On August 30, 1677, after several rounds of consultations with the government of the Denlai Pioneer Corps on a series of detailed issues concerning the Jiaoyan Line Railway, the vice president of the company finally had a few days to rest, so he took a few retinues with him, together with five or six elite cavalry sent by Yantai to protect their safety, and traveled south along the planned railway line, intending to see the local customs and customs on the spot, so as to have a good idea of the future profit expectations of the railway.

Of course, it's not like this kind of thing can't be left to the people below. However, Xu Xiangdong always felt that some things were better done by himself, especially important things such as inspecting the customs along the railway. If you don't have time, you can leave it to a trustworthy subordinate, but if you have time and are relatively abundant, then it is also appropriate to go to the important nodes along the line to take a walk and take a look.

The closest thing out of Yantai is Fushan County. The area of this county is not large (nonsense, the county area was torn off a large part by Yantai, and the county seat was forced to move south), but the population is quite a lot, although there have always been a large number of people flowing into Yantai, Ninghai Prefecture, Laiyang (organized by the government, to Laiyang to farm) and other places, but it still remains under 80,000 people, which has exceeded the population of the yellow register at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which can be seen.

The old Fushan county town was razed to the ground during the Qing army's entry into the Kou, and later the east bank people built a new city more than 20 kilometers east of the south of Yantai, as the location of Fushan County, the planned Jiaoyan line railway in the west of the new city, the east bank of the Dagu Jiahe River to the south, and Xu Xiangdong and others are currently located on the east bank of the Dagu Jiahe.

Due to the construction of the railway, some rowing boats appeared in the Dagu Jiahe River from time to time at this time. These ships are not big in the cabin of sleepers, stones and other building materials, sometimes also carry some salted fish (mostly salmon) from abroad, it seems that the railway construction site is the same as Jiaozhou Port, Yantai, Fushan and other places of the railway line is better determined, so the land leveling work is carried out earlier, has now entered the later stage, some places (such as Yantai County) can already start to lay rails.

"The mountain in the southwest is the Lion Peak in the Baidong Mountain Range, and the corresponding to the Lion Peak is Kunyu Mountain. Between these two mountains, there is a fairly flat valley, half of which belongs to Fushan County and half to Qixia County. Jiang Yunfan, the son of Jiang Nanqi, the director of the government affairs department under the Denglai Pioneer Team and one of the former veterans of the judicial system, followed Xu Xiangdong step by step and whispered to him about the geography, customs, and people of Fushan County.

"Over the years, after experiencing earthquakes, droughts, and locust plagues, Fushan County's agricultural production has been greatly hit. The traffic area originally had many mountains and few lands, and the soil texture was not as good as Laiyang, Yexian, and Pingdu Prefecture in the west, so it was not a big county since ancient times. However, as the so-called building near the water gets the moon first, it surrounds the narrow Yantai County of Fushan in a semicircle (only a small opening is left for Ninghai Prefecture on the east side of the sea), and has achieved a very good momentum of development relying on Yantai for many years. After waving his hand and pointing for about four weeks, Jiang Yunfan continued: "Yantai has a lot of troops, and there are also a large number of civil affairs and commercial institutions, and there are a large number of officials, businessmen, and technicians. They have lived in Yantai for a long time, but due to the small size of Yantai, most of their children can only settle in neighboring Fushan County when they grow up, so it has led to the prosperity of the real estate industry in the Fushan area. ”

"After these people poured into Fushan, they began to run various industries, including those who produced various parts and components for the Yantai Gun Repair Factory (using pedals or hydraulic machine tools), those who provided all the gadgets including barrels, canvases, cables, and rigging for the Yantai Port, and one of the Yangma Island workshops that provided supporting services, and of course, the largest number of them were engaged in agricultural activities, providing all kinds of agricultural products for the consumer-oriented city of Yantai County. Speaking of Vice President Xu, you may not believe that the agricultural cooperative system, which has not yet been popularized on a large scale in the local area, has now been carried out in many places in Fushan and Yantai counties, and most of them are some agricultural operators, mainly producing melons, fruits, vegetables and vegetables, raising livestock, and cultivating flowers, and the main consumer market can be said to be Yantai. Jiang Yunfan said: "Their life, on the whole, is relatively good, look, the small village in front of them is." Vice President Xu, I think we can go over and have a look. ”

After getting Xu Xiangdong's approval, the group led the horses, crossed an apple grove, and soon came to a small village. A family at the head of the village seemed to be a handler who drove a cart, for in the courtyard of his house, which was half-walled, was parked in an oriental-style carriage with four wheels, and a man was walking in front of it, as if he was repairing something.

