When it was almost nightfall, the train finally arrived at Wuhu on the south bank of the Yangtze River, a typical small city that developed due to its economy. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed Danyang County to Wuhu County, it has been repeatedly abolished. During the Tang Dynasty, it was downgraded to a town due to its small population and was subordinate to Xuanzhou in Jiangnan Province. It was not until the Southern Tang Dynasty of the Fifth Dynasty that it was re-upgraded to Wuhu County.

Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty promoted the Nanping Army to Taiping Prefecture, and Wuhu was assigned to Taiping Prefecture from Xuanzhou. During the era of the republican government, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River became the battlefield of the tug-of-war between the republican army and the royalist army. After the regain of peace, with the recovery and development of the economy in the south of the Yangtze River, Wuhu has become one of the four major rice cities in the country, and Wuhu Port has also become the leading port for inland shipping on the Yangtze River (the first Suzhou Port, the second Jiangning Pukou Port, the third Yangzhou Jiangdu Port, the fourth Wuhu Port, the fifth Yangzhou Zhenjiang Port, the top five ports are all on Jiangnan East Road, which shows the wealth of the Jiangnan boundary).

At this moment, Cheng Qi was looking curiously at the throughput operation of the port in this industrial era from the car. I saw that although it was already dark, countless kerosene lamps had been lit on the wharf, and rows of street lamp poles made of coking poplar wood extended from east to west along the Yangtze River, and there was no end in sight.

On the wharf, there are more than a dozen passenger trains waiting to line up for ferries, and not far away, dozens of dock workers are lining up to carry sacks like ants to carry mountains of goods to the steamboat-like steamship - Cheng Qi couldn't help but smack his tongue when he saw the huge paddle wheel that was higher than the side of the ship: "This is really a miracle!" ”

"Sure enough, big is beautiful, and more is good." Huang Yang once saw the ocean-going three-masted steamer in Hangzhou Port, but because of the difference in contrast, he felt that the steamer on the inland river was as huge as a mountain.

He said to Cheng Qi: "You haven't seen the Ma'anshan iron mine downstream, and the steel mill there is spectacular." The chimneys are dozens of feet high, as if they are about to pierce the sky, and those huge blast furnaces are like mythical gluttony, and no amount of coal and ore can be eaten to be satisfied. In the factory area, I really feel that I am small enough, compared with those steam locomotives that can easily pull tens of thousands of pounds of iron ore, compared with the crane that can lift steel the size of a train, and compared with the blast furnace flame that seems to be as bright as the sun, this little bit of human power seems to be really too insignificant - however, I also feel that people are really too great, they can actually make machinery thousands of times or tens of thousands of times larger than themselves, and then use these exaggerated great works to change the world. Let the mountains change their appearance, let the rivers change their direction, and people ...... It's really great! He is truly the spirit of heaven and earth, the master of all things! ”

Looking at Cheng Qi, who was completely immersed in the intellectual fanaticism of human beings conquering nature, he vaguely felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what was wrong.

"What a privilege we have to live in an age when politics is clear, life is rich, local products are abundant, people are industrious and simple, and overseas colonies provide us with all the things we need: gold and silver from the Americas, wool from Australia, cocoa and casu from the South Seas, bananas and pineapples, slaves from Africa, carpets from Persia, spices from India...... I would like to be a Chinese, a Chinese of the Great Song Dynasty, preferably a man! Huang Yang winked at him: "I saw that your scholar has already gotten a foreign woman." ”

Cheng Qi could only laugh wryly: "That's his own luck." ”

"My man, you couldn't be more wrong when you say that." Huang Yang said: "The Song people are one level higher than everyone else on the earth, and the men of the Song Kingdom are one level higher than the women; Among the men, the scholars are one level higher, and finally those who are talented among the scholars - as Han Zhongxian said - when they go out at Donghua Gate, they are good men who cross the horse and parade the streets. ”

"That's not right." There was a clear and beautiful Yue sound from behind, and Cheng Qi didn't have to look back to know that Hua Fangfu was coming. This little lady is also a high-minded and arrogant lord, she and Huang Yang have been pinching for a whole afternoon, debating from the lunch table to the dinner table, talking about astronomy and geography, the two of them talked about history from poetry and songs, and from the principle of electromagnetism to the law of inertia, and finally earned a red face and a thick neck for whether light is a wave or a particle.

Cheng Qi smiled bitterly: "The quarrel with you is here again." ”

Huang Yang felt a chill in his neck: "Where did I say it wrong?" ”

"Why do you say that men are superior to women?" Hua Fangfu stared at him through brown sunglasses: "What is the point that women are inferior to men." ”

Huang Yang had already spent an afternoon seeing this classmate's eloquence, and the party still didn't plan to bow his head: "Isn't this a common sense?" Could it be that the Hua girl, who knows astronomy and geography, also has a blind spot in knowledge? ”

"It's common sense, it's unbelievable, that such ignorant statements can come from the mouth of a well-educated man with many years of education, haven't you heard of it......"

Taking advantage of the daily bickering between the two, Cheng Qi quietly slipped away and returned to his room to close the door and concentrate on updating.

The train stopped for a moment, then began to move slowly, then swayed a few times, and then stopped again. Cheng Qi looked out the window and found that he had arrived on the ferry.

After about a quarter of an hour, the ferry's steam valve was released, and the huge paddle wheel slapped the water and began to slide away at full speed towards the north of the river.

He unscrewed a fountain pen, the ink sac had been filled with ink by the careful Nadeshiko girl, and spread out the manuscript paper, and the eldest lady and Ling Hu Chong in his pen began to talk about their daily life unconsciously, as if they were infected by the two top students outside.

"Let's make do with that." Cheng Qi tried his best to pull the story back to the main line he predetermined, but when he was interested, this little steel was like a wild horse that had escaped, and he couldn't pull it.

After crossing the river, it took half an hour to remarshall, and by the time we got back on the road, it was almost midnight.

Cheng Qi closed the door and was not disturbed, and wrote 10,000 words in one breath, estimating that it would continue at this rate, and before Bianjing could let Ling Hu Chong kill the Dongfang Sect Leader-he hadn't been so whimsical, and he would write the Dongfang Sect Leader as a real daughter and let her compete with Ren Shenggu for jealousy-In this way, it will reduce the style of this work, after all, the predecessors of Jianghu Happy Life said: This "Smiling Proud Jianghu" will reflect and satirize external things (power, status, Martial arts) to the people themselves, Cheng Qi unconsciously was also affected by these high hats, and began to pay attention to some things that he didn't think of at the beginning.

If the incident did not happen the next morning, Cheng Qi would have been able to finish the manuscript according to the schedule and give Peng Youzhi a satisfactory explanation, but an incident that happened in the carriage the next morning would have been firmly remembered by people for many years to come.