The Travelers of the Heavens

In the seventh year of Chongning in the Great Zhou Empire (the seventh year of Jiaqing in the Rooster Land, 1802 AD), the king of Xiang came to the capital of the Qing Dynasty to meet Emperor Jiaqing. However, Emperor Jiaqing was ill and could not be summoned, so the second elder brother Minning could only meet Xiang. Jun.

This was never possible in the past. It was extremely difficult for foreigners to enter Beijing. However, Xiangjun's entry into Beijing went very smoothly this time. He met Minning without any difficulty along the way.

After expressing his intention to Minning, Xiangjun left the Forbidden City to wait for a reply from the Qing court.

Min Ning did not dare to delay, and played the entire conversation between Xiangjun and him, word for word, to Emperor Jiaqing.

Emperor Jiaqing agreed to the upcoming important officials of the Zhou Empire who would be stationed in Jiangning; but to help the Qing government send troops to Sichuan and Shaanxi to exterminate the White Lotus Sect, Emperor Jiaqing chose to refuse.

After Minning received a clear reply, he sent someone to summon Xiangjun, who was still waiting for news in the capital, and formally informed Emperor Jiaqing of his decision.

When Xiangjun learned about the Qing court's attitude, he said goodbye to Minning and returned to Jiangning.

At this time, the old Ming Palace site in front of Yingtian Mansion in Jiangning was under construction. Yanjia people and machine beasts of different sizes were demolishing the remaining Ming Palace building ruins in an orderly manner, preparing to build a new palace here.

The entire Yingtian Mansion Qianming Palace covers an area of ​​about 840,000 square meters, which is a bit larger than the Taishi Mansion. Obviously, it is impossible to build all the palaces.

Chu Bufan's design was scaled down according to the architectural style of Taishi's Mansion. After completion, the Andong Protector's Mansion will cover an area of ​​400,000 square meters. This is where Wang Qi and Li Xiaoman will live in the future, and more than 40 more will be vacant. Thousands of square meters were used to build barracks and fortresses to station troops and defend the palace.

In the future, the Jiuzhou soldiers stationed here will only be responsible for protecting the palace. As for Jiangning city defense, the Eight Banners Green Camp soldiers from the Qing court are still responsible for it.

It took a total of twenty years to build the Grand Master's Mansion back then. Obviously, the construction of the Andong Protector's Mansion cannot take so long now. In order to speed up the progress, Chu Bufan ordered people to issue a notice through the Qing court at the local government, recruiting ordinary people and even It was soldiers from the Qing court who came to the construction site to participate in the construction of some peripheral buildings or the task of moving materials.

The treatment is very generous, including meat for three meals a day, and after eating, each person is given twenty taels of silver per month.

As soon as this announcement came out, some low-level local officials wanted to go to the construction site to move bricks. I am a county magistrate who only earns ninety taels of silver a year, but you can earn more than two hundred taels of silver a year by moving bricks. It's okay if you don't do it.

Of course, this is just their idea, but if they can't do it themselves, they can let their family members move the bricks. Twenty taels of silver a month, isn't this the same as giving them free money.

Many ordinary people and soldiers of the Qing court came to sign up, and the number soon exceeded 200,000 and is still increasing. The progress of the Duhu Mansion project has been greatly accelerated.

Chu Bufan obtained the temporary right to freely use funds from Wang Yu. When he came this time, he only brought 300 million taels of silver. What kind of concept is this? The Qing government's annual income was only 70 million taels of silver. The Sino-Japanese War compensation was only 230 million taels of silver, and the Xinchou compensation was only 450 million taels of silver not counting interest. So Chu Bufan put the 300 million taels of silver into this pile, which was a small mountain of silver. The officials of the Qing court could not help but be rude. Even the second elder brother Minning had to bow his head when he came.

After Xiangjun came back, he told Chu Bufan about the attitude of the Qing court. The latter said that this visit to Beijing was just to inform the Qing court that important officials from the Zhou Empire were about to take office. The rest was not important. As for helping the Qing court to exterminate Bailian The teaching is just a casual mention, it doesn’t matter whether it succeeds or not.

""Minister Yao, what do you think of this place?" Chu Bufan asked Mr. Xiang at the construction site."Minister Yao" was his name for Mr. Xiang. The official position of the latter was similar to the modern Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"not so good? I can already smell the rotten smell," Xiangjun said

"Maybe if it gets rotten to a certain extent, it will usher in a new life," Chu Bufan said.

