Chapter 489: The Situation in the Special Zone (II)

After finishing his discussion with Mu Longcheng, Ding Liqiu the Ding Scribe downed another cup of wine and took off. He is now the official District Chief of the Special Zone — what the ancients called the Imperial Prefect — and with all the planning work here, he's so busy his feet barely touch the ground; he doesn't have that much time to sit around chatting with people.

After leaving Huangpu Port, he took a boat west along the broad Pearl River, passing by Changzhou Island along the way... At this time, Changzhou Island was just a few sandbars; the Zhongshan University City wasn't even a shadow yet.

Fifty li west, on the southern bank of the Pearl River, a clamorous construction site spread out — this was the planned Special Zone.

This plot of land for the Special Zone is actually separated from Guangzhou City to the north only by what later generations would call the Sea Pearls District. The Sea Pearls District of later generations is a sandbank formed by siltation and didn't exist in this era; between the two sides now is a vast stretch of river surface, over twenty li wide just in breadth — you could call it facing each other across a sea.

Along the shore stood a neat row of temporary wooden-pile jetties, and now nearly every jetty was flanked by all sorts of vessels moored on both sides.

Of course, even though they were temporary jetties, they were built by the Transmigrator engineers using pile drivers, so their strength certainly exceeded the kind the Ming people built privately; there was no problem at all using them for manual loading and unloading of cargo.

Just as Ding Liqiu disembarked, lines of handcarts had already queued up on every jetty, loading and unloading construction materials like stone blocks, cement, and bricks.

Passing through the bustling dock, constantly brushing off the various big merchants and stewards who came up to pay their respects along the way, District Chief Ding spent a full half an hour just to get through the dock and walk onto Number One Avenue.

Number One Avenue is the main thoroughfare of the Special Zone. It hasn't been named yet, but it will most likely be called Imperial Street. When the big shots move in after the Special Zone is completed in the future, there will be a ribbon-cutting and naming ceremony.

As the most important positioning landmark of the New District, Number One Avenue was built to very high standards. Taking into account the need for large-scale events and various celebrations in the future, the average width of Number One Avenue alone reaches over fifty meters, and counting the sidewalks on both sides, it exceeds sixty meters.

By this point, anyone with experience can probably already tell — yes, Number One Avenue is modeled after Chang'an Avenue. But there are differences too. Due to the current area of the Special Zone, the entire avenue is divided into two sections; at the halfway point is a large square, which serves as the dividing line between the administrative district and the commercial district.

Past the square, the left and right sides will be the future government offices. The ones managing transportation, civil affairs, and so on each have an area designated for building office buildings. After the ordinary government office areas come the large-scale structures: on the left is the Grand Secretariat Residence, on the right is the Parliament Hall, and at the end of the road, beyond a square, is the Imperial Palace.

After disembarking, Ding Liqiu did not get directly into his special carriage; instead, he had the horse-drawn carriage follow behind him and walked the entire way along the avenue under construction, inspecting as he went.

After half a year of arduous labor by 1,500 people, the avenue, built using the road construction procedures of later generations, has now completed the processes of leveling the foundation, tamping, and laying the base course and cushion layer.

Running east to west with a total length of three kilometers, Number One Avenue, though not yet finally paved with cement, is already usable.

What Ding Liqiu was treading on right now was the surface layer of coal cinder.

Using a coal cinder layer as a temporary substitute for the cement layer was also a matter of having no choice. The few old-style cement kilns over in Taiwan, originally already overburdened supplying the whole nation and the colonizers, now have the Special Zone added as a huge cement consumer — they simply can't keep up with production.

Fortunately, Ding Liqiu had a plan on his side too: a set of the most advanced (county-level by later-generation standards) rotary kiln cement production lines had already begun tackling the technical difficulties in the Kiln District. Once the first unit of equipment successfully leaves the factory, multiple units will be produced in succession and shipped over to Guangdong.

Cement is a difficulty, and steel is also a difficulty. The previous few electric furnaces could sustain things when the scale wasn't large, but in the next stage, when large numbers of proper factories are launched according to later-generation standards, they certainly won't be enough.

So first, blast furnaces must be built in Guangdong to construct proper steel plants.

Thinking of all these troublesome tasks, and then thinking of the current mess of native spinning mills everywhere, Ding Liqiu couldn't help but shake his head and sigh to himself: "A heavy burden and a long road!"

