Oliver Cromwell apparently didn't want to talk much about the King, and simply dismissed Robert. After Blake's doubts in his heart, he changed the subject and asked, "Robert, I have heard a lot about China from you for so long, but I still have a small question to ask you.

Since China is so big, so rich, and its people are so smart and brave, is the alliance between Britain and China really a good thing? How can you be sure that we are ultimately just farmers cultivating publicly owned wasteland, and when we turn wasteland into fertile land, these Chinese will not drive us off the land and take over our hard-earned fields? ”

Robert. Blake did not know how to answer Oliver Cromwell's question, but as the horses slowly moved up and down the muddy road, he looked up at the ruins of the huts on the side of the road, and blurted out: "Yes, those landless poor people who reclaim public wasteland must not have thought that one day they will be driven out of the cultivated wasteland by the nobles." But before they were driven away by the nobles, they had a few days of peace.

What is the difference between the situation of Britain today and that of the landless poor? The world's oceans had been divided between the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and the Dutch were using their sea power to plunder the colonies of the former two overseas. As for us, Britain and China, in the eyes of the first three, are latecomers, competitors with whom they cannot share the sea.

With all due respect, Mr. Cromwell, England now needs to think not about whether it will be driven from the land by its lords in the future, but about how to reclaim a piece of wasteland to feed itself and his wife and children.

During my three years in China, I have indeed felt the ambition and greed of the Chinese for overseas wealth, and almost the entire Pacific Ocean cannot accommodate their desires. But what does this have to do with us in the UK? Shouldn't it be the Dutch, Portuguese and Spaniards who should have a headache now?

For Britain today, it is most important to control the strait at the door and control the passage of the North Atlantic and the North Sea. Only by mastering this strait can Britain's security be guaranteed, and the European powers will no longer be able to interfere in Britain's internal affairs.

And to control the strait in front of our door, we must defeat the Dutch naval fleet, and then we can consider whether the growth of China's maritime power will harm Britain's maritime interests.

Even if Britain really wants to bend its knee to some maritime power, it is better to choose China, far away from Europe, than to choose the Netherlands, which is close at hand, isn't it? After all, China is more than 20,000 miles from London, while the Netherlands is less than 200 miles from London..."

Cromwell suddenly felt a sultry heat, he pulled his neckline to make himself more breathable, and then said quietly: "Yes, before guarding the strait at the door, an ally like China is indeed indispensable." At least they can attract the attention of the Spaniards and the Dutch for us..."

For the rest of the journey, Oliver Cromwell remained silent. When he saw the gate north of the city of London, Robert followed him. Blake began to miss the clean and bright city of Beijing, and when his nose smelled a faint rancid smell, he couldn't help but wonder what his friends in Beijing were doing now.

Unlike rainy London, there is no shortage of sunny days in January, although it snows from time to time. Although the sun is very weak at this time, and there is no trace of melting in the snowdrifts piled up on the streets, when the sun shines on the body, it can still make people feel a little warm, as if holding a hot water bottle.

The mass production and use of rubber, glass, cotton, and coal has given the northern civilians a lot more means to fight against the cold in winter, and it has also greatly increased the outdoor activities of the northern civilians in winter. As the first city of goodness at the foot of the Son of Heaven, Beijing's living standards are naturally higher than elsewhere.

Even at such a special time as the New Year, in addition to the New Year's greetings at the homes of relatives and friends, the streets of Beijing are still crowded with people wandering around. And the shops that were supposed to be closed for rest are now opening their doors and doing business.

On the streets of Nancheng, a kind of boiled and burned civilian snack has risen. This kind of flour flour cake with haggis, beef offal, or whale meat, pig's head, pig drainage, spices marinated street food, not only has become a laborer food for coolies outside the south and west cities, but now it has also become a snack for ordinary citizens.

The rise of this kind of cuisine is due to the expansion of the planting area of wheat and corn in the north, and the great progress of the flour grinding machine, which has greatly reduced the price of flour and gained a price advantage over rice. In a year of famine, civilians naturally choose to eat well rather than eat well.

The biggest change brought to Beijing by the opening of the railway from Beijing to Zhangjiakou is that sheep, cattle and other livestock outside the mouth have begun to be sent to the Gyeonggi area in large quantities. Last year alone, Beijing ate about 450,000 sheep, almost one out of every three people.

Before the opening of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, although the various departments outside the mouth were divided into land for grazing, and a livestock trading company was established, the main business was still leather business. Although the company has made good breeds and pasture plants by means of optimizing the breeds, the herd of livestock raised by the various departments outside the mouth has soon exceeded the maximum number of the previous ministries in the past.

