Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1977 Trivia in South Africa ([-])

"The orioles and flowers in the abandoned garden are all gone, and the oats are growing in the barren platform. The youth is like passing water, and the pink and black recall the city. The wild chrysanthemums and gold tins are small, and the autumn ponds are clear. Whoever pityed the old days and moons once illuminated the sun." I entrusted this song with the meaning of grief. After writing the title of his poem on a painting, Bai Yutang stared blankly at the woman on the painting for a long time, then sighed sadly, carefully put away the painting scroll, and put it in his safe.

The painting depicts his late wife who died of illness less than a year ago. She was originally the daughter of Xiao Mingli, a civil affairs committee member of the first generation of East Bank. It is quite a pity that I was not yet 50 years old, but I couldn't afford it, and then passed away suddenly.

The woman in the painting is quite tall, wearing a valuable mink fur hat on her head, with braids hanging on both sides of her ears, which seems to have a grassland style, and also resembles the common hair style of European Slavic women, which may be related to her mother being a foreigner.But apart from her hair style, her clothes are almost Chinese style. Her upper body is wearing a half-sleeved silk coat, a straight-necked long-sleeved top, a belt, and long pointed-toed leather boots.

Admittedly, these styles are not all the common clothing styles of women in mainland China at this time, because they seem to be more masculine, with a more masculine and feminine style, which may be related to the environment, climate, geography and folk customs of the east coast.Men and women on the east coast, especially those who lived on the prairie on the east coast when they were young, almost no one has never seen a horse, and it is even possible that most men and women have ridden more or less when they were young.With such a cultural and custom background, the scope of nature and activities is narrow, and the personal freedom is limited by the traditional etiquette. The ladies and wives who do not leave the door are very different, so it is reflected in the clothing, and there is a difference between the two. Quite a difference.

You are in mainland China, not to mention Guo, Shun and Qing, but Ningbo, Denglai and other places where people from the east coast have ruled for many years. When have you ever seen a woman wearing long leather boots ostentatiously?Occasionally, there are a few family members of officials on the east bank. They have lived on the prairie on the east bank since they were young, and their customs have not changed since they came to Ningbo or Denglai.

Of course, the influence of traditional Chinese clothing on the people on the east coast is also very great, especially in the current situation when the proportion of Ming people in this country is increasing (including the second and third generations born in China), the penetration of traditional Chinese clothing is also ubiquitous.For example, the styles of the half-sleeved and long-sleeved clothes in the painting have a strong style of women in the Central Plains of Han Dynasty, and they look well-made. At first glance, they are made by famous artists in Suzhou and Hangzhou. They should be Su Songhuai who was forced to move to the east bank at the beginning. Works by Orito from other places.

Compared with these, in fact, the clothing traces brought by the time-travelers have gradually faded over the years.Especially those modern women’s clothing, to be honest, except for being popular for a while in the early days, if you go to see it now, except for some that can be seen on Qingdao Expo Street (but it has changed a lot from the beginning), basically they have disappeared up.This proves that no matter how wise and powerful the time-travelers are, they still don't have much advantage in front of the aesthetics of millions of people.

An interesting fact is that the men's popularity brought by crossovers is much stronger than that of women's clothing.Especially the white shirts and Chinese tunic suits of government officials, woolen overcoats of military officers, etc., are still relatively popular among adult men because of their professional halo, and the price of a set of such clothing with exquisite materials is not high. Too expensive, so it became popular.

In addition, the jewelry of women on the east coast is similar to that of Middle Earth, but there are also differences.Because the location is close to the silver production area and the average income is far higher than that in mainland China, silver jewelry is very popular here, and almost every woman owns a few pieces. Therefore, the business of silversmiths is very hot, and they have become a high-income group.Silver bracelets, silver hairpins, silver hairpins, silver earrings, etc. are the most common. In addition, jewelry products such as tortoiseshell, ivory, black pearls, diamonds, and gemstones are cheaper because of the developed overseas trade on the east coast. Therefore, it is widely used, which is unmatched in mainland China.

Of course, mainland China also has an advantage, that is, there are more raw materials in male accessories, such as the famous jade.Bai Yutang always carried the lotus-titled swan accessory that his wife had ordered for him all year round. The whole body was carved out of high-quality Hetian jade, which cost a lot of money, and it was something he cherished.

Men and women on the east coast love things like jade. This may be due to the influence of traditional culture, and the things in their bones will never change.However, due to the scarcity of raw materials, it has been the patent of high-ranking officials or wealthy businessmen for many years. They set high prices in mainland China to find people to order, which once raised the market price of jade in many places, but there is no one.

