1635 Han style rises again

On April 1685, 1, Guangling (now Townsville, Australia).

The Spanish envoy, Count Pablo Alvarez, has spent four days on the train. According to the accompanying Qi diplomats, they have arrived at Guangling Mansion in the northeast from Jianye Mansion in the north of Hanzhou. , with a mileage of more than [-] kilometers.

In other words, in just four days, they were equivalent to traveling from Madrid across half of Europe to the distant Warsaw.If one takes a carriage, it will take at least half a month to travel such a long distance, and one has to travel day and night.

This train in the Qi Kingdom is really a means of transportation that can be regarded as an "artifact". It must be an exclusive gift specially given to them by God out of his preference for them!

Guangling is the largest sugar center in Qi State. Last year, it produced a total of 270 tons of sucrose.Well, converted into our Spanish weight unit, how much should that be?It seems to be... more than 1 million Arova (11 Arova is approximately equal to [-] kilograms)!
Oh god, what an amazing stat.

You must know that during this period, as the largest sugar supplier in Europe, the annual output of Portuguese Brazil will only be 250 million arois.Although counting the cane sugar produced by Cuba, Jamaica, Barbados and other islands in the Caribbean Sea, the total production may exceed the size of this city.

However, in Qi State, not only the city of Guangling has sugar production capacity, but the cities they passed along the way, such as Jianye, Xinhuai'an, and Kaiyuan, also have a large number of sugar factories.

It is conceivable that the sugar production scale of Qi State will be an extremely huge figure. It is very likely that it will surpass the sugar production of all countries in the world with the power of one country!

In fact, the Spaniards somewhat overestimated Qi's position in the world's sugar production, and he ignored a big eastern country.During this period, Qin State, located on the mainland, had been leading the world in sugar production since the pre-Ming period.After the wars in Ming and Qing Dynasties ended, under a peaceful and stable environment, sugar production in Qin State quickly resumed, and its scale and output were even greater than before.Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yizhou are the most important sugar production bases in Qin State. Yizhou alone has an annual sugar production of [-] tons, making it the most important sugar exporter in East Asia.

However, unlike Brazil, the Caribbean, and Qin’s purely hand-pressed sugar or small workshop production methods, Qi’s sugar factories introduced a large number of machines and were driven by steam engines, basically realizing large-scale industrial production. Efficiency, or production cost, are outshine other sugar producing countries and regions.

Moreover, Qi State not only produces sucrose, but also subdivides and processes sucrose in many ways.For example, the white sugar produced in Guangling is divided into more than a dozen types such as "sugar granules", "tanggua" and "tangxiang".Among these pure single-product sugars, the Qi people processed them again to make various desserts such as "onion candy", "flavored sugar" and "beef candy", trying their best to keep all the profits in the sucrose industry chain. In the territory of Qi State.

In Europe, sugar was still a luxury and not all social classes could consume it in their daily lives.Even in the Netherlands, known as the richest country in Europe, ordinary people still cannot afford the high price of sugar.Before the sugar industries of the West Indies and Brazil, sugar was not as readily available in Europe as it is today.Most of the sugar consumed by the Spaniards at that time was rose sugar, Egyptian sugar, beza sugar, Moroccan sugar and so on.Compared with sucrose, these sugars have a higher content of impurities, and their appearance is not as good as sucrose.

In the upper class in Europe, all kinds of sweets are regarded as showing off capital, and they become a way for nobles to have fun in social occasions. Sugar and sweets are used as promotion and symbols of social class.

Sweet, representing wealth and power.

On the other hand, in Qi State, the prices of various sugar products are ridiculously low, and they have become one of the daily consumer goods of ordinary Qi people.Count Alvarez even secretly thought that if he bought a shipment of cane sugar on the spot when he returned to Spain from Qi, maybe the trade difference he earned could not only make up for the cost of the mission's visit, but also use it to make a fortune. earn a fortune.

Every time the train stops at the platform, among the many hawkers selling food, there are all kinds of desserts and omnivores. The prices are very low, and the variety of colors is really mouth-watering.However, due to the health and safety considerations of the missionary personnel, the accompanying Qi State armed guards and diplomats prohibited the Spaniards from buying and eating the food provided by the hawkers at will.

