Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 316 The Second Home
The space node didn't open until night, as the current continued.

Old Zhu bid farewell to Zhu Cibei and the others, and returned to the modern world.

Zhu Biao, Elder Qin, Chief Wang, and Ji He, among others, were waiting outside.

The scene was rather serious and not suitable for jokes, so Zhu Yunfeng refrained from going up to greet his good friend Ji He.

Zhu Biao, Qin Lao, and Chief Wang came over to greet Old Zhu first. Old Zhu then exchanged a few pleasantries with them and stood there, talking to them while waiting for the follow-up troops to arrive.

Then they saw the Hongwu soldiers coming in groups of five, each with a small flag. Upon arriving in the modern world, they first saluted the crowd, and then quickly headed towards the Hongwu Ming Dynasty.

This was the return route that Lao Zhu had previously decided on. This was to prevent chaos on the way back and also to increase traffic efficiency.

They all came over arm in arm, saluted, and then immediately left arm in arm.

The efficiency was extremely fast, with groups of people almost every five seconds, which meant one person per second, sixty people per minute. The 20,000-strong army could pass through in just over five hours.

"The Hongwu Emperor truly lived up to his name; he was a master of military command."

Looking at the disciplined and well-disciplined Hongwu soldiers, Commander Wang sighed with admiration.

Old Zhu laughed and said, "It is also thanks to your help that we can achieve mutual assistance and common prosperity, whether for my Ming Dynasty or for future generations. This is the way to develop in the future."

"good."

Old Qin agreed wholeheartedly, saying, "If the Ming Dynasty and we learn from each other's strengths and make up for each other's weaknesses, we can make progress together."

This is indeed the best way to cooperate.

While conquest is also a form of warfare, it would undoubtedly cause great turmoil, increase governance costs, and lead to unknown consequences. Therefore, only cooperation, win-win outcomes, and mutual benefits can satisfy both parties.

With the help of the Hongwu Emperor, my country now possesses a large reserve of imported crude oil and rare earth elements.

It goes without saying that my country is an oil-deficient country.

In the area of ​​rare earth elements.

Despite my country's astonishing rare earth reserves, with the current reserves of 4400 million and an annual mining volume of about 20, it is more than enough to last for another two hundred years.

But in fact, my country's largest reserves are of light rare earth elements.

Heavy rare earth reserves are extremely scarce, and after so many years of mining, many heavy rare earth deposits have been depleted, and the reserves have declined sharply.

As a result, my country has had to tighten relevant policies, reduce the mining of heavy rare earth elements, and import large quantities of heavy rare earth elements from abroad for processing and resale.

It is already 2033 this year. Last year, Daming cooperated with Modern Times. Therefore, by 2031, my country will rely on imports for 82% of its heavy rare earth elements, which will greatly increase manufacturing costs.

Although my country's refining technology is unparalleled in the world, it is an indisputable fact that the reserves of heavy rare earth elements are becoming increasingly scarce.

However, by 2032, my country's imports of heavy rare earth elements will decrease significantly.

This year, not a single ton has been imported, and exports have also decreased significantly, causing international heavy rare earth prices to surge by nearly one-third.

In contrast, domestic prices for heavy rare earth elements have remained relatively low, simply because exports are not permitted.

Foreign media outlets immediately began to suspect that we had discovered new heavy rare earth minerals with astonishing reserves, eliminating the need for imports and preventing the West from using raw materials to strangle us.

The truth was pretty much what they had guessed, only more exaggerated than they had imagined.

my country now possesses rare earth minerals that are truly inexhaustible.

It also solved the problem of crude oil shortage and greatly increased domestic circulation and industrial development.

Amid the continued global economic downturn, my country stands out by maintaining an extremely high growth rate.

The West is extremely envious and verbally condemns us, but still dares not decouple from us. Behind our backs, they come to us to discuss cooperation and terms all the time, saying one thing and doing another.

It is mainly thanks to the scientists.

They increased the conveyor capacity and improved the conveyor methods on both sides, increasing the transmission efficiency. Goods were almost immediately taken away by the conveyor belt as soon as they arrived.

This increased the capacity of transmitting data by hundreds of times compared to the previous capacity of a few thousand tons per day, greatly increasing the limits of space transportation.

In this situation, Shangfeng Mountain was almost razed to the ground to facilitate transportation.

The surrounding area is densely packed with warehouses for transporting and storing goods, used to store the import and export goods of both parties.

Countless trucks enter and leave the town every day. A railway has been built, and the Lansha River in the town has been widened to connect with the Zi River, increasing water transport trade.

It's fair to say that if Old Zhu hadn't come today and stopped the cargo transport on the stone tablet for a day, the cargo throughput from the 24-hour non-stop operation would have reached 500,000 to 600,000 tons.

what is this concept?

