I want to be emperor

Chapter 1097 The despair of European diplomats

A group of diplomats from vassal states in Europe were continuously shocked from the moment their passenger ship entered the Huangpu River.

What shocked them at first was the large number of steamships. One after another, giant ships of 10,000 tons were moored at docks all over the shore.

You can also see many tall factories along the riverside... Many of these factories belong to heavy industrial enterprises such as shipyards, steel plants, and large machinery manufacturing factories. The scale of their factories is generally relatively large and tall.

However, the visual impact of these factories is still somewhat lacking.

When their passenger ship entered the Huangpu River section in the central area of ​​Songjiang City, they really experienced the strongest visual impact in their lives: there were many high-rise buildings on the shore, and there were many buildings that were tens of meters or even more than a hundred meters high. .

What they saw was Songjiang City, and even the area with the densest concentration of high-rise buildings, the highest real estate prices, and the largest number of headquarters of various large companies in the entire Dachu Empire: the Linjiang Block in Jiangbei District of Songjiang Prefecture.

This most prestigious commercial center in the Chu Empire is home to a large number of various financial institutions, headquarters of large companies, branch offices of large foreign companies in Songjiang, high-end department stores, luxury jewelry stores, etc.

Basically, there are numerous names in the Dachu Empire. Large companies that want to open up the market in Songjiang and even the Yangtze River Delta either have their headquarters here or have offices here.

In such a place, every inch of land is naturally at a premium. When the land price here is extremely high, it will naturally lead to people asking for more space from the sky, and thus skyscrapers appear!

Ever since Wang Liqing and his wife, well, to be precise, Mrs. Wang's investment management company, invested in the construction of the first skyscraper in the Chu Empire, the Suzhou River Hotel, there has been a wave of skyscraper construction in Songjiang City.

Soon people followed up with the construction of tall buildings tens of meters taller, and then broke the record by building the first 100-meter-high commercial building in human history, the 'Songjiang Investment Daxia' invested and constructed by Songjiang Investment Fund Company.

Then came the 120-meter-tall Wang's Daxia, the 125-meter-tall Imperial Hotel Daxia, and the 145-meter-tall Suzhou River Hotel Daxia...well, that's Suzhou River Hotel. Building 2.

In fact, there are also some skyscraper buildings in other places. For example, Li's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. built their new headquarters building in Tianhe, Guangzhou. Not counting lightning rods and other non-practical building areas, the Li's Steel Co., Ltd. has an area of ​​123,000 square meters. Mimi... This is actually the tallest building in the Chu Empire. Many other buildings are actually 120 to 30 meters high, but part of the height above is usually for decoration, or It's like a lightning rod or something.

At the same time, Su Qin Textile Company built their new headquarters in the Wusong area, which can also be regarded as the Songjiang City area in a broad sense, with a height of 110 meters.

These days, many large companies like to build their own new headquarters, and they all build them very high!

However, these enterprises or ordinary commercial real estate investment companies are nothing compared to the Songjiang Wang couple... not worth mentioning at all.

Most of the skyscrapers in the Dachu Empire are in Songjiang, and there are a lot of skyscrapers in Songjiang, and at least half of them are on Linjiang North Road... A lot of skyscrapers on Linjiang North Road, half of them are affiliated to Wang's Investment Management Company... that is, they belong to Mr. and Mrs. Wang...well, Mrs. Wang to be precise.

There are more than 30 skyscrapers with a height of tens of meters or more under the Wang Investment Management Company... There are as many as eight 100-meter-tall buildings... Basically occupying half of the buildings on Linjiang North Road, which is very large. Exaggerated... Of course, although it owns a lot of commercial real estate, it also owes a lot of debt... After all, acquiring land and building buildings require a lot of costs. Therefore, the operation strategy of Wang Investment Management Company is often to use existing buildings. Mortgage, then obtain bank funds to acquire land and build buildings, and then mortgage them out... In this cycle, we acquired so many buildings, well, we also owed a lot of debt to the bank.

Therefore, although Wang Investment Management Company owns so many skyscrapers, it does not mean that their actual assets are so many... After deducting many liabilities and interest costs, it is estimated that only tens of millions of net assets are left.

But the strong influence of this investment management company is still enough to push the Wangs to Songjiang, and even the empire, to become members of the top upper class of the contemporary era!

Large companies want to enter Songjiang and join Linjiang North Road, which represents the status of the company, and they also want to take over a large office building, or even a building... The best way is to visit the Wangs. You want to rent Don’t you have to find a rent collector for the house?