Because too much time was spent elsewhere in the afternoon, it was already a little dark, and the hostess in the yard inserted a piece of pine ming into an iron tripod in the yard and lit it, because his husband seemed to have to repair the damaged cart overnight, maybe tomorrow there was a business that could not be pushed off must be completed Song Ming should be produced in the nearby mountains, it is a common lighting tool among the people, not expensive but not very cheap, the craftsman's family can afford this kind of thing, it is indeed not strange, What's more, places like Fukuyama are not very poor.

The arrival of Xu Xiangdong and the others alarmed the male and female hosts in the village, but after figuring out their intentions, the male owner still put Xu Xiangdong and others into the courtyard, and said something under Xu Xiangdong's inquiry.

"How much money do you make a month?" Xu Xiangdong sat on a small bench brought by the hostess and asked. This man looks very young, about 20 years old, just now I heard him say that there is a brother in Yantai County as a policeman, is to attack his father who has died of illness, but unfortunately because he is not on good terms with his brother, so when he separated, he took some family wealth indiscriminately, and went to live in Fushan County, and now it seems that it is so-so.

"It's about six or seven yuan, when it's good, it can be eight or even ten yuan, and when it's less, it's only four or five yuan." The young handlebar wiped his hands with a towel and replied with some restraint.

"This income is good, and the income of being a soldier is not bad." Xu Xiangdong immediately praised: "The Fourth Division of the Denglai New Army in Taocun in the south is recruiting big soldiers, and it is only four yuan a month. ”

Xu Xiangdong actually discovered that this handlebar-style living situation should be okay. You see, the iron tripod in the courtyard was only used as a candlestick and the like, which was unthinkable in the Qing Dynasty, and even in the poor mountain countryside of Denglai; He used a white towel to wipe his hands just now, which is only produced in Yantai County, and although the price is not too expensive, the ability to consume and use this cotton textile itself is a proof of income and identity. The mountain people who changed to the Qing Kingdom or Denglai may also wipe their ragged linen clothes a few times at will, who will spend money to buy towels? That will only be scolded by the old people as a loser, and it is impossible to have this kind of consumption habit.

Perhaps at the behest of her men, the hostess of the farmhouse brought a plate of tawny pastries. This kind of pastry is made of white flour, with a little sugar and fruit, it is more delicious, many people in Yantai and Fushan like to eat, and it seems to have originated from the foreign food brought by the foreign soldiers during the Mo Dashuai period.

Sugar is sucrose, needless to say, it needs to be specially transported from Yantai, and it is not cheap to buy. The fruit seems to be some wild berries in the nearby mountains, which are huge, delicious and numerous, and are collected by people in the mountains every year, and then transported to Yantai City by horse-drawn carts to sell, making a lot of profits.

"Do you usually go to Yantai a lot? I think you're a handlebar type. Xu Xiangdong asked again.

"A lot!" When he mentioned the name of Yantai, his handlebar-like expression was more or less complicated, and he paused and replied: "I mainly go there to deliver all kinds of food." Wheat, rye, sorghum, peas, soybeans are the most, and sometimes some fruit is also sent, and the wholesale merchants there are buying anyway. Thanks to the blessing of the old man, the highway from Yantai to Fushan is quite well repaired, and it doesn't take long to go back and forth. ”

"Do you know that the railroad is being built?" Xu Xiangdong took a piece of soft cake and asked while eating.

He knew that this problem was a bit difficult for the young handlebar style, because he didn't know what the construction of the railroad meant to them, and he probably didn't even know what a railroad was.

