Chapter 1062: The Old Face and the New Look

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Moraviev thanked him. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info The boys and girls spun around and glanced at them from the end of the room.

They sat at a long table, and the Qianguo people brought food on plates made of thin copper skin. It's like a student cafeteria, with people shouting and smoking, and beer and spirits hanging out in bottles.

"The Qianguo people here are very polite people, but this place is very simple. peace to draw its surprise. A young U.S. Navy officer, a captain by rank, said to Moraviev with a smile.

"I think it's okay." Moraviev said, looking around.

"What you're seeing today is the result of the cleanup that just came into being." Another American captain said with a smile, "That old guy Zuo Jigao has left too much waste, and if you come early, you will see a lot of novelties, of course, belonging to the Middle Ages." ”

Hearing his words, the boys and girls all laughed.

"Oh? What could it be? Can you tell us about that? Moraviev remembered the garbage he had seen floating on the water when he came up.

"That old guy designed a kind of thing called 'water fort', which is actually a large bamboo raft, connected by ropes, and placed on top of a few old antique cannons, which has become an important fortification for the defense of the fortress, can you imagine that such a thing can be used to fight a war? Haha, you know, the soldiers can't stand firm on it at all, and if they fire the cannons, I'm afraid they will all have to be lifted into the water! ”

"I've heard that the cost of building them is very high, almost as high as a state-of-the-art steam gunboat, so I seriously suspect that he is deceiving the young Emperor Qianguo and swindling the silver from the emperor's treasury!"

"Isn't this governor an example of an incorruptible official?"

"Hahahaha, that's really black humor, do you know that Frenchman Dirk Monument who worked under him? His daughter wrote a book in France, recalling his service experience in Qianguo, in which the author also specifically mentioned that the governor of Zuo Jigao put the salary of Dirk Monument himself into his own pocket! ”

"I heard that when he attacked Agubai, he embezzled a lot of military expenses with the official businessman Hu Yulin, amounting to tens of millions of taels of silver."

"It should be about the same. The Muslim bandits, who could have been easily eliminated, dragged out the battle for a year or two, either because he and his army were too incompetent, or he deliberately delayed it. ”

"Being able to make such a stupid thing as a water battery shows that his military talent is very poor, haha! But such a person has touted the literati of Qianguo as a hero of the world, what a joke! ”

"This rebellion was launched by his descendants, but it only lasted for a few months, and it was put down by General Lin Yiqing without any waste, which shows that he is a fool, and his descendants are not much better than him! Ha ha! However, General Lin Yiqing's talent must be certain! ”

"Yes! If it weren't for General Lin Yiqing, we wouldn't be here today. I propose, this toast for General Lin Yiqing! Wishing him eternal health! ”

"Cheers to General Lin!"

Moraviev was surprised by Lin Yiqing's prestige among these beauties, and he also raised his glass and drank it with everyone.

After dinner, a delicate Qianguo man put away the dirty dishes and replaced them with clean ones: porcelain plates of pastel colours, specially made for foreigners, brought from the city, with their characteristic colours—pink, yellow, and powder blue—made a crisp sound as they were carefully distributed. The person who put away the plate was silent, his eyes lowered.

The record player screamed loudly. Drinkers sit lazily in red chairs; A woman with a flamboyant twist and turn, slowly, lonely, spinning top-like and slower.

Moraviev wondered if these new discoveries would attract attention.

On a clear morning, Moraveev rode in a horse-drawn carriage and entered the lush island hills with Toth: avoiding the port dock area and bypassing the emerald green rice fields. They parked the carriage at a hill mouth, jumped out of it, and stood on the rough grass, looking out at the sea and the distant islands, and for a moment watched the departing warship.

"Is that a cruiser?" Moraviev asked.

"Yes, it was the 'Jiyuan', a 'Chicago'-class cruiser, built in the United States, and had just joined the Qianguo Navy." Toth replied, "It looks good and performs very well." ”

The departing cruiser "Jiyuan", bathed in the morning glow, was guided by a motorboat and sailed between the islands along the azure channel. The man who watched the cruiser was aware of the grass, soil, and gravel of the dry country beneath his boots, and the swarf shrubs swaying nearby, and the clusters of red and purple wildflowers.

Standing on the ridge outside a rice field in the distance, his companion looked back at him: a lonely figure, wearing a conical straw hat and a red shirt that hung down to his knees.

The young man took advantage of this gap to urinate behind the bushes. When they got back on the road, Toth said, "I guess you haven't slept much." ”

"It's only two or three hours. There are a lot of new discoveries that I have to sort out or I'll forget. ”

"Hahahaha, it's really hard for you."

They jolted into a wooded field.

"Pines, huh?" The young man asked disinterestedly.

"These are tall cypress trees. The pine tree is on that, on the right. ”

"We didn't learn anything about trees. Only eucalyptus and large-leaved figs are known. Acacia trees, myrtle shrubs. The soil is sandy. He continued, "I know, beech and birch." How verdant they were, and how swaggering they were in the dead silence of midwinter. Seems to be more striking than eucalyptus and shrubs. ”

"My hometown, if I have one, is close to the North Sea. Winters are bitterly cold, with strong winds and sleet. Bitterly cold and remote. The place where I live is not a forest area, although there are patches of woods, but they are cultivated. It has its own beauty. ”

"What do you say?"

"Oh, the changing sun and the sky, and the lowlands. The feeling of independence is almost separated from the land. Moraviev laughed, "Leaving my hometown, as I do most of the time, I may have become sentimental." He noticed that it had been so long since he was qualified to mention his hometown, but even if he did, he was away most of the time.

"I wish I could find a place to settle down in the future, and until now, I've been 'touring' everywhere," Toth said. ”

Morawiev nodded, and Toth's idea was a matter of course. Find a place to settle down and settle down. Wife and children, house and field, lawn and lawn mower, carriage. Everything depends on the satisfaction of the "Spy Agency" with his job and the salary given to him. "Suppose it's a beginning here." Though he said this, he was not really convinced that these discordant scenes, and the incomprehensible people in the Bureau—tireless, lacking in humor, withdrawn—would be in line with his desire to live in peace.

Thinking made him vulnerable. That's the habit of these young people: no matter what is out of the ordinary, there is laughter - good laughter, which has little to do with kindness.

"Now you don't need to go through war, Thoth, to gain knowledge. Hard, perhaps, but not killing. Because until now, war has been a way out for most men. "Yes, in the army, or in seafaring. Young recruits dream of transformation: conquest, plunder, fornication. Some even dream of knowledge. Bloody chaos and hastily buried graves were unthinkable beforehand. A woman's needs are almost insignificant, but they are just finding a spouse and having children. Fate gave them a purpose in life from the very beginning. If a woman disrupts her hierarchical position, she will be ostracized by other women. Don't go to the cradle but come to make trouble.

The wheels were splashed with mud and gravel. The laboring Qianguo people passed by them in pairs or groups of four, and they all walked down the mountain, all carrying heavy loads; As the carriage approached, everyone fell silent, avoiding the gaze of these strange foreigners in elaborate military uniforms. The women, wrapped in shabby black clothes, shuffled along, one carrying a large bundle of firewood on his back, the other hunched over and carrying a child tied in a harness.

Moraviev remembered the wives of the prisoners he had met in the Siberian penal colonies, and their fate. A word without reason.

What will be the fate of the two of them?

Koukou

Koukou )

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