I want to be emperor

Chapter 836 Sun Xu Breaks into Songjiang ([-])
After a welcome meal, Sun Xu and Sun Dawei returned to the apartment full of food and drink.

For the meal just now, Sun Xu originally wanted to pay the bill. After all, he came from a long way to join Faxiao, and he had to stay here until he found a job. Naturally, he was embarrassed to eat Faxiao's big meal for nothing.

But Fa Xiao Sun Dawei insisted that this was a welcome banquet, and if Sun Xu paid for it, he would look down on him and not treat him as a brother... In the end, he couldn't help it, so he gave up the idea.

After returning to the apartment, he took a hot bath, and finally lay down on the floor in the small living room outside. Although Sun Xu was a little tired, he still couldn't sleep!

After all, coming to Songjiang this time was the first time for Sun Xu to travel far in his life. He had never left the county before.

Now it has crossed more than half of the country at once, and arrived in Songjiang after traveling on the road for several days.

To be honest, he was also full of uneasiness and even a little fear about this.

It's just that Sun Xu didn't show it all along the way as a man and with the hope of a better life for his family.

Now that he has come to Songjiang, which is thousands of miles away from home, and has fallen down here in Faxiao, Sun Xu heaved a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart.

I don't know if my mother is healthy these days after I left home, I don't know if my father's work is going well, and my younger brother, I don't know if he can study hard at school with peace of mind?

These things that he didn't pay attention to deliberately in the past, surfaced in Sun Xu's mind after thousands of miles away from home... The most important thing is that he has no way to know the details of his family in time.

Also, I don’t know if it’s easy to find a job in Songjiang. Although Songjiang is a big city with many job opportunities, and many companies will recruit mechanical repairers, Sun Xu also knows that there are many people in this city who are like himself. Fang Fang came to Songjiang to find a job and pursue a new life as a mechanical repairman.

And Sun Xu didn't know if he could compete with these people.

After all, he is just a novice mechanical repairer who has been out of the school for less than a year. Strictly speaking, he has not even been responsible for some relatively important repair business independently.

Therefore, Sun Xu was also a little worried about whether those factories could take a fancy to him.

If you can't find a job for a long time, then it will be difficult.

After all, he didn't carry a lot of money with him, apart from the train ticket on the way and the money for meals along the way, now he only has three yuan and two cents left on him.

After arriving here in Songjiang, although he could borrow enough money from Fa Xiao Sun Dawei, the necessary expenses were still indispensable.

When you go out to find a job, you have to pay for taking a public carriage, eating and drinking water, etc.

If you can't find a job for a long time, then it will be more troublesome.

If possible, Sun Xu still hopes to find a job as soon as possible, even if the salary level is slightly lower.

You can't always depend on others, no.

Thinking in such a daze, Sun Xu, like most people in this city, gradually fell asleep.

In the fourth-floor apartment where I lived, the lights of each house gradually went out, the sound of men shouting and cursing, and the crying of children gradually subsided.

However, the dim whale oil lamp at the door of the apartment did not go out, but continued to emit a not-so-bright light to illuminate the small area at the door, so as not to completely engulf the entire apartment in darkness.

Looking into the distance, other apartment buildings or shop entrances on this street also have whale oil lamps emitting faint light sporadically.

Although there are dozens of public whale oil lamps scattered and the light they emit is very weak, they still bring light to this street in Xicheng District.

It's just that on the main road "Shencun Street" outside the intersection of Shencun East Seventh Lane, the world here is much brighter!
Because the night is not too dark, there are still some shops on both sides of the street that have not closed their doors, including a clinic and pharmacy at the intersection of Dongqi Lane.

There is an iron pillar several meters high in front of the clinic, and on the top of the pillar is a gas lamp that has appeared in big cities around the world in recent years.

This gas lamp is much brighter than a whale oil lamp. It not only illuminates the area in front of the clinic, but also allows the streets on the left and right to be seen clearly.

The history of gas lamps in the empire is actually not short, but it has been used on a large scale in recent years.

But to be honest, this thing is actually an additional product of the steel industry of the Great Chu Empire.

In order to produce more and better steel, the iron and steel factories of the Great Chu Empire began to use coking coal for steelmaking very early. Therefore, while developing the iron and steel industry, there is actually a coking coal industry that is not noticed by outsiders.

When developing the coking coal industry, with the continuous advancement of technology, scientists discovered that after coking coal, a flammable mixed gas will be produced.

And call this combustible gas gas.

It's just that for a long time, because the gas contains carbon monoxide, which is very poisonous, and the coking process is not good, it is difficult to safely recycle the mixed gas produced by coking.

Therefore, for quite a long time, the gas produced by the coking industry of the Great Chu Empire was treated as a waste gas. Even because the gas is easy to be poisoned, it is very troublesome to deal with. Usually, the gas is directly ignited and burned... It is impossible to directly release a large-scale mixture rich in carbon monoxide and other gases into the air on a large scale. Isn't it...

