Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 487 Developing Hollywood
Next, Qiao Zhiyong encouraged the state to introduce a free trade bill, deciding that the future "grassland" would be a free trade zone free of tax and open to the whole city.

As the only duty-free free trade zone in the southwest, Las Vegas will quickly attract a large number of ship owners and freight companies to come here for entrepot trade and product processing, and establish a large number of processing enterprises, coupled with the rapid development of fishery and ports. The development of trade, a large number of processing enterprises and some large-scale investment enterprises will also bring a large number of people to the new city.

According to calculations and statistics, after the city is completed, the average daily population will reach 30. According to this figure, the population here will become the fifth largest city in the United States in less than a year, surpassing the old center City Philadelphia.However, the reason for calculating the average daily population is because more than half of the 30 population are migrants, and most of them are gamblers. Among the remaining nearly [-] people, more than [-] are new immigrants who only have the right of abode, and ship owners, cargo owners, and merchants traveling to and from the new city.

However, the development method of the new city is driven by the population, whether it is the permanent population or not.Whether it is new immigrants who only have the right of residence, including gamblers, as long as there are people, there will be demand, which is the driving force for urban development.

Qiao Zhiyong had already prepared the urban planning drawings. Of course, this was drafted and designed by Chinese urban planning experts under the instruction of Guan Xuqing. Of course, the Americans would not know this.It was reviewed by the state of Nevada and passed with few changes.The Americans have made very clear calculations. The "Grassland" was originally a piece of wasteland. Now someone is investing in the construction of a city, and building such a large-scale entertainment and tourism city will inject a huge sum of money into Nevada. Once completed, it will not only drive the growth of the state's economy, but also bring a large number of job opportunities to Nevada, which is a very cost-effective deal for the state.

Qiao Zhiyong, his team and state planning experts came to the planned land of "grassland", and said to the people around him while comparing the drawings: "Because the time for building the city is too tight, this is a wasteland. The foundation of urban construction It is very weak, so in a short period of time, it is impossible to build too many high-rise buildings in the new city, about three to five floors, and various styles of buildings covering a large area are the early features of the new city.”

Qiao Zhiyong gestured with his hands, everyone, please look: "This direction will be the main road of the new city, the Golden Avenue, and the city hall and major entertainment and casino projects will be built around this avenue. You can imagine that there will be three or five floors here in the future. Tall, decorated with brilliant golden walls, covering a wide area, magnificent buildings are distributed on both sides of the avenue, and the signboards of the buildings that appear most are such and such entertainment city, such and such hotel, and such and such theater.

The Golden Avenue will gather almost all the high-end casinos in the new city. These casinos are somewhat different from the previous casinos. Their most notable feature is that they can provide one-stop services for eating, drinking, entertainment, basic necessities, housing and transportation.Therefore, the construction of supporting industries in the new city should also be carried out at the same time.Other small and medium-sized casinos are distributed in the south of the city, where there is a port, which can quickly gather high connections.However, the taxes paid by these casinos may not be as high as one-third of the high-end casinos, but the development of the city mainly depends on these low-end and mid-range casinos.The high-end casinos themselves may make a lot of money, because they are all rich and wealthy businessmen who spend a lot of money, and the income is naturally amazing, but this part of the gamblers is only a small number, and there are only dozens of high-end casinos. Unlike the middle and low-end casinos, there are thousands of ordinary The casino has at least 10 visitors per day.Although these gamblers are not rich.But no matter what, how many people can feed the new city with the basic necessities of [-] people?The purpose of building casinos in new towns is to attract people. "

"The available land in Las Vegas is limited, so we should build as few low-rise buildings as possible in the future. Based on the land conditions of the new city, the city hall should focus on guiding the construction of high-rise buildings. High-rise buildings can save urban space and shorten the time for public facilities and municipal management. Network development cycle, thereby reducing municipal expenditures and speeding up urban construction." Qiao Zhiyong told state planning experts.

A group of American planning experts paused at Qiao Zhiyong's words. If low-rise buildings are used in the future, the utilization rate will be low.It will also cause a shortage of land resources.Housing prices have risen absurdly. Besides, it is impossible to build houses on all these lands. Parks and natural parks will definitely be needed. If all buildings are reinforced concrete buildings, the living environment of residents will be too poor.If it is too boring, the attractiveness of the city will naturally be greatly reduced.

