There must be trade frictions with the UK, but Zhou Chenggong has provided a way out for the British wool textile capital, and he has attracted investment in the UK through the channels of European companies to attract those British wool textile industry capital to invest in Greece.

At the same time, the Greek diaspora was encouraged to return to invest abroad, and through this series of measures, the Greek economy began to improve greatly in the second year of his reign and began to enter a period of rapid growth.

Economic development has a demand for transportation, and transportation development promotes the economy.

Zhou Chenggong had just been in power for the second year, and he read in the newspaper that the Chinese crown prince's railroad had passed through the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the 33rd year of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Zhou Chenggong's feelings for the crown prince are very delicate, he thinks, or hypnotizes himself, telling himself that he is not jealous of the crown prince, but in fact he cares more about this half-brother than the monarchs of all European countries.

He believed that since railway technology could pass through the mountains of North America, the technical conditions for building a railway in mountainous Greece should already be in place.

However, in this era, the construction of railways was not only a high-tech industry, but also a high-capital industry, and Greece lacked the capital to build railways. Zhou Chenggong invited the European company that successfully built the first railway in Austria to come to negotiate, gave a relatively preferential policy, and granted the right to build the Greek railway to the European company.

Zhou Chenggong has been with the European company for more than a decade, and the influence in the company is so strong that the company has no reason to turn down a potentially profitable business. He was willing to fully fund the construction of a railway from Greece to Epirus, Thessaly, Peloponnese and other places, and it can be said that once the plan was completed, a railway network with Athens as the center, connecting Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece, Western Greece and the Peloponnese would be completed.

The problem of transportation has plagued Greece for thousands of years, and the Greek peninsula has no fertile river basins and vast plains, and the mountains and rivers that divide the Greeks into relatively isolated valleys and islands. Greece's mountainous terrain hinders land transportation, Greece is not suitable for the actual conditions of agricultural production, and so that all localities can only produce professional cash crops, and there is a natural demand for foreign trade. Greece is bordered by the Aegean Sea to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, with a tortuous coastline, many natural harbors, and islands, which are blessed with unique conditions for navigation and overseas trade. Therefore, Greece has been a maritime civilization since ancient times.

In ancient times, the various parts of Greece were centered on coastal cities, forming city-states and alliances of city-states, and although there were some short rivers on the Greek peninsula that could form well-conditioned valleys, most of the valleys were limited in size except for Thessaly and Macedonia, Greece. Each river valley could support a limited population, and the rugged mountainous terrain hindered land communication between the city-states. The various river basins were able to survive on their own, and this geography strengthened the Greek city-state system in ancient times. It is still at work, allowing Greece to form a stubborn local power.

Zhou's political consideration for building the railway was to bring Greece closer together by improving transportation and breaking down the foundations of local divisions. But after handing over the construction and operation of the railway to European companies, the rumor that the king had betrayed the country soon appeared in public opinion, and liberal newspapers attacked the king as a puppet of the Chinese.

If he were a powerful monarch with strong control over the country, Zhou Chenggong would not mind retaliating against these newspapers immediately and imposing censorship. It is a pity that his control was confined to the vicinity of Athens and was simply unable to organize the spread of public opinion against him. The only way to do this is to engage in a war of public opinion through the newspapers you have bought.

It's a pity that rumors are such a thing, the more you respond, the more troublesome it is, and the more you describe it, the darker it becomes. European companies, because of their occupation of Crete, have always had a bad image in the minds of the Greek elite. Zhou Chenggong is a person who knows how to be forbearing, he immediately reined in the precipice, he announced that everything he did was for Greece, but still announced in a low-key manner, and put the railway network project on hold for the time being. Compared with economic development, the most important thing is to maintain power.

Plans for a railway network were put on hold, and the railroad had to be built around Greece under the power of the king, and a railway connecting Athens to the port of Piraeus would be built, so that Athens would be directly connected to the sea.

This compromise made Zhou Chenggong understand that liberals still have a strong influence in this country. At the same time, this concession has dealt a blow to the prestige he has built up against the liberal hard-line attitude. He began to enter a long phase of power contraction, like a snake, curled up, waiting for an opportunity.

The economy of the area around Athens has developed, and the economic foundation here is already good, and shipping and shipbuilding are relatively developed. The wool textile industry was established here, the railroad was built, the steam locomotive factory was brought in, and the mechanical industry was developed. Immigrants from all over Greece, as well as diaspora, began to converge around Athens.

But the impact of this development on power is a process of dripping stones, unusually slow, and must be watered with patience, and it takes time to succeed in Zhou. But his creditors were not willing to give him time, and he was under increasing pressure.

His creditors are mainly Britain, France and Russia, and the debt owed is not an economic debt, but a political debt.

In order to get the support of the three kingdoms for his ascension to the Greek throne, he made many promises, which were secret promises that could not be exposed, but which had to be fulfilled, and he could not afford the consequences of exposure. These three countries will not allow him to pay his debts, and any one of the three countries has the strength to make him irreversible. Without the help of China, he must fulfill the contract as scheduled.

He promised Britain that he would never annex Greece to China, and he could assure him of that. And he and his descendants have given up political marriages with China, which can also be done. But the British also gave him a guarantee that Russian forces would not be allowed to infiltrate Greece, which he would have liked to assure, but the problem was that he could not do so.

Because Zhou Chenggong made Russia support him on the condition that Russia was allowed to use Greece as a springboard into the Mediterranean, and after he successfully ascended the Greek throne, he must sign a formal agreement with Russia to give Russian warships the right to dock in Greek ports.

After he ascended the throne, the Russians came to force the debt, and he prevaricated with the attitude of the British. However, it has been delayed, and the Russians have not yet formed the Black Sea Fleet, so Zhou Chenggong used this as a reason to postpone the agreement until after Russia established the Black Sea Fleet. If the Russians want to rebuild the Black Sea Fleet, they must get the consent of the three great powers of Britain, France and Austria. Before Russia broke through the three-nation political alliance, Zhou Chenggong did not have to consider fulfilling his promise to Russia for the time being.

France was in trouble, because in order to let the Orleans dynasty of France take the lead in proposing to invite him to Greece to be the king, Zhou Chenggong made the heaviest promise to France.

Among them was the provision of huge loans to France through the banks of European companies, which helped the Orleans dynasty to quickly solve its financial problems after the July Revolution. This loan is easy to do, this is a business, and it is not difficult for European companies to accept.

But Zhou Chenggong also made another promise to the Orleans family, but he forced him into a desperate situation, that is, promised that after he successfully stabilized his position, he would divorce Connie, who was born in the commoner, and then marry the Orleans family.