Later, technicians tried every means to treat the gas harmlessly, and looked for ways to recycle the waste gas.

But the biggest impact is still used for lighting and heating!

After all, this thing is a flammable gas, and it is very feasible to burn it directly as fuel and use it as a lighting lamp.

At the same time, it can also be directly used to boil water, and then central heating.

It’s just that for lighting, because the carbon monoxide contained in the gas is easy to be poisoned, so it is rarely used indoors, and it is usually used outdoors.

In the 29th year of Chengshun, Huainan Mining Company signed a contract with the local government to design and build a batch of gas supply pipelines, corresponding gas lamps, and gas heating stations for central heating in the Huainan area for the local government.

This opened the large-scale commercial application of gas in the Great Chu Empire, and many cities followed up with the construction of gas lamps for outdoor lighting.

Jinling City, the capital, was the first to follow up. In the 30th year of Chengshun, it invested in the construction of a batch of gas lamps. The first batch was used for outdoor public lighting in the imperial palace and the administrative area around the imperial palace, and it was used in some commercial streets the following year.

As the most developed economy in the Great Chu Empire, Songjiang Mansion, whose local finances are not short of money, has always been very interested in this kind of advanced public facilities.

For example, asphalt roads are something that Songjiang City likes to play on a large scale at present... And Songjiang City is planning to build urban rails, and this urban train track plan, many of the sections, mainly in the bustling urban areas, are going to be directly underground. They dug tunnels to pass through, so they even took a special name: the underground railway... referred to as the subway!
Don't doubt the technical feasibility of the Great Chu Empire's construction of tunnels these days. The London Underground was completed and opened to traffic in 1862 in the original time and space...

The method of digging tunnels proposed by Songjiang Mansion is also very simple and crude. It is not directly digging holes as people are familiar with later generations, but directly digs a large trench in the ground, and then reinforces it with bricks and cement. And capped, and backfilled with soil after completion...

This is naturally costly and time-consuming... Don't even think about the city without a lot of money in your pocket.

But Songjiang Prefecture is not short of money, and the city is developing too fast, the population and buildings are too dense, and the traffic pressure is extremely high, so the urban railway plan has to be carried out, and when passing through some downtown streets, you can't directly engage the ground Not to mention the noise of the railway, the cost of the land alone is not small.

This Songjiang Mansion has even thought about building a subway, let alone gas lamps.

Although they only started building the first batch of gas lamps in the 31st year of Chengshun, they have a lot of money. In the first phase, [-] gas lamps were installed, directly covering the main downtown streets, followed by [-] gas lamps in the second phase. There are [-] lamps in the third phase... and the fourth phase of gas lamp construction is still underway.

There will be more in the fourth issue, [-] in one go!
According to the plan of Songjiang Prefecture, they will build at least 300 public or private gas lamps in a super city with more than [-] million people!
(In the early nineteenth century, there were about 100 to [-] gas lamps in London, a city with a population of more than [-] million)

Public gas lamps are directly invested and constructed by local finance, while private gas lamps are provided with support and subsidies.

This scale... There are more gas lamps in one city than all other cities in the country combined!
Even in Jinling City, the current capital, there are actually only about [-] gas lamps, let alone other cities.

By the way, gas lamps are actually quite expensive these days. The hardware costs of buried gas pipes and gas street lights are very high, and the cost of burning gas continuously is not low.

Nowadays, most cities in the empire that use gas lamps sign contracts with the gas company and settle the cost by quoting each lamp every month... The details depend on the cost of gas, the length of the pipeline, the quantity, etc., but they are not cheap.

Therefore, those who can spend a lot of money to install gas lamps in cities are actually some cities with relatively good economies, and Songjiang is the richest and most willing among them. God knows how many gaslights there will be.

Up to now, even Shencun Avenue in Xicheng District, which is actually far away from the real city center, has installed gas lamps.

Provide basic lighting for people to travel at night.

It's just that Shencun Street is just an ordinary street, and when we continue to the Huangpu River, we set foot on Huangpu River Avenue.

The public gas street lights here are more dense, and a large number of commercial buildings along the avenue will also erect private gas street lights in front of the door.

Numerous gas street lamps illuminate the entire Huangpu River Avenue brightly, without any darkness at night.

Under the lights of the street lamps, the Huangpu River Avenue was still extremely busy. On the asphalt road more than ten meters wide, carriages with glass-covered whale oil lamps passed by from time to time.

A large number of four-wheeled carriages full of goods are passing on the road, taking advantage of the less crowded traffic at night, to transport the goods to every corner of the city.

In the magnificent buildings beside Huangpu River Avenue, people in decent professional attire or traditional Hanfu go out from the building from time to time, wave to the rental carriage waiting by the roadside, and then get into the rental carriage.

