Lu Ming

Chapter 393 The Thief's Den

Time goes back to the day when the cabinet finished the King's meeting.

The black-blue sea is rolling and undulating, and a gust of salty wind passes over the water, bringing a large area of ​​bleakness, making the winter beach lonely and silent.

Due to the relationship between latitude and temperature, it is rare to see transparent sea water on the sea surface of East Asia.The kind of bathing beach that is so clear that you can see fish swimming under the water usually only appears in the tropics and the warm Mediterranean all year round.

Therefore, when the Han people living in the mainland stand on the seashore with dim yellow, black and blue waves, there will be no poetic and picturesque thoughts and lazy thoughts from the tropics. Standing on Jieshi back then, he could shout out the famous phrase "Cut to Yongzhi", but he must not have the consciousness of opening a resort hotel by the sea.

This kind of thinking mode cultivated by the environment is difficult to change—unless the ancient man standing by the sea is a time traveler.

Xiong Dao, who was wearing a leather robe, was standing on the reef at the moment, while looking at the dark and thick clouds in the distance, he was thinking about many light-hearted questions.For example: It's time to open a business, raise some sisters and children, and get back all the wages of these migrant workers.

Just behind Bear Road, an exquisite port industrial area is constantly expanding.

The six-meter-wide concrete port avenue with a white line drawn in the middle is parallel to the coast, and its left and right ends connect the industrial area, wharf area, storage area and commercial area in sequence. These are the core buildings of Shanghai Port.

The dock area consists of two stone piers and two wooden piers.The two long stone piers are prepared for large-tonnage sea-going ships, and the Port Department has spent a huge price for this.This included not only half a year and a large amount of rock, cement, and steel mesh, but also the hours of thousands of workers.

On the small railway tracks laid on the ground in the dock area, horse-drawn carriages or small cargo buckets propelled by manpower slide past from time to time.Follow the route of the railway tracks across Port Avenue to reach the storage area, which is separated by walls and gates.

Several rows of large warehouses painted with white ash and covered with red bricks stand neatly in the freight yard.These flat-roofed, rectangular warehouses with neat geometric lines are a bit weird to the eyes of the wise.In fact, in order to prevent fire, the warehouse group does not use any wood in its structure.In addition to the red bricks, the long-span roof was paved with reinforced concrete at a cost.

Guards in blue training uniforms, short-brimmed hats, and armed with rifles patrolled the warehouse area.These people, the lookout post on the roof of the warehouse, and two "domestic" lever fire trucks constitute the burglar alarm system in the warehouse area.

After crossing the storage area, go west along the half-narrowed concrete road. After walking for about one mile, you will find the commercial area in the original Zhangsutan weed field.

Since the time and focus are not on this aspect, the construction of the commercial district is currently the most lagging and sloppy.There is no paved ground here, but some ordinary buildings familiar to Ming people have been built on the three-fold land mixed with lime: wine shop and cart, mule and horse shop.

But a business district is a business district.From the moment the construction started, the hustle and bustle never stopped.A large number of people of all kinds swarmed in, bringing endless vitality and rich information. Businessmen from all over the world drove carts and rowed boats and gathered on this barren beach.No one cares about the quality of the accommodation environment, people only care about business opportunities.

So around Zhangsu Beach, some people quickly built shacks and thatched huts privately, providing shelter for some small businessmen and their buddies who could not live in the inn.Don't underestimate these shacks, just like the capsule apartments in later generations of Tokyo, the poor cannot afford to live in them.A large number of migrant workers who come to the port to carry labor are still crowded in Zuojia Village, which is farther away.

The construction of Shanghai Port instantly attracts the surrounding business activities.Like the Tangzhuang River Wharf in Hangzhou, which was about to burst, it was liberated overnight.

Whenever a fleet of ships sailing from the south docks at the Shanghai pier, it will cause waves in the business district.The spot and futures prices of various industrial products will fluctuate instantly, and merchants and brokers will start to act one after another, and a large number of explicit or covert transactions will begin to appear.

About one kilometer along the coast to the south of the dock area and the commercial area, there is always a puff of white smoke constantly coming out.

The place where the white smoke came out was the core building of the industrial zone: the boiler room.

The boiler not only provides clean hot water to the surrounding industrial areas, but also provides thermal energy, making it possible to process some industrial semi-finished products.

When it comes to the white smoke from the chimney, this 17th-century environmental protection measure is really not what everyone in the world would like to see. It is necessary to add some environmental protection dust removal equipment before the boiler chimney will emit white smoke, which will undoubtedly increase the construction cost.

However, considering the difficulty of Shanghai Port, the Port Authority finally installed dust removal equipment for this small boiler: the people say that the big house with billowing black smoke every day may burn some bones and dead babies inside. Something unknown like that?
While burning boilers, it is necessary to consider the local public opinion environment, which in itself reflects Xiongdao's weakness here.There is no need to consider the problem of white smoke and black smoke when passing through the boiler room in the kiln area.

