Ang Lee felt that he had only left the capital for less than a month, but the population of the capital had increased by quite a bit. There seemed to be a lot more pedestrians on both sides of the road than before, and the capital had become even more prosperous.
This might not be Li An's illusion, because the attractiveness of the capital was becoming greater and greater. There were many superior job opportunities that could only be found in the capital, and other cities did not have them. Life here would be more prosperous, and even the lowest job here would earn a considerable amount of remuneration. Therefore, the population of the surrounding counties and villages were thinking of ways to develop in the capital, settling down and living in the capital, thus pushing up the population of the capital step by step. At the same time, it also caused the price of the capital to increase rapidly.
Many wild vegetables that were worthless in the countryside grew on the side of the road without anyone picking them. However, after arriving in the capital, these wild vegetables could be sold for very high prices. This was because there were too many people in the capital, and there were too many rich people.
As a result, the villages around the capital also gave birth to many new occupations. For example, the farmers who were responsible for picking wild vegetables. Their daily job was to go to the fields to collect fresh wild vegetables, and then sell these fresh wild vegetables to the hawkers who came to collect them. Finally, the hawkers would load the vegetables and quickly transport them to the capital for sale.
In order to ensure the freshness of the wild vegetables, the farmers in charge of collecting them had to wake up before dawn and use the moonlight to pick them. Then, in the early morning, they had to sell them to the hawkers who collected them. If it was too late, the hawkers would leave, after all, once the sun came out, the freshness of the wild vegetables would rapidly decrease. After the hawkers received the goods in the early morning, they would transport these fresh vegetables to the market in the capital as soon as possible. The time they arrived at the market was usually when the sun had just risen. At this time, not only were almost all the merchants awake, but many of the servants of the large families would also enter the market to buy fresh wild vegetables so that they could cook delicious meals for the nobles of the family.
To be able to get up in the early hours of the morning to pick wild vegetables, this was really very good. Only the villages near the capital could do this. If the distance was a little further, then they would have to get up in the middle of the night to pick wild vegetables. In fact, they would have to start after dark the night before. In the middle of the night, the hawker's cart left because the transportation would take a lot of time, and the hawker couldn't afford to wait.
Even in the suburbs of the capital, there were many farmers who would get up before midnight to pick wild vegetables. This way, they would be able to pick more, and the hawkers would also leave early. This way, they could reach the market in the capital before dawn and sell for a better price than the other hawkers.
Because some nobles needed to go to the morning court, they would get up and eat and drink very early. Many times, they would be outside the gate of the palace before dawn. One could imagine how early they would get up and eat.
On the day when the nobles needed to go to the morning court, the servants in charge of cooking naturally needed to get up earlier. The servants who bought vegetables were the first to get up. They had to get up two hours earlier than their masters, and then go directly to the gate of the market to intercept the food that had just arrived. As long as the price was not too high, these fresh vegetables and wild vegetables could be sold in a very short time, and they could earn more income. Of course, the hawkers also had to work harder. The days where black and white were reversed were not good, and the hawkers earned their hard-earned money.
The farmers had to work even harder. They had to stay up all night to pick wild vegetables, and the price of selling them to the hawkers was not very expensive. Most of the profits were earned by the hawkers, and the farmers could only get a small part of it. However, this was still a considerable income. For the poor farmers, it was also a very good income. In order to survive, they did not care about this hard work at all.
The working people were great, and every worker was very worthy of respect. They used their own hard work to earn income, and at the same time, they brought a huge amount of material to the whole society. It could be said that their contributions to the whole society were indispensable.
"This road is really blocked! When we built the culverts, we should have built more. We should have built them bigger and wider. "
Li Hanlu looked at the congestion on both sides of the road and said.
Li An explained with a smile, "Madam is right. However, when we built these culverts, we didn't expect that such a remote location would develop into such a prosperous place. Look at the city wall in front of us. It's at least a dozen miles away from here. When we laid the railway here, it was still an empty space. Unknowingly, it has developed into a town. It has only been a few years! The development is too fast. "
With the city wall as the boundary, the development of the capital was getting faster and faster. In the past, not to mention outside the city wall, even the southern suburbs of the city were relatively desolate. There were many empty houses, but now, they were already full of people. Moreover, there were many houses with three or four stories stacked on top of each other to accommodate more people. Previously, there were only empty spaces outside the city. Occasionally, there would be some inconspicuous houses, but now, there were more and more houses in the suburbs.
Many of the ordinary people who came to the capital in search of opportunities did not have the funds to buy a house in the city. They did not even have the ability to rent a house, so they could only choose to live in the temporary shacks outside the city. Over time, the outside of the city became a slum. The quality of these temporary houses was very worrying. The imperial court had sent people to clean them up many times, but they met with great resistance. There was no way to carry out the cleaning work.
After all, these ordinary people who lived here were all poor people. These simple and crude temporary houses were where they settled down. If the imperial court cleared these shacks, they would not be able to live in them. Although these shacks were simple and crude, they were where the ordinary people lived. If the imperial court forcibly demolished these houses, it would not give the lowest class of people a way to live. Under such circumstances, it might lead to serious conflicts between the officials and the ordinary people, and even a bloody conflict.
None of the officials wanted to cause too much trouble for themselves. If a large-scale conflict was caused because of the slum clearance, they might not be able to keep their official position. Furthermore, the imperial court might even kill the official to appease the public anger. Therefore, no foolish official dared to cause such a big trouble in front of the emperor. Since they couldn't clean it up, then they might as well not clean it up. At most, they would be reprimanded by their superiors. That was better than losing their lives.