Sure enough, under his inquiry, the handlebar shook his head blankly. He had never seen a railroad, not even heard of it, and it was not a good idea to have such a reaction. At the same time, this also reflects from the side, even in the Denglai area where the circulation of personnel, materials and money has been relatively rapid (relative to the Qing and Ming ruling areas), the society as a whole is still relatively closed, and the spread of information is still very slow, which seems to be not a good thing for the profit expectation of the Jiaoyan Line, of course, from another point of view, the construction of the Jiaoyan Line Railway can break through the cage of local counties and townships, greatly promote inter-regional exchanges, and further change the social form of Denglai, a kind of change that people on the east coast want to see.

Smoke wafted from the kitchen in the corner of the courtyard, and Xu Xiangdong faintly smelled the aroma of stewed meat, which surprised him, and at the same time he was a little unsure whether it was because of the arrangement of his subordinates that the hostess roasted meat for them, so he asked: "Do you usually eat meat or fish?" ”

"Not very often, a bit expensive. Locally slaughtered livestock is a bit scarce and irregular, so it is not easy to buy. If you want to eat some cured meat, because salt and spices have to be transported from Yantai, it is too expensive, so you can eat less. The handlebar gently sniffed the smell of meat that had filled most of the yard, and replied: "The meat stewed by my mother-in-law is cured meat, which was transported from Taocun in the south, and it is expensive to travel all the way." Well, I heard that the meat in Peach Village is cheaper, and there are many livestock there. ”

Xu Xiangdong nodded after hearing this, and understood that the people were still very interested in eating meat, but because of the long transportation distance or the expensive price caused by the supply of children, the consumption impulse was suppressed. In fact, there is one thing in the handlebar style just now that is not accurate enough, that is, the cured meat he bought was indeed transported from Taocun, but Taocun itself actually does not produce much meat, they are also second-class dealers, and the real meat production area is in Laiyang County, sixty or seventy kilometers southwest of Taocun.

Laiyang County has fertile soil, abundant arable land, and no shortage of water, so the conditions for developing agriculture are very good. According to the data from the local newspaper of Laiyang County, an average adult male farmer in the local area can dispose of 500 kilograms of wheat, 50 kilograms of pickled lard, pork, beef and mutton and some dairy products a year, and the surplus of grain and meat (which actually depends on the transformation of grain) is quite large, and a large number of them are exported to Yantai, Fushan, and Ninghai Prefecture every year.

"In this way, this railway is still very interesting." After giving up talking to the handlebar, Xu Xiangdong turned his head and chatted with Jiang Yunfan and others, only to hear him say: "Some time ago, I chatted with Captain Liu Jianguo and Liu, and he showed me a data, a labor reform farm set up in Laiyang County, I forgot the specific name, hundreds of captured European sailors, unscrupulous merchants, and mercenaries, planting a variety of crops including wheat, oats, rye, buckwheat, peas, soybeans, and harvested 300 tons of wheat, 12 tons of yellow rice, 50 tons of oats, 18.5 tons of buckwheat, 26 tonnes of rye, 6.5 tonnes of peas and 20 tonnes of soybeans, in addition to two large livestock per capita. Although they are prisoners of re-education through labor, and they have been called very hard, this output is enough to show that it is indeed a very suitable area for agricultural production, and there is a very surplus of agricultural products, which can be supplied to Yantai and Jiaozhou, two pure consumption cities. ”

"Yes, Laiyang has always been the most important food supply place in Yantai, Fushan, Ninghai Prefecture and other places, and its status is very important. Once the construction of the Jiaoyan Line Railway is completed, the logistics cost during this period will inevitably drop to an astonishing level, which actually increases the circulation of goods, promotes market consumption, and prospers the local economy. The people in Laiyang, Fushan, Yantai and other places have benefited, the government's tax revenue has also been enriched, and your company's railway transportation has also made profits, which is actually a win-win situation. Jiang Yunfan echoed and said: "Therefore, I have always insisted that the construction of the Jiaoyan Line Railway has far more advantages than disadvantages!" ”