In contrast to the booming Great Lakes industrial zone in the north, led by Chicago~Detroit, and in the south, light industry and food processing industry centered on Mexico City have been formed, and the local tequila and rum are famous.

After the Empire's victory in the North American War, which opened up access to Europe through the ports of the Great Lakes and the East Coast of North America, Panama's status as a transshipment trade center in Central America was significantly reduced.

After the North American War

With the signing of the North American Unified Market Treaty, the United States of America (North) and the Confederate States of America (South) have successively opened cross-border rail transportation services, and the entire North American railway network has been connected unimpeded, greatly facilitating the transportation of goods and people.

European immigrants to the Tang Empire no longer had to transit through Panama, and could easily reach the empire's provinces by rail.

When the Tang Empire went to Europe to study or do business, it no longer needed to travel thousands of miles south to Panama, Central America, but directly reached the ports on the east coast of North America by rail, saving time and effort, and saving a lot of money.

The number of goods and people exported to Europe through this area has dropped sharply by as much as 80%, which has had a great impact on the development of Panama City.

At its peak in 1859, Panama City had a population of 634,000 people, more than half of whom were engaged in entrepot trade, and there were more than 1,300 large and small trading houses, which fell into a wave of large-scale closures in the following years.

By the beginning of 1865

There are only about 200 trading houses left in Panama City, most of which have ports and warehouses and are the best in the waterway and rail transport to survive the cutthroat business competition.

Today, the only remaining bulk transshipment goods in Panama City are kerosene and cane sugar, most of which are transshipped to the Caribbean coastal countries, and cane sugar from Hawaii is still transshipped to Europe through Panamanian ports.

With the rapid decline of the port trade and the rare decline in the population of Panama City, some Chinese merchants who earned their first pot of gold in the entrepot trade went to Costa Rica, the Straits Province or Zhennan Province with their family rolls to buy manor land and live a more stable life as a manor owner.

There are also a small number of radical Chinese businessmen who went to Cuba to invest in sugar plantations, backed by the powerful Tang Empire, at least in the entire Americas, but no one dares to bully Chinese businessmen.

By the beginning of 1865, Panama City's population had dropped to 549,000, a loss of nearly 100,000 urban population, the only city in the entire empire to have a declining population.

Chicago, the third largest city, and Mexico City, the fourth largest city, have joined the empire's territory, making the economic map of the Tang Empire more evenly distributed, no longer focusing on the first-tier cities of Chang'an, Los Angeles, Salem, Portland, and Seattle on the west coast of North America, but showing an evenly distributed pattern of coastal metropolises in the south, north, middle, and west coast.

Each has its own focus, greater potential, and gratifying prospects for future development.

Taoyuan City, the sixth largest city in the empire, is located on the Colorado Plateau, connecting Chicago, an important megacity of one million people in the north and south, and Mexico City.

It is also a large city in central China with a relatively comprehensive industrial category and profound development heritage, and it is also a railway transportation hub in the central part of the empire, which plays an important role in connecting the north and the south and the east and west.

The "Nevada Railway" across the Rocky Mountains in the Tang Empire has now become part of the East-West Continental Bridge across North America, and the western starting point of the railway originates in Chang'an, passes through Salt Lake City into the Rocky Mountains in the lofty mountains, and extends eastward to Taoyuan City, Phoenix City and other important cities in central China.

It then continued eastward to Kansas City and east to Louisville, Indiana, on the border of the Empire, where it was connected to the United States of America's extensive rail network.

To the east you can reach New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., to the northeast to Cleveland, the capital of Ohio, to the southeast to Richmond, the capital of the Confederate States of America, to the south to the Atlantic port city of Charleston, and to the south to Miami.

After the signing of the North American Economic Integration Agreement, it led to the complete completion of the North American rail transportation corridor.

The Tang Empire's railway network was seamlessly connected with the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, forming the most developed, dense and prosperous railway transportation network in the world today, bringing endless financial resources.

The decline of Panama City in the south has created the rise of Taoyuan, a large city in central North America, and as a railway hub city in the central part of the Tang Empire, Taoyuan City ushered in an opportunity for rapid rise after the North American War.

Its population has increased from 671,000 in 1858 to 1,072,200 in 1864, and it has stepped past the steps of a metropolis with a population of one million, and continues to show a trend of prosperity and rapid growth.

Countless industrial, agricultural and specialty products have been transported by rail to all parts of North America and even Europe, and the railway station located 16 kilometers from the Taoyuan Valley has developed into the largest train marshalling station in the empire, with 26 railway tracks.

