Lin Zhe's stay in Tianjin is not long, only four days, but even this is longer than staying in Qingdao, when he went north from Shanghai, Lin Zhe also went to Qingdao to inspect, but the current Qingdao is not the Qingdao of later generations, the current Qingdao is not even a city, just a naval base.

Because Qingdao's port is very suitable for the construction of a naval base, so a few years ago, the navy began to build a port in Qingdao, and set up a Qingdao naval shipyard there, and the large-scale residence of the navy also led to the development of Qingdao itself, and now it has a population of tens of thousands.

After Lin Zhe inspected the Qingdao Naval Shipyard in accordance with the management of the Navy, he set off for the north again, and then arrived in Tianjin.

Today's Tianjin has changed a lot compared to a few years ago, first of all, Tianjin is a foreign trade port, and it is the only important port in the north, so the development speed is relatively rapid.

In addition, after the establishment of the empire, it did not set up the yamen of the governor of Zhili Province in Baoding like the former Qing Dynasty, but set it up in Tianjin from the beginning.

It is also important to note that the capital of the empire was not in Beiping, but in Nanjing, so Beiping naturally lost its status as a political center, and the political center of the north today is not in Beiping, but in Tianjin.

In recent years, Tianjin has relied on its political center and the advantages of a treaty port to vigorously develop industry and commerce, and established the Beihai Industrial Zone.

Today, it is a preliminary industrial city with more than 10 medium and large enterprises and more than 100 small and ultra-small enterprises, the most representative of which are the Northern Arms Company and the Northern Coal and Iron Company.

Both of these companies can be considered super-large, and the Northern Arms Company is a little smaller. The asset size is about 5 million, but the scale of the North Coal and Iron Company is larger. The scale of assets has reached more than 10 million.

Both companies are headquartered in Tianjin, where they also have important factories. For example, the Tianjin Arsenal under the Northern Arms Company and the Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant under the North Coal and Iron Company.

The predecessor of the Tianjin Arsenal was the Tianjin Machinery Bureau of the former Qing Dynasty, the empire controlled the factory after the occupation of Tianjin, the property rights of the factory were sold as war trophies, and it was wholly owned by the royal assets and renamed the Tianjin Arsenal, and later the royal industry reorganized its national defense industry and divided it into three major weapons companies, the Tianjin Arsenal and the Shenyang Ammunition Factory and the Army Repair Institute were assigned to the Northern Arms Company. and as a core asset of the company.

These two enterprises are the leading enterprises in Tianjin, and in addition to contributing a good amount of tax revenue to Tianjin every year, in fact, more importantly, they have driven the development of other industries in Tianjin.

In addition to the Northern Arms Company and the Northern Coal and Iron Company, there are more than 100 other large and small enterprises in Tianjin, basically involving all walks of life, including the Tianjin Huasheng Shipyard, which is of acceptable scale but capable of manufacturing 1,000-ton steam-iron hulled ships, as well as a Yangyang ash factory, a Chen's machinery repair factory, and a number of small machinery or hardware factories or simply family workshops.

Light industry. Like other cities in China, it is based on the cotton spinning industry, and now it has more than 20 large and small cotton spinning enterprises and large-scale spinning mills. There are also weaving factories, printing and dyeing factories, etc., and all kinds of cotton yarn and cotton cloth produced in Tianjin have been exported to the northern provinces. It occupies a large market share in Zhili, Shandong, Mongolia and the three eastern provinces.

In terms of education, Tianjin has Zhili University, one of the five universities in the empire. The university has already officially enrolled students, thanks to a large amount of financial support from the provincial and Tianjin provincial governments. The opening of this university is relatively smooth, and the enrollment scale is also relatively large, with more than 400 students enrolled in the first phase.

In addition to the university, there is also a Tianjin Higher Normal School, which, although only three years of schooling, is a veritable higher education in the empire, and now there are only nine higher normal schools in the country that have been officially opened and enrolled.

In addition to higher education, there are some ordinary secondary and primary education, Tianjin has a high school, three primary schools, and a number of higher and primary schools.

In addition, there are higher high schools in neighboring prefectures and counties such as Baoding Prefecture and Beiping Prefecture next door, as well as a number of primary normal schools, primary high schools and higher education. The primary school is the formation of a new education system in the north with Tianjin as the core.

Although this education system is much smaller than that in the Jiangnan region, it is also great news for students in the north, after all, they do not have to travel all the way to Shanghai or Nanjing to receive higher education.

Compared with the surging development of Tianjin in recent years, Beiping is much more lonely, since the Chinese army captured Beiping, Beiping has not gone further, but is gradually declining.

With the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, the vast Forbidden City and the vast imperial gardens, the mansions of the princes and nobles became uninhabited mansions in the sky.

