I want to be emperor

Chapter 1077 It’s not easy to live in Songjiang

The two coal mines owned by the West African Mining Company are still very important to the current economy of the West African Kingdom, but this importance will decline rapidly over time, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal.

Once the Suez Canal is opened, a large number of ships traveling between Europe and Asia will no longer need to take the Cape of Good Hope route in South Africa.

This will not only cause a huge blow to South Africa, which relies on this route, but will also cause a blow to other port cities along the African coast.

The port of Kara in the West African Kingdom is also one of them.

Once a large number of merchant ships use the Suez Canal, there will not be many supply merchant ships that can be received by the Port of Kara in the Kingdom of West Africa. At most, there will only be some ships whose original destination is on the west coast of Africa, and even those that continue to go around the Cape of Good Hope. It is also impossible for ultra-large ships to stop at Kara Port for supplies...because Kara Port itself does not have terminal port facilities for ultra-large ships of tens of thousands of tons to dock and supply.

With the continued construction of the Suez Canal, it is expected to be opened around Chengshun 53rd year.

In other words, there are only three years left for the West African Kingdom to get rid of the port supply economy.

If the economic adjustment does not achieve good results in three years, the West African Kingdom's economy may be severely damaged... This is why Chen Jingyun has vigorously developed various industries in recent years.

Especially under the imperial policy framework, the textile industry and food processing industry were developed to a limited extent. In addition, the abundant wood in Africa was also used to develop wood mining and wood processing.

In addition, some small steel plants, small machinery factories, small shipyards and the like are also established.

Not to mention anything else, after the recent popularity of cars in the country, hundreds of cars have been imported to the West African Kingdom... and the imported cars are basically relatively good passenger cars.

This West African kingdom, their governance model is actually similar to the previous colonies established by Europeans... The Chu people who occupy the upper class enjoy almost all the social wealth.

There are also a large number of young immigrant men who serve as soldiers or work in factories. Some educated and capable immigrants are engaged in clerical work or middle- and low-level management jobs.

As for the many mines and farms that require a large amount of labor, the labor used in these places is basically free local African labor.

Put it this way, in the West African Kingdom, if you pull out any Chu people, no matter whether they are naturalized Chu descendants of the West African Kingdom or Chu people who live there, there will almost always be servants... quite a few of them are Chu people in their homes. She has many maids from Europe or West Asia.

In fact, not really. If you want to calculate per capita, the per capita income of the West African kingdom is actually pretty good.

In addition, there are about a few thousand people living and working in the West African Kingdom, but they are not naturalized Chu people. These people basically come to work for high wages, or come to do business to make money. The income of this group is also very high.

At present, the population of the West African Kingdom is only about 400,000 people, of which about 5,000 to 6,000 are naturalized Chu people.

And don't think that the total economic volume of the West African Kingdom is small. The Chu people in the West African Kingdom, no, the people of Chu origin live in a very poor life.

This demographic structure means that most of the wealth is in the hands of a very small number of Chu people.

After all, the total economic volume of the West African Kingdom is very small. If you develop some industries, it can greatly promote economic development, and the growth rate figures will look very dazzling.

In this way, although the total wealth of the West African Kingdom is a little smaller, most of it is used to provide for the tens of thousands of people of Chu origin or residents of Chu State, and the per capita living standard of the people of Chu State is not much different.

It can even be said that the other nearly 400,000 immigrants from Europe and West Asia basically work and serve the less than 10,000 Chu people... This is why among the European and West Asian immigrants who immigrated to the West African Kingdom, young women account for the majority Quite a proportion.

This sales volume is even better than many cities in the country with good economies!

The rest of the main population are immigrants from vassal countries in Western Europe... These immigrants have little wealth in their hands, and many of them still have to work for many years to pay off their ship ticket debts.

So here in the West African Kingdom, even though its economic aggregate is small, the life of the local Chu people and even the permanent Chu people is still very good. Not only is the life of the Chu people in most administrative territories better, it is even better than Quite a few Chu people in the local area want to live a better life.

However, these industrial output values ​​are not worth mentioning for the empire, but they are very important for the West African Kingdom itself, and can effectively promote economic development.

Compared with the huge empire, these industrial facilities are naturally nothing... After all, this industrial production capacity is not even comparable to an ordinary lower-level town in the local Pearl River Delta region... This is still talking about the measures taken for economic development. Flattened, a large number of factories are relatively evenly distributed in towns throughout the Pearl River Delta plain!

