Chapter 765 Qin Zhifu travels to the business district
For those who have never been to the Guangzhou Business District, no matter how many written descriptions about the business district they have read or how many people have heard that this place is prosperous, they already have a certain understanding and imagination of the prosperity of the business district, but when
He would still be shocked if he saw it with his own eyes.
The same was true for Qin Zhifu. He had read many descriptions of the business district, but when he saw it with his own eyes, he was still shocked!
Before we get close to the dock, we can see many ships crowded together in the port from a distance, with small boats shuttled among them. Among the many small boats, there are also a few large ships, most of which are traditional sea ships in Southeast Asian waters.
There are all kinds of ships including Fu ships, Guangzhou ships, sand ships and even other types of ships, and a small number of them are Western Galen ships and Clark ships with soft sails.
Even the small ones of these large ships weighed two to three hundred tons, while the larger ones weighed five to six hundred tons or even seven to eight hundred tons.
As the former commander-in-chief of Nan'ao Island in the Ming Dynasty, Qin Zhifu had come into contact with many ships, but this was the first time he saw so many ships. Of course, what shocked him even more was that there was a huge building on a small mountain near the port.
group.
Even though it was a bit far away, he could still tell at a glance that this was a large-scale fort group, and the vaguely exposed muzzles on it made people feel a little frightened.
Although he could not see the scene on the shore at this time, the prosperity of this place could be seen just from the numerous crowded ships on the pier!
After the boat docked, Qin Zhifu boarded the pier and saw all kinds of people coming and going. Many of these people were foreigners with strange clothes, strange looks, hooked noses and red hair, and were as ugly as evil ghosts.
Quite a few.
Being in it makes people feel like entering a strange and bizarre world.
Even the well-informed Qin Zhifu was shocked when he saw this scene.
Perhaps seeing Qin Zhifu's surprise, the navy captain who accompanied him said in a proud tone: "Our Datang Guangzhou Business Zone was established only two years ago, but in just two years, it has become the largest port in East Asia.
The number of sea-going ships traveling to and from the commercial area every month ranges from a dozen to dozens. Because of the large number of ships, the wharves built in the early stages were overwhelmed, and three large wharves were subsequently built."
As he spoke, he pointed to the endless docks as far as the eye could see and said: "After long-term construction, the port in the business zone now has a total of four large docks, which can berth more than fifty ships of more than 100 tons at the same time. Fifteen of them are
It is a deep-water berth that can even berth a giant ship of over a thousand tons and a draft of ten meters!”
"In order to solve the problem of cargo loading and unloading, the terminal is equipped with various complete mechanical equipment. It is rumored that steam engine lifting equipment will be introduced in the near future. By then, even overweight and large cargo can be hoisted and transported directly!"
"Two months ago, in order to solve the problem of serious accumulation of cargo at the terminal and difficult transportation, we laid a number of special railways from the berth to the port warehouse area. Special rail carriages can transport goods quickly and effortlessly!"
As the man spoke, he also pointed to a large carriage pulled by two horses in front of him: "This is the track carriage specially developed by our Datang Royal Institute of Technology for the port area!"
When Qin Zhifu first looked at this carriage, he didn't see anything strange. The only special thing was that he felt that this carriage was not a common two-wheeled carriage, but a four-wheeled carriage. In addition, this carriage was a bit big, and the top
It also carried a lot of cargo, which was very heavy at first glance, but there were only two horses pulling the cart. This made Qin Zhifu a little confused, how could these two horses pull such a large carriage?
But if you look closely, you will find that the carriage's trajectory is always limited to those two rails, and the wheels are different from ordinary wheels. They are not made of wood, but of iron.
You can hear the sound of the iron wheels hitting the rails from a distance!
Qin Zhifu found it eye-opening just to look at the carriages and rails as well as the various mechanical equipment on the wharf.
In fact, not only Qin Zhifu, but also many outsiders were full of curiosity and even puzzled about the many special things in the Guangzhou Business District when they first arrived.
Not to mention outsiders, even the insiders of the Tang Dynasty were curious or even surprised at first about this port that was different from other ports.
The reason why Guangzhou Business District is so unique is naturally inseparable from the efforts of Li Xuan and the Royal Institute of Technology and Zhaoqing Machinery Branch, which were independent from the Youjun Camp.
As a modern person, Li Xuan put forward many construction suggestions when planning the business area, including the installation of various loading and unloading machinery and equipment and railway systems.
Especially for the railway system, Li Xuan was very attentive. He personally formulated the relevant design plan for the railway and then asked the Polytechnic Institute to improve it.