As for the remaining half of the office buildings on Linjiang North Road, they are basically self-use headquarters built by large companies after purchasing land at high prices. Moreover, they are banks, and most of them are super companies. There are few vacant office buildings for rent, and those who do are not available. you……

On the market, ordinary companies, such as smaller but decent companies, such as financial institutions, legal institutions, advertising companies, or branches, offices, etc. of large foreign companies established in Songjiang... are best, or even It can be said that the only way is to find the Wangs and his wife to rent an office building.

Because this is the business the Wangs and Mrs. Wang are engaged in... building office buildings and renting them out.

Because buildings basically rely on borrowed money to purchase land and build buildings, in order to control costs, the skyscrapers owned by Wangshi Investment Management Company are basically built by themselves.

There is no way, they own too much land, and there are too many buildings that need to be constructed, and most of these buildings are commercial buildings in the city center, with very high design and requirements. In the early days, for example, in the 1930s, you even They couldn't find a suitable construction company to design and construct, so they had to form a team to do it themselves, and used many new technologies... The use of steel frames to build skyscrapers was first used by Wang's Construction Company.

After these dozens of buildings were repaired, Wang's Construction Company, which was originally just for the convenience of building the buildings, has become the architectural design and construction company with the most experience in skyscraper design and construction in the empire and the most advanced technology. , not only design and repair buildings for themselves, but also undertake orders from outside... They designed and built the headquarters building of Lee Steel.

The Wangs are actually relatively well-known real estate tycoons in Songjiang City, and even in the entire empire...and in addition to this, they also have a Suzhou River Hotel that almost caused them to vomit blood to support their business. Social status.

When Wang Liqing was managing the investment company, he promoted the construction of the Suzhou River Hotel Building 2 with the intention of surpassing the Imperial Hotel in Songjiang and becoming the top hotel in Songjiang... As a result, although he got the title of the tallest building and the most luxurious hotel at that time, But the loss was so severe that it almost lost money. Let alone recovering the construction costs, the income from daily operations could not even cover the operating costs.

The initial operating losses of the new building of Suzhou River Hotel made Wang Liqing very desperate. In the end, he had no choice but to resign, go back to his textile industry, and return the investment management company to a team of professional managers. …

Later, under the operation of the manager team, many different operating methods were tried, and then losses were turned into profits... And as the business grew, the profits were not bad, but if you include the construction costs of Daxia and the interest on bank loans, In terms of cost, I actually didn’t earn much...

However, despite experiencing this kind of difficulty, it does not affect the reputation of Suzhou River Hotel. With its reputation as the tallest building in the world at that time, it is truly resounding throughout the country... Anyone with a little knowledge knows that there is a restaurant in Songjiang City. The most top-notch and most luxurious Suzhou River Hotel in contemporary times.

When countless high-society people from other places come to Songjiang, quite a few choose to stay here.

At the same time, they also host various high-end banquets, business meetings, etc. all year round, completely establishing Suzhou River Hotel's top position in Songjiang City and even in the hotel industry in the entire empire.

The huge reputation of Suzhou River Hotel has also promoted the Wang couple's reputation in the upper class...

Now, the diplomats who came from Europe looked up at the skyscrapers near the Huangpu River. Many of them were owned by the Wangs.

However, ordinary people generally don’t know these things. After all, the names of these buildings are not uniform, and Wang’s Asset Investment Management Company is also a behind-the-scenes enterprise. Ordinary people do not need to stand on the stage. Ordinary people actually understand these behind-the-scenes enterprises. are very limited.

But in upper class society everyone knows it.

The rapid development of commercial real estate in Songjiang not only made the Wang couple successful, but also further enhanced Songjiang's position as a financial and commercial center.

Then people saw the super prosperity in the Linjiang North Road area!

When outsiders came to Songjiang, they were shocked...especially the diplomats from Europe. They looked at it like country bumpkins entering the city, staring at it and exclaiming in amazement.

However, among a group of amazed European diplomats, there was a young man with blond hair and blue eyes. Although he looked shocked and envious on the outside, he was filled with sadness inside!

Looking at the high-rise buildings in Songjiang City, as well as the Huangpu River Bridge across the Huangpu River, the piers alone are hundreds of meters high, there are endless carriages on the road, as well as cars and trams in the gaps between the carriages.

What Halbrand felt in his heart at this time was not wonder, but despair...