In addition to direct trains, freight trains from north to south need to be regrouped here, and new urban areas outside the Taoyuan Valley have flourished. Capital poured in, high-rise buildings rose from the ground, and land prices skyrocketed by more than 10 times.

And all that

The largest beneficiary group is the first batch of local retired veterans, after the original meritorious land was converted into commercial land, according to the market value to obtain tens of thousands of Tang Yuan or even more generous compensation, and then purchased a large number of building property rights, sitting on the happy life of the chartered public.

Compared to the fourth city ranking in 1858, Taoyuan City slipped two places to sixth place in 1865, squeezed behind the two former million-dollar metropolises of Chicago and Mexico City, but this did not detract from the dazzling light of Taoyuan City.

In the industrial economic component of Taoyuan City, the steel, cement, building materials, brewing and food processing industries dominate.

Relying on the local high-quality limestone and clay resources, Taoyuan cement and building materials enterprises have developed to hundreds, forming more than 10 well-known cement brands, products are supplied to surrounding provinces and Chicago and Chang'an and other metropolises, and a complete range of pottery and porcelain industry has been formed.

In the new round of construction boom in the cities of the empire, the pillar steel and building materials and cement industries of Taoyuan have flourished, creating a huge demand for labor and becoming a powerful booster for the expansion of the city.

In the food industry, especially in the region, the canning industry has formed a considerable scale, with a wide variety of canned food flavors sold throughout North America and Europe, as well as Taoyuan cheese, gin and Colorado brand pure malt beer, which are all well-known products in North America.

After talking about Taoyuan City, which ranked sixth in the empire, we looked back at the somewhat lonely Seattle, whose population grew from 739,800 at the end of June 1858 to 1,113,500 at the end of 1864, ranking as the fifth largest city in the empire.

It stands to reason that this development is not slow.

But compared to other cities in the more ferocious empire, Seattle has far fewer highlights.

In recent years, it has been squeezed out of the top four cities by Chicago and Mexico, and as an important city in the north of the Pacific Coast, Seattle has strong enemies in front of it and pursuers behind it, and is under tremendous pressure to develop.

It is only 63,500 away from Mexico City, which ranks fourth, and only 41,300 is 41,300 from Taoyuan City, which ranks sixth.

Seattle was the capital of the Northern Province and the northernmost million-in-person metropolis of the Tang Empire, with the Vancouver area to the north.

As the empire's third-largest northern industrial city, Seattle has had its glory and loneliness, and it was once known as the center of the northern shipbuilding industry and the center of marine capture and fishery, and it is also a major northern animal husbandry province, famous for producing high-quality horses and beef.

Thanks to one of the destinations on the Transpacific North Golden Route, Seattle has been smooth sailing in its early years, once among the top three major cities in the empire, and it was the most glamorous moment.

But as Chicago and Mexico City, which were incorporated into the empire, returned to their former glory, the attention of the upper echelons of government inevitably became attracted, leaving less and less attention to Seattle and fewer resources to be allocated.

Among the three institutions of higher learning that Seattle has been building in the making, the Northern Institute of Technology, the Northern School of Administration, and the Royal Naval College of Seattle, only the Royal Naval College in Seattle has been approved and has officially begun enrollment in 1864.

The other two institutions of higher learning have been under review, and there is no deadline for them to be approved.

This was unimaginable before.

The Imperial Ministry of Science and Education's budget and appropriations are limited, and now it is tilted towards Chicago in the north and Mexico City in the south, as well as large cities such as Taoyuan in the middle, so there are naturally fewer educational resources left for Seattle.

Salem, a heavily industrialized northern city supported by the Empire, has replaced Seattle as the center of shipbuilding industry in the north with its chemical, steel, and shipbuilding industries, and is not good news for Seattle to shine brightly even after becoming a million-strong city.

Salem Mayor Tang Qiyong once said proudly at a provincial economic conference; "Salem's goal is not to replace Seattle as the largest metropolis in the North, but to challenge Mexico City as the fourth largest metropolis in the empire."

He is not arrogant in saying this, Salem is the eighth largest city in the empire, and its population is only 173,000 people compared to Mexico City, the fourth largest city in the empire, and it is not an unreachable target.

If we maintain the current trend of rapid growth in the development of the industrial economy, we will indeed be able to turn over the big brothers in front of us and achieve gorgeous transcendence.

From the fourth to the eighth place in the empire, the big cities with a population of one million are not far behind each other, and now the competition tends to be white-hot, and everyone is holding back their strength to catch up with the former, forming a strong competitive atmosphere.

If you think "Wild North America 1846" is not bad, please paste the following URL to share it with your QQ, WeChat or Weibo friends, thank you for your support!

( Book URL: /xiaoshuo/69084/ )