Mall Port has been silent for many years.∈◆

Since the outbreak of the Second East-West War, with the evacuation of the Spanish merchants, the most important merchant, the evacuation of the Spanish merchants, the place was destined to be unable to continue. After the war, perhaps he had lost confidence in the place, and most of the left Spanish people never returned. They sold their museums at low prices through various channels, and then disappeared, even the Rodriguez family, who was once very popular at that time. Of course, their family did not withdraw from the trade with the East Coast. Their family has now switched to Qingdao Port and opened a large-scale shopping mall there, and started import and export trade openly. It is said that the business is pretty good.

But no matter what, the once noisy Mall Port is completely prosperous.

Qiang Quansheng and Zhou Shenwo sat in a spacious open carriage, escorted by the guards, from the dock all the way to the city. The construction of the dock seemed a bit messy, including the reinforced wooden docks built by Spain and Portuguese merchants in the past, and the brick and wood mixed structure docks built by the East Coast people in the early days. Of course, in recent years, local officials have organized people to repair and expand this type of dock many times, and used a large amount of steel bars, cement and other building materials. Therefore, the docks of the Mall Port are a history of technological progress on the East Coast, which made Qiang Quansheng feel a little moved.

From the wharf to the city is a wide sandy road, which looks a bit bumpy. Many road surfaces have traces of repair. It can be seen that the finances of local towns and governments may have not been very abundant. They have never had the money to purchase more expensive asphalt on the east coast to transform the road. They can only use the seams and patches of the roads built during the prosperity of this mall port (which was also called Colonia at the time). Anyway, there are no people here. Isn't it?

The buildings in the urban area are also somewhat mottled. They were generally built more than ten or twenty years ago. Qiang Quansheng looked around and saw that the cement or lime painted on the exterior walls of most houses had traces of cracking, but this seemed to be unimpeded. Of course, a few people were willing to paint lime and cement on the houses. Most people's residence walls were exposed, with red bricks and blue bricks shining together, and the wild flowers at the foot of the walls and beside the flower beds blooming brightly. In this city that lacks beauty, it really looks a bit unique.

"There are so many fruit trees here." Zhou Shenwo looked at both sides of the street. Whether it was a house or a shop, or a department or a department, there were basically many fruit trees planted in his yard. Among them were peach trees, orange trees, pear trees, and loquat trees. I had long heard that the fruits in these places were particularly sweet, and now it seems that they are really worthy of their reputation.

There are occasionally some stone buildings on both sides of the street, but they are all typical European style. You can see from the simple relief carved on the walls of religious style. These were built by the rich La Plata merchants at that time. At that time, it was still in the east and west. Spanish merchants, whether for investment, enjoyment or cunning, had the idea of ​​building a large number of private villas here. The styles are different, and they are very comfortable to live in. Now these villas are sold to the East Coast people for no money. The Spanish guys who lived here all year round did not know where they went, maybe they died in the war or the Crandi riots? Just casually, who cares!

There were many pedestrians by the street, and the business was pretty good. Qiang Quansheng had long heard that the Shopping Port was a large settlement on the east coast, and in fact it exceeded the red line of 6,000 people, reaching 6,600 people. Among them, the proportion of Europeans was quite high, and to some extent, it was probably the highest in the east coast. Because during the prosperous business period, merchants from all over the country brought a lot of servants from the Old Continent, mostly Spanish and Italians. These people were controlled by the East Coast people during the war. After the war, most of them chose to join the East Coast nationality and did not return to La Plata. In addition, they tried every means to pick up relatives and friends from the Old Continent. The population of these places suddenly rose up, and the streets were full of Europeans.

After the Shangchenggang returned to agricultural townships from commercial ports, the per capita income of residents decreased significantly, and many people experienced this painful transformation process. Fortunately, with the decline of commercial activity, local prices also fell, so everyone's living standards did not decline too much. Today, Shangchenggang, just like most agricultural towns in the East Coast, the people can eat and wear warm clothes, but there is no doubt that they are relatively "poor" because they lack sufficient channels to earn cash - especially in the stage when agricultural products are not very prosperous today - the so-called "no labor is not rich" is a true portrayal of the vast rural areas of the East Coast Republic today.