Along with those yellow belts of the past, the red belts have also lost their source of livelihood, these people are either mixed in the streets to break the law and be educated, and then sent to various mines to work as coolies, or are relocated to Mongolia, Northeast or Northwest by the immigration department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The decline of Beiping, the most typical representative is the sharp decline in land prices and housing prices, in the former Qing Dynasty, Beiping as the capital, the city center of the house is naturally very expensive, but now, this house wants to be sold no one wants.

Because Beiping is no longer a political center, or even a commercial or industrial center, there is no longer the elite class of the past, and those merchants with a large amount of capital have gradually moved to Tianjin.

Today, there is only an empty shelf left in Beiping.

Now it's just that, even if Beiping is the capital of the former Qing Dynasty, even if the Manchu Dynasty has been ended, the direct male members of the royal family within three generations have basically been arrested or killed, but it is undeniable that there are still many old and young people in this city, especially those stubborn and loyal former Qing Han ministers, who are thinking day and night about restoring the former grandeur of the Manchu Dynasty.

Because the city is so special, the empire's control of the city is also quite strict, from the beginning of the capture of the city began to implement a curfew system, and mandatory haircuts, anyone who dares to openly refuse to cut off the braids, without exception, is arrested, and then considered to be a Manchu remnant of the sentence sentenced, their life is basically limited to all kinds of mines, railways and other places to spend the rest of their lives.

The curfew in Peking was enforced until 1862, when it was gradually lifted, but the city still had the highest number of patrols of any major city in China, and even more so than in Shanghai.

The residents who still live in Beiping, whether they are ordinary people or those who are old and young, are cautious on weekdays, and they don't dare to talk about some so-called military affairs when they go to the teahouse, and occasionally talk about it with praise.

In addition to the strict control of civil affairs, the Chinese army also stationed a large number of troops in Beiping.

Although Beiping is no longer a political and commercial center, it is still a military center in the major cities in the north.

In Beiping City, the Chinese Army stationed a whole infantry division, and Nanyuan, outside Beiping City, also stationed a mixed brigade and a cavalry regiment.

Beiyuan also has a garrison infantry regiment of the Zhili Garrison Command.

In Beiping alone, there are about 20,000 troops stationed in various units.

If you add the troops around Beiping, there will be more, for example, the Chinese army has an infantry division stationed in Tianjin, and there are also garrisons in Guihua, Zhangjiakou and other places in the northwest of Beiping.

If the old and young remnants of the former Qing Dynasty in Beiping City want to rebel with arms, they can be completely wiped out as soon as possible.

The reason why the military stationed heavy troops in Beiping and the surrounding areas was to prevent the remnants of the former Qing Dynasty on the one hand, and to guard against the Russians on the other hand.

Nowadays, the empire has frequent small-scale armed conflicts in the Mongolian steppe of Wutai Province, Heilongjiang Province in the northeast region, and Russia, and the situation can be described as quite serious.

Naoli is located in the center of the Mongolian steppe and the northeast region, and if you deploy troops here, you can support the northeast as well as the Mongolian direction. 、

On the whole, Beiping is the rear of the grassland and the northeast region, and most of the troops deployed here are used as strategic reserves, and once the situation in Wutai or Heilongjiang deteriorates, the troops stationed in the Zhili area will be quickly reinforced to stop the enemy's attack.

The important military status of Beiping is also one of the main reasons why Lin Zhe went to Beiping to inspect!

After all, this time Lin Zhe went out to inspect, in addition to inspecting the development of industry and commerce, another important formation was to inspect and comfort the garrisons in various places.

Wutai Province and Heilongjiang Province, which are border areas and places where armed conflicts may occur at any time, are naturally not easy to go, so the only one who can go is Beiping.

On the one hand, the city should be huge and prosperous in his memory, but in fact, the Beiping he saw was full of signs of breaking down, although he had not experienced the war, but only saw the bricks and stones on the big city gate falling off, although the streets were cleaned, but most of those merchants did not open the door, even the ordinary people who were watching outside the convoy, most of them were not excited and excited, they watched Lin Zhe's convoy move forward in silence, I don't know what to think in my heart.

Naturally, he didn't know that in order to protect the safety of Lin Zhe's inspection of Beiping, the local military and the Yamen, the prefect of Beiping Prefecture, started a month-long purge a month ago.

In the past month, the local military and patrol police have joined forces to arrest more than 2,000 suspects of all kinds, most of them are irrelevant, only a small number of them are lawbreakers with a clear heart or even bad intentions, but in the face of Lin Zhe's safety, the bureau and the Tianjin prefect patrol police department did not dare to have any slack. (To be continued.) )