Han Shizu

Chapter 2194 Renzong Chapter 11 Greater Shanghai

In the early autumn of the 1062st year of Zhengtong (), Shanghai.

The water of Songjiang River still flows eastward into the sea along the existing channel, day and night. Shanghai, which has been established for nearly 70 years, has completely transformed into a prosperous and affluent "international metropolis", a port city with the strongest commercial atmosphere and the freest economic and trade activities in the Han Empire.

The word "city" has existed since ancient times, and its meaning is correct, but it is the first time that it has been used as an independent administrative division. "Shanghai City" has long been a magical new thing for the empire.

If we include the period when Emperor Taizu set up the "Shanghai Affairs Office", Shanghai has a history of nearly 100 years of development in the Han Empire. A hundred years of development and expansion gave birth to such a unique "monster city", which is still bizarre without the flashing neon lights.

After the wild growth of the Kaibao, Yongxi, and Pingkang periods, and the regulation and restraint of the Jianlong period, Shanghai in the Zhengtong era has become much more orderly than before. In addition to the increasing attention and concern of the court, it is also because various interest groups and various factions have filled it and formed a considerable balance.

For the vested interest groups, after the primitive accumulation is completed, what they want is consolidation rather than expansion, a stable order that is conducive to their rule. They control the resources and operating rules of the upper class of society and are natural conservatives and guardians.

Of course, among the upper ruling class of the entire Han Empire, the "emerging" southeastern dignitaries represented by Shanghai belong to the radicals and reformists.

At the same time, the upper echelons of power who control the operation of Shanghai City pursue and achieve an order that only guarantees their status and does not affect their profiteering. Therefore, Shanghai has never been peaceful.

As a place where wealth gathers in the southeast, Shanghai people are always the most impetuous. Countless people are chasing fame and fortune, and various power struggles are going on day and night. Every corpse deposited at the bottom of Songjiang River is accompanied by a grudge, love and hatred, and a conflict of interest.

There are always rows of sails on the Songjiang River, and dozens of large and small docks are spread along both banks. However, they are never empty, and there are always ships from home and abroad loaded with various goods to fill them.

Shanghai's dock workers are an extremely large group. They carry the prosperity of the city on their shoulders.

Over the long years, they and other grassroots workers gradually formed the largest folk (grassroots) group in Shanghai - the Red Gang, which was known as the "Three Southern Gangs" together with the Lianghuai Cao Gang and the Jianghu (Jiangnan and Lianghu) Boat Gang, even though they were more regarded as thugs of the powerful and big business gangs.

They are even famous both at home and abroad. In the past half century, hundreds of thousands of Red Gang members have sailed to the sea and explored the Southeast Asian countries. They are the most welcomed immigrant group in all the major countries. Although they do not have much wealth and resources, they have strong cohesion and can fight well. They are the best fighters against the indigenous forces.

Extending for dozens of miles north and south along the river bank, there are dense warehouses, godowns, guest houses and inns. The roads are dense and extend in all directions. Buildings of various heights and shapes are lined up in sequence. There are many carriages and horses, and the area is densely populated. This is the most prominent feature of the "port area".

There is no night all year round and the lights are bright.

According to a large-scale census conducted by the Shanghai government in the 1054th year of the Zhengtong period (), the population of Shanghai had reached . Now, nearly ten years have passed, and many people predict that Shanghai will emerge as the third city in the Han Empire with a population exceeding one million.

Over the past few decades, the overall population of the Han Empire has continued to grow, but for major cities, a population of over one million is still a hurdle and an insurmountable gap.

In the south, Jinling, Yangzhou, Hangzhou and Guangzhou were the cities with the greatest hope of making a breakthrough, but they were always a little short of achieving their goals. On the contrary, Shanghai was catching up step by step, from scratch, and was absorbing foreign population almost non-stop.

Shanghai is obviously a city driven by business. Since its establishment, commerce and trade have been the core of the city's operation. It seems to have a kind of magic that attracts all kinds of resources.

Of course, the southward shift of the empire's economic center, the rich resources of the southeastern provinces, the booming overseas trade, the unique geographical location, political attempts and support, and a little historical coincidence all together gave birth to a city like Shanghai.

There is only one such dynasty in the entire Han Empire.

In many people's impressions, Shanghai is a city full of gold, and what flows in Songjiang River is not water, but wealth. This has also attracted countless adventurers from home and abroad to come here to pan for gold, even though many people never understand until their death that they came here with great expectations and worked hard to produce, but in the end they were just nutrients for the development of this city and just contributed to the wealth of many powerful and wealthy families.

The speed of Shanghai's "internationalization" process was the fastest in the empire. By the 21st year of Zhengtong, there were more than 100,000 foreign businessmen and travelers living in Shanghai all year round. In addition to the "traditional allies" Goryeo and Japan, there were also people from India and Persia.

Since the Guangzhou Incident (the purge and massacre of Guangzhou Muslims) in the later years of Emperor Taizu, the Han Empire had always maintained a strict standard of exclusion towards foreign merchants, especially those religious elements.

However, the temptation of economic interests and political suppression could not dampen the enthusiasm of these people to embrace the Celestial Empire. Especially in recent decades, most of the "Middle Eastern" merchants who traveled to the East called themselves Persians, or simply said that they were "Anxi people."

This also has its origins. During the reign of Anxi King Liu Wenzhe, the Anxi State brought the entire Persian Plateau under the rule of the Anxi Dynasty. Although it mainly implemented a tributary rule, it also sent garrisons and established a basic administrative and taxation system.

Therefore, those Persians who called themselves Anxi people had no problem from the legal perspective of the Anxi Dynasty. The Anxi Dynasty was blood-related to the Han Empire, and the main ruling class of Anxi was Han people, so these "Anxi people" ≈ Han people.

Even those MSLs from the Arab world changed their names and surnames when they came to the Han Dynasty, and added a Persian or Anxi vest to facilitate their business activities. In the Persian region, some Anxi officials and clerks specialized in selling identity documents.

Although there is deep hatred and constant war between Han civilization and Islamic civilization in the Middle East, they are the mainstream of political and economic exchanges between the East and the West in this era.

If there is any unexpected element, it is the small number of Slavs from Kievan Rus. More than 30 years ago, under the promotion of Grand Prince Yaroslav of Kiev, the Rus and Anxi established trade relations, and the exchanges between the Slavs and the Han people also began.

Although this exchange was intermittent and was affected by wars and turmoil from time to time, it still left many profound historical marks under the blessing of a long time. Of course, the exchanges between the Russian Empire and the Han Empire were not close, and they were more like a transit point with the three Central Asian countries, and they only took a shallow step on the Silk Road.

The Han Empire was not interested in the barbarian states thousands of miles away, and was at most surprised by the blond and blue-eyed barbarians. The Slavs who appeared in Shanghai could only be described as "a drop in the ocean".

Even rarer than the Slavs were the Hungarians. Their arrival was much more difficult than that of the Russians. The biggest problem was the obstacles of the Slavs. Even in Shanghai, there were struggles between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. But there were always some lucky ones who went to the Anxi Kingdom by land and sea, and then went to the sea through Anxi Kingdom, drifting all the way to the east.

Judging from the development over the past few decades, the Anxi Dynasty made greater contributions to the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West than its military achievements in Central Asia. However, in recent years, with the unstable situation in Anxi, the fragile exchanges between the East and the West are about to fall into setbacks and stagnation.

For Western visitors, cities like Guangzhou and Shanghai are places they prefer to stay in compared to the two magnificent capitals, especially Shanghai, because it is "free" and "open".