Cutting 1719

Chapter 584
Vladivostok in November has become extremely cold, snowflakes are constantly floating on the top of the city, crystal icicles hang on the protruding walls, and some residual ice has accumulated on the blue-black city bricks, revealing a deep chill .

Groups and pairs of Russian troops crowded into the doorway, built a fire together to keep warm, most of them wore cotton padded clothes, but some still wore thin summer clothes with some cotton wadding stuffed inside. In the cold weather, after all, it will not play a key role.

Therefore, since the weather has been completely cold, the Russian troops patrolling the city have been frostbitten from time to time, and even died of freezing. As for the people hiding in the city, it is even worse. Not only do they not have enough time Cotton clothes, and even fuel were strictly controlled, causing many people to die at home, and many corpses were thrown out of the city every day.

Of course, no matter how miserable the city of Vladivostok is, it will naturally have no effect on the Governor of Sara Ula in the Governor's Mansion. He can still enjoy the warmth of the fireplace this winter, as well as the rare vodka in the city.

However, it can be seen from the gloomy face of the Earl of Sarawula that he is not in a good mood, even a bit bad.

"Yunchun has been captured by the Fuhan army. The Qing emperor doesn't know whether he is dead or captured. It is already difficult for our people to obtain more information."

The intelligence officer Sergey’s face was a little perturbed. With all the things that happened recently, especially the failure to take away the Qing emperor, their intelligence system has already seriously failed their duties, and now they have become so passive. So that I can explain to the governor.

Sure enough, after Sergey finished speaking, Earl Sarawula immediately swept all the things in front of the table to the ground, stared at Sergey, and said coldly: "Perhaps about Yunchun, There are still a lot of news that you don’t know, but these are not important anymore, I just ask our intelligence chief to tell you, what do you know about the enemies who are already approaching the city right now?”

Sergey suddenly felt that the cold sweat on his forehead was about to come down. Although the weather was very cold, he felt even colder in his heart, so he could only whisper: "My lord governor, the enemy troops who are approaching the city right now should be those who were stationed on the Tumen River before. The Eighth Division and No.14 Division of the Fuhan Army in the south, but it seems that there are more new troops at the moment. Maybe they came from the western grassland."

"Are you talking about the cavalry who raided our rear strongholds?"

Earl Sara Wula couldn't help feeling that his head hurt a little, and the current situation was undoubtedly the fastest for him.

You know, colonization and development has never been an easy task. It will take decades or even hundreds of years for the Russian Empire to spend a lot of resources to build a series of earth fortresses on the land of the Far East and accumulate that little bit of land. The use of armed force to form control of the Far East requires a lot of hard work in the middle of not one or two generations.

But the result of the hard work of one or two generations, it only takes one winter to completely lose it.

Obviously, under the unexpected attack of the Fuhan army, the Russian army in the Far East was not really fully prepared. Pulling it out made Vladivostok shrink into a ball, facing the risk of siege by an isolated city, which is almost a replica of the Battle of Yaksa back then.

A trace of resignation appeared on the face of Earl Saraula. He was determined to establish a career in the Far East, and then he could be promoted back to St. Petersburg and become a power figure in the upper echelon of the center. It's almost impossible to keep it.

"Where is the breaking point?"

Facing the fairly detailed map of the Far East on the wall, Earl Sarawula couldn't help but fell into deep thought.

There are four gatherings in the world, with the capital in the north, Foshan in the south, Suzhou in the east, and Hankou in the west.However, on the coast of the East China Sea, beyond Suzhou, there are Wuhu, Yangzhou, Jiangning, and Hangzhou to divide their strengths, and Hankow is the only one in the west.

With the rise of the Fu Han Army, Hankou Town has gradually been upgraded from being one of the four gatherings in the world to being the leader of the four gatherings in the past. In the past, Suzhou was faintly dominated by the bustling shops, but now it seems a little low-key. A large part of the reason is that the former Shanghai County has now been upgraded and has received a lot of attention.

