Hassan and others quickly boarded several large four-wheeled passenger carriages, then left the dock hotel under the escort of eight cavalrymen and headed towards the Executive Committee Administration Building. The carriages were driving very smoothly along the way, and it was obvious that the road was smooth and smooth, which surprised Hassan.

Perhaps, all the secrets are on the dark matter on the road? Hassan guessed secretly.

The road from the dock hotel to the city is empty. After driving at high speed for a while, the carriage approached the city wall, and the speed slowed down. Hassan sat straight straight without hesitation, and looked carefully at the city ahead through the gap above the small door at the front of the carriage.

What caught my eye was a huge city tower, uh... maybe it was more suitable to call it a cannon tower. I saw more than eight cannons were placed above the small city tower. The black muzzle and the solid artillery bunker told people that it was not just for viewing. Hassan soon noticed that there seemed to be more than this city tower on this city wall. At least hundreds of meters left and right of this city tower, he also saw a city tower protruding from the city wall, and 6-8 cannons were placed on each city tower.

The further distance is limited to the angle, because the city wall is not straight. In fact, this city wall is presented in a sharp prism shape, and Hassan is very clear about this construction method. This kind of city wall with a large number of sharp raised walls can effectively reduce the bomb area and greatly reduce the destructive power of artillery to the city wall. The Austrians built many such fortresses on the border, which caused a lot of hardships in the Ottoman army.

At the gate of the city were eight internal affairs policemen in black uniforms, wearing breastplates, carrying rifles and sabers. After meticulously checking the documents handed over by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hassan noticed that after the police were released, more than ten policemen on the city tower, who also held rifles, moved their attention away from them.

It was really a strict guard! Hassan sighed that the Ottoman Empire was once so disciplined and meticulous, but at a time, bureaucratic style such as weak sense of responsibility and overbearing affairs began to erode the fighting spirit that the Ottomans were once proud of, and this old empire began to slide downward from its peak step by step.

Looking back on the glory of the past, look at the current weakening of the Ottoman team. As an authentic Turk, Hassan couldn't help but feel a little sad. The Ottoman Empire can only rely on new armies formed based on alien races and pagans. After more than a hundred years of development and growth, these new armies have shown a certain decline, no longer the iron-blooded pride and ambition of the past. Many officers and soldiers of the new army are attacked by father and son, and under the combat effectiveness

The troops were subsided very quickly, and the warlordization of the troops was also severe. Even when the Empress Dowager was in power, there was a rebellion. Although the Ottoman Empire still looked as strong as flowers and fire, Hassan, who had been in the Ottoman team for several generations, knew in his heart that the frequent national chaos is actually on the decline. Moreover, judging from the current chaotic political situation in the country, there is no hope of this trend being reversed.

The carriage walked through the long door opening. Many hidden holes were set up in the walls on both sides of the door opening, which was a measure to enhance the strength of the city gate guards. The area 100 meters behind the door opening was empty, with only a few chest walls standing alone, which was in sharp contrast with the lively street market more than 100 meters away. As a professional officer, Hassan understood that setting up an isolation belt near the city wall was to facilitate garrisoning and dispatching troops to better use the city wall for defense.

The street is very wide, enough for two such large carriages in parallel and still have plenty of extravagance. But what is strange is that the bustling crowds on the roadside do not walk on the wide streets, but instead walk crowded on the gravel roads outside the white lines on both sides of the street. After asking diplomats accompanying the East Coast Republic, they learned that the asphalt roads within the white lines are specially designed for carriages, ox carriages, and horses, and pedestrians outside the white lines are the passages that pedestrians should walk. Of course, the army being mobilized, the police can also use the asphalt roads within the white lines.

There are many buildings lined up on both sides of the road, and Hassan noticed that most of them were shops. People from the East Coast told him before that Dongfanggang South City is a commercial district, mostly commercial buildings. The shops on the roadside include state-owned stores selling agricultural tools, knives, seeds, fine salt, grain and other items, and private stores selling coffee, cocoa, tofu, cooking oil, fruit and other consumer goods. No matter which store, its store seems to be made of thick style made of strips of stone and red bricks, and windows

It was also very small, and the houses were usually only one floor. Hassan was a little surprised. He heard that this port city is the capital of the East Coast people, but why are the houses and the city walls almost all of them thick, bulky and sturdy? Such a solid building, even if the enemy of the city outside the city uses a mortar to shoot shells into the city, is it very limited to the effect. The terrible East Coast people, is this city and this country completely a military machine?