However, with the gradual deepening of overseas trade in recent years, more businessmen have traveled to Russia, North America, India and the colonies on the east coast.Coupled with the efforts of the Dutch East India Company, a trading giant, all kinds of jade and emeralds from all over the world began to flow into the east coast, which greatly reduced the cost of men on the east coast to purchase accessories.Coupled with the news of the discovery of raw jade ore in Eastern Brazil, the market price of jade plummeted even more, making this kind of jewelry affordable to more people and spread more widely.From this point of view, it is not a bad thing.

All in all, it has been nearly 60 years since the founding of the East Coast Republic of China. Due to the effects of geography, environment, climate and other factors, it has gradually formed its own various cultural characteristics.Moreover, with the development of the economy and the strength of the national power, the cultural self-confidence of the people on the east coast is getting stronger and stronger, so that they now hold a look down attitude towards many people in the old continent, even for the source of the mother culture, mainland China. is also like this.

Who told them to be weak now?In this world, being weak is the original sin, that is, having no human rights.When the gunboats of the people on the east coast can sail freely in the Yangtze River without any restraint, you are definitely thinking too much about how much respect the people on the east coast have for the people on this continent.You know, in today's east coast, a lot of people think that the orthodoxy of Chinese culture should be inherited by their east coast people, because only they can carry forward this culture and spread it to all parts of the world.Because of this kind of thing, it is obviously impossible to rely on the Ming, Shun, Qing and other countries with many internal problems and years of wars!

Loving the poor and loving the rich, and bullying the weak are the principles of this world.Peddlers on the east coast can wear decent cotton, woolen or even silk-cotton blended clothes, so that they are publicly denounced by newspapers as "luxury fashion", but people in mainland China are struggling to survive because of successive years of war , At this time, it is very difficult for you to make people feel respect and admiration for them, it is impossible at all.

Bai Yutang's perception of mainland China is almost the same.And it just so happens that he has just received an order from his superiors recently, and he is likely to go to the Far East to take up an important position, so he plans to go there and take a good look (leaving South Africa, a sad place with unpleasant memories, by the way), to see how the origin of Chinese civilization is. how.Of course, before leaving, he first needs to deal with the beginning and end of this side, and handle the handover affairs with the new commissioner of the Hezhong District Administrative Office.

The first thing is naturally the matter of the South African River Railway.In order to build this railway, the Hezhong area was burdened with a heavy debt burden, about tens of thousands of yuan.This amount may not be considered expensive at the national level, but for a region with a population of less than 10, it is really fatal!No way, the local government can only save money every year, make a good repayment plan, and then reduce the debt step by step-for a fashionable thing (railway), the people in the Hezhong area have already paid the price.In the future, we can only count on the great economic development of the Hezhong area. The railway and other income will offset this part of the loss. There is no other way.

The second thing is the urban renewal of Cape Town Freeport.There is no doubt that this is also a big project, and it will cost a lot of money.But as a free port and a developing commercial city, if Cape Town wants to achieve further development in the future, these are all necessary.Therefore, the regional administrative office and the Cape County government must work together to raise enough funds to build urban water and sewage facilities, sewage treatment facilities, gas lighting systems, and urban light rail. Otherwise, Cape Town’s development will have an upper limit. This is Everyone doesn't want to see it.

Of course, the urban layout in the Dutch era was relatively messy, the docks were not big enough, and the facilities were old and dilapidated. Many things needed to be updated and improved, so this was also an expense.Fortunately, there are more and more ships from various countries calling at Cape Town Freeport, and the number of commodities that can be traded on the market is also increasing, so the government's income is also rising. This is undoubtedly a big challenge for various municipal construction projects. Good.

The third thing—in fact, the most important thing—is that a new round of expansion in South Africa can be put on the agenda.After all, Marshal Yang Liang is not a simple eater. He sometimes commanded troops to fight in the Yicheng area, and sometimes ran to the Great and Little Karoo Plateau and the desert in the north, leading the cavalry to carry out large-scale sweeps, basically wiping out all the local indigenous forces. sweep away.In this way, it became necessary to send a small number of farmers and herdsmen to occupy these vast new lands—this is also the local policy, that is, the land in southern Africa should be occupied as much as possible, and all black people should be relocated. Let's go, the red line of the yellow-black dividing line must be held. This is a major issue related to the survival of the nation and cannot be sloppy.

The above-mentioned three things have actually been going on in the previous and current Hezhong District Governments (whose commissioners are all Ta Bai).All Bai Yutang needs to do now is to have a good handover with the new regional chief so that the next government will continue to follow the current route. In fact, there is nothing special about it.

(End of this chapter)