Such a huge slum was indeed very unsightly, but because there were too many poor people, there was no other way. Forcibly banning it would only cause serious conflicts between the officials and the people, and even cause greater social unrest. Therefore, in order to take care of the poor people, they could only temporarily allow this situation to exist.
However, the imperial court did not do nothing. In order to control the chaos outside the city, some four or five-story buildings were built in some open spaces that had not been occupied by the slums. These buildings would be rented to the people in the slums at a lower price. The price was definitely affordable for many people. In this way, some of the poor people would move into the more high-end buildings, and to a certain extent, reduce the size of the slums outside the city and maintain better order outside the city.
"Husband, you are right. If we had expected that this place would be so prosperous earlier, when building the culverts and overpasses, we would not have built so few and so narrow. However, we can still remedy it now! We can just build more. Is this very difficult? "
Li Hanlu asked.
Li An replied, "From a technical point of view, this is naturally feasible and not difficult at all. However, the rules of the imperial court are very cumbersome. It's not something that can be started with just a word. It requires the people below to make this request and then report it to the higher-ups level by level. Once the higher-ups know about this situation, they will sit together to discuss how to add more culverts, set up a culvert at a certain distance, how wide a culvert needs to be, how much it will cost, and how much money can be allocated from the national treasury. That's not all. When they report the construction plan, another department will feel that the cost is too high and there's no need for such a large demand for it at the moment and request for a new plan. Going back and forth like this a few times, a construction project might drag on for a year or so, or even longer. When it's completely confirmed, they still have to choose the construction team in charge of the construction. This will take a very long time, and the construction process is naturally needless to say. The time it will take for the new culverts to be put into use will not be short either. As such, when the new culverts are put into use, who knows how long it will take?"
Regarding this situation, Ang Lee was also helpless. The officials of the imperial court were like this. When dealing with things, they were very slow and always liked to complicate simple things. A little trivial matter would always take a long time. Unless it was an extremely important project, their speed could be improved. As for the passing culverts on the outskirts of the capital, in the eyes of many officials, it was not that important at all. It did not matter if they dealt with it a little slower. In any case, the nobles and the Emperor were active in the city. A little blockage outside the city was the problem of the poor. Who asked them to all rush to the capital?
However, as long as Ang Lee chose to intervene and use his ability and influence to solve this problem, then the phenomenon of the officials arguing could be reduced a lot and the progress of the project could be sped up. However, Ang Lee had too many things to do. He could not always let Ang Lee deal with something every time there was a problem! In this way, wouldn't Ang Lee be exhausted to death? In order to let himself live for a few more years, Ang Lee could only choose to deal with some of the most important things. As for the traffic situation in the slums outside the city, he really wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do.
In fact, congestion did not happen all the time. During the peak period of the flow of people, the traffic was naturally congested. Many people were trapped on the other side. When the flow of people was low, there would not be such a situation of congestion. Congestion was only a temporary phenomenon during the peak period. This was probably the fundamental reason why the officials did not pay too much attention to it.
There was another problem that was very worthy of attention. That was, the culverts below were often congested, but the overpass above would be empty. This phenomenon was very worthy of attention. This was enough to show that the quality of some people still needed to be improved.
The overpass had stairs, and only ordinary pedestrians could pass through. The culverts below were inclined, and vehicles and people could pass through. However, because it was more difficult to climb the stairs, and it was easier to walk directly through the culverts below. Therefore, even ordinary people who walked would choose to walk through the culverts below.
Originally, during the peak period, the traffic pressure was very high. There was an endless flow of vehicles, and the people who walked actually went to the culverts to compete with the vehicles. This further exacerbated the traffic congestion.
The reason for this situation was not only that it was easier to walk through the culverts, but also because the culverts and the overpasses were arranged in a staggered manner. If there was a culvert in a place, there would not be an overpass, and if there was an overpass, there would not be a culvert. The staggered distance was at least one li, and the distance between two culverts was two li. In this case, some people were right next to the culverts. If they wanted to walk through the overpasses, they would have to walk more than one li to both sides, which was too far for many people. For the sake of convenience, they would choose to walk directly through the culverts. As a result, some culverts were congested, while the overpasses on both sides were almost empty. There was only one way to change this situation, and that was to build the culverts and the overpasses together. Every culvert had an overpass next to it, and every overpass had a culvert next to it. Therefore, when the culverts were congested, many people would choose to take the overpass at the top in order to get to the other side faster. As a result, the traffic congestion would naturally be greatly improved.
In order to ensure safety, when the train approached the capital, it would slow down. It was slower than the carriage, and even people who walked faster could catch up with the train. After all, once a traffic accident happened, the impact would be very bad. Once a traffic accident happened in the capital, it was worth summarizing the lessons learned. Once an accident happened, not only would people suffer heavy losses, but the vehicles would also be greatly damaged, and the losses would be extremely heavy. In order to avoid such a thing, it was necessary to reduce the speed of the vehicles as much as possible, because the slower the speed of the vehicles, the lower the possibility of an accident. Most of the traffic accidents were caused by the speed of the vehicles being too fast. As long as the speed of the vehicles was controlled, the incidence of traffic accidents would be reduced. This was the golden rule of the later generations, and it was the same in the Tang dynasty. Regarding this point, no one could raise any objection. Everyone agreed with this principle. For this reason, when many court officials went out, as long as they encountered a crowded area, they would take the initiative to ask their servants to slow down to avoid bumping into passers-by. If someone did not slow down and bumped into passers-by, they would be impeached.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