If it is an area that adopts intensive industrial development, let alone a town, even a village can beat the entire economic output value of the West African Kingdom...including but not limited to industrial output value.

As for the large number of free indigenous laborers, they are not considered citizens of the West African Kingdom...they are just the means of production.

For no other reason than because the Chu people in the West African Kingdom need a large number of maids!

If only the people of Chu origin are counted, their per capita income is higher, even higher than the per capita income of the middle class in Songjiang Prefecture of the Great Chu Empire.

At the same time, the sales volume of other luxury goods in the West African Kingdom is also very high compared to its total economic size... silk products, gold, silver and gem products, luxury watches, and even the latest big-name customized clothing from Jiangnan, etc. Seen here.

The city of Kara City is also very unique... Most of them are close to ordinary urban areas in the inland areas. They are quite ordinary, and most of them are made of wood... There is a lot of local wood and it is not valuable.

But in a beautiful place near the coast, the construction is quite good. All the houses are two or three-story masonry and cement buildings, with stables and gardens. There is a tarmac road in front of the door, and there are asphalt roads on both sides of the road. Ornamental green plants are planted.

There is also an exclusive small pier in the residential area, where many beautiful small yachts are moored.

Even in East Asia, this kind of community can be considered a high-end community, and the people who live in it are either rich or noble.

In the same city, you will find two completely different worlds at the same time!

This does not only happen in the West African Kingdom, but also in many administrative territories... These administrative territories are actually colonies according to what Europeans used to call them.

Many of these colonies were similar to the West African kings. The Chu people lived in one place, and the local indigenous people in the colonies lived in another place.

Chu people's communities are often beautiful and tidy, but indigenous communities are often as dirty and messy as slums.

Why is this so?

Again, Chu people are not doing charity...

——

Fifty years after entering Chengshun, the many changes in the Chu Empire shocked many ordinary people... It's not that we can't keep up with the times, but that the times are changing too fast!

Buildings in the city turned on lights at night, elevators appeared in some commercial high-rise buildings, trams and various cars appeared on the streets, and high-rise buildings tens or even hundreds of meters high began to appear densely.

When some people who have stayed in remote places for a few years return to a big city... many of them will feel as if they have been away from another world: I haven't been away for a few years, so why does this city become so strange?

Driven by electrification and internal combustion engines, the Great Chu Empire has undergone tremendous changes in the past few years... Not to mention the big cities in East Asia, even in distant overseas territories, even the Kingdom of West Africa Every vassal country has cars.

Cars can be seen even in the West African Kingdom. It is conceivable that there are more cars in a super city like Songjiang City... In fact, this is indeed the case. At present, cars, buses, and small and medium-sized trucks are common in the Dachu Empire. The current main sales markets for civilian cars are in big cities such as Songjiang, Tianjin and Guangzhou.

Needless to say, those super rich people, even newly emerging small bosses like Sun Xu, took advantage of this shareholder trend and bought a Tangshan brand car produced by Tangshan Automobile Company.

Tangshan Automobile Company is actually Tangshan Machinery Company... As Tangshan Machinery Company's business shifted to various agricultural equipment with internal combustion engines as its core, as well as passenger and freight vehicles, the company also officially changed its name to Tangshan Automobile Company.

At the same time, they directly used the word Tangshan as their car brand name based on the local name and after approval by the local government.

Tangshan brand sedans are currently the largest produced and sold cars in the Da Chu Empire. They are mainly concentrated in the current mid-to-high-end market. The basic models of the A and III series cost upwards of 800 Chu Yuan, and the high-configuration models can even reach 100 Yuan. More than 1,500 Chu Yuan's high-end models.

What Sun Xu bought was the A-3 series, and it was also the high-end model... After all, more than a thousand Yuan was nothing to Sun Xu now.

Although he is not a rich man, he is now a millionaire boss... and he also earns about more than 100,000 yuan in patent fees for smokeless gunpowder stabilizer every year. Although he is not considered an upper-class rich man in Songjiang, he is still a serious rich man in the eyes of ordinary people.

