Episode 126 Mineral Plan

On the way to Hangzhou, everyone on the train was relatively solemn, and when they had lunch on the dining car at noon, everyone was very solemn, and there was basically no small talk. Xiang Xiaoqiang didn't have a chance to find Zheng Yuxuan for a private chat along the way.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, I arrived in Hangzhou. It was Zhu Yourong who led five other people to hold the coffin and slowly entered Hangzhou City with a long funeral procession. Originally, the funeral procession was reduced from more than 1,000 people to more than 100 people at Nanjing Station, and the queue has been greatly shortened. But now out of Hangzhou Station, the team has expanded to nearly 1,000 people, all of whom are local people in Hangzhou, as well as celebrities of the generation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, as well as the royal idle clans who came to participate.

The team walked slowly for another two hours in the city of Hangzhou and came to the Royal Palace, which is located at the foot of Ziyang Mountain by the West Lake. The burial will take place tomorrow, when the train will again take you northwest to Deqing County, more than 30 kilometers from the city. Deqing County is on the edge of the Tianmu Mountains, where the Royal Mausoleum is located.

The temporary mourning hall is located in the palace. People from all walks of life who came to the funeral in Hangzhou came in to pay respects one after another, and also visited by the way. Although they can't go anywhere in the palace, they can also satisfy a large part of the curiosity hunting. After all, this is the royal palace, and if it weren't for this memorial opportunity, they wouldn't have had a chance to come in and have a look.

In the evening, Zhu Yourong and Zheng Gongyin, on behalf of the royal family, set up a funeral banquet in the palace and several of the best restaurants in Hangzhou, and expressed their gratitude to the people who came to pay their respects and send off the funeral on behalf of the bereaved families. That night, more than 100 people who came from Nanjing stayed in the palace. Although the area of Hangzhou Palace is not large, it is prepared for such a thing, so there are many guest rooms, and there is no problem at all to accommodate one or two hundred distinguished guests with status.

Zhu Yourong, Zhu Youmei, and the Zheng family, father and son, father and daughter, they all have to keep a vigil all night. Five of the six people supporting the coffin were the closest relatives of King Xianyanping, and only Bhumibol, the new king of Siam, was an outsider, so it stands to reason that he did not need to follow the vigil. But how could he let go of this opportunity? You must also come in and follow the vigil. In this way, Xiang Xiaoqiang didn't find a chance to talk to Zheng Yuxuan alone all night.

In fact, at such a time, it is extremely dangerous to come out and talk to Zheng Yuxuan alone. At this time, the grandfather who belonged to the family was "not cold", he had not been buried, and he was still during the wake, and if the two of them were seen alone together, it was quite bad.

……

Xiang Xiaoqiang's current purpose is to further enhance his relationship with Zheng Yuxuan, ensure that Zheng Yuxuan is always his own person and can't run away, and also let Zheng Yuxuan make more efforts in marrying Zhu Yourong, at least often say good things in front of Zhu Yourong, and keep Zhu Yourong's love for him undiminished. Another purpose is to use Zheng Yuxuan as a bridge to further cooperate with Zheng Gongyin, the king of Yanping, and the entire huge Zheng family.

In addition to being the premier nobleman in the Ming Dynasty, the Zheng family is also a very large business empire. The Zheng family owns many businesses and brands, from heavy industry, which is the lifeblood of national defense, to light industry of consumer products, to commercial retail, to finance, and other fields. Of course, some make money, some don't. Anyway, Xiang Xiaoqiang knew that the Zheng family was one of the several wealthy families in the Ming Dynasty. If you add up all the wealth of the Zheng family, it is much more than the wealth of Emperor Zhu Ming's family.

In the past, although it was said that the imperial family was "rich all over the world", at least in the current Ming Dynasty, which ones are royal and which are national, are clearly stipulated by the constitution, and the wealth of the royal family can also be calculated on their fingers. The Zhu family's property mainly has two major heads, one is the palace, the royal garden, the garden, the palace, the holiday manor, and the royal mausoleum...... and other real estate, and the other big head is the treasures of the past dynasties in the Forbidden City. Of course, there are also some financial and business investments, including the Royal Bank, and there are also shares in many businesses. But these are very few compared to the Zheng family.

Now what Xiang Xiaoqiang is most concerned about is that Zheng Gongyin himself has a small mining company. It is mainly engaged in the exploration and mining of various non-ferrous metals. Recently, it seems that he is interested in entering oil exploitation, going to Pachia Island to share a piece of the pie with Daming Nanyang Oil Company. And non-ferrous metal deposits and oil deposits are exactly what Xiang Xiaoqiang is thinking about now. The mining plan in his mind, which had been shelved for a long time, was now ready to be put into action.

To be honest, he is not short of money, and his main energy is focused on power, love, and the dream of the Northern Expedition. Even if he is given another 100 million Mingyang, he still lives like this. But he deeply realized that in a country governed by the rule of law, money could do many things that power could not do. When a person is rich enough to rival the country, even if he does not hold any public office, he can influence the decision-making and direction of the entire country. And the only way to make Xiang Xiaoqiang rich in a few years is the mining plan.

Xiang Xiaoqiang has been in Daming for half a year. In the past six months, through hard work and luck, he has allowed himself to climb to a higher position, with a lot of power and more wealth. Of course, only "more" wealth. His entire fortune is only a few million, which is only a small shrimp in Daming, where the rich are piled up. But in any case, now he finally has the capital to implement the mining plan, and he also has the ability to protect himself. He believes that now is the best time to do so.

