I want to be emperor

Chapter 995 Antong Xuan and Cadiz
In the winter of Chengshun 45, Cadiz, Europe, which used to be an important port for Spain's foreign colonial trade, has now changed drastically.

Instead of the dilapidated medieval buildings found in Europe, there is a neatly planned new Chu State building, including many three or four-story reinforced concrete buildings, such as the military garrison towering on one side of the port. Office buildings, as well as the governor's office in the city.

There are a large number of ships parked in the port, many of which are large ocean-going ships with a displacement of tens of thousands of tons. Of course, there are even more ships with thousands of tons or even hundreds of tons. There are only Chu people's steam engine sailing ships or pure steam engines in the port. There are no local European indigenous sailing boats that are common in other European ports.

According to the agreement signed between the Chu people and the Spanish in the past, the coastal areas from the Port of Cadiz to the Strait of Gibraltar were ceded to the Chu Empire.

The Dachu Empire subsequently established the Port of Cadiz as a territory directly under the jurisdiction of the Cadiz County, which was directly under the jurisdiction of the European Governor.

However, the area of ​​the territory directly under the jurisdiction of Cadiz County is very small. There is only one Cadiz port and some surrounding land, with a total area of ​​only more than 50 square kilometers... The Chu people control this small territory directly under the jurisdiction of the county to prevent aliens from sneaking in. A several-meter-high wall was built on the surrounding land... Outside the wall is not an indigenous territory, but an isolation zone two to three thousand meters wide, surrounded by barbed wire...

Outside the barbed wire is the management scope of the administrative territory of the Straits State. The entire Channel State management includes the peripheral areas of the Cadiz region and all the way to the north shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, as well as Tangier, Ceuta and other places on the south shore of the Strait of Gibraltar.

In the current Da Chu Empire, only overseas administrative territories use the administrative unit "state", and the administrative unit title "fu" is only used for directly governed territories.

Throughout Europe, the Chu Empire had very few direct-administered territories, only a few key places, and except for Cadiz, the other directly-administered territories were either islands or small peninsulas, which were easy to blockade, and the indigenous people It is a place that cannot be easily sneaked in, and its geographical location is important, making it convenient for large-scale garrisoning and construction of military facilities.

Such as the Isle of Man in the UK, Cherbourg in France, the northernmost island of the Danish Peninsula, etc.

But there are no large tracts of directly administered territory.

The reason why there is no large-scale establishment of directly-governed territories in Europe is mainly because according to the current policy of the Chu Empire, it would be troublesome to establish directly-governed territories.

A very important feature of the directly-administered territory is that indigenous people are not allowed to exist... The population of the directly-administered territory can only be Chu people, not foreigners, even slaves of foreigners are not allowed to exist.

This is very troublesome... After all, the Chu people came to Europe not to seize more land for survival, but to engage in economic plunder and colonization... You have killed all the local indigenous people, who are you going to plunder?

The empire's expansion model in Europe is completely different from its expansion model in the Americas. One is for the colonial economy, and the other is for the national living space.

If indigenous people are not allowed to exist in Europe, how can the Chu people exploit the local indigenous people?

Another more important thing is that if a directly-administered territory is established here, then this directly-administered territory will be able to enjoy the same policies as the local directly-administered territory... including the establishment of various factories.

Taking into account the need for technological blockade, considering the employment needs in East Asia and even the Americas, and many other factors, for the time being, the empire's senior officials have no plans to industrialize in Europe... At most, they will establish a few small directly-administered territories. , build some insignificant small factories.

There is no need to carry out large-scale industrialization in Europe... Besides, not many contemporary Chu people are willing to immigrate to Europe... After so many years, Chu's first choice for immigrants is still the Americas. As for the Americas, they are more likely to choose Eastern Europe. Few people are willing to go to Europe.

This is not a question of whether it is good or not, but it has formed a kind of inertia... When people talk about immigration, people subconsciously think of going to America!
At the same time, Chu people have immigrated to the Americas for many years. Today's Americas, especially North America, are actually no different from the mainland. New immigrants can easily adapt to the new life of local immigrants, whether it is climate, daily life, or other factors. Nothing is different from the local ones.

But Europe is different. Europe has long been a barbarian land in the eyes of Chu people... So until now, very few Chu people immigrate to Europe every year. Most of them come here for business reasons, and then It's a matter of course.

There are actually not many pure immigrants who bring their families, abandon everything in their homeland, go to Europe to find a new life and settle down!

Not to mention Western Europe, even Eastern Europe is no exception... Chu people don't like to go there, and some of the directly-administered territories in Eastern Europe that were established are still empty. After driving away the natives, the local area has become It has become a wilderness, there are not many people at all!
After the Great Chu Empire took over Eastern Europe, it established the Eastern European Governor. The entire Eastern European Governor's jurisdiction was also divided into two parts. One part was west of Xihai City and extended to the southern plains of Eastern Europe in the lower Don River basin. This area was directly governed by They took over the directly-administered territory to rule and carried out large-scale immigration.