In particular, the construction of the Shanghai Wharf and its subsequent development made Shanghai a window platform for foreign trade. The so-called convergence of merchants, sailing across the river, and piantian of department stores reflect this.

But now, with the opening of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway at the end of July, the development of Shanghai has added a lot of impetus, just like this long train, starting to make its own whistle.

"Woo-woo-"

After the gradually familiar siren sounded, most of the merchants rushing from Shanghai to Nanjing have already found their seats with their tickets, and sat on the solid wooden chairs. Playing the drums, observing everything around me nervously and excitedly.

"Master, what the hell is this? Why didn't you see the animals pulling the cart in front of you?"

A boy who followed his own shopkeeper into the car, with a somewhat green face, asked the shopkeeper beside him curiously.

The little guy had observed carefully before getting on the train. There was only a big chimney in front of the car, billowing black smoke from it, but there were no cows or horses at all. However, just after they got on the train, the train was still It really moved forward, which is really weird.

Sitting next to the clerk was a young man who looked luxuriously dressed and had a good temperament. It was Shen Weijun, the eldest son of the Shen family in Jiangnan who was all-powerful among the scholars back then, but sold them out in the end.

Today's Shen Weijun is naturally no longer the youthful appearance of the past. Since he experienced the scholar trend in Nanjing, although he was lucky enough to escape, the entire Shen family is also facing the dilemma of transformation. His father Shen Guanglie wanted to let the Shen family escape. In view of the emperor's sight, he had to sell a large number of Jiangnan fields at a low price, and then used all the funds obtained to form a chamber of commerce, and began to devote himself to the increasingly hot industrial and commercial circles.

Originally, Shen Weijun thought that joining the business world was a dead end, but he died more slowly, but he didn't expect that the business world is so easy to make money now, and it has caught up with the dividends brought by technology. The steam engines Shen's original investment Both the loom and the loom have become golden eggs for making money. Not only did the Shen family invest a large amount of money, they did not lose money, but instead made a lot of money. The income in one year almost caught up with the output in the previous ten years.

Having received such a big surprise, the Shen family naturally no longer harbored a sense of rejection towards the New Deal. They began to build large-scale weaving factories, purchased steam engines and looms in large quantities, and recruited a large number of weavers from the south. Cloth workers entered the factory, making the business more and more prosperous, and even Shen Weijun devoted himself to the new business. As for the previous small thoughts, naturally they disappeared.

In the words of Shen Weijun's father, Shen Guanglie, the Shen family had to thank the emperor. If the emperor hadn't helped them back then, the entire Shen family would have been reduced to the situation of copying and destroying the family like those other big families.

Now, Shen Weijun has just negotiated a big deal with an English businessman in Shanghai, but because of insufficient productivity, he cannot produce the goods in a short time, so he is going back to Nanjing to contact several big chambers of commerce and get them. Invest to expand their own factory in Shanghai to get huge profits from this order.

Hearing that Ji Chunsan was puzzled by trains, Shen Weijun smiled lightly. He is also a person who reads books and newspapers every day. Of course, he does not understand the truth of trains. A word, you can read what is written in the newspaper, and you won’t make such a joke, my young master will let you learn a lot today, this train is not drawn by cows and horses!”

"Oh? It's not pulled by cows and horses? What is it used for?"

Chunsan did not feel inferior at all because of his shallowness, he could not help but continue to ask, and many merchants sitting beside him were those who did not understand a few words, and they were quite interested in this question, so they asked one One pricked up his ears and listened.

Shen Weijun chuckled, "Do you know why this car is called a train? And why it runs so fast? It's not something a horse can do."

"Young master, don't be a fool." Chunsan couldn't help but muttered, and the others nodded secretly. This guy looked like a dog, but he was so anxious to death when he spoke.