Before coming here, he had imagined countless times how developed the mainland of the Chu Empire would be and how powerful the country would be... He had even repeatedly improved his imagination, pushing the power of the Chu Empire to the extreme of his imagination. I imagined it.

But when he actually saw the native cities of the Chu Empire, seeing these high-rise buildings, countless steamships, and even cars and trams that he couldn't understand at all... then he realized what he had imagined The strength is still too poor.

The power of the Chu Empire far exceeded his imagination. Faced with such a suzerainty, when will the Kingdom of Sweden be able to get rid of the control of the Dachu Empire?

The difficulty is probably hundreds of times more difficult than I expected!

Halbrand came from a typical aristocratic family in the Kingdom of Sweden and was the heir to an earl. When he was twenty years old, the Chu people came to Europe. In just a few years, they swept across Europe and conquered the entire Europe. It became the farms, pastures and mines of the Da Chu Empire!

In this process, the Kingdom of Sweden inevitably became a colony of the Great Chu Empire... In name, it became a vassal state of the Great Chu Empire. The King of Sweden also accepted the canonization of the empire... and also retained certain internal affairs and even Military autonomy, but the economy is fully controlled by the Chu people.

During this process, many of the powerful nobles in the Kingdom of Sweden, on the one hand because they were forced to do so, and on the other hand because of their own interests, chose to become agents of the Chu Empire, assisting the Chu people in all walks of life. to squeeze economic benefits.

Halbrand's family is no exception. In the process, they chose to become the agents of the Chu people, using their influence and power in the Kingdom of Sweden to act as agents for the sales of various industrial products from the Chu country and to undertake contracts. A lot of mineral mining work…

Halbrand's father was often proud of his choices... He boasted that he not only preserved the family, but also developed it, making the family become a decisive figure in the Kingdom of Sweden in just ten years. 's big family.

If you are rich, powerful and have the support of the Chu people, you can move around in the Kingdom of Sweden.

On the other hand, other nobles who did not join the Chu people were either marginalized or simply exterminated, and gradually disappeared into the dust of history.

In the past ten years or so, countless aristocratic families in Europe that were famous in the past and had hundreds or even thousands of years of ownership have been uprooted by the Chu people... The Chu people will not tell you any reason when they eliminate the indigenous resistance forces, and Most of the time, they still play the trick of cutting the grass and roots, and they don’t even give you any blood!

The colonial rule of the Chu people in the indigenous areas has always been so cruel and bloody, especially when it comes to the aristocratic class in the indigenous areas. As long as you don't give in and don't obediently act like a dog to the Chu people, then in the Chu people In my eyes, you are not neutral, but you are directly classified as an enemy!

In this regard, the Chu people will not let it go... The normal situation is to support other indigenous nobles, such as kings, big nobles, etc. to suppress and eliminate the strength of these uncooperative nobles...

If you still dare to resist with arms, then the foreign legions of the Great Chu Empire will take action themselves and start a killing spree.

Nowadays, even some aristocratic forces who are dissatisfied with the Chu people and even want to resist...actually have to act like dogs to the Chu people and cooperate with the Chu people to implement various economic plundering policies before they have a chance. Secretly accumulate strength, support, and organize some resistance armies to resist.

The nobles who openly resisted the Chu people...are gone now because they are all dead.

Although Halbrand's family did not participate in any resistance forces, it was even considered an important agent for the Chu people to maintain the colonial rule of the Kingdom of Sweden and carry out economic plunder.

But as one of the main parties involved, Halbrand has seen and understood more, and naturally he can deeply feel the cruelty of the colonial economic plunder policy of the Chu people!

If the Chu people really do this, the Swedish Kingdom will not be able to turn over for hundreds of years, let alone ten or twenty years...and their family will have to be dogs for the Chu people all the time!

Although there is nothing wrong with being a dog for the Chu people, a large number of noble families in Europe want to be agents for the Chu people, but the Chu people won't give them a chance.

But... Halbrand was very disgusted with this kind of thing in his heart!

Because he had seen too many atrocities committed by the Chu people - the Chu Foreign Legion stationed in the Kingdom of Sweden did not regard the Swedes as human beings at all, including nobles like them...

He is even more aware of how much profit the Chu people have plundered from the Kingdom of Sweden over the years. Now in the Kingdom of Sweden, no, almost everyone in Europe is cultivating food, mining, and grazing cattle and sheep for the Chu people. The value cannot even be described in terms of money...