According to the plan of the top leaders of the Chu State, there will be large-scale immigration here, large-scale mechanization, horse farming, development of various minerals, establishment of factories, and construction as native land... However, Eastern Europe was also taken over for some time. Directly administered territories have also been established, but not many immigrants have come...and they are all official immigrants, and there are not many self-funded immigrants at all!
As a result, a number of local defense industry-related factories established by the Chu State Ministry of Industry could not recruit enough workers, and had to recruit them with high salaries from Central Asia and even the Central Plains.

The Ministry of Industry has built several small factories in Tsaritsyn and Azov on the lower reaches of the Don River, such as Don Shipyard, Don Arsenal, Tsaritsyn Steel Plant, Tsaritsyn Machinery Plant, etc... The scale is not large, and it is mainly used to produce various military consumable materials on site, such as bullets and artillery shells, to supply military needs in Europe nearby.

But these factories are unable to recruit enough workers locally... There are not many immigrants, so where is the population base for you to recruit workers?
Therefore, in order to produce, these factories have to recruit workers from Central Asia and the Central Plains at high prices and then bring them over to work... The workers come to work, but they do not settle here.

The workers are not stupid either. They are here just to make money... It is impossible to bring their families over too!
The family did not stay in the prosperous and modern Central Plains. Instead, they were asked to settle down in Eastern Europe, a place where birds can't shit. How can this day be passed... Apart from other things, it is not easy to deal with children's schooling problems, and medical care is also a big problem. The problem is that even other daily necessities, except for food, which is cheap, everything else is extremely expensive.

Today's Eastern Europe is indeed not suitable for settling down, so it doesn't matter if you come here to work and make money!
Therefore, in the directly-administered territories in Eastern Europe, there are not many real immigrants. Most of them are migrant workers who come to work alone but do not move their household registrations with their families.

Therefore, the directly-administered territories in Eastern Europe are now a bit embarrassing... This has also resulted in that, except for the establishment of a directly-administered territory at the beginning, most of the remaining Eastern European regions are managed in the form of administrative territories or even vassal-state territories.

Today's Eastern Europe has temporarily adopted the model of directly administering a part of the area, establishing an administrative territory on the periphery of the directly administered territory, and then establishing several indigenous puppet states on the periphery, which is the area close to Central Europe.

Anyway, the main purpose of the Chu Empire in Eastern Europe is not to immigrate many people here and open up a living space for the nation. It is purely because this place is suitable for growing food... and uses large-scale mechanization. When it comes to planting, it actually doesn’t take many people.

At the same time, some economic crops also require a lot of manpower. At this time, the indigenous labor force in the administrative territories and even the territories of the vassal states can also be fully utilized.

Generally speaking, in Europe, Africa and even West Asia, the Chu Empire was relatively cautious in establishing directly governed territories.

The main appeal of the Chu people in these places is just for various resources... and using the administrative territory model can already fully obtain various resources.

If many places switch to the direct-administered territory model, it will not be easy to handle...

There are not many directly administered territories in Europe, and even fewer in Western Europe, which also makes places like Cadiz even more special.

The [-] to [-] Chu people in Cadiz are already the most populous jurisdiction of the Chu Empire in Europe. The number of Chu people in several other small directly-administered territories generally ranges from a few thousand to ten thousand.

The reason why there are so many Chu people in Cadiz is inseparable from the fact that it is the European governor's station, and it is also the headquarters and main barracks of the army and navy in Europe. It is also the largest port in Europe.

This place, as the most important transit point for the empire's trade with Europe, had a large number of Chu ships coming in and out every day.

Large ocean-going cargo ships travel between Cadiz and the mainland or the Americas, transporting or transporting large quantities of various goods, various industrial industries from the local area, and various local specialty products from other places.At the same time, all kinds of messy things such as grain, wool and even wood produced in Europe were transported from here.

In addition to these ocean-going ships, there are also a large number of small and medium-sized ships running local routes in Europe. These small and medium-sized ships travel to Cadiz and various European ports to transport various goods.

After the goods transported by these small and medium-sized ships arrive at the trading ports controlled by the Chu people in various parts of Europe, the goods will be distributed in these trading ports in the Chu administrative territory and sold to local wholesalers and channel merchants. These channel operators transport goods to terminal markets across Europe for sale.

This trade chain has given Cadiz a very prominent position and has developed rapidly. In just a few years, it has become a port city of 6 to [-] people. In a few years, the population will probably be even greater.

However, even with the current scale of a small city, many Chu people who are far away from home feel familiar with it.

An Tongxuan, a mining businessman who started his business in England, would come to Cadiz every once in a while... He only came to Cadiz once in a while to feel the prosperity of the imperial city and experience modern life. Only then can An Tongxuan not be out of touch with society and become a countryman who only hangs out with the natives in remote places!