However, the problem arose that the herds owned by the ministries had exceeded the upper limit of the wintering herd, and that the way the Mongolian ministries used to stock hay for wintering was no longer suitable for the large herds they now grazed in the new way.

Although a large number of iron production tools and hay baling and stockpiling technology with the help of mainland officials have greatly increased the wintering forage reserves of various departments, this still cannot keep up with the explosive growth brought about by the peace of the grasslands and the development of animal medicine. However, the limited meat consumption market in Datong, Zhangjiakou and other places, coupled with the fact that the tribes far away from the Great Wall drove sheep to import and trade too much, so in the past few years, all the tribes on the grassland far from the Great Wall have had to take a batch of livestock to slaughter after autumn, so that the remaining herds can enter the winter safely.

Although this kind of slaughter can make some money back for herders, it is extremely uneconomical for those livestock that have not yet reached maturity. Although the one-year-old mutton is fat, for the herdsmen on the grassland, the slaughter of the two- and three-year-old sheep can maximize the benefits.

After the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway was opened, this dilemma was broken. For the Gyeonggi region, lamb outside the mouth is much more delicious than whale meat and seafood. In the past two years, the lack of rain in the north has led to a significant reduction in the number of pigs and sheep raised in Hebei, Shandong, Henan and other places.

The industrialization of the Gyeonggi region has made it possible for the local people to have no shortage of money, and the cotton cloth and iron tools produced in the Gyeonggi region alone far exceed the cattle and sheep that the various parts of the grassland can exchange. As a result, this flow of goods centered on Gyeonggi soon made the Gyeonggi region the largest trade hub in the north.

The biggest advantage of using trains to transport cattle and sheep is that it is not only fast but also not easy to lose fat. However, the rise in the consumption of beef and mutton meat has also brought another problem, cattle and sheep water miscellaneous materials are actually rarely eaten, which is mainly due to hygiene and habits.

However, when the amount of cattle and sheep to eat exceeds a limit, the sewer miscellaneous materials, which account for 30% of the body weight, become a meat supplement that cannot be ignored. For Daming, who has been in the wilderness for two consecutive years and the situation has just improved last year, sometimes he can't be too picky.

With the efforts of some small traders, the people of Gyeonggi found a way to clean up the sewerage, and with the large amount of spices brought from Nanyang, the street food of braised fire began to appear in Nanseong. For those laborers who do manual work in Nancheng, this delicacy can not only be used to satisfy hunger, but also to quickly replenish physical strength, so it began to become popular in the capital after only one winter.

When Wu Youxing and Fu Shan and other disciples entered the outer city of Beijing from Zuo'anmen, this place that used to be an idyllic place has also become a bustling scene of factories and people. Wu Youxing, who was sitting in the carriage, paid attention to the street scene outside, and at the same time recalled in his heart the scene of passing by here when he first entered Beijing, and for a moment he felt that things were wrong with people.

Fu Shan, who abandoned Confucianism and practiced medicine, saw that the teacher had a stunned look on his face, and couldn't help but ask curiously for a while: "Isn't the teacher still worried about the recurrence of the plague in Hejian and other places?" ”

Wu Youxing withdrew his gaze from the window and said gently to his disciple: "That's not it, according to our past experience in epidemic prevention in the northwest, since there have been no new patients within 60 days, then it can basically be concluded that the epidemic has been controlled, and then leave a small number of people in the local area to monitor the epidemic, and then let go of the traffic step by step."

I was just thinking that this epidemic seemed to be menacing, but after the imperial court invested a lot of manpower and material resources for the first time, the epidemic in southern Hebei was quickly controlled. It can be seen that for the plague, preventing the spread is far more important than cure. In order to control the spread of the epidemic in the local area, this organization is the first element, and without the cooperation of local militia groups, veterans, garrisons and officials, the measures to prevent and control the epidemic cannot be implemented.

However, apart from Hebei and Shaanxi, do the militias, veterans, garrisons, and officials in other provinces have such organizational strength? If there were epidemics in other regions, we probably wouldn't have been able to do it so easily. ”

After hearing this, Fu Shan also nodded again and again: "The teacher is right, if this plague occurs in the south of Shanxi, I am afraid it will be difficult for those gentry to cooperate, at most they will only order the militia to defend their village and not allow outsiders to enter."

If it weren't for the obedient enough militias organized by the commune, and the retired soldiers and the guards who came to support them were selfless enough, it would have been easy to ban traffic in the epidemic area. But fortunately, the people of the court know the severity and the consequences of the plague entering the capital, otherwise the protests of those gentry alone would have been enough for us to have a headache..."

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