after asking a few passers-by, walked on foot for more than a quarter of an hour. Only then did we arrive at an alley.
After repeatedly comparing the house number of one of the four-story apartments, he breathed a sigh of relief.
No. 36, East Seventh Lane, Shen Village!
Yes, it’s here!
He immediately stepped forward and knocked on the door. However, as soon as he knocked on the door, he found that the door was not locked at all, but only ajar. When the door was opened, what he saw was a dark and somewhat dirty foyer and a staircase.
He looked around and saw no one there. He immediately stepped in and stepped on the wooden stairs. As the wooden stairs creaked, he went up to the first floor.
There are several doors to the left and right of the stairs on the second floor, all of which are closed... From one of the doors, bursts of men yelling and cursing could be heard, and the yelling and cursing was accompanied by the sound of a woman crying.
Going up to the first floor again, one of the doors was half open, and a woman wearing gauze short pajamas flashed past behind the door. Sun Xu couldn't help but swallowed when he saw this - those legs were really long, and so white……
The woman inside seemed to have noticed something, and immediately stepped forward and slammed the door shut. You could vaguely hear the bumpkin saying, "I've never seen a woman before."
Sun Xu felt that he was wrong, and because he was afraid of getting into trouble in this unfamiliar environment, he quickly continued upstairs.
He said in the small letter that the apartment he rented was at 405 on the fourth floor...
After climbing four floors in a row, and still climbing the stairs with heavy luggage, Sun Xu's breathing was a little heavy even though he was young and strong.
After arriving, I first put down the package, checked the house number, and then knocked on the door of No. 405.
I just knocked for quite a while but didn't hear any response from inside.
At this moment, there was a sound of feet stepping on the stairs behind him. Sun Xu turned around and saw a young woman wearing a peony embroidered dress and a lavender hat climbing up the stairs.
Although the two of them were one above the other, and the wide brim of the curtain blocked his view, so that Sun Xu could not see her face clearly, but this blurry view, coupled with the curvy figure, still made Sun Xu unbearable. He breathed faster.
However, he quickly lowered his head, so as not to offend the woman and cause unnecessary trouble!
After all, looking at a woman openly and openly is not a decent behavior in the contemporary society of the Chu Empire.
(End of chapter)
