The use of Gordon Hall as the administrative building of the Crossing Group in Tianjin was not Qin Zheng's personal opinion, but was decided at a meeting held at Dagukou. Because the area of Tianjin is too small, the space for development is limited, and the place is relatively remote, not in the center of Tianjin. In the future, the center of gravity of the Tianjin area will inevitably shift to the direction of the concession, and the British concession is the core of the concession area, so it is not unreasonable that in the old time and space, the Republic of China and the new China will set up the seat of government agencies in Gordon Hall.

The Gordon Hall is also the largest building in the Tianjin Concession at present, and of course there is no need for the traversers to start anew, and still set up the administrative center of Tianjin in the Gordon Hall according to the habits of the old time and space.

Everyone only sat in the barracks for a while, listened to Qin Yuhai's brief report on the current situation in the concession, and then accompanied by Qin Yuhai, conducted an inspection in the concession.

The current Tianjin Concession is actually the British and French Concession, and the British Concession was built earlier and planned properly, and now it has the scale of a modern city. At this time, the British Concession was centered on Victoria Road (Jiefang North Road) and expanded to both sides, and the area between Victoria Road and Heba Road (Taierzhuang Road) concentrated most of the commercial enterprises in the current concession. However, since there are not many people settled in the concession at present, there is still a large amount of idle land, and there is still a lot of potential for development in the future.

However, after investigation, although there are quite a number of modern enterprises concentrated in the concession, there are many of them in this era, and even more well-known enterprises in the old time and space, such as HSBC, Swire & Co., Gaolin & Co., Jardine Matheson, Li Shunde Hotel and so on. However, on the whole, the enterprises in the concession are mainly in the financial, commercial and trade industries, and the service industry, while there are not many factories, mainly concentrated in ship maintenance, food processing, municipal supporting facilities, daily necessities, and so on. This shows that the economy of the Tianjin Concession is still dominated by a circulation-oriented economy, while large-scale industries and manufacturing industries are not well developed.

Of course, such an economic structure is also related to Tianjin's special geographical location, because Tianjin was originally used as Beijing's coastal defense acropolis, and is an important node of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, which is an important water transportation for the exchange of materials between the north and the south in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Tianjin is the last stop of the Cao Yun from the south to the north, so almost all the materials sent to Beijing have to pass through Tianjin, with such convenient transportation conditions, Tianjin's circulation economy is naturally developing very fast. In modern times, although the transportation is weakened, but the rise of shipping, and Tianjin as the nearest seaport from Beijing, has the convenience of the Haihe River system, its transportation arteries, the location of material distribution does not fall but rises, of course, it is to vigorously develop the logistics economy. In the old time and space, Tianjin has taken this advantage to the extreme.

It took a morning for Qin Zheng and his entourage to turn around the concession by more than half, and they also visited several residents' gathering places that centralized the management of residents, and basically had a general understanding of the situation in the concession, and at this time, the team departing from the land route also arrived at the Tianjin concession. More than 300 people came, and the Victoria Garden was also lively.

After lunch, Qin Zheng asked Qin Yuhai to arrange for the overland team to rest in Victoria Garden for the time being, while everyone rushed to Tianjin City to continue the investigation, Qin Yuhai arranged for Luo Yue to lead the whole platoon of soldiers to protect Qin Zheng and others.

The group left the concession and marched along Hai Avenue (Dagu North Road) towards Tianjin City.

However, after leaving the concession, the landscape suddenly changed greatly, although the economy of Tianjin area is not based on agriculture, but China in this era is still an agricultural country after all, so on the other side of the sea avenue, there are still vast farmlands and villages, and everyone seems to have traveled from modern Europe to ancient China.

The crops in the fields have grown so tall that they are almost waist-high, and some are even as tall as a man, but there are no agricultural experts among them, so they do not know what crops are planted in the fields, but now it is the middle of September, and it should be the harvest season, and there are not many people working in the fields, but there are a large number of finches flying in the air, rushing down to peck at food, and there is little cooking smoke in the village, which is very desolate.

Wang Yunpeng couldn't help but say, "This is too desolate." ”

Qin Zheng said: "This is the real situation in China in this era, don't be confused by such a special case as the concession." ”

Wang Yunpeng sighed and said, "It seems that our task is really not light, and we want to build a modern country on such a basis." ”

Qin Zheng said with a smile: "Don't be too pessimistic, it's man-made, in the old time and space, didn't New China also come from this step?" Besides, it is not too late for us to start developing, and it is still the end of the first industrial revolution; and the second industrial revolution has just begun, so China has not been left too far behind by the world, it should be said that our starting point is much more than in the old time and space, and it is easier to catch up, not to mention that the level of technology we have mastered is far higher than that of this era, as long as there is a certain population and resources, we will definitely catch up with the world in a short time, and even surpass the world. ”

Wang Yunpeng nodded, and asked again: "Political Commissar Qin, in this era, how many people are there in Tianjin?"

