Infrastructure Throne

As night fell, the sky was gradually shrouded in darkness.When the streets of most cities in the North fell into silence as night fell, Yuanliu City was still in a lively nightlife time.

In the square of the trading area in the east of the city, the lampposts will be illuminated as brightly as the day.

The host ordered people to lift up the small trolley containing the finale exhibits, and the guests and businessmen in the audience stretched their necks to look at the booth.

The bicycles of the last season, no matter in terms of design concept, appearance or practicality, are amazing enough. I don’t know what kind of surprises there will be tonight.

Shen Qingze, Yan Zui, Shelley, Tia and others sat quietly in the VIP area.

Tia glanced across the small square, and frowned slightly, wondering if it was her own illusion, the guards tonight seemed particularly weird, on the surface, the total number of guards had decreased, and they were sparse, but the people on duty at each main road But it has changed a lot.

Compared with the merchants who were focused on making money, the envoys from various cities didn't care much about the newly developed products in Yuanliu City. What they really envied was the prosperity and wealth here.

Including Pearl City, there has never been a city's trade show held at night, because the cost of candles is expensive, and it takes manpower and material resources to prevent fires.

Not only in the Northland, but in most cities on the mainland, ordinary people have almost no nightlife. They work at sunrise and rest at sunset. There is no light at night, and there are no entertainment activities. Apart from sleeping at home, the only fun left is making people.

The lack of light sources directly leads to the limitation of people's working and social time during the day.

In Yuanliu City, relying on cheap and common kerosene lamps, people's daily routines have been greatly changed, and the time spent on work, socializing and entertainment has been extended by three to four hours a day.

The concept product exhibition at night will not delay the food festival during the day, earning two transactions in one day.

Although a few hours are short, only occupying one-third to one-fourth of the day, but as time accumulates and countless quarters are accumulated, the wealth generated by Abyssal City will become more and more comparable to that of other cities. big.

Most of the nobles and envoys, including Tia, only thought that Abyssal City was deliberately showing off its wealth.

Only Shelley thought about something deeper. The Blue Sky Business Alliance, which established the country with business, is undoubtedly more sensitive to the way wealth is generated.

Shelley had also studied the kerosene lamps produced by Yuanliu City. The structure was not difficult. Although the parts inside were exquisite, experienced craftsmen could completely imitate them.

But the question is, why is the glass made in Yuanliu City so clear and cheap?In addition to glass, other materials simply cannot achieve the lighting effect.

Shelley visited Yuanliu City for several days in a row, and found that there were many well-to-do families on the street, even the windows were made of glass. The luxury level was comparable to that of the lord's mansion of Pearl City, which is unbelievable.

Plus, there's that amazing bike.

Shelley hadn't seen it with her own eyes, but the intelligence department of the Bikong Business Alliance branch had already drawn a sketch in the letter. The principle of the bicycle is not worth mentioning to put it bluntly. one simple thing.

Like other big businessmen, the branch of the Blue Sky Merchant Alliance in Pearl City also tried to imitate bicycles, but all of them failed without exception. Not to mention the interlocking iron chains, even a hollow steel shaft had to be drilled out. It took a lot of effort.

Investing in this cost is not as simple and crude as doing the slave trade.

Shelley was seriously thinking about the secret of becoming rich in Abyssal City. The elf girl with flax braids beside him was holding a can of honey and yellow peaches, filling her mouth piece by piece, her cheeks bulging.

Shelley's eyes flashed slightly. The cans are also made of glass, thicker and stronger. The mouths of the cans are tightly closed with corks. Fruits and other perishable foods are soaked in honey water, which can keep them fresh for a long time.

Shelley was a little dazed, it was just a glass jar, and he had already thought of many things.If food can be kept fresh for a long time and is easy to transport, then long-distance grain and grass transshipment will no longer be a hindrance to war...

But what does this have to do with the peace-loving elves?Shelley smiled self-deprecatingly.

In that room, above the booth, under the expectant eyes of everyone, the host slowly pulled back the red silk covering.

It was an oddly shaped iron device covered in black paint.

An iron arm is machined into a right-angle shape, fixed and erected on a wooden square base, a hand-operated roulette is on the right side, a wooden board is laid on the bottom, a thin steel needle is embedded on the wooden board, and the needle is drilled with a pole. Small holes through which a cotton thread is threaded and connected to the uppermost spool.

The host pushed the trolley to the eyes of everyone, stacked two pieces of thick cowhide on the wooden board under the steel needle, and gently shook the handle of the wheel, and a magical scene happened——

The gear behind the roulette drives the iron shaft, pulling the drooping steel needle, and begins to make regular reciprocating motion.The steel needle pierced through the two layers of cowhide with ease, and then pierced with the cotton thread to complete the sewing process.

Until the two pieces of cowhide are completely stitched together, all the host does is shake the handle and push the cowhide.And in the final stitched product, the stitches are so tight that they have been measured with a ruler.

