When the railroad was born more than 50 years ago, when the engineers of the Qi Kingdom were designing passenger carriages, the only thing they could refer to was the horse-drawn carriage. So the early manned trains were actually a long line of horse-drawn carriages, dragged along the tracks by a steam locomotive.

The train carriages thus designed were marked by class differences from the very beginning. After a period of development, the train compartments were still closed and luxurious spaces, the second-class carriages were relatively austere but also maintained the necessary comfort, while the third-class carriages for the majority of the ordinary class were only open-top trains with fences, leaking on all sides and raining on rainy days. It was not until the 26th year of Qianwu (1668) that the ceiling was installed, and then the transparent glass windows were installed.

The luxury compartments in the carriage are independent spaces that are divided into unified long carriages. Outside the doors of these boxes, there is a long corridor where conductors can patrol the corridor, provide room service, and even rescue passengers in distress. The compartment itself is well-equipped, with its own space, and far more comfortable and luxurious than a horse-drawn carriage.

However, the user experience of traveling in such a box is "terrible", first of all, the greatest pleasure when traveling in a horse-drawn carriage - conversation. For this kind of closed and lonely space, many wealthy people who take the box complain self-deprecating (hypocritically): on the train is simply the most boring trip, and there is no other feeling in the whole trip except boring and boring.

The seats in the third-class carriage are back-to-back, whether it is the seat backrest or the bottom of the chair, only a layer of canvas is laid, which is hard and has no comfort at all. From a row of windows as long as the carriage, you can look out at the scenery and chat to pass the boring and long journey.

Of course, if you don't want to sit for three or four hours studying other people's faces, or can't find a better pastime, you can also hold a book and read deeply, or try to have a long conversation with the traveler opposite or next to you.

On the surface, the railroad has simply changed the speed at which humans travel. In a spiritual sense, an increase in speed actually means a shrinking of the world.

Once the space shrinks, time will naturally change with it. Before the railroad era, time difference was not as strict as it is now between different time zones. In fact, standard time itself is a product of the railway. The predecessor of standard time is the "railway time" determined by various railway companies in Qi for themselves.

Before the railway era, there were certain time differences between the various regions of Qi Kingdom, for example, the establishment time was one hour later than the time of Daxing (present-day Brisbane, Australia), and more than an hour earlier than Guizhou (present-day Perth, Australia). Such a time difference was not important to people in the pre-railway period. A merchant travelling from Jianye to Daxing on a merchant ship will experience a series of subtle differences in time along the way. When he arrives in Daxing, he only needs to look up at the clock tower in the center of the city, calibrate his pocket watch as usual, and continue to be a punctual businessman.

The distance of the space counteracts the discomfort felt by those who move slowly between different areas. However, the fact that the railways shorten the time they travel and spatially close the distance between different regions will naturally force them to converge in time.

As early as a few decades ago, every place in the country of Qi had its own time. Trains are speeding at high speed on the railway, and any difference in time can have serious consequences, so the railway company can only introduce its own unified time, which is called "railway time".

The clock hanging in the railway station shows the "railway time" instead of the local time. Different railway companies have different "railway time". When several railway companies share a railway station, it is simple and rude that several railway companies hang a few clocks, and passengers wait for the train according to the time of which company they buy a ticket.

In the midst of this chaos, the railroad companies and passengers began to call for a unified standard time. In the third year of Hanxing (1673), under the unified coordination of the Ministry of Transportation and Industry of the State of Qi, all railway companies and railway lines invested and controlled by the government reached an agreement to take the time of establishment as the standard time of the entire railway network.

When all the railway companies departed according to the construction time, the time of each place was forced to compromise with the "railway time". In the fifth year of Hanxing (1675), the cabinet government of Qi accepted the choice of the railway company, and the time of establishment became the standard time of Qi.

Since then, under the unified time scale, under the sharply compressed time and space, the process of people moving is less and less like a journey, more like a moment.

In the days of horse-drawn carriages or trekking, travelers had to go through a long process to reach their destination. The feeling of a travel destination is gradually observed by the traveler in a gradual form. The destination itself is only a stage in the journey, and the process between the destination and the point of departure is the main body of the trip.