On both sides of the commercial district of Number One Avenue, within squares marked out by white calcium oxide lines, quite a few buildings constructed by the Ming people themselves had already sprung up.

Of course, the natives built them themselves, but everything including the blueprints, construction planning, building materials, and project supervision was provided by the Transmigrators, and the fees weren't high.

To put it plainly, the Ming proprietors were only responsible for paying silver and hiring construction workers; all the rest of the work was contracted out by the Transmigrators. In this way, a large batch of imitation Chinese-style buildings with a unified style went up, following the pedestrian street approach of later generations.

The main structure of these buildings is red brick, with exterior walls painted white, usually two or three stories, all equipped with glass windows and Chinese-style upturned flying eaves. The side facing the street is a shopfront, and behind is a courtyard, conforming to Ming people's customs.

The business content of the shops is mostly industrial goods and traditional luxury items — to put it plainly, it's the Champs-Élysées of the seventeenth century.

Those who can own a shop on such expensive real estate are undoubtedly all big merchants or wealthy magnates. These are all people who contributed effort during Cao Jiangjun's entry into Guangdong and are now receiving their rewards.

Ding Liqiu inspected on foot for about one kilometer like this before finally boarding his carriage and heading toward the Imperial Palace at the end of the avenue.

During this time, he passed by the flat, leveled grand square and the various departmental government offices under construction, and finally, he arrived at the nation's most core structures, three buildings standing in a triangular formation.

Blocking the end of the avenue, the only one facing the long street directly, is naturally the Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace here is very crude. To the Ming people, it might seem somewhat imposing, but in the eyes of the Transmigrators, it's nothing more than another three-story shopping mall; the blueprints were probably just copied from the one in Dayuan.

Additionally, only a portion of the Imperial Palace is currently completed; the rest is still under construction.

The reasons for this are very simple.

First, the elusive Cao Emperor basically treats coming to this plane now as tourism, so the old man never cares what the hotel looks like.

Second, Guangdong is currently only a temporary capital and will definitely be relocated in the future, so there's no need to build some imposing, grand architectural complex.

Third: construction materials are in short supply, and the Emperor must also tighten his belt to support construction, right? Haven't you seen that the sleeves of Chongzhen's dragon robe are worn through? He's the model worker.

In short, after all these various reasons added up, this place has once again become a three-story shopping mall... one story taller than the one in Dayuan, which isn't bad at all.

On the right-hand side of the Imperial Palace is an exquisite official residence, pure white, with a touch of Western style, seemingly also featuring a round or oval office. Transmigrators from later generations could probably tell at a glance that this thing has a hint of a certain white house about it.

The Prime Minister's Official Residence was the earliest to be completed; all the steel bars and cement were prioritized for use here, and even the garden in the back has already been planted with ornamental plants, just waiting for the old Grand Secretary to move in and issue orders from within.

Can't be helped — the Grand Secretary's residence absolutely cannot be handled sloppily; after all, he's the direct superior, and if you don't kiss up properly, a shoe might come flying your way.

With the Prime Minister on the right hand, then the left hand is naturally the Parliament Hall.

Since the Parliament Hall is the place where all Transmigrators cash in their rights, it likewise cannot be treated carelessly. The enormous circular building in the style of the Roman Colosseum is the most eye-catching structure in the entire Special Zone and also one of only two completed buildings.

By the time Ding Liqiu's carriage reached the official residence, night had already fallen. Then, when he arrived at the oval office, he found several Transmigrators from the construction field all there: Chen Dong, Feng Guanjie, Zheng Yangyang.

These three, plus the group of Ming disciples usually gathered around them, form the technical core that designs and directs the construction of the Special Zone.

In fact, taking advantage of Xia Xianze still being in Taiwan, the Transmigrators currently staying in the Special Zone had long since requisitioned this official residence.

After District Chief Ding Liqiu returned, he first sat in the main seat and ate a bowl of fish ball claypot rice, then opened a bottle of carbonated soda water and drank a few mouthfuls. Only after that did he chat idly with the several architects for a bit.

As they chatted, District Chief Ding suddenly felt something was off, and then he slapped his forehead as he remembered: "Hey, where did Li Dazui go? Wasn't he here just a moment ago? Where's he gone off to in the pitch dark?"

"Gone to do demolition."

Feng Guanjie, who was discussing a set of architectural blueprints on the coffee table, said without looking up. Immediately after, he added with a mysterious smile: "Forced demolition."