The so-called layman watches the excitement, and the expert watches the doorway. Ordinary guests and the public are just for fun. Facing the exquisite and novel gadgets, they subconsciously utter voices of admiration and surprise.

For businessmen who really understand the textile industry, this freshly baked hand-operated sewing machine completely subverted their cognition, so that for a long time, they almost lost their voices collectively and could only stare blankly at the table. on the sewing machine in a daze.

This quaint hand sewing machine is a mechanical product created by the machine tool spree given by the system.

From Shen Qingze's point of view, its structure is relatively primitive, and it can only be sutured with single-thread chain at present.

Due to the many and delicate internal parts, it takes a long time to build a hand sewing machine and the cost is high. Like a bicycle, it can only be used as a collectible for the time being, but it is no problem to use it to bluff these nobles and businessmen.

Someone in the audience yelled "Sell it!", and the merchants started asking for prices as if they had just woken up from a dream. The price soared from [-] gold coins to [-] gold coins.

For a moment, the entire venue seemed to be an auction venue, and the sound of bidding one after another almost drowned out the voice of the host.

After getting the reply of not-for-sale items, the merchants began to sigh again, with a flood of regrets, and all the sad expressions were the same as when they were holding their stomachs to bid farewell to the food festival.

※※※

As one of the few surviving nobles in Yuanliu City, Fang Yu was also honored to be invited to participate in the exhibition.

Throughout the night, he was fidgeting in his seat, worrying for a while that the assassination had gone wrong, and for a while he was worried that Yan Zui crossed the river and demolished the bridge.

From the very beginning, Fang Yu was prepared. If everything went according to plan, it would be fine. If Yan Zui ran out of them, he would throw them away. Fang Yu and the nobles standing behind him were unwilling to sit still.

They temporarily printed hundreds of paper "blood books", which clearly exposed Yan Zui's conspiracy to kill Shen Qingze. Once Yan Zui wanted to kill people afterwards, these hundreds of "blood books" would be theirs A deadly bargaining chip.

At least for now, Yan Zui has indeed transferred a lot of guards away to make things easier for them.

Hearing the chaotic sound of bidding in his ears, Fang Yu curled his lips, looking in the direction of the booth with half jealousy and half yearning.

Isn't it just a sewing needle?What's there to chase after?When Shen Qingze dies, these treasures will not be cheap to their Fang family.

※※※

At the VIP table, the envoys from different cities behaved differently. Tia was a little surprised, but that was all. The tailors in Pearl City could go around the inner city, and a mere sewing machine was nothing.

Shelley next to him showed a very rare look of shock. He was no stranger to machinery, parts, gears, and steel needles. Under the wonderful combination, they turned into another kind of beyond imagination. exist!

What is even more frightening is the impact brought by its design concept - simple mechanized operation instead of complex human labor.

Amid the din and admiration, Shelley frowned like a calm outsider.

His gaze fell vaguely on Shen Qingze's side face, and the blue eyes behind the lenses quietly observed each other's every move.

He became more and more suspicious of Shen Qingze's origin - if the late national teacher of the Great Xia Empire had this ability, Great Xia would have unified the mainland long ago.

"Master Shelley, this is really the right time." The elf girl dug out the last piece of yellow peach and swallowed it, smacking her lips, "I didn't expect such a character to exist in the remote Northland, why don't we dig this priest to the Blue Sky Merchant Alliance?" Bar."

Shelley smiled slightly: "What if the other party refuses?"

"Isn't that simple? Bind it! The population of Yuanliu City is no match for our Blue Sky Merchant Alliance."

Shelley looked at the innocent girl with braids and rubbed her forehead with some headaches. What is the future of the elves?

※※※

The killer hidden in the outer cargo box aimed at Shen Qingze with a matchlock gun found on the black market, and has maintained a motionless posture for more than two hours.

The killer is a little irritable, the light here is dim, his eyes are starting to swell, his posture is stiff, but his brain is still excited.

"Isn't it just an iron lump? There's nothing to make a fuss about." The killer spat secretly.

After an unknown amount of time, the concept exhibition came to an end, and the businessmen in the audience finally stopped.

Amid the applause of everyone, Shen Qingze stepped forward slowly, and as the officiant in charge of farming and finance, he made a concluding speech to the people of Yuanliu City on the last night of the autumn harvest festival.

In the past autumn harvest festivals, the officiant usually just sent a symbolic blessing to the new year's harvest. He picked the largest agricultural products from the people and encouraged them with a few words, which was enough to make the farmers grateful.

Shen Qingze decided to give everyone something different.

The bright and soft lights silently illuminated his face, he pressed his hands together, and the explosive applause from the audience finally calmed down.

Jin Da took a few attendants and lifted up a huge two-meter-long plank and put it on the wooden frame.A thick canvas was pasted on a wooden board, on which some strange lines and figures were drawn with paint.

The title is written in big characters in bold - "Yuanliu City's Grain Production and Yield per Mu in 793 of the Dawn Calendar".

