The Tang Dynasty was rich, not only in the treasury, but also in any big project. In the past few years, tens of millions or hundreds of millions were spent on the second phase of water conservancy projects, and military expenditures were also in the hundreds of millions every year.
Educational expenses amounted to tens of millions a year.
Okay, these metaphors are still somewhat inappropriate.
How do you put it? In the fiscal expenditure budget for the 38th year of Xuanping, there was one item called sports support funds, which was designed to support the development of various sports. Just to support these sports, the Ministry of Rites allocated 1.5 million
Hengyuan.
This is more than the annual financial income of most royal families in Europe!
Today, there is a huge gap between the Tang Dynasty and other contemporary countries, regardless of whether they are European countries or Tatars.
This gap can even make these indigenous countries despair!
This gap is not only in terms of fiscal revenue, but also in military, industrial, economic, and cultural aspects.
In fact, even before the start of the steam revolution, the Tang Empire's industrial production was still in the era of manual workshops, and when factories were still powered by water power, its comprehensive national strength was already the first in the world.
Moreover, the number one in the world is far better than the number two or third in the world.
Nineteen years before the Xuanping Dynasty, that is, before the steam revolution broke out in the Tang Dynasty, its military strength was already able to defeat neighboring countries. The army was widely equipped with smoothbore weapons. At the same time, European countries and the Tatars were still playing with match ropes.
Where's the gun?
Even in terms of navy, the Tang Empire's sailing battleship fleet was extremely large. It only took more than ten years to surpass Portugal and Spain. Its thousand-ton sailing battleships were surpassed in both quantity and quality.
of these two traditional maritime powers.
In the 19th year of Xuanping, the tonnage of the Tang Dynasty's sailing ships had reached hundreds of thousands of tons, while the tonnage of Spanish ships at that time was only a few hundred thousand tons.
After the large-scale application of steam engines, Datang began to truly go global. It only took more than ten years to establish unshakable hegemony on a global scale.
Datang's steamships have spread all over the world's seas in just a dozen years, and their ship tonnage has exceeded 8 million tons. The originally expected ship tonnage target of 10 million tons around the 45th year of Xuanping is very likely to be achieved ahead of schedule.
It took two or three years to achieve.
This is because Datang adds hundreds of thousands of tons of ship tonnage almost every year. Just the number of ships added by Datang every year is close to the ship tonnage owned by the entire Europe.
In fact, after unifying the Chinese region, the Tang Empire was already undoubtedly the world's most powerful country. The rapid development in the following decades only further widened the gap with other countries.
It's just that this gap is so big that it makes people despair, so it makes people ignore a very important point, that is, even in the 19th year of Xuanping, or even earlier, before China was unified, in the period of about 7 years of Xuanping
, the Tang Empire was already undoubtedly the most powerful country in the world.
At that time, although Datang's comprehensive national power ranked first in the world, it relied more on its huge population and land area. There was only a quantitative gap with other countries, but there was no qualitative gap.
However, now, the gap between the Tang Empire and other countries is no longer a mere quantitative gap, but a qualitative gap. This gap is a generational gap, not one generation, but a gap of many generations.
Today, European countries and the Tatars are still playing with sailboats, but the Tang Dynasty has already started to play with 30,000-ton super passenger ships. There is no comparison between the two.
Many people can feel this gap, whether they are Tatars or Spaniards.
Elizabeth is no exception!
But when she saw the New Atlantic offshore in the port of the Embassy District of Cadiz, she was greatly shocked.
When she passed the ferry and boarded the New Atlantic, the effect became even more obvious.
After she boarded the New Atlantic, she could hardly feel any bumps. The huge hull of tens of thousands of tons gave the New Atlantic excellent stability.
Especially in this calm situation, standing on the deck felt like standing on land, and she didn't feel any shaking at all.
This was true for Elizabeth, and even more so for those who followed her to the Tang Dynasty.
When many people see such a huge ship, they think it is the devil. Even if it is not the devil, it is definitely the creation of the devil.
After Elizabeth herself boarded the ship first, the waiters and cavalry regiments she brought into the team also boarded the ship one after another.
However, not everyone was allowed to board the ship. Only about 60% of the people were finally allowed to board the ship and headed to Datang.
Because during the health inspection, it was found that a considerable number of people had diseases, including various diseases, and at least dozens of syphilis patients were even detected.
This left people in Datang quite speechless!
Datang has always had very high requirements for hygiene, not to mention that everyone has been in a relatively closed and independent space for a long time after boarding the ship. Naturally, it is impossible to let go of these germ carriers, especially those with high-risk infectious diseases.
They got on the boat.
In the end, only about 600 people were allowed to board the ship.
They were required to undergo detailed cleaning and disinfection before boarding the ship, although in fact when they were in Madrid, they had already taken a shower before setting off because they knew that Tang people were obsessed with hygiene.
As for those old-fashioned people who don't want to take a shower, they actually weren't able to be selected for the wedding party in the first place.
But even so, the health conditions of many of them are still worrying.
This situation also made Elizabeth feel a little embarrassed.
These were all her followers, and she couldn't help but feel that so many problems had been discovered.
But even so, she didn't say anything.
What can I say, she herself doesn’t want to be on the same ship as a group of infectious disease patients!
Cultural education can change a person. Although she is Spanish, she has received education from the Tang Dynasty since she was a child. Under this influence, many of her ways of thinking will inevitably be similar to those of the Tang Dynasty people.
For example, hygiene!
It can be said that she is the only one among many contemporary Spanish aristocratic women who bathes every day!
Other aristocratic women, even though they were influenced by the culture of the Tang Dynasty, began to take baths, but many of them only took a bath every ten and a half months, which was amazing, once every three to five days.
Very few people bathe every day!
After Elizabeth and the wedding delegation brought by her boarded the ship one after another, the Atlantic officially started its new voyage!
It will go all the way south from Cadiz, passing through several major ports such as South Africa Port, Colombo, and Malacca for supplies, and its ultimate goal will be to go straight to the Wusong Port Naval Base in Songjiang Prefecture, the mainland of the empire.