In the fifteenth year of Xuanping's reign, Concubine Kang returned to Suzhou. The Royal Family Industry Department spent hundreds of thousands on this, and that's not all. The Song family also spent tens of thousands of personal money.
In addition, in order to welcome Concubine Kang to her home, the Song family in Suzhou started preparations a year in advance and spent a huge amount of money to build a large-scale and luxurious house for Concubine Kang to live in when she returned home.
At the same time, the local government in Suzhou was also making great arrangements.
Concubine Song Kang's first trip home, all parties prepared a year in advance and mobilized a large amount of manpower and material resources. The total cost of all parties definitely exceeded 300,000.
A trip back to his parents' home cost hundreds of thousands. Even the emperor Li Xuan couldn't stand it. He always thought that the Yuan Chun Shou's mockery in the Dream of Red Mansions was just the words of the Zhu family. However, as a person involved, he knew that the real concubine's head was better than what was described in the book.
Even more trouble.
Therefore, he later issued a special decree that any concubine should not be extravagant, disturb the people, or disturb officials.
To put it simply and bluntly, don't turn the Prime Minister into a political incident, just go back and see the two elders, and don't make so much mess. Even if I have money, I can't handle it like you are using people to spend money.
It’s not Li Xuanxu, it’s that he has too many women!
A woman would spend hundreds of thousands to go back to her parents' home, ten would be millions, a hundred would be tens of millions, and he would definitely have more than a hundred concubines!
Alas, Li Xuan often laments that having too many women means trouble, not to mention the hard work, and it also costs too much money!
After the order was issued to prohibit extravagance and waste, and the government should return to its essence and not have anything to do with politics, and with the emergence of trains and ships, Li Xuan allowed it to be released on a relatively large scale.
As long as there are no special circumstances and the transportation is convenient, concubines can go home once a year. Even those whose hometowns are in cities along the railway line and those who are closer can even go back and forth on the same day, or go back today and return tomorrow.
In the past two years, some of the beloved concubines even wanted to go shopping in Shanghai. As long as they acted coquettishly, Li Xuan would usually do it.
Isn't it just shopping? I have plenty of money, my beloved, you can spend it by the way!
Well, naturally there are not many concubines with this kind of treatment, because you can only be approved if you act coquettishly in front of Li Xuan!
Naturally, don't count on the concubine who can't even see Li Xuan.
Since the Shanghai Palace was built more than ten years ago, a few concubines and princesses have stayed there in the past few years. Not only the Shanghai Palace, but also other palaces of the Imperial Family across the country are basically the same. Li Xuan did not go there.
However, none of his princes have ever stayed there. At most, some of his concubines just sat there when they returned home.
But now, the Shanghai Palace will welcome its true owner, the Holy Emperor Li Xuan!
In order to keep the Shanghai Palace in the best condition, not only the Royal Family Industry Department spent a lot of money to renovate it, but also the finance department of Shangheshe County spent a lot of money.
However, the bulk of Shanghai's money is not spent on repairing a Shanghai palace. This Shanghai palace is already very well maintained, and concubines or princesses stay there every year. The repairs actually don't cost much. After all, it is not a large-scale reconstruction.
Or create a new one.
Shanghai spends more money, mainly on city appearance and transportation facilities!
Beginning last autumn, the Songjiang Prefectural Prefectural Government Office and the Shanghe County Government Office were established. The local finance of the two-level organizations jointly funded the entire Shanghai urban area, including the First Industrial Zone, the Second Industrial Zone, the old city, and the business district.
A total of six urban areas including Bei'an Industrial Zone and Xicheng District are carrying out city-wide transportation design.
The main work is to repair and maintain the cement roads of the main roads in the city, and to lay cement on the roads that have not yet been paved with cement. The whole goal is to complete the cementation of all the main roads in the city.
Shanghai must ensure that the Holy Emperor sees a completely different Shanghai, a city that cannot be seen elsewhere in the empire, even in Jinling City.
At the same time, owners of houses on some main roads are also required to repair damaged and old building exterior walls, and the finance will provide certain subsidies.
Shanghai is preparing to repair most of Shanghai's urban areas, which will cost a lot of money.
In other words, only Shanghai, which has deep pockets, can afford it.
For a county in Shanghai, the central fiscal revenue paid to the national treasury every year is more than the fiscal revenue of an ordinary province. This is still talking about ordinary provinces, but it does not mean Northeastern Province, Gansu Province, Hetao Province, Yunnan Province and other remote and economically backward provinces.
The provinces of Shandong and Henan are medium and thin.
Don't be surprised, a county in Shanghai indeed contributes more to the central fiscal revenue than they do.
