On December 10, 1680, the sea and the sky were clear.

Summers in Qingdao Port are always very pleasant, the temperature is not too hot, and the weather is also very sunny, which is suitable for people to travel and visit the suburbs, especially when the population of this commercial city is increasing.

Urbanization, a term that was originally only used in government policy research documents, is now increasingly becoming familiar to a new generation of educated, educated East Coast culturers.

From a demographic point of view, urbanization is the process of continuous mechanical concentration of the rural population into the cities, and of course in the East Coast country, there is a large influx of immigrants into the cities, which cannot be ignored.

From the perspective of geography, urbanization is the process of transformation from rural landscape to urban landscape, which includes not only the process of population and non-agricultural activities to cities of different scales and the process of regional promotion of rural landscape into urban landscape, but also the process of diffusion of urban culture, lifestyle and values to rural areas, which are particularly suitable for the situation in the east coast today.

In the case of Qingdao Port, the first thing rural handicraftsmen do after becoming rich is to move to a convenient place on the outskirts of the city and reapply to build a few houses or buy a ready-made house as their new workshop. After all, many of the craftsmen's customers mostly live in the city, so they will naturally move closer to the market, to the city. And the suburbs where they live often form new urban areas after twenty or thirty years of Chinese New Year's Eve. From this point of view, the East Coast city planners built the first and second ring light rail railways for Qingdao County in one go, which was really prescient, and laid a large area of land for the future development of the city in advance.

When it comes to things like urban culture, lifestyles, and values, the changes are also enormous. Whether it is the cost and convenience of urban residents to receive education, the advanced degree of living facilities, the amount of information received and disseminated, and the fierce competition, the second generation will always make them different from the residents in rural areas.

In addition, from an economic point of view, urbanization refers to the process of transformation from rural economy to urban economy, which mainly includes three levels of transformation: first, the industrial structure has changed from the primary industry to the secondary and tertiary industries; second, the transition of labor force from agricultural population to non-agricultural population; The third is to shift from rural consumption to urban consumption.

In this regard, in fact, Qingdao County is even more typical. Over the past 50 years, the largest port city on the East Coast has benefited from the rise of the East Coast and the strong development of industry and commerce. At present, the primary industry in the county has shrunk greatly, and the rate of return on growing food is too low, so that more and more young people abandon the traditional occupations of their parents and flock to the city to work. Moreover, even the residents of Qingdao County who choose to continue to engage in agriculture prefer to form agricultural cooperatives, with vegetables, fruits, flowers, gardens and special breeding as the main mode of operation, and the market is oriented to urban people, which is actually not a traditional primary industry, because they basically do not produce food.

Now if you go to the wharf, from time to time there will be a grain ship full of all kinds of food from the river and the Yazi Lake area, and then arrive at the Qingdao port wharf to unload. In the inland areas, through the Qingmei Railway and the Southwest Railway branch line (Minghe County Qianjin Farm - Qingdao Port), a series of La Plata Star trains also loaded with corn, soybeans and wheat into Qingdao Railway Station. Not to mention, far south in Patagonia, almost every month three or four ships full of cattle and sheep, salted fish, salt, dried fruits and wheat arrive at Qingdao Port - Qingdao County, which is extremely urbanized, is so special, attracting businessmen, craftsmen and business owners from all over the world, but also allowing people from all over the country and even the world to transport goods for their consumption, and this is also the goal pursued by the people of the East Coast: everything is produced by themselves, all business must be monopolized by themselves, and it is the most stupid way not to give others a little money to earn. The balance of trade under economic exploitation is the most perfect form, otherwise wouldn't it be interesting to be a slave to gold and silver with a pile of money in your hand? No one serves you, no one works for you, what do you do with so much money?

Mr. Cecil, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of England to the East Coast, has just received a group of merchants from England today. These merchants had traveled all the way from the Old World to bring to the East Coast a great deal of heavy horses, high-quality white coal for military use, lead-zinc ore, and a small number of immigrants from Ireland who had been recruited by the Mendez Company, and it was not at all right to say that they were in the service of the Easterners, for the British were significantly lower in the trade hierarchy and became more and more dependent on East Coast goods.

Baron Cecil lived on the East Coast for almost seven years (he was transferred back to London for some reason, and came to the East Bank for the second time a few years ago as ambassador to England), so he had a deep understanding of the East Coast, read a lot of newspapers and books on the East Coast, and was naturally familiar with the word urbanization. In particular, after confirming the history of the development of London, a megacity of more than 400,000 people, it is no exaggeration to say that he has even gained more than most of the East Coast government officials who study urbanization.

Compared to cities on the east coast such as Qingdao County, London's development is somewhat similar, but somewhat different. In this huge head of England, the modern industry recognized by the people of the East Coast was just beginning, most of the enterprises were not large, labor-intensive small production was the main body of the urban economy, and handicrafts, private small enterprises and even families were the main places of urban economic activity. The employed are mainly artisans, small traders, food wholesalers (retailers) and a small number of low-level service workers.

At the same time, the agricultural economy accounts for a large proportion of the national economy (in other European countries, the proportion of the agricultural economy is much higher than in England, and even dominates), agricultural production efficiency is low, and there is a small surplus of agricultural products – this is not true in London, of course, but there are huge agricultural production areas around London that provide food and other goods for these 400,000 people.

