For many people who come to Shanghai to do business, the city is more than just exotic. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Although the language heard here is still Chinese, and the people you see are still Chinese, everything around you feels strange. For Song Zhongqiao, who came to Shanghai for the first time, from the street lamps lit all night on the street, to the flush toilet in the hotel, the telephone and telegraph that can transmit sound for thousands of miles, and the cars running on the road. It's a whole new society, full of convenience, but also frightening and panicking for someone from the old times.

It's not just outsiders like him who have these emotions, even Bai Nan, who lives in Shanghai, has been here for more than half a year, and is amazed at how quickly Shanghai is being built. Unlike the construction of Los Angeles at that time, the speed of prosperity here is astonishing because the construction of the Shanghai Special Economic Zone can absorb local labor on the spot, and the various materials that Datang can supply are sufficient.

In terms of administrative divisions, the Shanghai Special Economic Zone is divided into three districts and three counties, namely Hongkou District, Zhabei District and Huangpu District, and in fact, these three districts occupy all the area of the urban area of the Magic City. It is also an urban area of the Special Economic Zone, where the Tang people built a large number of high-rise buildings and various facilities, making it a near-modern city. The original Shanghai County was changed to Minhang County, and Shanghai has completely become the unique name of the Special Economic Zone. Baoshan County is the same, and Chuansha east of the Huangpu River is established as Pudong County.

In just one year of development, some villages and towns have rapidly expanded into a city with a population of hundreds of thousands. The Huangpu River wharf, which has gradually become a climate, has begun to become the most important port for trade between the Qing Kingdom and the Tang Dynasty. The commodity economy in the south of the Yangtze River is almost all covered by this nascent city network. Businessmen such as Liu Nanxun and Song Zhongqiao. They came to Shanghai one after another. Either the purchase or the shipment made the trade here highly developed.

This also makes "breaking into Shanghai" a popular word in Jiangnan at this time, and countless people with dreams have come to Shanghai in order to get ahead or earn thousands of dollars. The first group of people to come to Shanghai should be considered lucky, because according to the SAR government's estimates, it will not take many years. Shanghai will not be able to directly absorb the population for naturalization without restrictions. The local population density will really move in the direction of the magic capital. Of course, the SAR government can also divert them to the surrounding areas, but more people should prefer to stay in the bustling urban areas rather than in the more inhospitable counties.

In order to make Shanghai have a vast economic hinterland and the flow of goods and people more fully, Bai Nan also put forward the idea of building a Beijing-Shanghai railway. However, for security and other other considerations, the Qing court euphemistically used delaying means and did not want the Beijing-Shanghai line to be launched so quickly. Through contact with the Tang Dynasty, the Qing court was no longer the court that could not understand many affairs during the Qianlong period. They already know what a railroad does. Although they didn't think much about the convenience that Datang commercial goods could enjoy by relying on the railway. However, it is clear that the Beijing-Shanghai railway will allow the Tang army in Shanghai to travel to the capital more quickly. If there is any major change, it will be absolutely unfavorable to the Qing army.

Of course, the Qing army could not stop the Tang army's sea operations. Therefore, the prevention of the railway case can actually play a small role. Bai Nan also believed that the Qing court's resistance to the Beijing-Shanghai line could not last. The eventual completion of this railway is the trend of the times. At the same time, the Tang people also built some short-distance railway lines in the Qing Dynasty, such as the Jingtang line from Tanggu to the capital, which had already begun to be built and opened to traffic in 1781. And Bai Nan also considered using a railway to completely connect Jiangning, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

The leveling of roads around Shanghai is also ongoing. Most of the official roads in the Qing Kingdom were dirt roads, which were obviously very unfavorable to the automobile transportation of the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, the Shanghai Special Economic Zone not only built asphalt roads in the urban area, but also built roads around it. Their actions are also more domineering, often just say hello to the local Qing government, and then the road is repaired. The local government does not dare to refute or resist, and the construction of roads is a good thing.

Compared to the Shanghai Special Administrative Region, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in southern China is not far behind. As early as the occupation of Yang Zhen, Hong Kong Island achieved a certain degree of development and gathered a population of tens of thousands. But the facilities are relatively basic. After Hu Fakui came to Guangdong, he took over the Hong Kong Water Village. And with the use of domestic materials and manpower from Guangdong, it began to reinvent the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In a similar way to Shanghai, Hong Kong is also developing shipping and commerce first. Because Hong Kong's port conditions are better than Guangzhou's, and Datang has also consciously transferred its trade business from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, a large number of Cantonese commercial goods have come to Hong Kong during the year, and then board ships to sell. Datang's merchant ships now also sail directly to Hong Kong, and then the goods are dispersed to various places. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) focuses on the Kowloon area, where merchant ships can be loaded and transported directly after unloading, and Hong Kong Island is still separated by the sea.

The rise of Hong Kong has also caused many shipping operators who were originally in Guangzhou to move to Hong Kong. The cancellation of the monopoly rights of the thirteen banks in Guangzhou did not make the original tooth shops collapse, such as the Pan family Tongwen Bank and other large commercial houses, although in the previous Tiandihui rebellion, the losses were relatively heavy, but there is still a solid family foundation. Relying on the previous ways, the trading houses continued to carry out the business of trading companies, and although they faced more fierce competition, they also recovered relatively quickly.

As the year draws to a close, another big undertaking is about to take place locally. That is, before the rebellion of the Pingtiandihui, the Qing court appointed the Tang army to take charge of Guangdong for a period of one year. The Heaven and Earth Society has been completely quelled, and even Lin Shuangwen on the island has been captured, and Guangdong has actually been stable for a year. The Qing court repeatedly proposed to take back the administration of Guangdong, but the Tang people always refused to transfer the jurisdiction early on the grounds of fulfilling the treaty.

The layout of the Tang Dynasty in Guangdong is very far-reaching, although the military government is not governed according to the complete Tang system, but many of the Tang Dynasty's governance concepts and principles still affect the local people. What is more prominent is that Cantonese people are convinced that life in Datang is happier, so there has been a huge wave of immigration, and even in some guest towns, there is a magical phenomenon of whole village immigration.

Some Cantonese people also tried to use the Tang way to open their own companies or run their own small businesses. What's more, a large number of Tang books circulated in Guangdong, and the Datang education schools that were opened. Compared with Jiangnan people who are still wary, Guangdong seems to be more open-minded, and the wave of commercialization is more turbulent. (To be continued.) )