However, more overtime workers who come out of these buildings, even though they are wearing decent woolen business attire or silk Hanfu, still go to the platform of the public carriage, drag their tired bodies and sit on the public carriage, and return with the carriage swaying all the way. Home.

Passing through the public carriage, you can still see some restaurants and teahouses that are brightly lit, even more lively than in the daytime, with all kinds of red lanterns hanging that attract people's imagination. Wandering in the dark streets proves to the world that Songjiang is still bustling and lively even at night!
Not to mention the prosperity, Huangpu River Avenue, where countless money has gathered, even in the slightly remote Xicheng District, many places are still brightly lit at night.

In the Xicheng Industrial Zone, in the Anhua Textile Factory, the lights in several huge spinning mills in the factory have been extinguished, and the workers have also left work early to go home.

But the office building on the side of the factory building is still brightly lit.

In the meeting room on the third floor, more than a dozen middle-aged or elderly men in new-style business attire sat on both sides of the long rectangular table. The meeting room was so smoky that even in the winter, the windows were open for ventilation.

In front of the long table was a middle-aged man in business attire. He held a Donghua brand cigarette in one hand and flipped through the documents in front of him with the other.

After a while, he took a deep puff from the cigarette, then snuffed out the cigarette butt in the ashtray in front of him. After the smoke was ejected, a cloud of white smoke formed in front of him.

Tobacco was introduced in the Wanli period of the pre-Ming Dynasty, and quickly spread to the entire Huaxia region. In the beginning, whether it was the Ming Dynasty or the Eastern Captivity, tobacco was actually banned, but the effect was not great. The people began to plant a large number of natural tobacco suck.

After the era of the Great Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue also thought about banning it at the beginning, but it still had little effect. In addition, the profit from tobacco was too great, which made a great financial contribution.

Later, the tobacco monopoly system was simply implemented, and a large amount of fiscal revenue was obtained while effective management was carried out.

Later developed into the use of pipes, and even cigarettes.

Today's tobacco industry has a large scale and a huge financial contribution.

Especially in the 15th year of the Great Chu Empire in Chengshun, because of the large-scale industrial production of salt, but salt is a necessity for human survival, it is impossible for the empire to make people unable to afford salt for the sake of profit, and even after the industrial production of salt, The price of table salt has been lowered on a large scale many times.

Up to now, salt has become very cheap in the mainland of the empire and even in overseas territories... so cheap that even if you engage in salt smuggling, you can't make much money.

At the same time, it also dumped salt to various indigenous countries on a large scale... For example, Fusang, India, West Asia, America, Africa, and even Europe, all have high-quality and cheap salt from the Great Chu Empire.

Under such circumstances, although salt is still a monopoly and the output is huge, the actual profit and tax contribution is far less than before.

At this time, tobacco replaced salt and became the head of the government-owned industry, contributing a large amount of taxes and profits every year.

People have also changed from smoking local tobacco at the beginning, to pipes, to self-rolling shredded tobacco, and now to paper cigarettes produced by factories.

Especially the ones in the middle and upper classes are very popular!
Today, the smog in the meeting room can prove the rapid development of the tobacco industry in the Great Chu Empire in the past few decades... Of course, this is not a good thing. After all, smoking is harmful to health. The disease will be cured, such as pulmonary edema and lung cancer.

This thing is more harmful to people's health than any dust industry. The dust industry has affected a small number of practitioners, but tobacco has affected countless people.

However, in the contemporary Great Chu Empire, people obviously still don't realize the harm of tobacco, and more of it is regarded as a consumer product like tea.

Luo Zhixue is also a little helpless about this... He also tried to ban it in the early years. After all, he does not smoke and knows the dangers of smoking, but it is a pity that he can't be banned... Whether it is an official or a commoner, Luo Zhixue's move is meddling.

Later, Luo Zhixue simply ignored it, and did whatever he liked... He happened to set up a franchise, and severely harvested those smokers.

However, regarding real drugs like opium, Luo Zhixue's attitude is very firm. Except for specific medical industries, the cultivation, processing, transportation, and sales of opium are completely prohibited.

And the prohibition is very strict, basically arresting is shooting!

In order to crack down on opium, it not only banned the cultivation of opium in the country, but also went to the central and western regions of India and Bangladesh, which are important opium producing areas, to carry out crackdowns...the local states were prohibited from growing opium.

The method is simple and brutal... If you dare to plant, I will dare to start a war!
At the same time, there is a complete ban on any opium trade overseas.

However, while the opium trade was completely banned, the Great Chu Empire engaged in tobacco trade on a global scale...

A large amount of tobacco in the Great Chu Empire is not only consumed by itself, but also exported in large quantities!

Nowadays, in Europe, imported paper cigarettes from the Great Chu Empire have become the new favorite of local upper-class nobles and businessmen.

Take a puff of the branded paper cigarettes of the Great Chu Empire, as if you have become a decent gentry of the Chu Kingdom!
(End of this chapter)