Only then did Shen Weijun look around the people in the car proudly, cleared his throat and said: "The so-called train is naturally a car that needs to be fired to go. There is a mechanical creation on the front of the car, which is called a steam engine. The reason why the train can go , it is entirely due to the merits of this thing.”

"Only by lighting a fire can you leave? A chicken that strives for strength? Is there such a chicken in the world?"

Not only did Chunsan fail to understand, but he became more and more confused, as did the people in the car. Although they were amazed that the train could run so fast and smoothly, they knew nothing about its origin.

Shen Weijun naturally shook his head in disdain when he heard Chunsan's levelless question, "It's not the kind of chicken that can be eaten, but a mechanical creation that can produce a large amount of steam by burning coal. , and then the train can be pushed to run, and the reason why it can go so fast is not only the steam engine, but also because there are rails under it, forget it, you don’t understand so much.”

Good guy, Chunsan and the others were a little disappointed when they heard this, and they talked with the young master for a long time as if they hadn't said anything.

However, although everyone has doubts, they have their own logic in their hearts, that is, this is a treasure made by the emperor. As for why the emperor can make this, it is nothing more than a gift from heaven. What's so mysterious about it, can an ordinary person understand it?

Therefore, in such an environment where the monarchy is granted by the gods, it is normal to push everything abnormal to the emperor. As for ordinary people, it is impossible for ordinary people to figure it out. This is why merchants spend a lot of money to take the train—— —They made money, but they didn’t have much to show off, and this train, as the emperor’s treasure from heaven, wouldn’t be worth the money if they didn’t take a ride to experience it.

As for the price, it is indeed quite expensive. Everyone who rides from Shanghai to Nanjing has to charge five silver dollars. In the past, it was five taels of silver. This is not a small amount of money, like the ordinary green camps in the Qing Dynasty. Xiaobing, it's only one tael of silver a month!

But for merchants, not only do they not think five taels of silver is expensive, but they think it is cheap. After all, such a treasure from God can sit for a while, let alone only five taels of silver. .

Now hearing Shen Weijun's explanation, although everyone didn't understand it, they felt more and more that the money was well spent, and that if they could spend five taels of silver, they could enjoy such high-end things. !
However, if these merchants knew that they had already returned to Nanjing on the same train as the emperor, they would not only think that the five liang of silver was worth it, but even if they added ten times the price temporarily, they would probably be willing to pay for it. .

"It's too expensive, how can you charge so much?"

On the penultimate carriage of the train, Ning Yu was sitting by the window, with a bit of displeasure on his face.

The emperor was surrounded by accompanying ministers, and the front and rear compartments were also filled with guard soldiers who were in charge of guarding the car. They were holding muskets and hand guns hanging from their waists, staring at everyone.

The reason why the emperor was arranged in the penultimate carriage is entirely because everyone thinks that the closer to the locomotive, the more dangerous it is, so the more noble and safer positions are all in the last few carriages, so His Majesty the Great Emperor Can only succumb to the position at the end of the crane.

Speaking of which, this is the first time the emperor really took the train after returning to Shanghai by boat from the north. For the emperor who has experienced the high-speed rail train in his previous life, it can be regarded as a real encounter with the world-because he has never taken such a train before. The speed of the slow train is only about twelve kilometers per hour.

In a word, even the running speed of a horse can far surpass the speed of a train by more than double.

It sounds shameful, but Ning Yu already had expectations in his heart, because the steam engine power in the early days could only reach this level at most. In fact, the early trains in the previous life only had a speed of [-] kilometers per hour. It is a very lofty goal to pursue.
Therefore, Ning Yu, who silently complained about the speed in his heart, began to question the price again. He is not the kind of emperor who does not eat minced meat. The ticket price of five taels of silver is obviously beyond the reach of ordinary people. In this era, there is a high probability that only the truly rich can take the train.

For Ning Yu, this is not what he wants, at least in terms of public transportation, he hopes that the train can serve the public instead of being a toy for only a few people.

(End of this chapter)