Facts have proved that the reactionary gentry base camp in the south of the Yangtze River engaged in industrial construction, and the rebound was quite strong.

Ever since Xiong Dao was attacked by Xiong Dao and confiscated two contiguous pieces of land in Zhangsutan and Zuojia Village, until now, Xiong Dao has not been able to buy a contiguous piece of land.

In fact, in May of this year, not long after Xiong Dao withdrew to start construction, the Jiading county government sent word that there was such a "big threshold" that people were very dissatisfied with what Xiong Dao had done before, and at the same time, they were very dissatisfied with the county government's " "Working for a tiger", "helping a tyrant", "sit by and watch profiteers rob people's property" are also very angry.

In addition, there are more than one gentry who have made such a statement.So the county government went into hiding first. The political pressure was too great, and the county magistrate couldn't bear it on his small shoulders.

In this way, Master Yu Bende, who was really a minion for the tiger, could not move.He can no longer come forward or use the power of the county government to help Xiong Dao buy land, because the Yu family has already received a message: If you dare to do things indiscriminately, the secretary office of the county government will have to be replaced!

Under a series of overt or covert pressures, Xiong Dao, who had run into a wall everywhere, quickly found out the reason: many gentry were stimulated by his weird way of expropriating land.A family of merchants, even if there is a Lao Shizi military general behind them, dare to act so rampantly in the cultural and educational land of the south of the Yangtze River. Many gentry said that this cannot be tolerated.

So Xiong Dao immediately put on a tortoise posture.

Fortunately, the existing land acquisition is enough to start construction.However, because of the boycott, the construction direction of the port was immediately adjusted: fully build the wharf and storage area.As for the industrial zone that had been prioritized in the original plan, except for a few small workshops that used manual machinery to produce mahjong tiles, all other factories in the plan were suspended.

After adjusting the process, the workers built some ports and warehouses one after another after May, and then welcomed the merchant ships from the south.

From the moment the merchant ship arrived, Xiong Dao took a breath: the merchants and the agents behind them who had stood on the dry shore to watch the excitement would not watch the commercial route being cut off.

So someone and a certain port, who stopped their flags and drums, reached a dangerous balance with a group of gentry who were neither short of money nor accustomed to the success of villains, and they were all staring at each other coldly.

After more than half a year passed like this, the originally planned Shanghai Port is now relatively complete except for the wharf and storage areas, and the planned commercial and industrial areas have not been laid out at all. The industrial area that is billowing black smoke is an excuse for some people, and they do not want to build a commercial area into a New York where every inch of land is expensive, and welcome greedy eyes and actions.

Standing on the reef, facing the icy sea breeze in November, the slightly fat Xiong Dao couldn't help tightening the bamboo mouse skin robe around his body: "Oh, look at how miserable I am, the power of primitive capital is still too weak Ah, I don’t know if it’s been done neatly in my hometown.”

While Xiong Dao was lamenting to the sea, a graceful figure in training uniform ran over from a distance, waving a piece of paper in his raised hand: "Master, there is a telegram!"

"Huh?" Xiong Dao turned around from the rock when he heard the shout, and waited for his confidential concubine to jump onto the rock, then took the telegram draft from her—the telegram that Xiong Dao took over , It was the one that was sent to him after the cabinet held the king's meeting.

The next moment, when Xiong Dao read the telegram at a glance, he couldn't help putting his hands on his waist, and suddenly raised his head and laughed.

After laughing hard for a long time, Xiong Dao wiped away his tears.At this moment, he couldn't help but feel elated; he was standing on the reef, with one arm around the concubine's waist, the other pointing inland like a halberd finger, and sang a play in conjunction with it: "Look ahead, the black hole, It must be that thief's lair! Wait for me to catch up and kill him completely!"

After finishing his fury, Master Xiong paid off his efforts and quickly returned to the only two-story building in the port: the Port Authority Building.

After returning, Xiong Dao first went to the telegraph room, dictated several telegrams and sent them out.After that, he summoned a group of management personnel from various action teams, security teams, commercial departments, and port departments.

After conveying his thoughts to these key personnel and holding a briefing, Xiong Dao stayed in the Port Authority building to send and receive telegrams that day.

After getting in touch with all parties, he boarded the Clippers the next day and went straight to Tangzhuang outside Hangzhou.

Today's Tangzhuang has returned to its original deserted appearance: all commercial activities have been moved to Shanghai Port, and this side is only responsible for sending some immigrant ships.

After arriving at Tangzhuang, Xiong Dao, the deputy station chief, immediately had a private conversation with Lu Cheng, the station chief of Hangzhou Station.While the two were planning, they also sent telegrams to the officials to discuss with all parties from time to time. After everything was planned, Xiong Dao returned to Shanghai Port by boat.

At the same time, a famous post was delivered to the door of a certain family's mansion.

(End of this chapter)