A dilapidated Daifuku ship arrives at the dock on the Huangpu River in Shanghai.

At this moment, the Huangpu River Wharf is the busiest time of the year.

Because there are still more than ten days, it is the Spring Festival on the first day of the first month of the eighth year of the liberation.

For Chinese, there is no money, go home for the New Year.

Shanghai, a place where 80 or 90 percent of the population is foreign, will definitely be deserted during the Spring Festival.

Although the owners of those factories are reluctant to take a holiday during the Spring Festival.

But the Ming court didn't really care about the suffering of the people at all.

At least there are still seven days of national holiday during the Spring Festival, and during these seven days, in addition to the patrols and troops on duty.

The rest of the yamen institutions, large and small factories, etc., are all on holiday at the same time.

And there won't be any off.

It's seven days.

There are regulations of the imperial court.

Those pickpockets don't dare to violate it, after all, not letting people go home for the New Year just sounds a bit inhumane.

Not to mention.

During the Chinese New Year, I can't do much business.

So before the Chinese New Year, factories of all sizes were busy rushing to work.

The Huangpu River has also become more and more busy.

The whole city is running at full capacity, as if to make up for the time lost due to the long vacation.

The wharf of the 16th shop is bustling with busy coolies, who are the hardest laborers in the city, and it is through their shoulders that the bags of goods are carried up and down, and circulated in all directions. Although they are called coolies, it is difficult to see the word "bitter" on their faces.

On the contrary, they are full of joy, approaching the end of the year, the business of these coolies is not good, and the wage has also risen by three percent, don't look at their ragged clothes now, and wait for work, but all of them are dressed in exquisite satin clothes.

If you are a bachelor, most of them go straight to the restaurant on Sima Road to have a good meal......

In fact, the income of dock workers in various coastal ports in Daming is not low.

A strong man always has an income of thirty or forty yuan a month, and if he catches up with the month before the Spring Festival, it can be doubled.

That's a lot better than working as a worker in a textile factory.

And at this time.

After traveling in Europe for a few years, after opening his eyes and seeing the world, he studied law at Daohua University, and got the former Qingjing Haihou Yu Xian, who was photographed by a lawyer, and now changed his name to Wu Wanghai and walked down from the Fu boat.

He was followed by a man in his early fifties wearing a robe and a melon-skin hat.

This person is Shi Bingde, the younger brother of the Marquis of Jinghai, and Wu Wanghai's father, who is now renamed Wu Shande.

Behind the two of them, there were several servants carrying salutes.

"Hai'er, the people who carry big bags and small bags on these docks are all children of the Little Knife Society, and the Little Knife Society has a lot to do with the Heaven and Earth Society. Today, the saints are the chief of the Heaven and Earth Society, they are not easy to provoke, and they can't casually smash their jobs in the future. ”

Wu Bingde pointed to the coolies who were carrying big bags and explained to his son in a low voice.

They have two fathers and sons, these two former Qing remnants, and now they have made a fortune.

Wu Wanghai invested in the newspaper industry in Guangzhou and was the major shareholder of the [Junzi Daily].

And Wu Bingde.

He can be said to have gone out of shit luck.

After he arranged for his son to run away, he took part of his family property to Shanghai County to live in seclusion and bought more than 100 acres of land on the Huangpu River.

Originally, I wanted to collect rent for the elderly, and by the way, I would be a remnant of the previous dynasty, and I would not be a Ming dynasty for life.

But I didn't expect it.

The sky is unpredictable.

This man is lucky, but he really can't stop it.

Unexpectedly, the emerging Ming Empire suddenly embarked on the fast track of capitalism, and Shanghai became the city with the fastest economic development in the whole Ming Dynasty.

It was originally a wilderness land. Within a few years, it became a bustling place.

Wu Bingde is also a master with an active brain, and of course he seized the opportunity of this "reform and opening up" and recovered several hundred acres of land from the tenants.

Some of them were converted into wharves and warehouses, and the other part was sold to the Shanghai County Government at a high price for the expansion of the urban area.

"Father, son doesn't want to take over the docks!"

"What? If you don't take this pier, then who will this pier give to? Do you know how profitable this marina is? How many people are red-eyed! Hai'er, as a father, you are a son, if you don't take this family business, who will take it? Let me tell you, this pier can be heirlooms, and the wealth of future generations will be tied here! ”

Wu Bingde said urgently.