He knew that the current technology of steam engines was not enough to make carriages, and the funds and manpower required to build railways were very large. The Tang Dynasty would not be able to build a real railway system driven by steam engines in a short time, but this did not hinder
Let him test one or two first.
Business areas and some mining areas, where logistics and transportation volumes are very large, have become the best test points.
If the steam engine as power is not up to standard, then horses will be used to pull it first. If large-scale railways cannot be built, then small railways of a few kilometers will be built first.
Li Xuan proposed a general design plan. Students and teachers from the Polytechnic Institute who were born in Youjunying were responsible for the detailed design plan, and then the machinery branch under the Zhaoqing Arsenal was responsible for the specific manufacturing and even construction.
The first test operation was carried out in an iron ore area, and as soon as the test was carried out, it was discovered that although the construction cost of the railway was relatively high, the efficiency of transportation was greatly improved. In terms of cost alone, it was compared with the past that relied solely on manpower and energy storage.
Shipping costs are saved at least five times.
This discovery made officials at the Ministry of Industry overjoyed, so they are preparing to build this kind of railway in several other mining areas.
Later, this kind of railway system was simply introduced in the business district.
But that’s about it. The cost of building railways is too high, and it requires special maintenance and special carriages. Moreover, horses are used to pull vehicles. The transport capacity is actually relatively small, so the operating costs are not low. Therefore, transportation must be carried out
Only in places with very large volumes can transportation costs be effectively reduced.
If it were in other ordinary places, the construction cost would be difficult to recover.
And Li Xuan is quite satisfied with this. The current railway is just an experimental railway, and it will be continuously improved while being used on a small scale. In this way, when steam engine technology improves, especially after the high-pressure steam engine is developed, a railway system with steam trains as the core
It can be built on a large scale.
When many railways began to be constructed and put into use, it was announced that Datang entered the era of industrial revolution.
Now, what Li Xuan has to do is to make all kinds of preparations before the arrival of the industrial revolution, so as to be ready to take off at any time!
Qin Zhifu naturally did not know the story behind this section of railway and the profound meaning it represented. In fact, not only Qin Zhifu, but also most people could not understand the huge role of railway.
In the eyes of many people, this railway is just a novelty!
After coming out of the pier, Qin Zhifu continued to visit the business area accompanied by others. The area of the business area was not actually large, but although it was small, it was very densely packed with people and there were many shops. These shops were different from the shops outside.
Differently, although they also sell retail, they mainly do bulk trade, and the customers they receive are mainly maritime merchants.
This can be seen from the fact that when they trade, the currency they use is not direct gold and silver, but Royal Bank's silver notes.
Due to the frequent large-scale trade in the business district, the transaction volume is not even hundreds or thousands of taels, but hundreds of thousands or even millions. It is very common for those large merchants to purchase goods worth tens of thousands of taels at a time.
thing.
In order to implement the bank check system, and because the weight and composition of gold and silver currencies around the world are different, it is more troublesome to collect cash directly. Therefore, the tax collection system adopted by the Datang Taxation Department in the business zone does not collect cash, but
We only accept Royal Bank checks!
And this forced those businessmen to take out part of their cash to exchange for banknotes at the Royal Bank, regardless of whether they wanted to pay taxes. When the banknotes could pay taxes, businessmen everywhere would naturally
Once the currency was circulated, merchants also tended to collect banknotes when making large transactions in order to avoid all kinds of troubles.
All these factors led Royal Bank to set up a very large branch in a small business district. This branch is also the largest among the many branches of Royal Bank.
Its exchange department is the largest department. Its numerous service windows provide merchants from all over the world with gold and silver exchange services for silver notes and silver notes for gold and silver!
Of course, this kind of service of the Royal Bank is not free. If you use various other messy gold and silver coins to exchange for banknotes, because the gold and silver content needs to be identified, and then after the gold and silver is recovered, the Royal Bank will also have to exchange these gold and silver coins.
Gold and silver are smelted and recast into standard silver coins and gold coins, so exchanging gold and silver for silver notes requires a fire fee.
However, if you use standard silver coins or gold coins issued by the Royal Bank to deposit money, there is no service fee. Similarly, if you use a silver check to withdraw cash, there is no charge, but you can only get it from the Royal Bank.
The issued standard silver coins, gold coins, and other currencies are not provided. If you need pure gold and pure silver bars, you will need to pay a service fee.
Naturally, the Royal Bank did this to promote banknotes and its own standard gold and silver coins!