Hassan and the others quickly boarded several large four-wheeled passenger carriages, and then left the dock hotel and headed for the executive committee administration building, escorted by eight cavalrymen. The carriage was smooth all the way, and the road surface was smooth and smooth, much to Hassan's surprise.

Perhaps, all the mystery lies in the black matter on the road? Hassan secretly guessed.

The road from the Wharf Hotel to the city was empty, and the carriage slowed down as it approached the city walls after a short period of speed. Hassan sat up straight and looked carefully at the city ahead through the gap above the small door at the front of the carriage.

You're greeted by a huge castle tower, uh...... Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a turret. I saw that more than eight cannons were placed above the small tower, and the black hole and the sturdy artillery bunker told people that it was not just for viewing. Hassan quickly noticed that there did not seem to be more than one tower on this wall, at least a few hundred meters to the left and right of this tower, and he saw a tower protruding from the wall, and each tower had 6-8 artillery pieces placed on it.

Farther away, it is not clear from the angle, because the wall is not straight. The fact that the wall is presented in a sharp, prismatic shape is all too clear to Hassan. This kind of wall with a large number of sharp protrusions can effectively reduce the area of bullets, so that the destructive power of artillery on the wall is greatly reduced. The Austrians built many of these forts on the border, which made the Ottoman army suffer.

At the gates of the city stood eight policemen of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in black uniforms, dressed in cuirasses. Carrying a rifle on his back. Carrying a saber. After meticulously checking the documents handed over by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel, he waved his hand and let him go. Hassan noticed that after the officers let them go, a dozen or so policemen on the tower, who were also armed with rifles, turned their attention away from them.

What a tight guard! Hassan sighed that the Ottoman Empire used to be so disciplined and meticulous, but once upon a time, bureaucratic styles such as weak sense of responsibility and superficiality began to erode the fighting spirit that the Ottomans were once proud of, and this old empire began to slide from its peak to the bottom step by step.

Think back to the glory of the past, and then look at the corruption and weakness of the Ottoman army today, as an authentic Turk. Hassan couldn't help but feel a little sad. Today's Ottoman Empire can only rely on those new armies formed on the basis of aliens and infidels, and these new armies have also shown a certain decline after more than 100 years of development and growth, and they no longer have the iron-blooded pride and ambition of the past. Many officers and soldiers of the New Army were fathers and sons, and their combat effectiveness declined rapidly, and the troops were also seriously militarized, and even a rebellion broke out at one time when the Empress Dowager was in power. Although the Ottoman Empire today still looks as strong as flowers and fire, Hassan, who has been mixed with the Ottoman army for several generations, knows in his heart that the country is now in turmoil, and it is actually going downhill. And. In the current chaotic political situation in the country, there seems to be no hope of reversing this trend.

The carriage walked through the long doorway. There are many caves on both sides of the gate, which is a measure to strengthen the strength of the city guards. The area 100 meters behind the doorway was empty, with only a few breastworks standing alone, in stark contrast to the bustling street market more than 100 meters away. As a professional officer, Hassan understood that a barrier near the walls was set up to facilitate the stationing and redeployment of troops to better use the walls for defense.

The streets were wide enough to accommodate two of these large carriages. But the strange thing is that instead of walking on the wide streets, the bustling crowds of people on the side of the road walk in a crowded manner on the gravel road marked by white lines on both sides of the street. After questioning the diplomats accompanying the Republic of the Eastern Coast, it was learned that the asphalt road within the white line was reserved for horse-drawn carriages, ox carts, and horses, and that the passage outside the white line was for pedestrians. Of course, the army and police who are mobilizing can also use the asphalt road within the white line.

There are many buildings lined up on both sides of the road, and Hassan notices that most of them are shops. The people on the east coast told him before that the southern city of Oriental Port is a commercial area, and most of them are commercial buildings. The roadside shops range from state-run shops selling farm tools, knives, seeds, refined salt, grain, and other items to private shops selling consumer goods such as coffee, cocoa, tofu, cooking oil, and fruits. Hassan was a little surprised, he heard that this port city was the capital of the people on the east coast, why did he know that both the houses and the city walls were almost all thick, bulky, and sturdy style? Such a sturdy structure would have been of limited use to the enemy outside the castle by throwing cannonballs into the castle with mortars. Terrible East Coast people, is this city, this country completely a military machine?

