The first thousand five hundred and forty-four chapters interfere in Europe
In order to prepare for today's welcoming ceremony, Xu Chenbing and other local officials from Shanghai spent a lot of thought.
Just to select hundreds of actors with outstanding acting skills from a reliable crowd is not an easy task.
Because there are many people with outstanding acting skills, and there are a lot of professional actors, but it is impossible for these people to appear in the welcoming crowd.
The Imperial Guards, Hantong and Attendants' Department, which are responsible for the security of the Holy Emperor, have very strict restrictions on the people who come to welcome them. Among them, the families of civil and military officials are the main ones, followed by the families of famous gentry, and all the above groups must pass through.
Rigorous scrutiny.
It is not so easy to select actors from among these people.
Especially since these people are, to put it bluntly, members of the upper class of society. Most people will not play this trick with you. It’s embarrassing!
So if you want to find someone with excellent acting skills who is also willing to accept exaggerated performances such as crying, and there are many people, this is not an easy task.
Fortunately, Xu Chenbing is not an idle person. He has a high position in his own right. He is a third-rank Shanghai ad hoc county magistrate, and his political status is stronger than that of ordinary third-rank officials.
So after a lot of hard work, we found the right people, and today there was a scene of crowds of people lined up to greet us, with many people crying excitedly.
It fully reflects the support and love of the people of the Tang Dynasty for the Holy Emperor!
The Holy Emperor was happy, and Xu Chenbing was naturally happy too!
The journey from North Bank Railway Station to Shanghai Palace is neither short nor far. Shanghai Palace is located at the intersection of Wusong River and Huangpu River, which is next to the famous Wusong River Hotel.
This road needs to pass through the North Bank Development Zone, then cross the Wusong River Bridge, then enter the Yanjiang Avenue in the north of the trade zone, and finally reach the Shanghai Palace.
The holy cavalry marched all the way. In addition to the Holy Emperor's chariot, there were more than two hundred imperial guards from the Attendant Division accompanying them on foot. In front of them was the First Cavalry Regiment of the Guards.
Behind the Holy Emperor's chariot were a large group of important officials from the imperial court. They also traveled in carriages. Those who were lucky enough to follow Li Xuan in a carriage were all important civil and military officials. There were only a small number of them.
There are only dozens of them. The reason why Xu Chenbing can be among them is purely because he is the top local official.
The carriages they rode in, some were four-horse carriages, and some were two-horse carriages. They were basically designed according to grade, military rank, and title, and strictly followed the imperial etiquette.
And more officials were actually riding rail carriages further back to accompany them.
After passing through the North Bank Development Zone, when the Shengqi convoy passed the Wusong River Bridge, Li Xuan also saw this, which can be called the largest steel bridge in the world today.
Although Li Xuan had seen the drawings, this was the first time he actually saw this steel bridge.
Even though from the perspective of future generations, the Wusong River Bridge is actually just like that, but this is the 16th century and cannot be compared with the perspective of the 21st generation.
After passing the Wusong River Bridge, it is not far from the Shanghai Palace.
When arriving at the Shanghai Palace, many of the accompanying civil and military officials and numerous Guards soldiers will not go in with them. At this time, their tasks have basically been completed. The officials who accompanied them from Jinling City will
Live and work in many buildings prepared in the surrounding area.
Mid-level and senior officials mainly stay at the Wusongjiang Hotel and the nearby Shanghai Traders Hotel. These two hotels are the most top-notch luxury hotels in Shanghai. They not only have all kinds of facilities, but are also large enough. Among them, the Wusongjiang Hotel
The hotel can provide dozens of luxury suites at the same time, as well as more than 300 ordinary rooms.
The two hotels had been secretly booked half a month ago, but no information was made public at that time. It was only in the name of a Ministry of Commerce inspection team visiting Shanghai.
After the mid-level and senior officials and their accompanying officials settled down, they continued their daily work.
After all, no matter where Li Xuan goes, the daily government affairs processing will not stop. Every day, a large number of official documents will be sent to and from Jinling City and the place where the Shengjia Special Train is located through special classes.
In this regard, the Post Office has also made preparations early to ensure the smooth delivery of a large number of official documents and not to delay the normal official processing of the empire.
The normal operation of the huge empire will not stop just because the Holy Emperor is on patrol.
How it was before, it is still how it is now.
It just moved the political center from Jinling City to the special train.
After checking into the Shanghai Palace, Li Xuan had no intention of taking a rest because he was tired from the journey.
In fact, his journey was not tiring at all. The royal train was extremely luxurious and comfortable, allowing Li Xuan to get a full rest. So after he initially settled down, Li Xuan summoned the ministers in the afternoon.
