Invincible urban management

Chapter 20. The Bottleneck of Affordability

If you want to develop social productivity, you must climb the technological tree. This is an absolute truth that neither the left nor the right can deny.

However, in many yy novels that travel through the farming stream, those wise and decisive protagonists often come up with papermaking and movable type printing as long as they talk, and a large assembly line factory is established within a few months. It takes a few years to produce flintlock muskets and breech-loading artillery... Modern Europeans have worked hard to climb the technological tree for 200 years, but under the magic pen of someone, they completed it almost in the blink of an eye. up!

In short, the protagonists in these books seem to have all brought game systems, as if they have pressed the upgrade button of "The Rise of Nations": as long as there is a "hoo", as the mist-like light curtain dissipates, the thatch The house was transformed into a marble palace magnificently, the barbarian evolved into a musketeer in the blink of an eye, the canoe suddenly became a sailing warship, and the blacksmith shop became a metallurgical factory...

In contrast, the slogan of "15 years to catch up with the Premier League and the United States" of the Taizu of this dynasty is really weak!

In fact, for any social system, climbing the technology tree is a large-scale, intricate and complicated task.

For example, if you want to evolve from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, you must know how to fire refractory bricks, find iron ore, collect charcoal and coal, and test the appropriate furnace temperature and forging times over and over again, as well as remove steel The method of containing various harmful impurities.

However, in an agricultural society with backward productivity, what a huge population base and rich financial income you must have to support so many scholars and craftsmen who have been out of production for a long time, and study like headless chickens. What about successful new technologies?

What's more, these huge resources that have been wasted needlessly in research can completely allow you to easily form an elite army armed to the teeth to conquer a wider territory and plunder more wealth... If you are a How would a ruler choose between the two?

The answer is obviously self-evident.

Therefore, before the industrial age, all kinds of technological progress can basically only rely on the accumulation of experience of craftsmen and occasional flashes of inspiration.

In the same way, before the industrial revolution, many seemingly simple technological inventions in human history, such as stirrups, horseshoes, black powder, water mills, etc., took a long time in units of centuries to be developed little by little. From bud to maturity.

Fortunately, with the Time-Space Gate, all the above-mentioned troublesome things can be omitted—just travel back to the later life, drive a Toyota pickup truck to a small hardware factory on the outskirts of the city, what kind of rubber cutter, fire axe, Watermelon knives have everything.

Of course, watermelon knives and kitchen knives are not special-purpose weapons after all. In order to better enrich the armed forces under Wen Desi's command, Wang Qiu and Ma Tong also ordered a thousand iron guns from a small hardware workshop in the name of making movies. head.Later, in order to enhance the long-range strike force, Wang Qiu bought more than 100 javelins from the sporting goods store. Although the heads of the javelins are blunt, they can become sharp killing weapons as long as they are sharpened a little.

Next, just go to the library for a while, buy a pile of yellowed old books at the price of buying waste paper, and all the necessary knowledge for primary industry and modern agriculture are ready-made—— The only trouble is that the Indians in Mexico still don't understand Chinese. How to implement all industrial and agricultural technologies on paper can only be slowly pondered by Wen Desi and others...

Fortunately, there are too many gaps that the Indians need to fill in the upgrading of civilization.As long as the traversers use a little brains, the civilization level of the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom can basically be raised to the level of the early feudal era.

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Why was American civilization so vulnerable when European colonists invaded?Even the blacks in Africa are far inferior?

There are many and complicated reasons, but in the final analysis it can be summed up in four words: geographical isolation!

For the development of every civilization, communication with other civilization centers is essential.For example, wheat and barley in Mesopotamia, rice in southern China, and iron smelting by the Hittites spread throughout Eurasia through continuous exchanges.

However, due to its geographical isolation, the American continent is inherently deficient in the spread and exchange of civilizations.Geographically isolated from the Old World, the American civilization, which was forced to fully develop, has too many gaps in the key technologies of the technology tree - no wheels, no vehicles, no sailboats, no cattle and horses and other livestock, and no ability to smelt copper Iron, rudimentary writing (Mayan writing) was lost after being invented...

Without wheels, it is difficult to transport, without sailing ships, it is difficult to sail, without writing, it is difficult to record and spread knowledge, without copper and iron, it is impossible to resist the swords of the Spaniards... How can the American civilization with so many low-level technological gaps be able to compete with the experienced Europeans to compete?

Now, through the two-way portal, the traversers came to this world with a large amount of modern industrial products, easily filled the above-mentioned low-level technology gaps for the Indians, and then created more high-level technology gaps—for example, At this time, the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom, in just a few days, has climbed from the primitive and ignorant stone age to the sky, and directly entered the green, environmentally friendly and pollution-free solar energy era...