But the advent of the railroad changed this kind of travel, and as the speed increased, the passenger seemed to become a package, and before the train stopped, the passenger went through a process that was neither controllable nor adaptable. The only thing that can be thankful is that this process does not last long, so whether people sleep, daz, or read between the starting and ending points, objectively speaking, they go through a process that has nothing to do with travel.

When people arrive and show up at their destinations with the train, the gradual integration of traditional travel doesn't happen at all. A person suddenly appears at the end of a journey after an experience that lasts for a dozen or dozens of hours and becomes a "cargo". At this time, he was not prepared, either physically or psychologically.

However, this feeling does not exist in Li Yanliang, who is like an arrow in his heart, he is now full of desire, and he can't wait for the speed of the train to be faster, the time to be shorter, and it is best to arrive in Daxing in the next moment. In this way, he returned to that warm and comfortable little home and saw his mother after four years of absence.

As the train moved slowly, the hustle and bustle of the carriages gradually calmed down, some passengers leaned in front of the window, looking at the homes, factories, and large tracts of farmland that were constantly passing by, some took out piles of food from their luggage bags, filling their stomachs hungry from waking up early, and some turned out a book or a newspaper to pass the long journey.

Last night, he drank and chatted with Cao Ge and several invited officers until late at night, and almost did not fall asleep, by this time, Li Yanliang was already heavy in eyelids and looked extremely depressed, so he lowered his military hat slightly, clasped his hands, and fell into a half-asleep state.

Originally, Cao Ge wanted to take the initiative to buy a first-class box ticket for Li Yanliang so that his four-day journey could be a little more comfortable. But this move was politely rejected by Li Yanliang.

What are you kidding, I, a junior lieutenant officer, sat in a first-class luxury box, which had to be seen by others, and it had too much impact on the identity of the soldiers. Unless, if you advance to the rank of general, then you can enjoy this kind of treatment that only high-ranking officers can enjoy with peace of mind.

Of course, if you take off your military uniform, as a rich son, you can't take the first-class luxury box, but Li Yanliang doesn't want to accept Cao Ge's favor in vain. Roughly calculated, they have known each other for less than two months, although they are like-minded and have similar interests, but they are really not that particularly intimate.

Besides, riding in a third-class carriage is not a particularly hard task. As a soldier, how can you not have a little hard-working spirit?

In the last two decades or so, the number of passengers travelling in third-class has increased fivefold, with first-class passengers largely remaining the same, while second-class cars have decreased dramatically – because it is extremely uneconomical for ordinary people to pay a higher price and enjoy a service similar to that of third-class cars. Under these circumstances, many trains in the country have simply eliminated second-class carriages and only set up first-class and third-class carriages. Of course, there is still a huge difference in ticket prices between the two.

When he was in a daze and coma, Li Yanliang suddenly felt his body shake, and woke up in an instant, and then looked up, the carriage was already noisy, and they poked their heads out and looked out the window, and the train seemed to have stopped.

Li Yanliang couldn't help but glance out the window. Well, it doesn't seem like the train is coming into the station, but in a wilderness, green meadows, cattle and sheep, and dense mountains and forests in the distance.

What, the train broke down?

"Hehe...... eighty percent of the trains hit and killed the cattle and sheep that broke into the tracks!" A middle-aged man with a slightly chubby figure and a short beard on the opposite side saw Li Yanliang's blank look and said with a smile: "It is estimated that the shepherds nearby will have to argue with the locomotive personnel about this. ”

Li Yanliang glanced at the other party and nodded in a daze, not completely sober up for a while.

In the country of Qi, both residents along the railway line and train passengers have long been accustomed to railway traffic, and the various casualties have been decreasing day by day. According to statistics, only one person for every 400,000 passengers is injured and only one for every three million people dies. This statistic also includes railway employees who have been involved in accidents and suicides who have committed suicide while lying on the tracks.

However, along some empty railway lines, there are still accidents where trains collide with animals from time to time, either cattle and sheep crossing the railway and not avoiding them, or various small animals that are stupid. Under normal circumstances, as long as it does not affect the normal operation of the train, the train will not stop easily after hitting animals and livestock, so as not to miss the arrival time.

But the train was not only forced to stop, but it stopped for more than two hours. Although all the carriage doors were not opened, so that the passengers on the train could not get down to get a glimpse of the cause of the incident, the military police and armed railway patrol officers who arrived one after another showed the unusual and serious nature of the train stop.

