Chapter 3516
Chapter 3516
Chapter 3516
Regardless of the real reason why Hai Han dealt with Japan, it at least shows one thing, that is, Hai Han's attention has turned elsewhere at this stage. The Ming Dynasty is no longer Hai Han's primary target for the time being, and Yue Shizong, who is under tremendous pressure, can also breathe a sigh of relief.
He believed that it was a major mistake for the court not to send important figures to attend the Zhoushan Forum. The large amount of information that could be accessed during the event was actually far better than the blind speculations of those people in the capital behind closed doors.
If the imperial court could send a powerful university scholar or a royal relative, there would be much more room for maneuver in negotiations with the Hai Han Executive Committee. Even Wang Chengen, the eunuch who represented the Ming Dynasty in the armistice negotiations with Hai Han last year, would be fine.
Yue Shizong himself was just a Langzhong of the Ministry of Rites, an ordinary fifth-rank official. He was usually good at acting as a loudspeaker to pass messages between the two sides, but when it came to bargaining, he was no longer qualified.
Moreover, going to Japan for inspection is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you miss this opportunity, you don’t know when the next time will be.
In fact, Yue Shizong wanted to sign up the moment he heard about this arrangement, but in order to save the face of the Ming Dynasty, he deliberately delayed signing up until the last deadline. This way, it would seem that the Ming Dynasty was at least relatively independent and would not be easily manipulated by Hai Han.
Taking advantage of the breaks in the forum activities, Yue Shizong also visited several exhibitions held on Zhoushan Island.
But compared to the envoys from small countries who were amazed at Hai Han's industrial products, Yue Shizong seemed much calmer. He was stationed in Hangzhou and had seen all kinds of strange and bizarre things on a daily basis. In his opinion, there was not much new in these exhibitions.
Moreover, not everything you see at the exhibition can be bought. Many things are not for sale and are used to demonstrate technological strength. One of them is the steam engine exhibition, which is only open to politicians from various countries participating in the forum.
For example, the steam engine represents Hai Han's advanced technology. Although its design and operating principles have long been leaked, and many countries including the Ming Dynasty have been secretly imitating it, so far no country's imitations can achieve the performance of Hai Han's steam engine, let alone achieve mass production and large-scale use.
Moreover, Hai Han’s steam engines have never been sold to other countries. Even its closest vassal states have been trying to buy them for many years without success.
The steam-powered equipment exhibited in Zhoushan this time are all new models developed in the past two years. They have been widely used in mining, textile, transportation, agricultural product processing and other industries. The production efficiency is enough to make the guests visiting the exhibition drool.
The most eye-catching thing at the exhibition was a huge steam locomotive.
For some guests who have not yet seen the Haihan Railway and trains, this huge iron lump that is several meters long and weighs more than 100,000 kilograms is too visually impactful.
Qiao Zhiya, who represented the Executive Committee to attend the steam engine exhibition, introduced the purpose of this steam locomotive to the guests present - it will be deployed on the Hangzhou-Ningbo Railway under construction and will become the main transportation force between Ningbo and Hangzhou in the future.
The performance of the steam locomotive was so impressive that it could travel 100 miles in an hour without stopping to rest like a horse-drawn carriage. The load it could tow was equivalent to that of thousands of horse-drawn carriages.
After the Hangzhou-Ningbo Railway is completed, it will only take half a day by train to reach Hangzhou, 300 miles away, from Zhenhai Port at the mouth of the Yongjiang River in Ningbo.
Zheng Zao, Li Yi and others who were lucky enough to ride the train on Hainan Island spared no effort to prove to other guests that what Qiao Zhiya said was true and that the Haihan train did have such an amazing capacity. Of course, there is no such a perfect thing in the world, and the shortcomings of the train are also very obvious, that is, it is necessary to first build an extremely expensive railway system.
Many guests present were interested in this, but after asking around, they found out that their country was simply unable to afford the initial construction costs.
Without calculating the cost of the project, every foot of railway extension would require dozens of kilograms of steel. The Hangzhou-Ningbo Railway was three hundred miles long, and a double track was to be built, requiring tens of millions of kilograms of steel. Apart from Hai Han, which country in the world had sufficient steel production to build a road?
Hai Han not only has to build the Hangzhou-Ningbo Railway, but also has many other railways that are being planned or are about to start construction.
For example, the planned length of the railway from Shenyang City to Jinzhou in the Northern Region is three times that of the Hangzhou-Nanjing Railway, and the construction period is expected to be as long as ten years.
As for railways with a length of less than 100 miles, there are already no less than ten plans submitted to the Executive Committee. Even the North American region across the ocean is planning to build a freight railway from Jinshan Port to the inland area in order to mine the local gold mines.
As a result, other countries also gained a clearer understanding of Hai Han's national strength. Many people immediately thought, if such a terrifying steel production capacity was used to manufacture weapons and armor, how many armies could be armed? If the already invincible Hai Han had another million armored troops, who in the world could stop it?
Those who are close to Hai Han naturally exclaim that Hai Han is amazing, and their admiration for Hai Han is beyond words. They are determined to follow Hai Han wholeheartedly. However, some people who see themselves as Hai Han's competitors cannot help but feel heavy-hearted. After all, facing an opponent as powerful as Hai Han, no matter what they do, it is difficult to win.
As for those who viewed Hai Han as their enemy, they were inevitably hit hard by this. The disparity in strength was so huge that it was simply despairing.
What is even more fatal is that this gap is still widening, because Hai Han’s investment in infrastructure projects will slowly transform into long-term benefits and become part of Hai Han’s national strength.
Although Hai Han had no plans to sell various steam engines at the exhibition, with the help of this advanced equipment, it was able to promote many industrial cooperation projects to various countries.
Whether it was cooperating in mining or establishing plantations, the steam engine could greatly improve production efficiency, which was an indisputable fact. This also convinced the countries that accepted the promotion that cooperating with Hai Han would ensure that they would get more benefits.
Among the participating countries, the only one that was unable to get a share of the pie was probably the Ming Dynasty.
Due to last year’s war, there is currently no cooperation between the two sides, and Yue Shizong can only watch other countries negotiate projects with Hai Han.
Yue Shizong was very clear that once these countries established cooperative business projects with Hai Han, they would basically be tied to Hai Han’s chariot and would no longer be able to speak for the Ming Dynasty.
Yue Shizong suddenly felt that the court’s thinking was a bit stubborn. Even the Qing Dynasty was trying to resolve conflicts with Hai Han and seek cooperation. So why did the Ming Dynasty insist on going down the same path and remain hostile to Hai Han?
If the imperial court, like other countries, recognized Hai Han as its common leader and regarded itself as a vassal state, would life be easier?
This thought flashed through Yue Shizong's mind, but he immediately suppressed it. This was too rebellious. If people knew about it, losing his job would be a small matter. He might even be accused of treason and collaborating with the enemy.