He has been in Shanghai for many years, but he knows too well what is the most important location.

The wharf by the Huangpu River.

At a glance, as long as there is no turmoil in the Ming Dynasty, then it will make money and trade safely!

"Father, have you forgotten the hatred of the country and the family?"

"Be quiet!"

Lao Wu hurriedly stopped his son's words, and then pointed to two large steam sailing ships parked on another pier not far away. "Look, those two ships are hanging with the regimental dragon flag, there must be some big man in Shanghai, the fans of Jinyiwei can be active in the past two days!"

Wu Wanghai looked in the direction of his father's finger.

The wharf of the Wu family can only moth some sailing ships such as Daifuku ships and Daguang boats.

And the wharf of the Shanghai Port Company in the distance can berth the kind of super-large ironclad ships!

At this time, there were two large ships of more than 3,000 tons anchored in Shanghai Port.

It is the battleship Daming and the main gunboat of the Daming Pacific Fleet.

"Labor and money!"

Wu Wanghai muttered, and strode off the springboard with Wu Bingde.

A gold-inlaid four-wheeled Western carriage was parked on the dock, the door had been opened, and a coachman wearing a black satin jacket was guarding there.

"Let's get in the car and talk about it." Wu Bingdra dragged his son into the carriage.

Then he put the servant who was carrying the luggage into another carriage with the goods.

"Zhen'er, forget it."

As soon as the wheels of the carriage rolled, Wu Bingde sighed and said, "It's been 8 years since the blink of an eye." The world of the Ming Dynasty is as safe as a rock...... National hatred and family hatred are all things of the past, let's look forward. Now he supports a family business for his father, has a wharf, a real estate and a few sailboats, and has more than 100,000 yuan in the account every year. We don't have that much income. ”

"Then the lives of hundreds of people in the Shi family are just counted?"

Wu Bingde shook his head and said with a wry smile: "What if you don't forget it?" When will this change of dynasty not kill people's heads, to be honest, now the Manchu Le Bao still keeps an incense of the Manchus in India, and they are already lucky that the Manchus were not slaughtered. Our family was a traitor to the Manchu Qing Dynasty back then, and enjoyed more than 100 years of wealth, and it was almost the same, this is all fate. Democratically republican or something, you've also been promoting it for several years, how many people believe it? ”

"There are still a few ......," Wu Bingde's face darkened.

In fact, there is only one person who really believes, that is, Sun Wen, who is studying medicine, and he has already gone to Europe with Wu Wanghai's funding.

The other students who participated in the Constitutional Study Society went their separate ways and went to work on their own careers after graduation.

As for Du Ruchong and others in "Junzi Daily", they originally scoffed at the republican system, thinking that it was not worth mentioning because they had no king and no father.

"What can be done with a few people? Zhen'er, I think you should marry a wife as soon as possible, take a few more aunts, have a bunch of children and grandchildren, and let your father enjoy the joy of family for a few years. ”

"Father, son...... The son doesn't want to start a family. Wu Wanghai said helplessly.

As soon as I got home after graduation, I urged me to get married.

Is this also tradition?

"No...... Don't want to start a family? Zhen'er, aren't you sick? Wu Bingde was shocked, he is just a son, and the Jinghai Hou Shi family is also his only seedling, if he can't sow seeds, what can he do, is he worthy of the traitor ancestors?

Wouldn't it really be extinct because he was punished as a traitor?

"I'm not sick......"

"Then you don't like women?" Wu Bingde's face was a little strange, "Son, then you can marry one and add a grandson to your father, this is always okay, right?" ”

"Dad, what did you Wu say? Son...... I still want to do big things! ”

Wu Bingde's face sank, "Zhen'er, why are you still dreaming!" Now that the Ming Dynasty is already an iron bucket, even the Russian Empire can't beat the Ming Dynasty, what else can you do? While there is no rebellion, let's stop it quickly! ”

"Dad, I have my own sense of proportion, son."

"What are you going to do?"

"My son wants to go around Daming first and inspect the society."

"Society? What is it? ”

"It's this world, my son wants to see what's going on in this big tomorrow?"

……

What is going on now?

Frankly.

Even Emperor Zhu Daohua of the Ming Dynasty himself is not particularly clear.