——In order to solve the problem of lighting at night for Wen Desi, Wang Qiu and the others got several solar street lights from later generations.

Obviously, from grinding stone tools to producing solar panels, God knows it will take dozens of generations to fill such a huge technological gap.

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Looking at the solar street lamps that are shining brightly in the thatched hut, the wife Maca who is sitting under the light smiling and threading needles and mending clothes, is holding a stack of literacy cards and is diligently learning Chinese characters. My sister-in-law Tia is playing the latest movie The tablet computer of the Batman movie, and the big steaming bowl of Master Kong's spicy beef instant noodles on the table, Wen Desi couldn't help but feel as if he had passed away for a while.

——Traveling in the true and serious sense is never a fun thing!

For a modern person who lives and grows up in a highly electrified and informationized modern society and is accustomed to various advanced industrial products and electronic entertainment, if he really wants to go back to the past, even in modern times 100 years ago, he will feel It's worse than dying!

Not to mention the Mesoamerican Indian tribes of the Stone Age.

Imagine that there is no soap, no toilet paper, no clean drinking water, lack of medical care, and a cold in the rain may kill you... For many people, just without online games, new anime and Hollywood movies are enough to make him miserable.

Fortunately, after the arrival of compatriots from later generations, everything slowly got better.

In the time-space trade across planes, there can be a fellow traveler who knows everything about the modern world and has thrived in another world. It is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The advantage is that, in this way, it means that space-time trade has ready-made translators and distributors in other worlds, and there is no need to worry about how to start "first contact" and how to successfully break into the local society, let alone being The aborigines are treated as devils, unable to carry out even the most basic communication.

The downside is that this one-step traverser, based on his own interests, cannot condone his compatriots from the modern world to behave in this different world, making it difficult for them to make huge profits by cheating and deceiving, let alone playing tricks , tricked the natives into obediently paying tribute—unless the traveler could be pulled together to fool other irrelevant people.

Although in a sense, this one-step traverser is equivalent to the comprador responsible for dumping industrial products for Western colonists in the Republic of China, and can almost be equated with a "traitor".But the problem is that he, the comprador, is exclusive, and the entire space-time channel exists because of him.The consignor can't bypass him no matter what, let alone replace him as an agent, otherwise he will have to break up and stop doing business from then on.

Therefore, amidst the constant bumps and bumps, this series of commodity trade across time and space was basically successful.

Wang Qiu and others made a huge profit of more than 200%, and obtained many coveted gold, silver and precious stones.

As a result, Wen Desi and his family members in this time and space have enjoyed many conveniences of modern life: brilliant and clean colored porcelain, sharp and hard steel tools, brightly colored modern cloth, and sweet and attractive candies Snacks, light and comfortable plastic slippers, modern medicines with miraculous effects...all are good things that were so sought after by Indians in the 16th century!Moreover, it is completely different from what Mr. Wen Desi imagined. Those plastic slippers, which are basically superfluous in his eyes, are the most popular commodities among Indians!

——Modern people in the 21st century, apart from being at home, very few people go out barefoot, and almost no one really walks in straw sandals, so they don’t know the benefits of slippers... To be honest, as long as If you have personally experienced the pain of walking barefoot in straw sandals, the rough blades of grass constantly rubbing against the soles of your feet, the comfort level of even the cheapest plastic slippers will definitely make you want to cry.

In the Indian tribes in the 16th century, not only did socks not yet be invented, even if there were not many people who could wear straw sandals, as for the more luxurious buckskin shoes, they were completely patented by the nobles.To be honest, the plastic slippers produced by modern large-scale industries are probably better than handmade buckskin shoes in terms of comfort and service life, not to mention the straw sandals that are prone to chao and mildew.

In addition, slippers can be transformed into sandals by simply putting on a strong rope. Although it looks a bit rustic, for Indians who don't even have shoes, this layer of protection can at least make them You don't have to worry about being pierced by sharp stones suddenly, and you can also prevent your toenails from being accidentally kicked away... In a primitive society where there is a shortage of medical care and medicine, even a small wound caused by a bacterial infection, if you are not lucky When it's good, it can often take the life of a strong man!

As a result, as countless products of modern industrial society poured into the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom, all kinds of gold, silver, jade and jewels, like a river breaking its embankment, poured out from the hands of the Hongxiutizgan people. out.

However, even a vast and boundless lake will be dried up by the scorching sun.

What's more, in a small and poor country with a population of only 2, no matter how much it goes bankrupt, how much gold and silver can it collect?

So, after only a few days, the flood of gold came to an abrupt end.