However, the main purpose of the meeting had nothing to do with the inspection, but to deal with some daily government affairs, and the discussion was still about the Tatar issue.
At noon today, Li Xuan received a report from the military stating that the Tatars had entered Europe.
More importantly, the Tatars have now captured Moscow. It is said that the Tatars have razed the entire Moscow to the ground.
Because since last autumn, Moscow has been defensive in the face of the Tatar attack, hoping to use the cold weather to drag the Tatars to death.
In fact, the Tatars are not afraid of the bitter cold. Although fighting in the winter is a bit more troublesome, it does not faze the Tatars.
In the end, the city of Moscow was defeated, but the Russians still caused many casualties to the Tatars who attacked the city.
In order to retaliate, and even more to intimidate other European countries, after the Tatars captured Moscow, they adopted a policy of massacre without mercy. Everyone in the huge Moscow was massacred, and then the Tatars set Moscow on fire.
All clean.
Even though this was not the first time that the Tang Dynasty got news of the Tatars' westward march, it was the first time that the Tatars conquered the city of Moscow. Li Xuan still paid some attention to this.
The Tatars are now basically the hegemons in Central Asia, suffocating the Mughal dynasty of India and the Safavid dynasty of Persia in the south. Even the Ottoman Empire can only rely on the mountainous terrain of the Caucasus.
Resist the Tatar offensive.
Now they are aggressively invading Eastern Europe. In Li Xuan's view, it is not easy for Europe to stop the Tatars. Even if it can be stopped, it will probably have to pay a huge price.
The actions of the Tatars in Eastern Europe seem to have nothing to do with the empire, but in fact they are, and the relationship is not small.
First of all, the Tatars have placed their strategic focus on Europe, which will definitely weaken their power in the eastern region, that is, the Western Regions. This will provide a certain guarantee for the empire to march into the Western Regions.
Today's construction of the Northwest Railway has entered the final stage. According to the report of Datang Railway Corporation, the entire Northwest Railway will be completed by this autumn at the latest. From Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan to Jiayuguan in Gansu, the long Northwest Railway will
connect them.
This meant that the Tang Empire was able to deliver a large amount of various materials to the northwest region through the Northwest Railway.
Before the railway, the Tang Dynasty military spent a lot of manpower and materials in order to maintain supplies for the garrison in Gansu. It transported one hundred kilograms of grain from the Central Plains to Jiayuguan. In the end, only twenty kilograms of grain might have successfully arrived.
are consumed by transport personnel on the road.
And this is based on the large-scale adoption of four-wheeled heavy-duty carriages in the Tang Dynasty!
It can be seen how difficult it is to provide supplies to the northwest region through traditional methods such as people picking horses. Otherwise, the military would not vigorously colonize the northwest region, and the Immigration and Reclamation Department would not vigorously immigrate to the northwest region.
, its root cause is to provide various supplies needed by the military nearby.
To this end, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises even established the fourth largest weapons company in the empire, the Northwest Arms Company, with its headquarters in Xi'an and arsenals in Shaanxi and Gansu to provide supplies to the military nearby.
However, in fact, many of the equipment and raw materials required by these arsenals also need to be transported from the Central Plains and even Jiangnan, so it is still very troublesome.
However, all these troubles will be solved with the opening of the Northwest Railway.
Once the northwest railway is opened to traffic, the empire's permanent military strength in the northwest region can be increased to more than 100,000 people on the basis of the existing 50,000 or 60,000 people.
And it can also provide these 100,000 people with various supplies needed for large-scale operations at any time.
The latter is the key point.
The empire's dispatch of troops to the Western Regions will take as little as one year or as long as two years to take shape. The specific progress will depend on the construction progress of the Northwest Railway and the speed of subsequent transportation of supplies, but it is necessary to do so, regardless of whether the army has been waiting for this for many years.
, even the broad strata of the empire have been waiting for this for a long time.
The Western Expedition has been talked about for so many years, and everyone in the empire can't wait.
At this time, the Tatars mobilized their main forces to attack Europe, which was in line with the empire's strategic intentions.
As for whether the Tatars will go further after taking over Europe and eventually become a thorn in the side of the empire, no one can say for sure, but at least from the current perspective, it is impossible.
With a total population of just over one million Tatars, they can't get there no matter how hard they jump.
Therefore, in Li Xuan's view, the Tatars' western expedition was an opportunity for the empire!
Of course, it doesn't seem good to let the Tatars take over Europe too early. Who knows what they will do after they take over all of Europe. There is no guarantee that they will not use the power of the entire Europe to fight against the empire in the end.
Therefore, Li Xuan has decided that it is time to intervene in the situation in Europe.