Below the title, the black abscissa and ordinate mark the column chart of grain production and mu yield for each month from the same period last year to the present, as well as the trend curve.

The crowd in the audience stared dumbfounded at this huge "line painting", some were deep in thought, and some were in a daze.

"Everyone." Shen Qingze looked around everyone's faces, "When I first came to Yuanliu City, it was going through an extremely harsh battle."

As his voice covered the square through a simple loudspeaker, people's whispers gradually disappeared, and they listened intently.

"At that time, there was a large area of ​​wasteland outside the city. The compatriots who died at the hands of the orcs were wrapped in straw mats and buried in mass graves. There were no names on the tombstones, because most of you were illiterate. "

The audience on and off the stage fell into an audible silence.

Old man Li sat on the periphery of the VIP area, thinking of his only son who died tragically, his nose turned sore, his hair was all white, his face was covered with loose wrinkles, his wet tears were stored in the tear groove, he didn't want to embarrass Shen Qingze , I had to wipe it off gently with the corner of my clothes.

Mrs. Yan sat on the wheelchair next to him, listening carefully with her ears tilted.

"Obviously it should be a bumper harvest, but the food in our whole city is not even enough for half of the people to survive the coming winter."

Shen Qingze pointed to the first square column on the bar chart, which was short and flat.

"Later, we set up a production and construction team, and got the first [-]-acre experimental field. Relying on the hard work of the farmers, the peasants dug the canals, the craftsmen built the waterwheels, and the blacksmiths made farm tools. Our first batch of rush-planted Potatoes have had a good harvest."

Shen Qingze's fingers moved slowly on the picture, and the square pillar began to become taller.

There were sporadic good-hearted laughter from the audience, and the changes in the icons were so intuitive that people began to gradually understand the meaning of the histogram.

The killer lying in the cargo box sneered secretly in his heart, the dying man is still gaining fame here!

Shen Qingze's narration was unhurried, with a calm and smooth voice: "At the end of spring, the reclaimed, abandoned, and confiscated manors added up, and the public land controlled by the City Lord's Mansion has reached [-] hectares. It has doubled."

The nobles in the VIP area are a little tongue-tied. They have never heard of any city with so many public lands. Most of the farms are private fields of the nobles. Only the most barren land will not be divided up by the nobles. Walk.

Hearing this, the old nobles headed by Fang Yu roared in their hearts crazily, they are all this evil spirit!Deprive them of their fields!Rent cheap to those pariahs!How dare you brag about it without shame!

It's a pity that most of the people's faces are filled with smiles, and no one can listen to their voices.

"We have more cattle, more efficient animal-powered iron farm tools, more scientifically planned irrigation ditches, more manpower, refined farming methods, and indispensable fertilizers."

Shen Qingze pushed his hand to the highest square column in the chart: "Now, our total grain output is ten times that of last year. We have used thousands of hectares of fields, everyone's wisdom and hands, to feed more than [-] people. population!"

"This is a miracle belonging to Yuanliu City."

His voice echoed over the venue, and for a moment, there was complete silence on and off the stage.

The aristocrats and businessmen who were dismissive just now were instantly speechless. Why did Yuanliu City rise in just over a year?

What a miracle, this is a miracle!

The stark contrast and shocking figures have never been so clearly displayed in front of every public.

Every one of them is a participant, a witness, from famine to food bins, and nothing is more convincing than the numbers in front of them.

In the crowd, someone who did not know cheered, followed by voices gathered from all directions, like the tide like the sea, like the waves like waves, echoing excitedly over the square!

The whole Abyssal City, the cheers soared to the sky!

In such a hustle and bustle of voices, whether it was Shen Qingze and Yan Zui on the stage, or the envoys and nobles from various cities, they were all inexplicably shocked, as if they were in the midst of a fierce tsunami, and felt their own unprecedented insignificance.

Tia looked around in astonishment, and finally her eyes fell on Shen Qingze complicatedly. Could this be the reason why Pearl City was defeated by Yuanliu City?

He couldn't understand the power that these people who were regarded as "untouchables" possessed.

Beside him, Shelley and the elf girl were completely silent after a brief shock, the girl was a little embarrassed, and never mentioned the matter of kidnapping Shen Qingze.

In Yuanliu City for a week, I saw more new things than the previous year combined.

Hiding in the dark and aiming at Shen Qingze's killer, he put down the gun in his hand in a daze. He suddenly didn't know whether his assassination tonight was right or wrong.

Shen Qingze's unique "blessing words" ended, and according to the custom, the gift-giving people held this year's "tribute" and slowly walked up to the booth under everyone's gaze.

The assassin lying in the cargo box tensed his back instantly, and his hands holding the matchlock gun began to tremble.

On the booth, Yan Zui subconsciously sat up straight, and couldn't help leaning forward slightly, her eyes firmly locked on Shen Qingze.

All eyes are focused at this moment.