Following the trend of buying cars, naturally he cannot buy ordinary cars like ordinary high-income groups... Originally, he wanted to buy the Yuhuatai brand car of Jinling Carriage Company... This thing is currently the top-level car sold publicly in the Dachu Empire. , the most luxurious car. Unfortunately, the production of this kind of car is too low, and there are restrictions on purchase qualifications... Ordinary rich people don't mean that they won't sell it to you, but the production is too low, and you have to queue for a long time...

After all, although this kind of Yuhuatai sedan was brought to the market by the Jinling Carriage Company to make money, their production volume was too low and it was difficult to buy it under normal circumstances.

This is a civilian luxury car produced by Jinling Carriage Company for the market... In fact, Jinling Carriage Company also has a customized car that is not market-oriented and is only supplied to the royal family, senior officials and high-ranking nobles. This kind of customized car is currently the most popular car in the Great Chu Empire. The best performance and most luxurious sedan.

Because Jinling Carriage Company, as a company with a royal background, specializes in providing carriages and cars to the royal family... Although it can obtain the top engines, gearboxes and other spare parts from major automobile manufacturers, there are basically quota restrictions, and Limited use, can only be used to produce these customized cars for the royal family, high-ranking officials, and nobles.

It cannot be used to produce civilian cars and then sell them on the market.

Therefore, the contemporary Jinling Carriage Company's products are not available to ordinary people, let alone ordinary rich people... The next best thing is to buy high-end products from Tangshan Automobile Company.

After Sun Xu bought it, he initially tried to drive it by himself, but soon gave up the idea... Although cars these days already have steering wheels and gearboxes, they are still difficult to drive.

Without some skills, you really can’t drive!

In addition, it is a laborious task... When starting the vehicle, there is no electric motor to ignite it. You have to rely on the crank to start it manually. There is no power assist in the steering wheel. The steering relies entirely on the strength of the driver's hands... Turning the steering wheel a few times can make you gasp for breath. .

The same is true for the brakes... It's not a sensor telex or the like, but a hard brake from a direct mechanical mechanism. The extent to which the brake can be braked all depends on whether the strength of the foot is strong enough!

As a millionaire, Sun Xu is not without strength. After all, he comes from a poor family and has been engaged in mechanical repair work for a long time after working. This man has not turned into a waste in middle age.

But...it's not decent!

Imagine driving out on a hot day. When you get there, your hands and feet are sore, and you're covered in stinky sweat... It's really unseemly.

So like other rich people, he hired a driver to drive... and the salary was not low, with a monthly salary of more than 20 yuan, which was almost three times the salary of ordinary people.

After all, drivers these days are also high-tech talents, and they are relatively scarce... Although the four major car companies initially set up driving training institutions in order to promote their cars, on the one hand, they were used to train customers who bought their own cars. Drivers, on the other hand, recruit ordinary people for paid driving training... If you don't want paid training, you can train for free, but you have to sign a multi-year work contract in advance. After the training, they will be dispatched to those who buy their own cars. of wealthy clients as drivers.

In order to open up the automobile market... the four major automobile companies not only sell cars, but also provide driving training services, follow-up maintenance and repair services, and even act as labor intermediaries to help wealthy customers find drivers, maintenance engineers and other personnel.

Otherwise, if you let the customer buy a car alone, they will not be able to use it.

The driver Sun Xu hired, Jiao Tiancheng, was someone who came from such a system.

Jiao Tiancheng was originally an employee of a local small car workshop company in Songjiang... Although he was an ordinary employee, because the production of these small workshops was basically manual production, Jiao Tiancheng still learned some skills, at least judging the repair of some cars. There is nothing wrong with the problem.

It's just that the business of the small car workshop where he works is not very good... It is thought that with the popularity of cars, all car manufacturers, especially those third-party small car workshops, will be able to make money.

Everyone is not stupid. When buying big-ticket items like vehicles, they will naturally tend to products from big manufacturers. On the one hand, quality is important. On the other hand, you don’t have to worry about the manufacturer going bankrupt and running away at any time, and you won’t be able to find a replacement for subsequent repairs. Accessories……

As a result, most small workshops are actually having a hard time, especially those small manufacturers that follow the trend of ordinary passenger cars... They have no technology in the first place, and core parts and even ordinary parts have to be outsourced. If the market positioning is wrong, it will basically lead to bankruptcy.