There is also a very important purpose. Xiang Xiaoqiang had a feeling that the unification war against the Northern Qing Dynasty would not last long. During this time, the Ming Dynasty needed more wealth and more strategic materials. There is basically no oil worth exploiting in Daming, and this can only be used in Nanyang for the time being. But those mineral deposits, those iron, copper, aluminum, tungsten, manganese, which were crucial to the victory or defeat of the war...... There are also gold and silver, which are all mastered by Xiang Xiaoqiang. The dense mineral deposits drawn on the map of China's mineral distribution in later generations, Xiang Xiaoqiang estimated that 20% of the Ming Dynasty has been developed now, which is very good. Now, it's time to wake them up from their slumber.

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The next day, the royal funeral procession escorted the coffin onto the train and headed northwest to the Royal Mausoleum in Deqing County. It took less than an hour to arrive.

Hangzhou is at the southernmost point of the plain in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, where the plain comes to an end. It is bounded to the north and east by the Jiangnan Plain, which is densely networked with water, and to the south and west by the mountains of Zhejiang. To the south is Huiji Mountain, and to the west is Tianmu Mountain, both of which are large mountain ranges that stretch for hundreds of kilometers. That is, starting from Hangzhou, going south to Guangdong for thousands of kilometers, there are no plains, all are endless mountains.

The Daming Imperial Cemetery is not like the martyrs' cemeteries and cemeteries in later generations, which specifically enclose a piece of land and plant green cypress trees. This kind of royal mausoleum has a "national park" feel, covering a large area and is open. Between Deqing County and Anji County, dozens of square kilometers of mountainous areas all belong to the scope of the royal mausoleum. The mausoleums of every emperor, concubine and prince in the past dynasties will occupy a small area here, and the distance between the mausoleum and the mausoleum is very long, and in the middle is the beautiful mountainous area. The royal family has a special institution to take care of each mausoleum, but the mountains and forests between the mausoleums are still open, and the people of the surrounding villages can also go in to collect medicine and hunt. It's just that you can't cultivate here.

The mausoleum of the Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty is no longer as grand and majestic as the Tombs of the Northern Ming Dynasty, costing a huge amount of money, and the scale has been reduced a lot. However, there are still small underground palaces and ground buildings, which maintain the most basic conditions of the emperor's mausoleum. Especially in the past 100 years, due to the two things of ** and cement, the cost of building mausoleums in mountainous areas and excavating underground palaces in the mountains has been reduced a lot.

First, the wooden coffin of King Yanping was slowly put into the stone coffin, and then the coffin and the coffin were filled with special moisture-proof and anti-corrosion materials, and finally covered with a heavy stone coffin cover. A photographer and a videographer, carefully carrying a video camera and a camera, carefully carried the camera, and took pictures with a solemn expression.

There are many lamps and candles lit in the cool and humid underground palace, and countless lights are shaking, and the underground palace is brightly lit. In some specific locations of the underground palace, funeral items and treasures have been pressed.

Finally, the time has come to close the dungeon. Everyone came out of the dungeon, and then a crane was erected to lift the huge stone and slowly enter the entrance of the corridor. At this point, the entire underground palace was completely closed. Several employees of the Royal Cemetery Engineering Company wore filial piety clothes and solemnly smeared cement on the edges of the boulders and corridors to seal the gaps. Several cameras around him occasionally flashed magnesium light. At this point, the construction of the mausoleum contractor was completely completed. The whole burial is completely over.

There were many people who attended the funeral, but there were very few people who could actually follow them into the palace and watch the coffin and funeral goods being placed, no more than ten. Because of Xiang Xiaoqiang's status and his influence with Zhu Yourong and Zheng Gongyin, he became one of the few people who could enter the underground palace. He also became one of the few people who was able to watch the Ming royal funeral in its entirety.

In his later life, he could only imagine the scene of the burial of ancient emperors through archaeological programs on television and tour guides of tourist attractions. But he didn't expect that now, in the thirties of the twentieth century, the Ming Dynasty could still see the burial of the emperor so well preserved and so authentic, it was like looking at a living fossil.

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On the train back to Nanjing, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and they didn't all hold it like when they came. Many bigwigs are chatting easily, and they are also shuttling through the carriages with coffee and tea, looking for the person they are looking for.

Xiang Xiaoqiang saw that the opportunity had come.

He first asked Hu Jiong to go to the carriages of the royal nobles to find Fourteen Gege. Fourteen Gege is his subordinate, and he is also the backbone of the party, and meeting with Xiaoqiang and Fourteen Gege will not attract attention. After a while, Fourteen Geg arrived.

Then, Xiang Xiaoqiang asked Fourteen Gege to see where Zheng Yuxuan was and what he was doing. If it's convenient, can you invite Zheng Yuxuan to the dining car for tea.

Fourteen looked at him suspiciously. But explained to Xiaoqiang that because he was about to purchase military vehicles, he planned to consider Yuhua Cong. Because Yuhuacong is in Zheng Yuxuan's name, now he wants to secretly communicate with Zheng Yuxuan first.

Because Fourteen Gege didn't know what happened on the dark and windy night of that month, and he didn't know that Zheng Yuxuan's stock had been stolen by a stomachache that night. So this argument seems quite reasonable to her. Fourteen Gege agreed and went to find Zheng Yuxuan.