The Tang Empire set off the wave of the industrial age, with the large-scale application of steam power in factories and the emergence of trains and ships, which resulted in earth-shaking changes in production, transportation, and life patterns.
To a certain extent, it has completely changed the Chinese people's living traditions that have lasted for thousands of years.
In the past thousands of years, no one would have thought that it would only take a few days to cross from Osaka, Hokkaido to Songjiang, Shanghai by steam passenger ship.
From Jinling City, the imperial capital, to Yili Prefecture, Tumi Province, which is thousands of miles away, if you take the postal department's exclusive express delivery vehicle and drive day and night, you can arrive there within seven days.
It's just that modern trains, except for the postal service's express mail trains, do not stop at night because it is not safe enough to drive at night, so ordinary passenger cars and trucks will not do this.
However, in order to ensure the speed of delivering official documents, the postal company needs to travel day and night, but the speed is slower at night.
Steamships and trains have made transportation in the empire convenient and fast. Even if you reach the Ili Railway Station at the end of the current northwest extension line, you can still take a special small steamship to continue westward through the Ili River and reach Balkhash.
lake.
Steamships don’t just refer to large-tonnage ships sailing on the sea!
Although the large-tonnage luxury passenger ships of four to five thousand tons represented by the Pacific are currently the most dazzling business card of the empire's maritime industry, there are also numerous large-tonnage passenger ships and cargo ships that ply the empire's home coast and various overseas territories.
But in fact, the largest number of steam ships are inland river steamers, especially steam ships of small and medium tonnage.
With the development and maturity of steam engine technology, although large ship-based steam engines are still expensive, small ship-based steam engines are actually relatively cheap.
There are currently more than 20 manufacturers in China that can provide steam engines of various specifications, ranging from compact steam engines with only a few horsepower to giant steam engines with several thousand horsepower per machine.
In today's Shanghai docks, although most of the ships are still wooden ships, a considerable number of them are equipped with steam engines.
Among the various passenger ships, they are all steam passenger ships.
The advantage of using steamships on inland rivers is even greater than that of sea transportation. On the ocean, even if there is no steam engine, you can still cross the ocean by relying on sails and ocean currents, but the speed is just slower.
But inland rivers are very troublesome, especially when you want to go upstream.
But the emergence of steamships made traveling upstream no longer an obstacle.
And you don’t need to be restricted by the sail, whether there is a countercurrent or no wind, there is no problem.
Therefore, in the past ten years or so, the development of inland river ships is actually no slower than the development of sea ships, and it is even faster.
The series of customized steam tugs jointly launched by Huguang Steam Engine Company and Huguang Wuchang Shipyard have brought about huge changes in inland water transportation.
Ships have to sail in the water, even if the draft of inland river ships is relatively shallow, if they transport a large amount of cargo, they must either increase the size of the ship or have a deeper draft.
However, the river surfaces of many rivers are not that wide, making it difficult for ships that are too large to move. The water depth of more rivers is not high, and the water depth deviation in some river sections is relatively large.
Therefore, in order to be able to use passenger ships in relatively shallow rivers, boats were generally used, but the cargo volume was not large, resulting in relatively high transportation costs.
Later, Wuchang Shipyard specifically withdrew from this series of tugboats. In the past, ships had one hull with a steam engine inside, which also transported goods upwards.
But now, they have built a tugboat that only has a steam engine and does not transport cargo. Because the ship does not need other space, a large steam engine can be packed into the small hull.
Behind them are tow one or even several ships with only empty shells, specially used for loading cargo.
Basically it’s just like a train!
Although this kind of tugboat is actually quite troublesome and risky to use, it is very popular, mainly because the transportation cost is very low.
Nowadays, it is very common to see a tugboat slowly moving forward with several rows of unpowered cargo ships on some small rivers and lakes. Although it is slow and small, the loading capacity is often dozens or even several tons.
One hundred tons.
The total cost of building such a fleet of tugboats capable of transporting hundreds of tons of cargo is only two to three thousand yuan at most, but a steam freighter carrying a hundred tons of cargo costs at least seven to eight thousand yuan.
Small rivers and lakes like this were everywhere in the Tang Empire, not to mention Jiangnan, even in remote southwest regions, and even in Central Asia, northern grasslands, northeast and other regions.
In inland areas that cannot be reached by railways, inland waterway transportation has become the most important mode of transportation.
Ocean, coastal, inland river, and train transportation methods make transportation within the empire convenient and fast.
Lu Zhenjiang was deeply touched by this. He went back to his hometown in September and brought his family to Shanghai. The round trip was thousands of miles, but it only lasted about ten days.