Because of the Chu Empire's military-based economic plundering policy, people throughout Europe became slaves who were not slaves...

Although the Chu people did not even directly rule these European indigenous countries, under the colonial economic policies of the Chu people, especially the widely adopted single economic system of vassal states, these indigenous people did more work than they could to barely make ends meet. There are more slaves... However, they have created a labor value that far exceeds that of slaves, but the rewards they receive are similar to those of slaves, and they can barely survive without eating!

Even speaking of it, the treatment is not as good as that of ordinary slaves... Slaves are still the assets of the slave master after all. In order to ensure that the assets are not damaged, the slave master will not deliberately starve the slaves to death, and will also suffer from minor illnesses and pains. Treat it.

But these so-called free people in Europe...the Chu people don't need to worry about these things. They are not their own assets anyway, so they can naturally exploit them as they please.

Chu businessmen who do business in Europe, such as those farmers, ranchers, and mine owners, often say: Do you want to do it or not? If you don’t, others will do it... If you want to increase your salary, Don’t even think about it in your next life!

Why do you dare to incite people to go on strike? Haha, without the Chu people taking action, the local army controlled by local agents will go to suppress it. If the local army is unable to do anything, it doesn't matter, there are still foreign legions...

The machine gun skills of the Foreign Legion are invincible in the face of these riots!

The more he understood, the angrier Halbrand became in his heart... But the more he understood and the angrier he became, the less he dared to act rashly... In his daily performance, he was truly a person who was fully inclined to the interests of Chu State. people...

If one does not care about his heart, people like Halbrand, in the eyes of some resistance forces in Europe, are the lackeys of the Chu State and the compradors of the Chu State, the kind of people who can be punished by everyone.

It is precisely because of this that he was able to enter the court of the Kingdom of Sweden before he inherited the title and became an important diplomat responsible for dealing with the people of Chu.

This time the Kingdom of Sweden rotated its ambassador to Jinling, and Halbrand became the Kingdom of Sweden's plenipotentiary envoy to Jinling of the Great Chu Empire.

This is also the opportunity he strives for!

Because only by coming to the homeland of the Da Chu Empire and stationed in Jinling City for a long time can he have a more comprehensive and true understanding of the power of the Da Chu Empire, and at the same time understand the impact of some changes in the top management of the Da Chu Empire, especially on Europe situation, and its impact on the Kingdom of Sweden.

Just like what the Chu people said, if you know yourself and your enemy, you will be victorious in any battle... If he wants to do some big things and drive the Chu people out, he must first understand what the Chu Empire he needs to face is like. s country.

Then...he who came to Songjiang now knows!

Then there is despair that fills the bottom of my heart!

Facing such a large Chu Empire, how could the Swedish Kingdom drive them away and restore their independent status?

It is probably impossible to even withdraw or improve some economic treaties.

And this despair reached its peak after he visited Qiming Firearms Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company...

The Qiming Firearms Factory he visited was not their main factory... but a branch factory specially built for the production of export weapons. It also produced flash cap percussion guns and smoothbore cannons.

But the various mechanical equipment used above make people despair... The production line is rotating rapidly. A large number of mechanical equipment processes the parts and then assembles them. The output is extremely high, and the guns produced are The guns are almost all the same.

Before this, Halbrand could not imagine that guns could be made like this!

And Halbrand knew even more clearly that these percussion guns and smoothbore cannons sold to various countries in Europe, including the Kingdom of Sweden, had been products that had been eliminated for nearly 20 years in the Chu Empire... Chu Chinese people have long used rifled guns.

Even their regular troops still use small-caliber repeating rifles and more advanced breech-loading rifled guns.

He could not imagine how those rifled guns were made, it was beyond his imagination.

After visiting the Qiming Firearms Factory, although Halbrand seemed to compliment, awe, and even please the Chu people on the surface, in his heart... he was filled with despair.

How could such an empire be driven out of the kingdom and out of Europe?

But he soon strengthened his determination... Even if it was difficult, he must continue to do it. If his strength was not enough, he would look for every opportunity to increase his strength. At the same time, he should also compete for opportunities in diplomacy, and adopt a slow and gradual approach to gain the recognition and even recognition of the Chu people. Trust, and then look for opportunities to gradually relax, and intersperse some resistance in the process.

Only when the maintenance costs of direct colonization by the Chu people are greater than the benefits, will the kingdom usher in real rebirth!

This process may take decades or even longer, but it still needs people to do it!