On the Little West Lake in the Five Lakes Province of North America, a river passenger ship slowly moves westward along the New South Canal!
Although this small passenger ship is not large, with a displacement of only two to three hundred tons, it also flies the Imperial Dragon Flag, which means that it is an official ship.
In addition to the Imperial Dragon Flag, there are many other flags, and many of them have writing on them.
Many of the flags read:
Issue 16, Department of Economics, Imperial College
In the 23rd year of Xuanping's reign, he won the top prize in doctoral studies.
Inspected the Five Lakes Provinces
There is also a small flag at the stern of the ship that reads: Yangzhou Feng!
From these flags, you can tell who is the owner of the ship!
He was Feng Xinyuan, the first governor of Wuhu Province in the empire. He was from Yangzhou, with a courtesy name of Wenxing. In his early years, he was admitted to the Imperial College to study economics. After graduation, he took the imperial examination and became the top scholar in the doctoral program in the 23rd year of Xuanping.
After entering politics, he first worked in the Economics Department of the Hanlin Academy, and then was transferred to the Finance Department. Later, he was transferred to local governments to serve as prefect, chief envoy and other positions.
His life experience is similar to that of many senior civil servants in the empire. He studied hard in his youth, passed the university to study for an undergraduate degree, participated in the imperial examination and entered politics after graduation, and constantly traveled back and forth between the capital and other places to accumulate more experience. Finally,
He became the governor of a province.
To a certain extent, his resume can be regarded as the standard process for training senior officials within the Tang Empire.
After the Tang Empire established overseas provinces at the end of last year, he took advantage of the situation and became the first governor of Wuhu Province, one of the seven provinces in North America.
Even though it was a job overseas, no one thought it was devaluation.
The world is different now. A dozen or twenty years ago, if you were to be transferred to serve overseas, no matter where you were, it would be equivalent to exile.
But now, people are also being transferred to overseas posts, but it also depends on the place. Some places are still remote and remote, and transfers used to be an arrangement of exile and demotion.
But some places are good places, such as North America.
It seems extremely far away, but North America is actually no different from the mainland now. There are no indigenous people in it, the number of immigrants from the empire exceeds 10 million, and the agriculture is developed and all kinds of resources are abundant.
Therefore, the current jobs in North America cannot be said to be very good, but they are not bad either.
More importantly, Feng Xinyuan was promoted!
He was previously the chief envoy of Liaodong Province, and his rank was only the third rank.
Now that he is transferred to the Wuhu Province, he has crossed the threshold of the second rank and has become a second-rank senior official. This is naturally a high promotion for his official career.
Although getting promoted was a good thing, the complicated situation in Wuhu Province and even North America made him a little worried.
Before setting off from Jinling, he and many other officials who were assigned to serve as governors overseas had many interviews with cabinet bosses. During the conversation, although the cabinet bosses seemed to be talking about developing the local economy and improving people's livelihood,
It's like that, but everyone is an old official.
Naturally, you can hear it from the words of Chen Lifu and other cabinet leaders: I asked you to serve as governor not for anything else but to maintain stability.
Maintain the stability of these overseas provinces and don't let them falter.
As for how to maintain the stability of these overseas provinces, it is natural to closely follow the policy of economic integration.
Adopt different policy policies for different people in overseas provinces, develop the local economy, let the local ordinary people live a stable life, and guide the local gentry to engage in trade, agricultural investment, mineral investment, etc.
In short, don’t let those gentry want to engage in manufacturing and the like all day long!
On this basis, in conjunction with economic integration policies, these overseas provinces will be more closely connected with the mainland.
For example, in terms of education, we need to encourage more local students to study and then apply for universities in the country, so that those second-generation immigrants and third-generation immigrants can come back to the mainland of the empire to see, see the power of the empire, and see the empire.
Prosperity, let them know how proud they are to be a Tang Dynasty person.
This will put an end to the rise of localism!
Let alone second and third generation immigrants, we cannot let them have the idea that I am an American and not a Chinese from the Tang Dynasty!
After talking to the cabinet bosses, Feng Xinyuan was received by Emperor Sheng before setting off.
Although the entire interview process only lasted less than fifteen minutes, Feng Xinyuan had a profound memory. He remembered every move and word of the Holy Emperor at that time.
He clearly remembered that Emperor Sheng at that time said to him: "In the past, we must do a good job in people's livelihood work!"
It was a simple sentence that sounded ordinary, but Feng Xinyuan felt that it had profound meaning.
After setting off from the mainland, during the time on the ship, he thought about this sentence repeatedly, combined with the opinions of the cabinet bosses and the actual situation in North America.
In general, he already has a rough policy plan for Wuhu Province.
After the 10,000-ton ocean liner he took arrived at Xinnan Port, he did not stay too long. Instead, he directly transferred to a river liner and headed to the Great Lakes region along the Xinnan Canal.
The New South Canal was also an important project in the empire's early development of the Great Lakes region of North America, because there were many rapids in the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes basin, and there was also a super-large waterfall.
In order to make it more convenient to travel to the Great Lakes region, especially to connect New South Port with the Great Lakes region, the American Affairs Office at that time spent a lot of resources to dig a canal, which was the New South Canal.
The entire canal was excavated from the Xinnan River and finally connected to Little West Lake (Lake Erie). The entire canal reached an astonishing more than 500 kilometers.
Of course, although it is very long, the canal is not very wide, and the water depth is only about one meter on average.
However, despite this, in order to dig this canal, at least hundreds of thousands of indigenous laborers were killed and injured, and millions of dollars were spent.
However, since its completion and opening to navigation, the New South Canal has become the main artery of North America and has played a huge role. Countless steam barges and passenger ships travel between the Great Lakes region and New South Port through this canal.
Not long after its completion, the cost of the canal's construction had been recovered through tolls, and there was still a surplus. More importantly, the new South Canal had brought huge benefits to the development of the local agricultural economy in North America.
Therefore, not long after the cost was recovered, the American Affairs Office directly announced that the canal would be open to navigation free of charge and at the same time increased the expansion of the Grand Canal.
Only then did Feng Xinyuan take a river ferry to Wuhu Province. Otherwise, he would have had to go overland with great trouble.
He walked along the canal, and the scenery along the way also made him deeply feel why the empire valued North America so much and was so afraid of North America.
On both sides of the canal, there is endless land!
Not plains, not grasslands, but farmland...
In his lifetime, he has seen countless magnificent mountains and rivers in the empire, but this is the first time he has seen this endless farmland!
Look at how farmers farm. They use huge plow horses to plow the land. This is not the point. The point is that looking at such a large area, there are only a dozen or so people working there.
In the past, all he saw were cold data and he didn't have any intuitive feelings. But now that he saw these endless farmlands with his own eyes, he finally understood why many important cabinet ministers were worried.
The natural environment of this place is really superior.
This is already so superior that the locals are afraid of it.