Then he went to Beihai non-stop. After finishing the processing in Beihai, he ran to the Port of Busan in Liaodong Province to prepare for a new office. He was ready to expand his business. It was not anywhere else but Busan.
Relying on the raw silk produced in Beihai Province and Liaodong, Busan is also a relatively large raw silk producing area in the northern provinces. Now Lu Zhenjiang's trading company focuses on various mechanical equipment and consumables used in silk reeling factories. In addition, Beihai and Liaodong are
Separated by the North Sea Strait, when Lu Zhenjiang opened up a new market, his first choice was Liaodong Province.
Of course, this is also related to the low competition in Liaodong.
At this time, if he dares to run back to Jiangnan and compete with Zhejiang, he will probably die miserably.
After staying in Busan for three days and leaving someone to deal with follow-up matters, he took a train to Shenyang to meet with a local supplier and finalize an agency contract.
Then he continued to take the train south to Tianjin. After visiting several companies, he took a passenger ferry south and returned to Shanghai.
During this month, he traveled thousands of miles to and from the northern provinces, but only about half of his time was actually spent on the road.
This kind of efficiency was simply unimaginable before.
Sometimes Lu Zhenjiang also feels that the changes in the past ten years or so have been too great, and he is a little uncomfortable with the changes.
More than ten years ago, people could only travel by carriage or sailing boat, and most of them still relied on their feet.
But now, it is easy to travel thousands of miles by train and ship.
Sometimes you will accidentally discover something new and new. If you don’t pay attention to the outside world for a few days, you will feel like you are behind the times.
Lu Zhenjiang, a native of the Tang Dynasty, felt this way, and John Ferroman, an Englishman who had just arrived in the Tang Dynasty, felt this way.
John Freeman, who came to Shanghai with the English mission, had seen many developed ports of the Tang Dynasty and tall steel ships along the way, but when they saw the Huangpu River was densely packed with various ships, on the shore
There are many high-rise buildings in the urban area of Shanghai, and even the roads under your feet are paved with cement.
Like more than a dozen other Englishmen in the mission, he could not recover for a long time.
At first they thought that the Port of South Africa, the city of Colombo on the island of Ceylon, and the Port of Malacca in Southeast Asia were enough to represent the prosperity and advancement of the Tang Dynasty.
But when they arrived in Shanghai, they realized that compared with the Port of South Africa, the city of Colombo, and the Port of Malacca they saw along the way, compared with Shanghai in the Tang Dynasty, they were just a contrast between wilderness and urban areas!
Without visiting Shanghai, outsiders like them can never imagine how prosperous Shanghai is!
Ships shuttle on the Huangpu River day and night. For dozens of miles on the west bank of the Huangpu River, almost all are docks, with countless ships moored. Among them are giant steel ships of thousands of tons that made John Freeman almost suffocate when he saw them, and there are also slightly smaller ones.
Smaller giant steel ships of two to three thousand tons, as well as steam wooden ships of hundreds of tons and one to two thousand tons of sails, are almost everywhere.
Especially the giant steel ship with a visual estimate of at least four to five thousand tons. John Freeman could not believe what he saw. As a scholar, the inventor of England's first practical steam engine, and the chief engineer of England's first steam engine factory
As well as the second largest shareholder, he has enough scientific literacy to infer the technical difficulty hidden behind such a giant ship.
If you want to push such a giant wheel, you will probably need a super giant steam engine with several thousand horsepower!
Almost from the moment they arrived in Shanghai on the merchant ship of Datang Western Trading Company, their shock never stopped.
When Xie Ruwen, the diplomat from the Shanghai Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who received them, saw the appearance of these people, his expression was calm!
As a diplomat, he worked in the Shanghai office in the past few years and received the arrival of many foreign missions. Most of the envoys from these missions were as shocked as the English people in front of him.
Some people with poor psychological endurance may even say that this is not a human world at all, but a paradise.
Of course, some people say it is hell, and those ships are the creations of the devil.
All native barbarian country bumpkins!
However, as a professional diplomat, although he disdains these natives in his heart, he still has the required diplomatic etiquette. After all, these people are missions sent by the Kingdom of England, and they will also be the first permanent residents.
Imperial English diplomats.
The Empire and England had established diplomatic ties many years ago. After the Tang Empire established its embassy in Europe in Cadiz, Spain, it successively established embassies in Madrid, Spain, Lisbon, Portugal, London, England, Paris, France, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Holy Rome.
Consulates were established successively in Viana in the Empire, Lund in the Kingdom of Sweden, Naples in the Italian Peninsula, and Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire.
It opened diplomatic ties between the empire and European countries, and organized and contacted European countries through diplomatic means to jointly resist the Tatars, and by the way, sold arms and so on.