The buzzing voices of people on both sides of the street floated into the carriage from time to time. Hassan observed silently that many people on both sides of the road were wearing blue tops with four bags and walked slowly on both sides of the road. East Coast diplomats told Hassan that these were factory workers who had finished their work. They went to the commercial area to buy some daily consumer goods such as tobacco, alcohol, sugar, cocoa, coffee, fruits, etc. This surprised Hassan. Can these ordinary citizens afford these "luxury goods"?

Faced with Hassan's questions, the accompanying East Coast diplomats patiently explained to him that those who can come to the commercial area to shop frequently are usually intermediate or above technicians, teachers, military non-commissioned officers and above in the factory, government staff, businessmen and wealthy farmers nearby, whose annual income is generally between 60-100 yuan.

Nowadays, the white wine produced in South Africa - Hezhong Daqu, is only a cheaper one cent per bottle, and only a price of one yuan. Local bulk liquor is even cheaper, and rarely more than one cent per pound. The white wine is like this, and the others are similar. Spending one or two yuan or even three or four yuan a month on these daily consumer goods is not a big problem for the East Coast middle class who has earned dozens or hundreds of yuan in these years.

Hassan was speechless about this. Compared with the East Coast, the consumption capacity of the Ottoman people was a little worse than that of the eldest. Even Turks, if you did not find a position in the government or the army and did not have any land or shops at home, it would be unimaginable to imagine the people on the East Coast. Of course, some people may say that these people are the middle class of the East Coast Republic, and it is natural to have a high standard of living. But only Hassan himself knows how big the gap between the rich and the poor in the Ottoman Empire is and how miserable the lives of ordinary farmers are. The East Coast people said just now that in their country, even an ordinary farmer, as long as he worked hard to farm, his annual income would never be less than 30 yuan, and the higher ones might be 40-50 yuan. According to the price level of the East Coast, their living standards would be far higher than that of ordinary farmers in the Ottoman Empire, which is beyond doubt.

What exactly makes the East Coast country so rich that their living standards can be comparable to those of the middle and upper classes of the Ottoman Empire? Hassan was a little confused and puzzled. Because now he would not understand how big the gap is between an industrial country and an agricultural country in the efficiency of creating wealth. Even if the East Coast Republic of China is not a complete and thorough industrialized country today, its efficiency and speed of creating wealth are far from comparable to traditional agricultural countries like the Ottoman Empire.

What's more, the Ottoman Empire was a backward feudal country with prominent domestic ethnic conflicts and retained a large number of slavery, and its production efficiency was even lower. Industrial and agricultural countries were not at the same level in terms of production efficiency and organizational system, which was proven by the history of human development.

Passing through this street about 200 meters long, the carriage crossed a stone bridge and entered the Beicheng area. As the industrial and administrative area of ​​Dongfang Port, Beicheng can be said to be the core area of ​​Dongfang Port. Along the banks of Dayu River, there are chimneys in the machine textile factory, mint, arsenal and other factory areas, and the rolling smoke rose from the chimney entrances ranging from a height of several meters to more than ten meters, and it looked so eye-catching under the blue sky.

Since the Government Council vigorously promotes a new generation of power - steam engines to replace the hydraulic machinery that was used in the past, many factories have built boiler rooms and used a large amount of coal mined from the north to transport as fuel. This has caused the scene of chimneys in the North City Industrial Zone of Dongfang Port. In fact, this is nothing. If you have time to go to the heavy industrial zone of Ping'an County in the northern region, you will have a deeper understanding of what is called thick smoke and what is called coal ash. Ping'an Town, which gathers heavy industrial plants such as Ping'an Steel Plant, Coking Plant, First Machinery Plant, Northern Arsenal, and Dye Factory, is the first industrial center in the East Coast Republic of China. In comparison, these chimneys in Dongfang Port are all small, and the air quality is much better than Ping'an Town.

Looking at the strange scenes in front of him that he had never seen before, Hassan's heart was greatly impacted. He was not an unsightly person. There were many workshops in the Ottoman Empire that used coal as fuel, but never built a huge chimney like the people on the East Coast. In his simple understanding, the larger the chimney, the higher the chimney, the larger the scale of the workshop, the more people they hire, and the greater the production capacity.
Chapter completed!