The township government arrived soon. This sturdy and beautiful building was built during the prosperous trade period and was hidden in a beautiful bush. Large grape trellis were placed in the yard of the township government. It is conceivable that when the grapes are ripe, this place should be a good place to cool off in summer.

Most of the township government officials were in the office. At this moment, they were very excited when they heard the arrival of the central officials. Perhaps they had heard about some things from other channels, such as the reopening of the port of Shangcheng Port. Qiang Quansheng knew that many of them had served here during the period of trade prosperity. At that time, they should have been members of the representative office on the east coast of Colonia. After the East Coast completely occupied this place, some of them returned to the capital's Trade Department, but most of the middle and low-level representatives stayed and transferred to officials of the Shangcheng Township Government on the spot.

"It's too difficult now." The township chief complained as soon as he came up. "The big town with more than 6,000 people, white skin - well, Italian and Hispanic - has so many residents, it's really hard to manage. In recent years, the weather here has been good, and there are no diseases or disasters. Many people have given birth to one baby after another. The burden on the village is too heavy. Language night schools and popularizing primary school education are going to cost most of the village's funds every year. If the Ministry of Education had not seen us, we would have allocated some funds last time, and our village would probably not be able to build the only two-year junior high school.

After five years of primary school, the children had to go home to farm. How could we parents be patient? In addition, there are medical funds, training for part-time village doctors in each village; the construction of rural water conservancy facilities, the maintenance of existing irrigation canals, and the construction of new water lifting stations; not to mention the renovation of sewage discharge facilities in the old urban area, which is even more of a huge sum of money. The Railway Administration is a bit conscientious and pulled up the cable telegrams for us in advance. It has been connected to Jingjiang County, but what's the use? Anyway, no one here usually sends and receives telegrams. Look at how idle the telegrapher is all day long..."

Qiang Quansheng's head hurts again. To be honest, he and some other "big cadres" in the capital are really afraid of going to the countryside now. Every time he gets off the country, he will inevitably face the common complaints of grassroots officials. Especially in the monetization policy that began to be popularized nationwide more than ten years ago (that is, grassroots officials can no longer drive the people to do this and that outside the 15-day corvee period a year, unless they pay compensation), and after losing the power to drive the people in their jurisdiction to work for free, the energy of the township government has been greatly reduced and the funds have also become short of funds. This is almost commonplace in the country, even those counties that are commonly known as wealthy. Because the central government takes away the financial power and then uniformly allocates it across the country, the so-called national chess game is also called a game of chess. Therefore, even the township governments in rich areas are not necessarily much more abundant than those in Shangcheng Township, and it is difficult for everyone to do so!

"Minister Qiang, I heard that the central government will reopen its port in the Mall Port this time. Everyone was excited when they heard it. We were still planning to ask someone to contact the La Plata and Brazilian merchants who were doing business here in a while, and then make the import and export trade of Mall Port, so that our lives would be much better." An official shouted immediately. Most of these people were from veterans and had carried guns with time travelers back then, and their relationship was different. Therefore, everyone's relationship was relatively easy-going and they dared to say anything.

"Who is rumoring this..." Qiang Quansheng was suddenly full of dark lines when he heard this. The matter was not yet concluded by the Executive Committee, why did it make the city storm?

"Commissioner Qiang, I heard that there will be trains here after the mall is opened, right? Everyone can take the train to travel far away in the future?" Some officials began to look forward to it.

"Last time, the people from the General Administration came to the north to measure the land, saying that they would build several new towns in the inland hinterland. In the future, these towns will serve us. Well, if we farm for us, we will engage in import and export trade."

"I have a comrade in the Army Department. Last time he told me that the Army Department intends to set up a battalion number here, so that many people here will be in the army to eat imperial food."

...

The cadres of Shangcheng Township Government were very enthusiastic. Almost one question after another was thrown at Qiang Quansheng and Zhou Shenwo, making them embarrassed and had no answer at all. They could only talk about him. Faced with such a dilemma, the two did not dare to stay longer. After symbolically visiting Shangcheng Township and an affiliated Army military horse farm, the two quickly left here by boat, and then arrived at Qingdao Port on October 13, finally getting rid of the embarrassing state before.
Chapter completed!