The high birth rate and high mortality rate have led to the lack of rapid population growth, which in turn has led to the "pulling force" of rural labor outflow not strong enough, and the transfer of rural population to urban areas is not fast enough. In this respect, Baron Cecil was particularly envious of the people of the East Coast, who, although they were pagans, had to admit that their efforts in health care were very effective and were at the forefront of the world. Their government spends a lot of money every year on training doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other specialists, and on building hospitals, and at the same time spends money on the promotion of diseases that many people think are useless, so that the people know what many kinds of diseases are all about, and how to avoid and prevent them, which is very important for improving the overall health environment of the city and reducing the mortality rate.

Of course, since the people of the East Coast have done large-scale disease control propaganda among the people, it is naturally unlikely that these things will be kept secret, and Baron Cecil has naturally collected a lot of information in this regard over the years and has benefited a lot. And after he sent back to England information about the causes, transmission routes, and how to prevent these diseases, he did have a positive impact on the environmental health of large cities like London.

But perhaps there was something wrong with the British government's fiscal system – it was a mess, so to speak, a few taxes such as customs duties went to the king and the rest to the government, but the vast majority of the taxes were temporary and grossly insufficient, requiring donations from the nobility and merchants, called "bailouts" – and very little money was distributed to the sanitary environment. Baron Cecil was shocked and disgusted by the messy layout, filthy environment, and dense population of London's neighborhoods, and at the same time he was disgusted with it, and sometimes he even thought in his heart that it would be better for someone to set a fire to all the messy houses and re-plan the streets by the king's order. He still remembers that more than 10 years ago, several parishes, including St. Videst, were hit by fires and many houses were burned down, and then, at the initiative of Mr. Maurice Thompson, bricks and stones produced in the suburbs of London were used as the main materials for reconstruction, and the layout of the streets, shipyards and some supporting workshops was replanned, with excellent results. At present, the parishes have the lowest incidence of disease and the best environment, which is very revealing.

In addition, the lack of attention paid to it by the English is indeed one of the reasons. After all, there are not as many knowledgeable people in China as there are on the East Coast to do propaganda, and they themselves are not very good, how can they explain it to others? It's impossible to think about. Therefore, it is not uncommon for a well-executed policy on the East Coast to be greatly discounted after going to the Old Continent. It's not that the English don't work hard enough, it's just that the system is too far behind, and there is no way. As the people of the East Coast themselves said, they are not leading the most in science and technology, but in the system, from the political system to the economic system, the social system, the scientific system, the education system and other aspects, the gap is all-round.

Sir Charles, Baron Cecil's predecessor, including the principals of the Golden Deer Merchant House, attached great importance to the system collection on the East Coast, and had sorted out a lot of things to send back to London, after all, these were public things, and the East Coast people could not hide them. But very little of what was sent back was a critique of the king's political system, and the church's critique of its religious system, although the members of Congress seemed to have a strong appreciation for its economic system.

Of course, the Kingdom of England did not benefit from this, for example, they introduced the Patent Act, which was strictly enforced on the East Coast, to protect the intellectual property rights of inventors, although it is difficult to say how well it was enforced, but at least the attitude was outstanding. In addition, as mentioned earlier, despite the government's financial difficulties and large holes, some of the money was allocated to improve London's urban hygiene, employing hundreds of people to clean up garbage at night and transport it out of the city, while focusing on training doctors.

The same is true for them in science and technology, and the government's subsidy for talented urban children (allocated places by parish) or seemingly important scientific and technological research is not very large, but it is better than nothing, and it must have a positive effect on the development of science and technology in England.

But how to put it, the money is still too little! Even if some famous gentlemen also contributed to the sponsorship, it was still pitifully small compared to the deep-pocketed East Coast government grants, which makes people feel discouraged when they think about it. Baron Cecil intended to continue to write to the king when he returned from office the following year, while giving speeches in Parliament, urging the royal family and Parliament to allocate funds to reform their outdated facilities – starting with London's sanitation, which was essential to reducing urban child mortality.

"Look at the streets, the wharves and the bays, and if I remember correctly, there are dozens of times as much garbage floating near the mouth of the Thames as there is in the bay on the east coast of the river. The streets are stinking with dung, dung, and artisans snuggling in low, damp houses made of rotten wood infested with rats and harmful bedbugs, working day and night with their old eyes. There are no beautiful brick houses, no tidy environment, no bright gas lights, no well-planned streets, and the urbanization of London is as big as the urbanization of the East Coast, just as the gap between London and Norwich and Bristol is too big. In the Golden Deer Merchant House near the bay wharf, Baron Cecil, who came by train, said to five or six merchants from London in the old continent: "I have some more important information about the urbanization of the East Coast Republic of China here, which I and my assistants have observed and sorted out in the past few years, and I have sent it once before, this is a new batch of insights and descriptions, I hope you can help me bring it to the Duke of Buckingham." He was a man of ideals and ambitions, and he was greatly appreciated by the king, and he was well received in Parliament, and I hope that he can be of great help, and that's all I can do. ”

"In addition, I hope that after you return to London, you will also try to write as many travelogues, feelings, experiences, and other things as possible, so as to introduce everything on the East Coast to more people in England, so that this fresh air from the Southern New World can be breathed by more people, which is very important for promoting change in all aspects of society. Ah, some of you have relatives in Norwich, Bristol, Birmingham, etc., right? I want you to influence your family, relatives, or friends to talk to local city officials and get them to be smart when planning your city. These cities have developed rapidly in recent years, but in general they are not large in scale, and it is still too late to correct them. ”