From time to time, the voices of boiling people on both sides of the street drifted into the carriages. Hassan silently observed, and many people on both sides of the road were wearing blue shirts with four pockets, walking on both sides of the road without hurrying. Diplomats on the East Coast told Hassan that these were factory workers who had gone to the commercial area to buy everyday consumer goods such as alcohol, tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and fruit. This surprised Hassan, can these ordinary citizens afford these "luxuries"?

In response to Hassan's question, the accompanying East Coast diplomats patiently explained to him that those who can often come to the business district to shop are generally middle-level and above technical personnel in the factory, teachers, military non-commissioned officers and above, government workers, businessmen, and wealthy farmers in the vicinity, whose annual income is generally between 60 and 100 yuan.

Nowadays, the liquor produced in South Africa, Hezhong Daqu, is cheap for only three dollars a bottle, and the expensive one is only one yuan. Locally produced bulk liquor is even cheaper, rarely more than a dime a catty. This is true for liquor, and the others are similar. Spending one or two yuan or even three or four yuan a month on these consumer goods is not a big problem for the East Coast middle class who earn tens or hundreds of dollars a year.

Hassan was silent about this, compared with the east coast, the spending power of the Ottoman people was a cut behind. Even for Turks, if you don't have a position in the government or the army, and you don't have any land or shops at home, it's unthinkable to live like an ordinary person on the East Coast. Of course, one might say that these people are all middle class in the East Coast Republic, and the high standard of living is a matter of course. But only Hassan himself knows how big the gap between rich and poor was in the Ottoman Empire, and how miserable the life of ordinary peasants was. The people on the east coast also said just now that in their country, even if an ordinary farmer works hard, as long as he works hard, his annual income will never be less than 30 yuan, and the highest may be 40-50 yuan. According to the price level on the east coast, their standard of living will be much higher than that of the average Ottoman peasant, there is no doubt about it.

What was it that made the country so rich that the standard of living of its common people rivaled that of the middle and upper classes of the Ottoman Empire? Hassan was a little puzzled and a little puzzled. Because now he simply does not understand the difference between an industrial country and an agricultural country in terms of the efficiency of wealth creation. Even if the East Coast Republic of China is not yet a complete and thoroughly industrialized country, its wealth creation efficiency and speed are far from comparable to that of traditional agricultural countries such as the Ottoman Empire.

What's more, the Ottoman Empire was still a backward feudal country with prominent domestic ethnic contradictions and a large number of slave systems, and its production efficiency was even lower. The fact that the industrial and agricultural countries are not at all one-dimensional in terms of production efficiency and organizational system is proved by the history of human development.

Crossing the street, which is about two hundred meters long, the carriage crossed a stone bridge and entered the North City area. As an industrial area and administrative area of Oriental Port, Beicheng can be said to be the core area of Oriental Port. Along the bank of the Dayu River, there are many chimneys in the machine textile factory, mint, arsenal and other factory areas, and the billowing smoke rises from the chimney mouth of a few meters to a dozen meters in height, which looks so eye-catching under the blue sky.

As the Government Council vigorously promoted a new generation of power - steam engines throughout the country to replace the hydraulic machinery used in the past, many factories built boiler rooms and used a large amount of coal mined and transported from the north as fuel, which has led to the scene of chimneys in the Beicheng Industrial Zone of Dongfanggang today. In fact, this is nothing, if you have time to go to the heavy industrial zone of Ping'an County in the north to have a look, you will have a deeper understanding of what is called thick smoke and what is called soot. Ping'an Town, which gathers heavy industrial plants such as Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant, Coking Plant, First Machinery Factory, North Arsenal and Dye Factory, is the first industrial town in the East Coast Republic of China. In comparison, these chimneys in Dongfang Port are trivial, and the air quality is much better than that of Ping'an Town.

Looking at this strange scene in front of him, which he had never seen before, Hassan's heart was shocked. He was not uninformed, and the Ottoman Empire had many workshops that used coal as fuel, but never built a chimney as large as that of the East Coasters. In his simple understanding, the larger the chimney, the larger the workshop, the more people it employs, and the more productive it is.

Thinking of this, Hassan couldn't help but feel even more lost, isn't the production capacity of the Ottoman Empire even inferior to these people on the east coast? How big is the gap between it and the Western world? (To be continued......)