As a Spanish nobleman, with a large annuity, a large amount of land, and commercial income, Count Alvarez naturally realized the freedom to eat sucrose, and he is also an out-and-out "sweet addict". I have no resistance to any sweets.Despite his sugar addiction, eating too much sucrose and all kinds of sweets has severely corroded his teeth (at this time, Louis XIV became a "toothless" king before the age of 40 due to his sugar addiction) , but he still couldn't control his craving for sugar and sweetness.

When enjoying a simple breakfast in the dining car, eating a few sticky sweet snacks and drinking a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of sugar can keep him in a good mood all day long.

I have to admit that the people of Qi provide a very rich variety of food. Even on the train, which is constantly running, they can also supply fresh fish, meat, poultry, eggs, and various fresh vegetables, and there are even food suitable for Europeans. Flavor steak, bacon, ham and other foods.

Of course, in addition to their Spanish missions dining on the dining car, there were also some nobles from the Qi Kingdom, wealthy businessmen, and elite scholars from the business boxes and first-class cars.

After they met with the Spanish mission staff, they just looked at them politely and reservedly, and they would not come to chat with them.They should belong to the upper class of the Qi State, and they should know the purpose of the Spanish mission's visit to the Qi State, and they all have a hint of pride on their faces.

Yes, they have reason to be proud of the strength and wealth of their country, just as we Spaniards owned the whole of America more than 100 years ago, and transported ship after ship of gold and silver back to the mainland, we also looked down at the country with this very proud attitude. the whole of Europe.

In order to maintain the dignity of an aristocrat, Count Alvarez would not stay there long after enjoying his meal in the dining car, to be the object of discussion with the people of Qi after dinner.

Make a cup of tea, add a spoonful of sugar (Europeans drink tea with sugar, in order to suppress the bitterness of the tea), and then sit in front of the window of the box, quietly enjoying the various customs along the way.

He found that there are many large and small reservoirs and weir ponds in the towns and villages of Qi State he passed along the way, whether in the hot and humid northern region or the dry and desolate inland.Large reservoirs are several leagues in size, while small weir ponds are only tens of yards (1 yard in Spain is approximately equal to 0.9144 meters).Surrounding the reservoir and weir ponds are criss-cross ditches, meandering to pieces of flat and fertile fields or pastures.

It can be seen from this that Qi State attaches great importance to agriculture and water conservancy construction.In the inland desert area, in order to lock in more water sources, in addition to building countless weir ponds and reservoirs, they also artificially planted many drought-resistant grasses and trees, and meticulously transformed the homes they depended on for survival.

But look at our Kingdom of Spain, the whole economy is a mess.When all countries are promoting mercantilism and implementing high tariffs to encourage the development of their own industries, the Spanish government, which has a huge amount of gold and silver produced in the Americas, implements a low tariff policy for the enjoyment of the king and nobles, so that the limited domestic industry and commerce in foreign countries The competition of cheap goods and the exploitation of domestic tariffs tend to collapse and die.

It's fine if you can't start up industry and commerce, and the big deal is to buy a huge amount of gold and silver in foreign markets.However, the agricultural production of our Kingdom of Spain is almost bankrupt.The royal family and the government strictly restricted the price and circulation of domestic grain, but they did not provide necessary agricultural subsidies to farmers, and faced various exorbitant taxes, so that "cheap grain hurt farmers", causing a large number of farmers to go bankrupt and flee.

On the other hand, most of the land in Spain was in the hands of the aristocrats. When the demand for wool was strong due to the great development of the woolen industry in the international environment and the Spanish policy of encouraging exports, the prosperous sheep farming completely destroyed Spanish agriculture.Originally nomadic sheep flocks along the non-agricultural areas of the mountains began to trample on the arable land that destroyed the flat land. The habit of the sheep gnawing on the roots of the vegetation caused irreversible damage to the soil layer of the arable land.The barren land in Spain is worse. There has always been an extreme shortage of food. It needs to import a large amount of grain from Central Europe. The high food price caused by inflation has left the poor struggling for a long time.

During this period, the phenomenon of extreme poverty in Spain was already very serious. The number of beggars across the country increased unprecedentedly, and tens of thousands of people survived on the alms of the monastery.At the same time, the domestic population decreased sharply, and many towns and villages were deserted and disappeared. In the two centuries after the great voyage, the population of Spain dropped by a quarter, from 10 million at its peak to less than 800 million.

Count Alvarez communicated with the Qi people who accompanied him and learned that their country not only has developed industry, commerce and agriculture, but also has a population of 1000 million.This scale, if placed in the whole of Europe, is also in the ranks of a proper big country.