In the twenty-sixth year of Xuanping, the central fiscal revenue of the Tang Empire was more than 240 million yuan. Among them, the fiscal revenue turned over by Shangheshe County reached more than 23 million yuan, accounting for nearly 10%.
!
The central fiscal revenue contributed by the entire Songjiang Prefecture is only more than 30 million.
Even if the fiscal revenue of the entire Jiangnan Province turned over to the national treasury, it would only be over 50 million.
One Shanghai is half of Jiangnan!
This is no exaggeration for contemporary Shanghai!
In order to welcome the Holy Patrol, the entire city was renovated on a large scale, and even cement roads were laid across the board, so as to completely harden the urban roads with cement and completely eliminate the dirt roads. Only Shanghai can do this.
Even Jinling City, which is supported by the treasury, would not dare to do this.
Spending so much money to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction in Shanghai is all to let the Holy Emperor see a different Shanghai. Many local officials even expect that the city appearance of Shanghai can make the Holy Emperor see a different Shanghai.
Be shocked, and then get promoted and make a fortune!
However, these people were expecting to shock Li Xuan, but they were probably going to be disappointed.
When Li Xuan arrived in Shanghai on the special train, he saw the city of Shanghai outside for the first time through the car window.
This Shanghai is indeed different from other places in the empire. Along the way, although Li Xuan was only watching from the train, he could still see the cities and villages along the railway.
As he had guessed, the vast rural areas were still very primitive and backward. Although in some places local officials deliberately arranged some well-dressed and well-dressed farmers to pretend to work along the railway lines, and put some ordinary people
Ordinary farmers were temporarily driven away, but not every local official would do this.
It's spring, and farmers are working in the fields, weeding, plowing, etc., in preparation for sowing.
So along the way, the rural areas Li Xuan saw were three extremes, and not much of the normal rural scene.
One is that no one can see it. This is because the local government prohibits everyone from appearing along the railway for safety or security reasons. This is also a common situation. The railway lines where the Holy Spirit passes are basically completely blocked.
In some places, even hundreds of meters on both sides were blocked, and no one was allowed to enter.
There are also farmers working on the farmland along the railway line, and they are all naked and look thin. The whole family is always getting up to go to work, and the filial sons are bare buttocks and working hard to plow the ground with hoes.
The local officials in these places basically made a lot of concessions to ask for financial support from Gyeonggi Province, so Li Xuan knew at a glance that these local officials did this deliberately, and they were crying!
And Li Xuan also knew that they were not just pretending to be poor, they deliberately used farmers in rags to pretend, because there was no need to pretend, most rural areas in reality were really that poor.
Another thing is that farmers generally wear good clothes, and every household sprays the ground when farming. Some of them will sit on the ground and appear to be eating sumptuous meals.
It seems that it is the most perfect rural picture scroll written by literati.
But whenever Li Xuan sees a place like this, he will ask his accompanying secretary to write down the name of the place!
When he returned to Beijing, he immediately stopped doing these business affairs, and all the local officials who knew that they had committed fraud were exiled to Nanyang.
In addition to seeing wilderness and rural areas, you can also see a lot of cities!
However, there is no other city like Shanghai!
First there are tall buildings!
After the royal train entered Shanghai, more and more buildings appeared on both sides of the railway, generally with several floors, and some were even five, six or even seven or eight stories tall.
Although the numerous buildings cannot explain much, there is only one thing that can be explained, and that is that the population of this city is large enough!
There is no need for these seven or eight-story high-rise buildings in a sparsely populated city, because the population is small and there is plenty of space to build houses.
Only in Shanghai, the live population has exceeded one million, and this does not include these elusive temporary residents. As for the number of temporary residents, Shanghai itself is difficult to count, but a conservative estimate is that there are dozens.
of tens of thousands of people.
There are many people, but the urban area of Shanghai is only that big. At the same time, limited by the traffic level of this era, it is impossible for people to work and live too far apart.
In later generations, the distance between the two could be more than ten kilometers or more, because it would not take long to drive or take the subway for more than ten kilometers.
But in today's Shanghai, even if you take a public rail carriage, it will stop and go at an angle. Of course, it is different if you have your own private carriage or simply ride a horse.
But then again, you can afford a private carriage, and it is not difficult to buy or rent a house directly in the city center.
There are many people and many buildings. This is the first impact of Shanghai on Li Xuan!
What should I say? It has the feeling of a city in the 1970s and 1980s, and a feeling of modern old Shanghai, but it also looks like modern London and other Western cities in ancient movies and TV dramas.
It's a little weird, it's such a hodgepodge!
Well, Li Xuan's first feeling was strange, definitely not shocking.