However, there are some third-party manufacturers that focus on the mid-to-low-end market, especially in remote areas. There is still a market for cars that are adapted to local conditions, and they are doing well.

But the car factory where Jiao Tiancheng worked before did not fall into this category... After Jiao Tiancheng worked for more than a year, this little-known car assembly factory officially declared bankruptcy.

The unemployed Jiao Tiancheng no longer wants to be an ordinary mechanic worker. The income of ordinary workers is very limited, and the ceiling is too low.

Finally, he learned from fellow villagers that Tangshan Automobile Company recruits a large number of car driver trainees, and the tuition is not high, and they can also choose to receive free training after signing a work contract; they can also choose credit loans, job introductions, etc... Basically it's up to you to choose. If you want to study for free and arrange employment, then sign a work contract with a labor service company under Tangshan Automobile Company... In this way, the income will be relatively low and there will be no freedom.

If you want to find a driving job in the future, the amount of income depends on you, but you are free... This tuition loan can also be repaid with future job income. They can also introduce you to jobs, but they also have to introduce the fees.

Although the labor service company affiliated to Tangshan Automobile Company is to serve its own car-buying customers, it also needs to make money.

In the end, he chose freedom... After paying part of the tuition fee, he took out a loan for the remaining tuition fee. After completing his studies, he not only learned to drive, but he was also a person who had been engaged in car assembly work, so he knew a little bit about it. Car maintenance and repair.

So it is easier to find a job.

Finally, through the introduction of the labor service company under Tangshan Automobile Company, he became Sun Xu's personal driver. The job was relatively leisurely and the income was high.

He thought that if he saves some money in the next few months, he can pay off the loan tuition in three months, and then start saving money to buy a house... With his income, it is impossible to become rich after working for a few years. But it is still possible to gain a foothold in the city of Songjiang.

After moving from his hometown to Songjiang, a prosperous big city, to work and live for two or three years, he naturally wanted to become a real citizen of this city, not just a migrant worker.

Fortunately, although the housing prices in Songjiang City are higher than those in other cities, they are not so high that ordinary people cannot afford to buy a house. After all, Songjiang City is also a super flat city with a large area. This is on the edge of the city. They have reached the Yangtze River... There is no way. In the past, the construction quality was not good, the place was not big enough to host so many factories, and it could not accommodate so many people.

Later, as construction technology gradually improved and apartment buildings with five, six, or even seven or eight floors appeared, population density gradually increased...

Overall, the housing prices in Songjiang City, well, mainly the prices of some ordinary apartments, are still barely acceptable.

A two-bedroom house in an ordinary apartment in some relatively remote areas in the city is actually not very expensive. Some cheap ones can even be purchased for 300 to 400 yuan, and ordinary ones are about 500 to 600 yuan.

The current average industrial worker in Songjiang City has an annual income of about one hundred Chu yuan... If you only count the income, you can actually buy an ordinary low-end house with five or six years of income.

Not to mention the houses that can be purchased at this price, they are basically not in a good location, and they basically have no independent property rights, and there are government-subsidized houses with transaction restrictions.

And you can’t use all your income to save money to buy a house. You still have to eat and drink, and you have to support your wife and children, right?

Just because you earn one hundred Chu yuan a year, doesn't mean you can save one hundred Chu yuan a year!

If you have some pursuits, you may have to buy some houses in ordinary areas in urban areas and in communities with basic public services. The price of such houses basically starts at 700 to 800 yuan, and more than 1,000 yuan... And This price is not cheap. Ordinary workers need ten years of income to afford it without food or drink.

As for those suburban townhouses, single-family villas and the like... they can easily cost several thousand, don't even think about it for ordinary people, they must at least have a high income.

Jiao Tiancheng's ambitions are not big. He just wants to buy an ordinary apartment in an ordinary community where he can see clearly, is not dirty, and has basic public facilities and services. A three-bedroom apartment is best, but a three-bedroom apartment is unaffordable. If so, a two-bedroom apartment would be fine.

He really wants to establish himself in the big city of Songjiang!

And this requires a budget of at least four to five hundred yuan... This is based on the premise of establishing a housing loan. For a technician with his skills and a fairly good income, it is still possible to find a bank loan, but the interest rate is a bit high.

But even with a loan, he would have to save the four to five hundred yuan down payment for many years.

Songjiang is so big that it’s not easy to live there!

(End of this chapter)