After completing the planning plan for Las Vegas, Qiao Zhiyong retained three young people, Ma Gongfu, Ma Xun, and Gao Yu, to assist the state in the early infrastructure construction planning of the new city.Of course, the construction funds for the new city of Las Vegas are very large. After repeated negotiations with the state, Qiao Zhiyong finally decided to contribute 30.00% to Nevada, and Joe’s Group to contribute 70.00%. More importantly, the two parties signed an agreement. After the completion of the new city, the funds for municipal public management will be borne by the state, and the future taxes and fees of the new city will be divided according to the proportion of the investment amount of both parties.

According to Yan Weifan's words, "Now that the chickens have been bought, the only thing left is to collect the eggs."

After everything was ready, Qiao Zhiyong didn't stop, took Yan Weifan and a large group of staff from the Qiao Group, boarded the train going south, and rushed straight to the famous American city, Los Angeles.

Previously, he had negotiated with California through Edison, his close business partner in China. The state has agreed to sell the development rights of a desolate town called "Holly Tree", which is directly transliterated as "Hollywood".

Qiao Zhiyong came here to implement the development agreement, and to meet with Edison to discuss further cooperation plans.

At this time, Los Angeles had a population of 35, 5000 registered companies, and 1200 factories.The vast majority of the population are urban residents.There are less than 1 residents in the countryside.

Qiao Zhiyong saw the excellent development potential of Los Angeles and the business development situation. In recent years, immigrants from all continents of the world have flocked to Los Angeles, hoping to get development opportunities here, and most of the immigrants do not understand English at all.In Los Angeles, 10 people speak Chinese, and another 15 people speak languages ​​from all over the world.Only about 10 people speak English.This makes it impossible for many people in Los Angeles to appreciate the English stage plays of the Opera House, as well as Chinese operas such as Peking Opera, Yue Opera, and Huangmei.

However, a film "The Great Train Robbery" produced by Edison Company this year has subverted people's thinking, achieved considerable box office results, and set off a wave of movie-watching in Los Angeles.Qiao Zhiyong saw this business opportunity, and decisively asked Edison to buy the development rights of Hollywood Town instead of Qiao's Group.He decided to make it the most famous movie kingdom in the world.

Edison’s vigorous development in the United States is inseparable from the strong support of Chinese funds. For more than a year, all the patented products in Edison’s hands were purchased by China in the name of the George Group. Edison’s The company made a lot of money for it.Of course, Qiao’s Group has also obtained all of Edison’s personal patents. Qiao’s Group is responsible for the packaging and sales of products. All patented products will be distributed to Edison with a 20.00% bonus. For Edison, he can focus on himself It is of course a very happy thing that money will be sent to his pocket for his inventions and creations.

The sensational effect caused by "The Great Train Robbery" in Los Angeles not only attracted Qiao Zhiyong's attention, but also many American financial groups and film companies all set their sights on the small town of Hollywood.

Just before Qiao Zhiyong left, some New York and New Jersey film companies were already planning to move to California.They think the weather here is good and the sunshine hours are long.Although the electric light had been invented, it was not bright enough, and the best light source was sunlight.In addition, California has a wide field of vision and a variety of natural scenery, which is beneficial to film shooting.In addition to natural conditions, in terms of subjective reasons, the most important factor for Hollywood's fame is the strong pressure from the film trust founded by the inventor Edison.

As the saying goes, time waits for no one. Qiao Zhiyong feels that business opportunities are often fleeting. He must hurry up to Los Angeles and start the construction plan of the film kingdom, otherwise he will be taken ahead of others.

Moreover, Edison also urgently needs the support of the Qiao Group, because his situation here is also extremely difficult.

Here's the thing.Edison also has many inventions and design innovations in film equipment, and has corresponding patent rights.Edison is known as the father of film invention because he first invented the film projector and made film invention come out of the laboratory.Moreover, Edison continued to register more patents on movies, making it impossible to avoid Edison's patents when shooting and showing movies in the United States.

Due to the increase of film companies, starting from 1897, Edison provoked a film patent dispute in the United States, and went to court with many film manufacturers.At the same time, he saw the development prospects of the film industry. Using the trump card of film equipment in his hand, he merged the nine major film companies in the eastern United States into his film patent company, thus controlling the film market.Those producers who were not willing to obey their orders looked for new ways to get rid of Edison's monopoly and start anew.At this time, before Edison established the film patent company, a small studio (Elder Films) that had gone to Hollywood to make films provided Hollywood information.This film studio, which was originally located in New Jersey in the eastern United States, rented a factory in Hollywood at a low price, and quickly produced the first Hollywood film "Her Indian Hero".

(End of this chapter)