Especially this hurts.

Therefore, Emperor Zhu also came to a "Private Interview with the Emperor of the Liberation of the Great".

He took off his dragon robe.

changed into an ordinary cotton robe, with a pistol and a sword hanging on his waist, followed by several female soldiers of the Guards Corps who were dressed as maids, and Empress Luo next to him was also wearing an ordinary robe, with a wooden hairpin casually inserted on her head, holding Emperor Zhu's arm, walking on the streets of Shanghai.

It's like an ordinary Shanghai boss going out.

Before the Chinese New Year, Shanghai is the most lively time.

Shops everywhere are lit up, and cabinets full of New Year's goods are about to be put on the streets.

Due to the trauma of the Northeast, go to the Northwest, go to the South Sea, and enter the New World in the east.

So now there are no homeless people, people called Hanako, etc., on the streets—if they had, they would have been taken by the yamen to become collective farms in those places.

Zhu Daohua suddenly arrived in Shanghai early yesterday morning.

Even the Shanghai Municipal Government did not know that the emperor had arrived.

So now early in the morning, Zhu Daohua took Empress Luo and several female masters - all of them are good sumo wrestlers, and often perform sumo wrestling without clothes to show Emperor Zhu the kind of high-level masters who go out.

Take a look around Shanghai.

There is no more chaos like when I came to Shanghai two years ago.

The streets are very clean and apparently cleaned by someone on a regular basis.

It shows that Shanghai's municipal government is functioning normally – that's for sure, Shanghai is the city with the highest tax revenue in the country.

The central taxes paid by a city are almost catching up with Guangdong Province.

The second is that there are no dead people who are "lying down". It's winter now, and those who sleep on the streets are called Hanako, and it's easy to freeze to death.

But now I don't even see Hanako.

So it's not so surprising.

Emperor Zhu walked on the streets, buying some gadgets from time to time, which was very pleasant.

Since becoming the emperor, Boss Zhu has rarely had such a relaxed time now.

But for Emperor Zhu.

His empire has now entered a period of steady development.

Industrialization is in full swing in China, and under the impact of the market economy, the small-scale peasant economy in the countryside is disintegrating.

The huge immigrant investment in the Northeast, the Great Northwest, the South Seas, and the New World is actually equivalent to the "stability maintenance funds" of the Ming Empire.

Because if the structure of the rural economy is destroyed, and the peasants have no other way out.

It is difficult to say whether the industrialization of the Ming Empire can still operate in a stable environment.

A group of children with school bags rushed out of the side of the road.

There was a new elementary school on that small road, and they were supposed to be students of that elementary school.

Now that winter vacation is coming up, these elementary school students should have just finished their final exams.

These elementary school students are all boys, and a few of them are still shouting while running: "For the Ming Dynasty, for the emperor, forward, forward......"

Then everyone lined up in a neat queue, stepping on the queue, walking quite neatly, very presentable.

Zhu Jishi asked a female guard to stop a child and ask him what the slogan was about.

"Eldest sister, this is taught by my husband, I have to shout every day when I do exercises, and I also teach it in Chinese class."

Emperor Zhu nodded with satisfaction, it seems that the Propaganda Department is working compiling teaching materials.

In fact, this is Boss Zhu's poor method of plagiarizing Prussia and other countries during World War I in later generations.

In fact, at that time, European nation-states were more or less militaristic, and you can always find such content in textbooks.

The French were advancing for the emperor, the Russians for the tsar, the British for the queen, and the Prussians for the king.

Don't shy away from saying it.

This is brainwashing.

The current Ming army is not essentially an army armed with nationalism in modern times.

They are essentially a bunch of mercenaries.

So what kind of army is a modern army?

Of course, it is an army composed of a group of fanatical nationalists who believe that the interests of the country and the nation are closely related to themselves, and want to use the sword of ** to seek land for **.

Otherwise.

If in World War I, the kings of Europe would have to rely on money to hire armies to fight.

That then there is a country with money.

It can't support the cost of more than 100,000 deaths in a battle, and almost half of the young and middle-aged people in the entire country are killed or injured in a war.

But Emperor Zhu can't help it, and now there are such signs in Europe.

If he doesn't, he'll have to face a white army armed with nationalism and possibly extreme racism.

(End of chapter)