On February 5, 1688, in the county seat of Bac Ninh, lightning and thunder roared, and it rained heavily.

An unexpected flash flood interrupted Ho Yuan's plans to visit several other settlements and made it impossible to continue his return to Hue Port along the dilapidated road. For safety, he had to turn back to Bac Ninh, intending to travel from here to the port of Chang Thuan and then return to Hue by boat.

Bac Ninh is the capital of Bac Ninh region, with a large population and a developed economy, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the best cities in the Brazilian plateau, and many indicators have surpassed those cities in Baoding, which can be seen in the speed of development. And the reason why such a great achievement has been made is actually related to the policy of the Bac Ninh Regional Administration!

After Liu Houfei, the former commissioner of the regional administrative office, left, the new leadership team abandoned the original path of balanced development of the whole region, and instead invested nearly half of the financial revenue of the regional administrative office (including the funds allocated by the central government) into the construction of Bac Ninh County, which can be said to be the development of the capital city with the strength of the whole region, so that Bac Ninh County has been nicknamed "huge construction site" for many years.

The results of such a development are obvious. Bac Ninh now has a small-scale steel plant, which provides the raw materials for the continued development of the region; There are five central power workshops with key investment from the government, which provide a power source for mechanical processing for hundreds of workshops or small enterprises; There are a large number of enterprises that process agricultural products, producing dozens of products, including wine, flour, tobacco, canned fruits, cured meats, which were famous in Portuguese times; There is also a large number of handicraftsmen gathered here, and the regional administration has almost cut off most of the craftsmen from the immigrants who have been allocated, and at the same time spent money to hire apprentices to the coastal areas to develop in Bac Ninh, so that the production of daily necessities in Bac Ninh County has increased significantly, and it has begun to sell to the whole region, competing with the goods from the Baoding area.

Of course, this development model has also brought about a certain degree of bad consequences, that is, the imbalance between regional development. There are so many counties in Bac Ninh, with a population of hundreds of thousands, and as a result, the people in the capital Bac Ninh district have been wiped out, and other counties have a low level of development, and now they have to import a large number of industrial products and daily necessities from Bac Ninh, resulting in the outflow of the already small amount of capital, and the market will inevitably wither. Many people complain that the finances of their counties are maintained by land transfer funds, and as a result, the central government has taken the lion's share of the construction funds, and then they have to buy all kinds of commodities from them. And if the infrastructure in this place is not well built, why should they attract more people to settle here?

These are real problems. But now it seems that the Bac Ninh District Administration is determined to go dark on this road. One is to build Bac Ninh County, the capital city of the region, so that its population and economic scale are on par with those in developed areas. The second is the construction of the Bac Ninh Railway, which is also a project that requires the local government to come up with a lot of resources for supporting construction, so it is the top priority of the regional administration and occupies an important position in the annual financial expenditure budget.

"Promote the development of other cities with regional leaders, and ultimately achieve common prosperity in the whole region." The above is the slogan put forward by the leadership of the current leadership of the Bac Ninh Regional Administration at the beginning of their tenure, and now that almost ten years have passed, I don't know if this has been achieved. According to what He Yuan has known for several years, it seems that it has not been done, but it is understandable: why is this not the case in Hue? There are only three counties, and the other two together are less than half of Hue county, which is already very revealing.

Because of the heavy rain, He Yuan and his entourage of more than 10 people were trapped in the Bac Ninh Hotel, the former Bac Ninh County Guest House, owned by the state-owned Dongfang Hotel Group, and could not leave. In desperation, He Yuan could only be patient, sit in front of the window and drink tea, quietly waiting for the weather to improve.

Bac Ninh Hotel is located on the most prosperous cross street in the county. Because of the heavy rain, there are very few pedestrians on the street, and some people are in a hurry to run for life. At this time, a group of more than ten people came over with umbrellas and large bags and small bags with a depressed face. They were followed by two policemen in black uniforms, carrying rifles on their backs, and looking at the old and young in front of them with stern expressions.

These dozen or so people are not strictly speaking, East Coast nationals, or they have never been naturalized. Exiled from the Ottoman Empire, they were dissatisfied with some of the more aggressive religious policies on the east coast, and therefore planned to leave the area and settle in New Courland, where religious policies were said to be more relaxed. Because of its tropical location and frequent fighting with blacks, the white population was depleted and continued to be replenished. Their place, although it was a predominantly Catholic place, was also very large in numbers of Jews, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and not harsh on the Greens, so they intended to move there.

The key to their departure is said to be that the people on the east coast used all their own cultivated imams, and resolutely did not use religious people who had fled from the Ottoman Empire. What's more, what makes it even more unbearable is that they are only allowed to build religious sites when the population of the Green Church is very high, and the format is also traditional Chinese, and imported products such as onion heads are strictly forbidden.

The latest regulations of the East Coast Religious Affairs Bureau have made it very clear that whether it is Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodoxy (legal status is still under review), Green Religion or Buddhism, the buildings and some ritual items of their religious sites must strive to be localized, and religious personnel must preach or hold religious ceremonies in Chinese, except for those who are specially approved to study the classics, and must not privately study or use foreign languages such as Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, etc., and violators will be subject to various criminal penalties.