"It seems that the herdsmen in the neighborhood are blocking the train tracks and want to ask for some explanation." The short-bearded man pulled his head back from the window with a look of excitement, "The gendarmes and railway patrol are driving away the herders and tying up a dozen people. What's going on here? ”

"It must have been half a month ago, after a freight train passed through this place, it derailed and overturned, causing many toxic chemicals in the carriage to leak and killing a large herd of cattle and sheep of nearby herders." A middle-aged man who looked like a scholar said with a solemn face: "However, after this kind of accident occurred, the Northern Railway Company blindly shirked its responsibility and did not compensate the damaged herdsmen. Therefore, these angry herders have taken the extreme act of stopping the train today. Tell me, the dead cattle and sheep are the lifeblood of those herdsmen! Toxic chemicals leaked, and the nearby herdsmen were not reminded and warned, so that they were damaged in vain. ”

"Then the local government of Kaiyuan County (present-day Hamptidu, Australia) also watched the herdsmen under its jurisdiction suffer damage, and did not take any measures against the Northern Railway Company?"

"What can I do? The Northern Railway Company is ready to invest 800,000 yuan to carry out large-scale renovation and expansion of Kaiyuan Station, which is a proper major investor in Kaiyuan County. An emaciated man sneered and said: "They plan to add a new vehicle maintenance plant at Kaiyuan Station, add various machinery and equipment, and also recruit a large number of railway yard maintenance and management personnel in the local area, and comprehensively transform the gas, lighting, coal, communication and processing capacity of the original small maintenance workshop, so that the station can repair all types of steam locomotives, and even use spare parts to assemble a temporary emergency locomotive." You calculate how much tax revenue can be provided to Kaiyuan County after this construction. As for the tens or hundreds of cattle, sheep and livestock lost by those herdsmen, they are not worth mentioning at all. ”

"Hey, as soon as you say that, the Northern Railway Company will wear a pair of pants with the local government! Co-authored, those herders were lost in vain? Dog's day, a few thousand yuan, may be insignificant in their eyes, but if it falls on us ordinary people, it will definitely be a heavy loss, maybe most of the net worth will be lost! ”

"Why don't the damaged herdsmen go to the court of Dali Temple to sue them?"

"Hmph, the local government doesn't care about things, do you think Dali Temple will take care of it?"

"What about the Local Inspectorate? …… The local government doesn't care, most of them have received the benefits of the railway company. Check it out, and maybe you'll catch a few corrupt officials! ”

“……”

Nowadays, when there is a conflict between the government and the people in the Qi country, the simple people will naturally tend to the weak ordinary people, and when the government does nothing in the face of the damage to the rights and interests of the people, it thinks from the bottom of its heart that the officials are corrupt and bend the law, ignoring the interests of the people at the bottom.

During this period, many people were nostalgic for the political and social environment when Emperor Taizu was in power decades ago. At that time, under the leadership of Emperor Taizu, the officials of Qi fulfilled their duties, were diligent in political affairs, and did their best for every bit of progress and development of the country. At that time, everyone had positive ideas, believing that with their own efforts and hard work, they could get a good life of food, clothing and sleep.

Eighty years have passed, and the vast majority of the people in Qi seem to have lived a good life of three meals a day, but many people feel that their current life does not have the satisfaction of "happiness" during the founding of Qi State.

Especially in recent decades, the continuous sluggish growth of peasant incomes in Qi State, the hard work of urban workers day and night, the increasing cost of living, the widening gap between the rich and the poor in society, the increasingly close ties between officials and businessmen, and the arrogance and indulgence ......of the elite class, all of which have made too many ordinary people feel a sense of dissatisfaction and loss.

Therefore, whenever there is any conflict between the government and the people in the Qi State, or the contradictions between different classes, it will cause the masses to be angry and vent their dissatisfaction in their hearts.

The son of a powerful man who claims to uphold the dignity of the royal family of Daqi at the railway station, as well as the current herdsmen in Kaiyuan County who stopped the train, all touched the sensitive psychology of the people.

The train started slowly again, and looking at the herdsmen still gathered by the railway, the heavily armed military police, and the railway patrol police, Li Yanliang couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

What happened to my Great Qi Empire?

(End of chapter)