The year 1869 finally came.

Guangzhou Cheung Chau Island, now named the Guangzhou Development Zone, is 11 square kilometers of land filled with houses. There are tall and neat factories and spacious and bright classrooms; There are small western-style buildings inhabited by foreigners, and there are also crowded dormitory buildings inhabited by workers; There are restaurants, teahouses and small shops opened by businessmen in Guangzhou, as well as Western restaurants and small bars opened by foreigners. Tempo also opened a department store on the island, and business was surprisingly good.

Chinese and foreigners live together on this island without incident, because the development zone management office has a police station on the island; Chinese and Western cultures meet here, and of course foreigners dominate here, because they are investors and managers, and Chinese are mostly workers here; Western science is at its peak here, Confucianism has no market here, and all technical schools and vocational schools teach Western science and technology.

The waterworks and telegraph rooms invested and built by the board of directors of the development zone have been put into operation, and the smooth roads extending in all directions have all been completed.

The future Guangzhou Development Zone will provide electricity for each factory and enterprise, and the thermal power plant invested by the board of directors of the development zone is being designed.

In Shanghai, near the crown area of Suzhou Creek in the public concession, the overall design of the Shanghai Education Center has already been completed, the classrooms of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology have begun to appear, and the Suzhou Creek riverside landscape belt and campus landscape project are in full swing.

Yung Hong has been very enthusiastic about his work in the past few months. Strictly speaking, he, a Chinese with dual nationality in China and the United States, is very familiar with the foreign circle in Shanghai, and many foreign missionaries with a certain skill have accepted the letter of appointment issued by him, the president, and become a lecturer and professor at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. Of course, it is impossible for these foreigners to obtain a professorship so easily in a first-class university in Europe and the United States, so they are obviously happy to be a professor in Shanghai in the Far East, such a face-saving position.

At this time, Shanghai was not the adventurer's paradise, the magic capital of the Far East. Most of the foreign missionaries and engineers here are quite highly educated. Just like Morrison, the first British missionary to enter China, he alone compiled an English-Chinese dictionary, which is still used by foreigners, and his level of knowledge can be seen.

The telegraph company, a joint venture between China and Britain and the United States, has already laid telegraph lines to every concession and foreign treaty port in South China, and is preparing to connect Yantai, Tianjin, and Niuzhuang in the north.

Beijing, Forbidden City Taihe Palace. The imperial history of the news of the news to the imperial court: foreigners have connected the telegraph line to the Qing Dynasty, and all the concessions and treaty ports in the south of the Qing Dynasty have telegraph rooms, and the communication between various places is instantaneous. The queen mother of the two palaces took this recital to the court to discuss.

As usual, the stubborn old-fashioned faction led by the Japanese took the lead in launching an attack, believing that such acts undermined the inherent order of the Qing Dynasty and disturbed the purity of the Great Qing Dynasty, and should be strictly banned.

The Westernists headed by Prince Gong proposed that they could learn from the great skills of the Yi in order to control the Yi, and that the telegraph communication was convenient and fast, which was really a rare skill, and the Qing Dynasty should use it to learn from it, and it could also facilitate the reporting of important military affairs in various places.

Shen Guifen, an important Han minister in the court who was deeply relied on by the Empress Dowager Cixi, Mao Changxi and others did not say a word. Knowing how to protect one's self, they would not join the so-called struggle for the capital of the country among these Manchu elites. Even if they were inclined to learn to quote the telegram in their hearts, they could not express their position at this time, otherwise they would be attacked by the stubborn old school, and once things took a turn in the blue, the Westernists led by Prince Gong would push them out as shields or victims.

Therefore, Han ministers who do not know how to keep a low profile and protect themselves will not end well. You don't see it, Lin Zexu banned smoking in Guangdong, and the scenery was unmatched for a while, but the British fleet hit the mouth of Dagu in Tianjin, and Emperor Daoguang immediately took Lin Zexu as a victim, dismissed the official and sent Xinjiang. And Zeng Guofan destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and immediately asked for the removal of the Hunan army, and the imperial court sent him to exterminate the Twist army in the north, but he was repeatedly defeated, but he was still the official governor of Liangjiang, and now he has been promoted to the first governor of the world - the governor of Zhili.

This world is a world full of people, and Han officials can be diligent in political affairs, but they can't be in the limelight and don't know how to restrain themselves.

Of course, the controversy in the court is still as inconclusive as ever, and it is over. Because Prince Gong came to make a move to capture the old man, he recommended that the leader of the Japanese should be responsible for finding foreigners to ban the telegraph companies in the Qing Dynasty and seize the telegraph offices in various places. The stubborn old-fashioned faction that was vigorous just now immediately became a turtle with a shrunken head, shirking and declaring that this matter was the responsibility of the Prime Minister's national affairs yamen, and did not dare to poke the hornet's nest of foreigners, and the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces did not make a conclusion. That's the end of the matter.

At this time, Japan, a neighboring country to the east of the Qing Dynasty, was preparing to implement the policy of returning the copyright and abolishing the feudal prefectures. The promulgation of the Family Registration Law, which established the basis of the household registration system, and the formal equality of the four people in Japan; Edo, the capital of the Tokugawa shogunate, was renamed Tokyo, and preparations were made to move the capital to Tokyo, and the construction of Japan's first railway, the Tokyo-Yokohama railway, was already on the agenda. The national policy of comprehensively studying the West has already begun.

In the distant British capital of London, the eldest brother of Master Liang Robin ushered in the glorious moment of his life, Queen Victoria received him and conferred on him the title of Baron of the British Empire. From then on, Robin became a member of the aristocratic class of the British Empire.

What he didn't expect was that he, a captain of the British Royal Navy who had retired for many years, was directly promoted to lieutenant colonel. Of course, this kind of thing could not happen to the commoners, and he Robin was now a nobleman. The Royal Navy of the British Empire has always been controlled by the British aristocracy, which is also the Royal Navy's welcome to his new nobleman.

Robin's main reason for being in the limelight was that his actions were in line with Britain's policy towards Europe at this time, supporting Prussia and suppressing France. The arrogance of the French Emperor Napoleon III finally caused the pair of friends who had invaded the Qing Dynasty together to part ways, and the boat of friendship was overturned.

The British, who are very skilled in politics, have always pursued a policy of European balance, that is, I am the boss of Europe, and if there is a second child who threatens me, it will be embarrassing, no matter how well we played before, I will also shoot you.

At this time, the second French Empire, the ambitious Napoleon III was preparing to follow the example of his uncle Napoleon the Great and return France to the status of the leader of Europe. The French are proud, and France, as the largest country in Europe, deserves the status it deserves.

Therefore, Robin won the favor of the British government, and his sudden rise can be attributed to: time, luck!

Vietnam, Haiphong. Master Liang was preparing to leave Vietnam with his army. Before leaving, he said softly to Jin Niu, the head of the Vietnam station of the intelligence bureau who came to see him off: "Remember, I am preparing to take this Vietnam."

The shocked Taurus immediately understood the weight on his shoulders, but the blood in his heart that was eager to make contributions immediately surged up, and he saluted with his feet, and replied with a resolute face: "Taurus understands!" ”