"Impossible, Wang Chengfeng will not allow new life here," Xiangjun said

"What's the meaning?"Chu Bufan asked. Could it be that Wang Yu had other plans to hide from him?

"Oh, it’s nothing, you heard wrong," Xiang Jun waved his hand.

"Well, I must be hearing hallucinations," Chu Bufan joked.

"But in the next at least one hundred and fifty years, various disasters will occur in this land," Xiang Jun said

"What?"Chu Bufan was surprised

"Yes, I heard Wang Chengfeng say that this will be his main battlefield to defeat the Westerners and their spokesmen, especially in the south," Xiang Jun said.

Chu Bufan listened and did not respond. He fell into deep thought. With Wang Yu's Temperament, once the Jiangnan area of ​​Rooster Land becomes the main battlefield, I am afraid it will turn into a scorched earth. The economy and people's livelihood will be difficult to recover in a short time or even impossible at all. The economic situation in the north and south will be completely reversed.

Chu Bufan is right, Wang Yu It is a typical"putting the cart before the horse", that is, wherever it is rich and prosperous, he will lead disasters. Of course, the Great Zhou Empire and the land of Kyushu and Ten Thousand Kingdoms have not had natural disasters for thousands of years. This refers to other overseas spheres of influence under his control.

For example, Rooster Land If there is a flood, Wang Yu will direct the flood to the economically prosperous areas of Ningxia, Shanghai and Hangzhou. The reason is that this area has the ability to rebuild quickly after the disaster. As for releasing floods to poor areas, I'm sorry that is not Wang Yu's style.

"Why are not you talking?"Seeing that Chu Bufan didn't respond for a long time, Xiangjun asked

"It’s nothing, I’m thinking about something," Chu Bufan said

"What are you doing?" A clear female voice came from behind. Concubine Xiang is here.

In order to give her a reasonable identity, I will temporarily call her Qimeng.

"How did you come?"Xiang Jun turned around and saw his wife and asked

"Can't I come? Concubine Xiang asked back.

Lord Xiang curled his lips and said nothing.

"Madam," Chu Bufan greeted Concubine Xiang.

"Mr. Chu has worked hard for King Xining," said Concubine Xiang and Chu Bufan.

"As a minister, it is my duty to share the Lord's worries." Chu Bufan replied modestly.

"Such a big project will take a long time to complete," said Concubine Xiang, looking at the busy construction site in front of her.

"The King of Xining only gave me two years, but with the help of the army of machine beasts and the hard work of countless people, I think I can complete it on time," Chu Bufan said. After hearing this, Concubine Xiang nodded and said nothing.

Time passed very quickly Quick. In November of the ninth year of Chongning (the ninth year of Jiaqing, 1804 AD), the magnificent Anton Protectorate was completed. The main hall of the Andong Protectorate is called De'an Hall, and De'an The palace is also the largest palace in the entire Duhu Palace. In the future, Wang Qi will chair meetings here to formulate policies, etc.

After the Duhu Palace is completed, Wang Qi will go to Rooster Land to take up his post. Now here is an international news break, right here One year, the Gallic general Napoleon ascended the throne and became the Emperor of Gaul. The empire he established was called the"Napoleonic Empire".

Back to the subject. During the construction of the Anton Protectorate, some merchant ships from the Western world tried to dock at the southern port of the Qing Dynasty. These merchants from the Western world suddenly found that the ports that had been strictly guarded by the Qing government had been fully opened.

They also learned that a mysterious and unfamiliar empire defeated the Qing Dynasty and seized all the ports south of the Yangtze River. , now Western merchants can trade unimpeded in the south.

Western merchants asked to meet the highest official of this mysterious empire stationed in the Qing Dynasty to express their gratitude to him.

Since Wang Qi had not yet taken up the post, Chu Bufan supervised the construction of the Protectorate The government was very busy, so Xiangjun, who was in charge of diplomacy, received these merchants.

The merchants thanked the Zhou Empire for its efforts in maintaining world trade freedom, and they presented their gifts.

Xiangjun also took advantage of the opportunity to express his gratitude to the Zhou Empire. The two sides talked very harmoniously about their desire to communicate with the Western world, and the meeting ended in an extremely friendly atmosphere.