This is roughly equivalent to one-thirtieth of my country's total daily import and export volume in the past.

Although it's only one-thirtieth, this growth is already an extremely large astronomical figure.

Moreover, they are all high-value-added and scarce resources, whose value is incomparable to ordinary resources and commodities that are imported and exported.

Since we started cooperating with Daming last year, it has been about a year now, and it has created millions of direct jobs for our country.

The indirect employment opportunities number in the tens of millions, which demonstrates the importance of cooperation between the two parties.

Therefore, starting this year, the cooperation between Modern and Ming has become even closer. Although Zhu Biao was in the Southern Ming, he represented the Ming and Modern in further deepening their cooperation and signing many cooperative projects.

There are more than 400 construction cooperation projects of various kinds, including nationwide bridge construction, road repair, investment in factory construction, building construction, etc.

There are thousands of other projects in total.

Both sides are increasing their dependence on each other.

After all, the fact that two different worlds make this dependence not harm the interests of either side, and therefore, on the issue of cooperation, they are actually more deeply bound together than with different countries in the same world.

The troops are still moving.

This is just a human.

There is still a large amount of weaponry and equipment that needs to be transported over there, which will probably take at least a day.

Old Zhu and the others watched for a while, then stopped watching and went to Chief Wang's office to discuss some matters related to cooperation.

Basically, it was Zhu Biao talking and they were listening.

At the beginning of the year, Lao Zhu had already entrusted Zhu Biao with the entire handling of this matter, and Zhu Biao was aware of the cooperation details and the project contract signing.

However, firstly, it's not that detailed, and secondly, it's already April in the lunar calendar and May in the Gregorian calendar. We've been working together for almost half a year, so naturally we've achieved a lot. I'll take this opportunity to tell him about it.

"The main structure of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge has been completed, and the entire bridge construction is expected to be completed in another six months, three months earlier than the expected one and a half years."

“The Nanjing Refinery has been built and put into operation. In the future, crude oil transported from the Middle East will no longer need to be transported to Nanjing. Instead, it can be refined in Nanjing and then transported there. This way, we can carry out petrochemical refining ourselves and reduce transportation costs.”

"The Nanjing Aircraft Manufacturing Plant has been completed, and we are preparing to achieve a breakthrough in domestically produced aircraft this year. The Nanjing Tank Plant has also been largely completed, and we should be able to manufacture the first Ming Dynasty tank next year."

"There are also car factories, motorcycle factories, tractor factories, bicycle factories, and shipyards."

"Currently, the main military construction projects are still in Nanjing and its surrounding areas. Many cities across the country with abundant mineral resources have not yet started construction. This is the expected project schedule for this year."

"Next year's projects will be rolled out across the country."

"I plan to first build power plants and coal mines in Northeast China to solve the power shortage bottleneck. Then I will build fertilizer plants in Northeast China and Shanxi."

"The next step was to establish industrial bases in various provincial administrations across the country, with steel mills, coal mines, textile mills, brick factories, and power plants as the main construction projects, in order to increase the output of steel and electricity first."

"There are also other heavy machinery factories, roads planned by local administrative offices in counties, prefectures, and provinces, and nationwide highway and railway plans. All in all, there are transportation, military, energy, metallurgy, machinery manufacturing, and chemical industries."

Zhu Biao gave a brief overview of the collaborative projects he had on hand.

That's just a rough estimate.

Because he only mentioned about twenty key projects, he couldn't possibly cover all the other thousands of projects, big and small, in one go.

Therefore, I only talked to Lao Zhu about his development and plans.

There are two primary tasks at present.

One is transportation.

One is energy. Ultimately, it's about building roads, highways, and railways.

Then there's the power plant.

Only when these two things are in place can the Ming Dynasty truly develop at breakneck speed.

Otherwise, even if you can undertake these industrial projects, without energy and transportation, you cannot manufacture them, and even if you do manufacture them, you cannot transport them away.

Old Zhu was very satisfied with Zhu Biao's report, and then chatted with Old Qin about the specific details of the cooperation.

It wasn't until evening that the 20,000 Hongwu soldiers finally returned home.

"All right."

Seeing that everyone had been transported away, Zhu Yuanzhang stood up and said to the crowd, "I'm going back now. I haven't seen the Empress for some time and I miss her very much. As for the weapons and equipment in the Southern Ming, I'll leave it to you."

"Then I'll stay here and take charge."

Zhu Biao said.

"Ah."

Old Zhu responded.

The group escorted him downstairs.

Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He exchanged glances.

Without saying much, Old Zhu went straight over.

Zhu Di and Zhu Yunfeng followed closely behind.

The underground palace is spacious and bright, and has long been transformed into a modern facility.