Qin Zheng said: "According to some historical records, the population of Tianjin should be about one million, but during the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, there were only more than 100,000 people left. ”

Xu Jichao, who was on the other side, couldn't help but be taken aback and said, "The Eight-Nation Coalition Army killed 900,000 people in Tianjin? This is about to catch up with the death of three Nanjing Massacres." ”

Qin Zheng shook his head and said, "That's not that much, how many people the Eight-Nation Alliance killed in Tianjin, the number of the body can't be counted clearly, but it is estimated that it should be about 100,000 people, and the rest have fled." ”

Wang Yunpeng said: "There are only more than 100,000 people left, how many troops can we collect?"

Qin Zheng smiled: " There is no need to worry about this, those who escaped can come back again, the Chinese are inseparable from their homeland, as long as they know that the situation in their hometown has stabilized, they will return immediately, in the old time and space, the eight-nation alliance army captured Tianjin on July 16, in August, Tianjin only had more than 100,000 people left, and in December, the population of Tianjin rose to nearly 600,000, because although the eight-nation alliance army is still ruling Tianjin, normal order has been restored, so those who fled have returned, and the current situation is still more beneficial to our army。 ”

Everyone talked all the way, and it didn't take long to arrive at the south gate of Tianjin City, and at this time, Qiu Yahui, who was responsible for guarding Tianjin City, had received a notice from Qin Yuhai and greeted everyone at the south gate.

After entering the city, there is a lot of excitement, there are pedestrians on the streets, and there are a few shops on the street to welcome the business.

It turned out that Qiu Yahui accepted Fang Bin's opinion, and sent Tianjin soldiers to shout in the city in Tianjin dialect, and it was advisable to pass on the discipline of the troops, so that the residents should not worry, this trick was really effective, so that the residents in Tianjin City did settle down a lot, and a few bold people also opened the door and looked at the street in annoyance. But there were no gunshots or cries, so there was a lot of bottom.

In the afternoon, there were still people who took the initiative to come to the Bell and Drum Tower to find the crossing troops. It turned out to be a representative of the squire in the city of Tianjin, who brought some silver grain to meet the commander of the crossing army and test the attitude of the crossing soldiers.

And Qiu Yahui was a little surprised, he was not good at dealing with such a scene, but fortunately, he was not the only company in Tianjin, there were two reserves, so Qiu Yahui immediately called the commander of the reserve, Colonel Fang Bin, and asked him to receive the representatives of the squires in Tianjin.

I have to say that the level of university professors is different, what scene has not been seen, and who has not seen it, and a few representatives of the squires in this district are really nothing? Therefore, the whole reception was included in their control from the beginning, first telling them the identity of their own group, of course, it is still the set of overseas Chinese, but Fang Bin emphasized that although his group is overseas Chinese, they have always been concerned about their homeland, and they have always regarded themselves as Chinese, this time they made a special trip back to China, and happened to meet the eight-nation alliance, so they captured Dagukou and recovered Tianjin. And please rest assured that they will only fight foreigners and will never hurt the people of Tianjin. The gift sent was politely declined by Fang Bin.

In fact, these squire representatives are not uninformed people, on the contrary, they have a good relationship with the foreigners in Tianjin, and they have properties in the Tianyan Concession, during the Boxer Rebellion, they all hid in the concession, until the Eight-Nation Coalition defeated the Boxers and occupied Tianjin, before returning to Tianjin, and assisting the Eight-Nation Alliance to maintain order in Tianjin, of course, they also asked the Eight-Nation Coalition not to kill innocents indiscriminately in Tianjin, so as to stabilize the situation in Tianjin, and because of this, after the crossing army occupied Tianjin, they also dared to come forward to ask to see the crossing army。

After listening to Fang Bin's words, they are all half-convinced, and they have dealt with foreigners a lot, of course they have a certain understanding of the overseas world, but what Fang Bin said is too unbelievable, but they can't say they don't believe it, after all, the appearance of this group of people is indeed Chinese, because it is Fang Bin's full mouth of Beijing films, which is more authentic than Beijingers. Although there are foreigners who can speak Chinese, they have never been able to speak a Beijing accent, so they can't help but believe it.

After saying a few words, several squire representatives finally had a little bottom in their hearts, so they all got up and said goodbye, and before leaving, they must leave the gifts they brought.

Nazhi Fangbin refused again, and emphasized the three disciplines and eight points of attention of the army, and asked them to supervise on their behalf, and if they found soldiers who violated discipline, they could report it immediately.

This made several representatives of the squires very surprised, is there really such an army in the world? It seems that this group of troops who claim to be overseas Chinese is very different from the Qing army.

Pay attention to the official QQ public account "17K Novel Network" (ID: love17k), read the latest chapters first, and grasp the latest information at any time