The Bureau of Religious Affairs also pointed out that Buddhism has been introduced to China for more than 1,000 years, has been deeply integrated with Chinese culture, and has been accepted by the social elite. If other foreign religions want to develop, the first step is to carry out comprehensive reforms, cut off the past history, and re-root the Chinese culture for development. They directly pointed out that many mosques in Chinese mainland are in the style of traditional Chinese cornices, isn't that great? Do you have to build an onion head to be satisfied? Sorry, this is not allowed, and in the event of a violation, the Religious Affairs Bureau has the right to apply to the local public security bureau to assist in the forced demolition.

Assimilation has never been a warm word! In many cases, behind this seemingly flirtatious word, it means butcher's knife and conquest, and it means that large numbers of people are forced to change their way of life and live an unspeakable life again. In this respect, strictly speaking, the East Coast was inferior to the civilization of the Ottomans, the Russian Empire, and even the United Provinces. In these countries, pagans can live in peace, even religious activities can be carried out as usual, and beauties only need to pay an additional tax (the Russian Empire does not even have this additional tax), but on the east coast, you have to make a lot of changes, and may even be changed beyond recognition, which makes many pagans who have emigrated to the depress, and even some social elites have found a way to emigrate away.

In this situation that can be called religious pressure, it seems understandable to say that the people on the east coast are uncivilized, after all, among the major powers, the Kingdom of France is forced to change itself by violence to infidels or heretics, the original extremely religious fanatical Spain and Portugal have put out the fire, and Chinese mainland has no heart to care about these, so the behavior of the east coast is more eye-catching, so the appearance of the beacon of civilization is covered with a layer of dust.

But it doesn't matter, the East Coast now has a population of more than six million, industry, agriculture, commerce is growing steadily, colonies are flourishing, and scientific research is progressing steadily, and the country seems to have passed the stage of the desperate thirst for foreign immigration, technology, and capital many years ago. It turns out that the immigrants of your Ottoman Empire are all highly educated, experienced military officers, and well-informed businessmen, and they seem to be of high value, but now that the East Coast has developed for so many years, all kinds of talents abound, and it is no longer a stage where everyone can collect them, so there has been a vigorous clean-up of underground churches and mosques in the past year, strictly purifying the religious environment, and strictly implementing the purpose of localization. Otherwise, exile to overseas colonies is not ruled out.

In the past two years, Ho Yuan, as the head of the Hue District Administration, has also cooperated with the Syphilis Patient Statistics Survey Bureau to do some such wet work, and cleaned up some illegal institutions such as underground lecture societies that he didn't know where they came from. Those people were often aggrieved when they were tried, because there were fewer religious sites other than Taoism approved by the people on the east coast, which prevented many pagans from practicing religious activities in groups, which indirectly contributed to the proliferation of underground preaching groups. However, from time to time, the state carried out special operations against such churches, so that these people were full of grievances and at a loss, and finally had to be sent to overseas colonies to preach kangaroos.

He Yuan naturally supports this kind of action, although he sometimes complains about its destruction of the economic order, but in general, she is still sensible, knowing that in such an immigrant country as the East Coast, assimilation is the top priority, and East Coast priority and East Coast doctrine need to be talked about at any time, otherwise the country will only be a mess.

From this point of view, he was very unoptimistic about the prospects of the great multi-ethnic empires such as the Ottomans and Russia – well, the Kingdom of Austria has been frantically occupying foreign lands in recent times – and felt that there was always a huge bomb buried in the country, which could explode and cause great social damage if he was not careful. This kind of destruction, often a perfect effect that even foreign enemies can never achieve, will cause social divisions, ethnic divisions, and make this great empire collapse and disintegrate invisibly in endless internal strife.

Eating beef, drinking liquor, wearing fur hats, wearing Song Dynasty costumes (alienated or modified versions, such as the costumes of Bai Yutang's wife), listening to East Coast music (a fusion of traditional Chinese musical instruments and European and Moorish musical instruments), learning all kinds of scientific and cultural knowledge, and being loyal to the Executive Committee and the country are the things that a common person on the East Coast should do. Those who do not conform to this will inevitably not be accepted by the mainstream society on the East Coast. The price of marginalization means that your status in this social group is reduced, and in the end you will undoubtedly end up fending for yourself, and you will no longer be able to exert any influence.

He Yuan is also a member of the upper class society and the husband of the second generation, and he still has a relatively thorough understanding of the thoughts of the country's rulers. With the death of the older generation, the current rulers are becoming more and more unscrupulous, relying on the powerful national power of the East Coast, constantly exporting influence to the outside world and grabbing commercial interests, while internally emphasizing integration and assimilation, trying to twist the internal rope together. There is no doubt that this kind of operation is the correct way to develop the country, and if it persists well for another 180 years, then the national capital of the east coast will be completely solidified, and its position in the world will no longer be shaken.

"The lives of the people on the East Coast are so good now. Everyone has something to eat, and the consumption of meat, fish, wine, milk, and fruits is also very large, and goods can be seen all over the world, and the forms of entertainment are becoming more and more diverse. If that's not satisfying, then what is there to say? What are these people thinking about all day long? Living conditions in Bac Ninh are quite good, if not as good as those of Duck Lake and the savannah on the east coast. As a result, it does not allow you to raise your head from the scriptures and try to adapt to a new life, only to show that you are ignorant of true power and are destined to be eliminated by the world. In that case, if you die, you will die, no one will sympathize, and you will not deserve sympathy! When he got up from the windowsill and left, He Yuan thought, "Later, it's time to strengthen investment in basic education." At present, there is still a blank in many places, and compulsory primary education has never really been implemented, and the effect on assimilation is quite obvious. ”