Not only is it entirely made of reinforced concrete, but it also has numerous conveyor belts, ensuring the smooth flow of all goods.

At this time, the army, led by Xu Da and others, had already left the palace.

When Zhu walked up, he saw the last squad of soldiers lined up in the square outside the Qianqing Palace, and then marched back to their camp in neat steps.

He had already given orders that the soldiers should return to camp for a day to rest, and that the 20,000 soldiers would be given a month-long leave starting tomorrow.

Empress Ma stood atop the jade steps of the Qianqing Palace, smiling as she looked at them.

"Queen."

Old Zhu laughed too, quickly went up the steps, put his arm around Empress Ma's waist, and looked at her affectionately.

Empress Ma patted his arm and said, "Grandson is still watching."

"Cough cough."

Zhu Yunfeng coughed twice and called out, "Grandmother, I'm going back now."

"Go."

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand.

Zhu Yunfeng immediately opened the door of his Mercedes-Benz G-Class and drove off.

Although he hadn't driven his car for several months, Ji He would come over every now and then to start it and take it for a spin around the city. Ji He had just given him the keys.

At this moment, the G-Wagon exited the palace gate and arrived at the Meridian Gate.

The area outside the Meridian Gate is still the same as when I left last year, with two artificial lakes of different sizes on either side.

The headquarters of the cabinet, the six ministries, and other government offices in the capital were all located here, with tall buildings erected and many officials working in them.

It was late afternoon, around five o'clock, the time when officials were off work.

Inside the various office buildings, one could see numerous officials dressed in new-style uniforms, carrying briefcases, walking out of the buildings.

Seeing the Mercedes-Benz G-Class wasn't surprising; Ji He had been driving it around frequently these days, so it was quite common.

Zhu Yunfeng looked around, drove out of Daming Gate, and saw that there were many cars parked in the square outside Daming Gate, and the wide road outside Jinshui Bridge had a full ten lanes.

Many officials' servants waited outside, and when they saw their masters come out, they opened the carriage doors.

The officials got into their cars and swiped their cards to leave from the parking lot.

In no time, the streets around the imperial city, which were usually quiet with few vehicles, became bustling with activity, as cars drove out in all directions under the shade of the trees.

Zhu Yunfeng only felt a sense of novelty.

There were no parking lots or gates before, but now things are much more standardized.

Most importantly, the ancients kept up with the times. Now they even send their servants to learn to drive, and they all have their own cars. It's just that we don't know if they were issued by the imperial court or bought by themselves.

After leaving the parking lot, Zhu Yunfeng went onto the road.

His car was recorded, and there were guards outside and around the Daming Gate. There were also guards in the parking lot. When they saw his car, they would immediately open the gate and let him out.

Across the street from Damingmen is Zhengyangmen, and outside Zhengyangmen is the Qinhuai River.

Therefore, Zhu Yunfeng could only drive to the left or right.

You can't go to the left.

That's the inner city wall of Nanjing, and outside is the Qinhuai River.

Moreover, this area is where Zhu Biao built the ancient building. Many officials in Nanjing were allocated houses there, so security was quite tight.

Zhu Yunfeng turned the steering wheel and headed right towards Chang'an Avenue.

After driving slowly forward for about a kilometer, a bustling world of cars and people came into view.

The straight and wide road has been built, but there aren't many vehicles on it, and even those that are there are mostly trucks transporting goods.

Across the street are rows of high-rise buildings, connecting countless alleyways and streets. The stalls that used to be scattered throughout the streets and alleys are gone, replaced by storefronts.

Further afield, there are night markets, with stalls concentrated near the markets and night markets, close to residential buildings, creating a strong commercial atmosphere.

Zhu Yunfeng felt like he no longer recognized what was happening in front of him.

What's the point for him?

Is this still the Hongwu Ming Dynasty?

Chang'an Avenue used to be a single main street.

Although Zhu Yunfeng used to leave the city through Xihua Gate and walk along Datong Street.

He knew all the stall and shop owners on that street.

But I also come to Chang'an Avenue often.

Moreover, Chang'an Avenue was originally the residence of the powerful and wealthy, and Hu Weiyong lived on this street back then.

However, it has now changed dramatically, resembling the Second Ring Road of Nanjing.

Zhu Yunfeng's car also drove onto the street.

Several black cars had appeared behind him at some point, forming a long line that merged into the main street and headed towards the Dazhong Bridge.

Over the years, Hongwu Ming Dynasty has become Zhu Yunfeng's second home.

From the time he first arrived, whenever he was in Hongwu Ming Dynasty, he would stroll around the streets with Ji He like a lion patrolling its territory.

It's not that I truly feel like a lion, but seeing it change every day because of me gives me a sense of pride.

now.

It's time to see what changes have occurred.

(End of this chapter)