In the past two years, An Tongxuan's mining business in the British region has grown larger and larger. In addition to the coal mine he initially won, he developed an iron mine and then built a new coal mine in central England.

Relying on the empire's policy of liberalizing the territory of the vassal state and allowing Chu people to use mining equipment, build railways, and use modern equipment such as trains and ships for enterprises established in the vassal state, An Tongxuan's business was getting better day by day.

His net worth is getting richer day by day, and he also bought a nice single-family villa in Cadiz to house his family who just arrived in Europe.

Although his properties are all in the British area, he has no idea of ​​bringing his family to live in the British area... There is nothing in that ruined area except indigenous people and minerals... The conditions are too difficult for his wife and children.

Besides, his youngest son still goes to elementary school in Cadiz.

So he could only place his family in Cadiz, and he himself would come back once in a while.

After returning to Cadiz to spend a few days with his family, he once again took the company's passenger ship back to work in the Kingdom of Wales!
After boarding the ship, as the passenger ship set sail, he stood on the upper deck and looked at the port of Cadiz getting further and further away, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

The time I spend with my family is still too short.

But there is nothing we can do about it. Our son’s education must be taken seriously, and in the whole of Europe, the school here in Cadiz is barely adequate!

For example, there is the Isle of Man in England. Although there is a primary school, there are not many teachers and the quality is not very good.

It would be fine if his strength didn't allow it, but he, An Tongxuan, was considered a rich man, so how could he let his children go to such a rubbish school?

Even the schools in Cadiz are limited to primary schools. His children will start middle school in two years. He plans to send his children back to his hometown of Songjiang to go to school. He just went to his hometown of Songjiang this year and went to a local school. Bought a house in a good school district.

The price is not cheap, and the annual real estate taxes are also extremely expensive... just to be able to send the children to a middle school in this good school district.

For the primary and secondary schools in the government-run schools in the Dachu Empire, the principle of nearby admission is implemented. The two major principles are housing and tax payment. You can't just go to where you want.

At the same time, the education funds of government-run primary and secondary schools mainly come from real estate taxes... This means that the higher the real estate taxes, the more funds can be invested in education, and the corresponding teaching quality will be better.

The opposite can also be said... places with good education generally have high property taxes.

Therefore, the so-called public school district housing in the Dachu Empire is more difficult to obtain than the so-called school district housing in later generations. The school district housing in later generations is just a one-time expense. You can get it by gritting your teeth and emptying six wallets. But in the Dachu Empire If you buy a house in a good school district, you have to pay the real estate tax every year... and the real estate tax rate in good school districts is often the highest: [-]%.

For a house worth [-] yuan, you have to pay a real estate tax of [-] yuan every year... After more than thirty years, the tax money has become more expensive than the house price.

The real estate tax in ordinary communities is much lower. The real estate tax rate in most mid-to-high-end communities is around [-]%. As for ordinary communities, it is only a few tenths of a percent...

Real estate tax is directly proportional to house prices. The higher the house price, the higher the tax rate.

In a region, the most expensive communities need to pay a top real estate tax of [-]%, while ordinary communities may pay only one or two points, or even a few tenths.

If it is a community with a large concentration of low-income groups and vast rural areas, special policies will be given, and you can apply for real estate tax rebate, that is, real estate tax exemption.

Luo Zhixue is not stupid enough to go to low-income communities or rural areas and make these poor people who have difficulty eating pay real estate taxes... This is no different from digging their own graves.

For the sake of his son's future, An Tongxuan has prepared a house in a good school district in Songjiang in advance. However, that is at the middle school stage. There are still a few years of primary school education left, so he can only do it here in Cadiz. As for He had never considered schools in the Isle of Man.

At the same time, it is even more impossible to bring the children to the Kingdom of Wales... there is not even a school there.

So he could only work hard and commute regularly between Cadiz and the Kingdom of Wales.

In order to make it easier for himself and his employees to travel back and forth, he even purchased a second-hand ship, which is the ship he is currently riding, to regularly transport goods between the Kingdom of Wales and Cadiz, and to carry company employees on their trips.

Otherwise, it would be difficult for him and his employees to travel. After all, there are not many shipping companies' ships going to their company's own small private port.

The ship went all the way north along the coastline, crossed the Bay of Biscay, and continued northward at the southern end of the English Channel into Bustoll Bay. After a journey of more than 2000 kilometers, it arrived in Cardiff, which is owned by their company. The main export port for coal and iron ore.

Although this place still nominally belongs to the Kingdom of Wales, in order to facilitate the export of coal and iron ore, he spent money to purchase a large area of ​​​​the entire Cardiff port and a castle.

A simple wharf and warehouse were built here, as well as a dozens of kilometers of railway, which connects all the way north to the mines owned by his company.

Once here, we have reached An Tongxuan’s territory!
(End of this chapter)