What surprised him even more was that in such a big country with a population of tens of millions, no beggar or refugee was found in a big city like Jianye or in the small towns along the way.

He didn't think it was because the people of Qi deliberately hid these beggars or refugees in order to whitewash the vanity of the country's peace and people's prosperity. This is simply an impossible task.

A member of the mission curiously asked the Qi people this question, but was met with merciless ridicule by the other party.They claim that in Qi, there may be poor people, but there will never be beggars and refugees. As a powerful and rich country, it is enough to feed tens of millions of people in the country.

In this regard, the Spaniards are dubious.They guessed that the Qi people must have sent the beggars and refugees in the dark corners of the cities and villages to the overseas colonial territories like the Spaniards.It's just that compared with Spain, which is declining, the richer Qi will produce fewer beggars and refugees.

The train stopped at Guangling Station for half an hour. During this period, a doctor from the station was invited to the box where the Spanish mission was.

A member of the Spanish mission may have suffered from a cold two days ago and had some symptoms of a cold and fever. By midnight last night, the high fever had worsened and he had become unconscious.

In Europe, when a patient with a cold and a fever is encountered, there are three methods of treatment, drinking the "holy water" given by the church, bloodletting, and taking laudanum.

Europeans don't have the habit of drinking hot water - of course, at this time, apart from Qi, there seems to be no other country in the world that has the habit of drinking hot water.Therefore, the "holy water" given by the church is also raw water.Patients who drank the "holy water" are likely to have diarrhea, especially children with weak constitutions, and it is common for them to die.To put it bluntly, holy water is the same as China's seeking immortality and divination. It is a mysterious and mysterious theology. It must be credited to it if it is cured. If it is not cured, it means that the timing is wrong and the heart is not sincere.

Bloodletting, this treatment theory comes from Hippocrates, the ancient Greek "medical saint".Later, the ancient Roman medical scientist Galen also believed that blood can provide people with "vitality". Therefore, if someone gets sick, it must be because there is too much blood in the body, resulting in too much vitality.If a person is sick, the "excess" blood in the body has to be drained.

As for laudanum, it is produced in the Middle East and is an "imported medicine". It is expensive and has been regarded as a miracle medicine by Europeans since ancient times.The "miracle doctor" Galen once believed that opium can prevent poisoning and poisonous insect bites, and can treat chronic headaches, epilepsy, stroke, various coughs, gynecological diseases, depression and plague, etc. In the eyes of Europeans, it is a panacea that can cure all diseases.

When the Spanish mission came to the mainland of Qi, the accompanying personnel were naturally priests, priests and other clergy, but without the blessing of the solemn and sacred church, it was impossible to pray for the "holy water" from God.And the few tablets of the "magic drug" laudanum that Earl Alvarez carried with him were not willing to give an ordinary entourage to take it.

Then, there is only one best treatment method, bloodletting.

When the accompanying diplomats from the Qi State saw several Spaniards holding down the patient with high fever, then slashed a deep bloody gash on his forearm with a knife, and then took a basin to soak up the gushing blood. He froze, terrified, and almost thought the Spaniards were going to turn into cannibals, kill the poor sick man, and devour him.

After some difficult communication, the accompanying Qi people understood what the Spaniards meant, immediately stopped their barbaric and stupid actions, and bandaged the poor patient's wound.Then he took a towel, soaked it in cold water, and applied it to his forehead to physically cool down.

After the train stopped at Guangling Station, two doctors were called to the car and began to treat the sick Spaniard.First, acupuncture and scraping methods were applied to relieve the fever symptoms, and then three pairs of traditional Chinese medicine were prescribed, and the Spaniard was instructed to decoct one dose in the morning and evening.

Amazingly, after taking two doses of traditional Chinese medicine in a row, in the middle of the night, the Spanish patient with high fever subsided. After eating a little rice porridge, he fell asleep peacefully and breathed very smoothly. Already looking great.

Seeing this situation, the two accompanying priests immediately stopped feeding him the traditional Chinese medicine. Instead, they and Count Alvarez secretly hid the remaining Chinese medicine, preparing to take it back to Spain to conduct some "scientific research" ” in order to replicate it.

Qi State is really an amazing country.I don't know what kind of grand occasions and miracles can be witnessed after arriving in their capital.