Chapter 2533
When these young people came, they had already agreed to visit Shi Diwen together when they arrived in Hangzhou. Naturally, they wanted to find out the location first. The place where they were at this time was to the east of Hangzhou City, but Shi Diwen's manor was to the west of Hangzhou City, separated by more than ten miles, and they had to cross Hangzhou City to get to that place. Instead, go directly to the Yamen in the city, which seems to be a little closer.
"Then why don't we go directly to the city tomorrow, pay a visit to Master Shi first, and then split up to do our own errands?" After Tao Hongfang asked about the situation, he asked the other three people for their opinions.
Ning Zijing naturally had no objections. His mission in coming to Hangzhou was to contact Qiong Lianfa's resident agency. Now he only needed to wait patiently in Hangzhou for Li Fa to come back. Before that, he had plenty of time to deal with personal matters.
"If you go to the Yamen to ask for an audience, you can only go in the name of official business." Bai Letong reminded: "Then you have to wait in line slowly to be summoned."
In a place like the Yamen, where there are many people and many eyes, it is naturally inconvenient for them to directly express their special identities. Otherwise, rumors will spread as soon as they arrive in Hangzhou, which will not be conducive to them performing their respective tasks here in the future.
Ha Jianyi said: "It's okay. Let's go see Mr. Shi through the normal procedures. Our errand is not an urgent one anyway. We'll pay the concierge when the time comes. If we can't wait more than an hour and a half, we'll just have to wait."
After weighing the pros and cons, several people still felt that it would be better to visit Shi Diwen at the Yamen in the city in a low-key manner. If this route was not feasible by then, then they would consider visiting his private estate.
After traveling for more than half a month, they finally arrived at their destination. They were not in the mood to go out for fun at this time, and they had to do business tomorrow, so after dinner, they went back to their rooms to wash up and rest.
After Ning Zijing returned to his room, he asked his entourage to quietly summon Yang Ji and told him not to talk about the identity of his group and the purpose of coming to Hangzhou, so as not to affect the things they had to do in Hangzhou. Yang Ji naturally did not dare to neglect and responded one by one.
Early the next morning, everyone had breakfast and took the carriage prepared by Yang Ji in advance to Hangzhou City.
It was already dark when they arrived yesterday, and they couldn't see the situation clearly from the carriage. They went out early this morning, and they had the opportunity to check the surrounding environment. The land circled by Qiong Lianfa is located on the west bank of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal. It is divided into four blocks according to the functions introduced by Yang Ji. The streets are full of large and small commercial shops. It can be seen that Qiong Lianfa's overall plan The utilization rate of land is extremely high.
However, the vast majority of these pavements have not yet been fully completed, and various building materials can be seen piled on the roadside. After the completion of these shops, not all of them will be hung with the Qiong Lianfa signboard, but will be operated separately by the various shareholders of Qiong Lianfa.
The advantage of this development method is that the initial land enclosure and construction costs will be lower than if each company operates separately, and because the industries and scopes operated by each company are different, the industries that can be covered in this area will also be It is more comprehensive and covers almost every link in the commercial and trade industry chain. When customers enter this neighborhood, they no longer need to travel here and there. Whether it is purchasing or selling, they can find the right target here.
This kind of development model is also unique to Haihan. Business consortiums like Qiong Lianfa have broken the old business form and are far ahead of practitioners of the same generation. In the face of business giants of this size, the local Even if a business has a certain foundation, it will be difficult to withstand the competition brought by these new business methods. However, such commercial blocks are not too new to a few young people from Sanya. Similar business development models are already common in port cities in the south, but they are rarely built on the scale of Hangzhou. Moreover, there are several large-scale commercial institutions like Qiong Lianfa in Haihan, and they will certainly not be left behind. Similar commercial districts will certainly be built in Hangzhou. By then, the scale of local business will definitely increase due to the influx of foreign capital. Get promoted quickly.
After leaving this neighborhood that is still under construction, what comes into view is a large field. It is still six or seven miles away from the city of Hangzhou, so the surrounding area is still mainly agricultural land. As far as the eye can see, there are almost acres of mulberry forests and wheat ridges. Qiong Lianfa chose to enclose land here, firstly because it is close to the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal and Qiantang River, and secondly because there are not many residents and buildings here, and the cost of land acquisition is relatively lower than near the city.
Of course, as soon as the news of the capital relocation came out, land prices in the entire surrounding areas of Hangzhou skyrocketed. Qiong Lianfa had official news channels. Just by enclosing the land before the decision to move the capital came out, it already saved money. A lot of money was spent. If you want to purchase land in the same area at this time, the price will have to double compared to before.
Thanks to the existence of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, the land transportation conditions leading to Hangzhou City were not bad, and the carriage that the several people were riding in quickly entered the official road. According to Yang Ji's instructions, the nearest entrance to the city is Qingchun Gate on the east side of Hangzhou City, which can be reached by walking along this official road.
Qingchun Gate was built during the Southern Song Dynasty and was originally called Dongqing Gate. It was destroyed during the Yuan army's attack on Hangzhou at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Later, it was rebuilt in the late Yuan Dynasty and renamed Taiping Gate. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that it was renamed Qingchun Gate. Among the ten city gates in Hangzhou City, Qingchun Gate is the main passage in and out of the city. Qingchun Street inside the gate has been one of the bustling streets in Hangzhou City in the past dynasties.
However, the carriage that Tao Hongfang and others were riding had to stop near Qingchun Gate. Before entering the city, they had to queue up to pass through the Tiesha River, which is the moat outside Hangzhou. This river was dug in the Tang Dynasty and was used to release the tide of the Qiantang River in ancient times. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Hangzhou official Wang Damhou led a group of excavations and dredging, so that the blocked moat could be used again.
There is a stone bridge outside Qingchun Gate across the Tisha River, which is more than four feet wide, serving as a daily passage for people to enter and leave the city. However, due to the limited width of the bridge deck, during the peak period after the city gate opened in the morning, vehicles and horses entering and exiting the city had to queue up, so Tao Hongfang and others could only wait patiently.
Tao Hongfang and Ha Jianyi were in the same car. After the two raised the curtains and watched for a while, Tao Hong conveniently said: "It seems that the city gate of Hangzhou is still closed at night, otherwise we wouldn't be at the city gate early in the morning." Congestion.”
Ha Jianyi said: "After all, Hangzhou has just been conquered not long ago. There must be public security considerations in closing the city gate."
Since they can remember, the few cities on Hainan Island have not closed their city gates. Danzhou even simply demolished the original city gates and widened the roads to facilitate the entry and exit of cars and horses. As for the cities that Haihan developed and built on his own, such as Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Zhoushan, etc., they did not build fortifications such as city walls and gates at all.
(End of chapter)