Chapter 61 The Current Situation of Shanghai

The events of Wusong River cast a shadow on Zhou Mengchen's trip to Shanghai.

After arriving in Shanghai, Zhou Mengchen first saw the devastated people's livelihood.

As a prominent family in Shanghai, the Lu family can be said to be one of the best. The Lu family has made a lot of efforts in the city walls of Shanghai. It can be said that the Lu family is the representative of Shanghai's people's livelihood. As a result, the Japanese pirates made the head of the Lu family sick and disabled to defend the Lu family's original status as a soldier. From this point of view, it can be seen how far the people's livelihood in Shanghai has reached.

As a wealthy family in Shanghai, the Lu family is still like this. How should other people in Shanghai live?

All of this was presented to Zhou Mengchen.

At this moment, Shanghai is still a county-level unit, and the place it manages is also very small. In this era, Shanghai in later generations should be Songjiang Prefecture, and even Songjiang Prefecture alone may not be able to cover the scope of Shanghai in later generations.

Just looking at past battles, Japanese pirates broke into the city of Shanghai from Baoshan Station many times, and Shanghai was used as a battlefield, and even siege the city several times. It would be strange if the people around them could be better.

Moreover, the imperial court's taxes were not reduced or exempted at all. The Songjiang government paid more taxes than other provinces, while the Shanghai county had to bear more taxes than other provinces.

The recovery of people's livelihood is also difficult.

Zhou Mengchen remembered all this in his heart. But these are secondary. The first thing he had to see was the port issue.

But he first faced a problem, the most suitable port, the Wusong River. The reason is very simple. The Wusong River is the last tributary of the Yangtze River. There is a lot of silt near the estuary of the Yangtze River. After all, the entire Shanghai and many places in Chongming were still soaked in the sea during the Han and Tang Dynasties. Not to mention anything else, the Liujiagang used by Zheng He when he went to the West. Now it is no longer used. The reason is also because of this.

Therefore, Wusongjiang is the best choice for Zhou Mengchen. This is also a historical choice.

The Wusong River estuary was not in Shanghai, which surprised Zhou Mengchen. Yes, in the Ming Dynasty, the Wusong River estuary was under the jurisdiction of Suzhou. There were two garrisons at the Wusong River estuary, one was the Wusong River estuary and the other was the Baoshan estuary. The real Wusong River estuary should be under the garrison.

This is not a big problem.

Zhou Mengchen had the authority to transfer the land of these two garrisons to Shanghai. After all, the Wusong River had a circle in Shanghai and went upstream from the Wusong River. The first county town was Shanghai.

The second question is very difficult.

That is, the Wusong River is seriously silted. The same is true at the sea outlet. In the early Ming Dynasty, Xia Yuanji, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, repaired the river channel here, allowing the Huangpu River to seize the Wusong River to go out to sea.

However, the times have long been around, and the rivers are congested. Zhou Mengchen simply measured the draft depth and knew that it would be very troublesome to be a port here. Even ships with deeper drafts cannot directly dock.

This made Zhou Mengchen frown.

However, after thinking about it, if he wanted to choose a port near the estuary of the Yangtze River, the Wusong River was the most suitable on both sides of the river from below Shanghai to the Yangtze River.

After all, although the Wusong River is the last tributary of the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River at this time was already very wide and almost no different from the sea.

As a port, the first thing to do is to be protective, that is, to withstand strong winds and waves. So either build some breakwater embankments or directly use the existing terrain.

This section of the river is the most suitable on the south bank of the Yangtze River. The ships stay here, which is enough to withstand wind and waves.

This is almost the only choice.

However, Zhou Mengchen also knew that this section of the river was too narrow and could not stop a large ship. In addition, the silt was severe, so some maintenance was required. Even after maintenance, it seemed that it would still be silted in the future.

This is a very troublesome thing.

Although Zhou Mengchen had preconceived ideas, after thinking about it, it was already the smallest project plan. Not to mention anything else, building a wave embankment deep into the sea on the Yangtze River is much larger than dredging.

In fact, Zhou Mengchen didn't know that the section of the river he thought of was not called Wusong River in later generations, but Huangpu River. It was because decades later, Hai Rui served as the governor of Yingtian. When he saw that the Wusong River was in constant floods, he repaired the Wusong River and completely poured the Huangpu River into the Wusong River. The Huangpu River became the mainstream and the Wusong River became a tributary, thereby increasing the amount of water and increasing the shipping conditions of this river channel a lot.

This gives Shanghai the potential of a world-class port.

Of course, if there is a port in China's largest river, the estuary of the Yangtze River, it must be a heavyweight port, but this port may not necessarily be Shanghai. In fact, the shipping conditions in Shanghai have not been very good. As the scale of shipping becomes larger, the limitations of Shanghai's ports will become greater. Wouldn't Shanghai want to build a new port in later generations?

Zhou Mengchen thought for a long time and finally made up his mind and said, "Mr. Lu, the first project of Jiangnan Bank is the Wusong River Repair Project. I will transfer Hai Rui, the magistrate of Haining, and then you will hand over it with him."

Lu Yi was very excited. He knew very well what this meant. It represented not only the great harm of Wusong River, but was governed. Zhou Mengchen had confirmed that the Shanghai Port would become the first port to open the sea in the Ming Dynasty.

However, Lu Yi was still calm and said, "Students thanked the elders of Shanghai, but what should we do if this account is done?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "Just use Shanghai tariffs as collateral."

Lu Yi was slightly stunned and said, "Student understand."

Many things in banks are imperfect. Zhou Mengchen never thought about perfecting them. Now he is using the power of the bank to gather financial resources and use them for his own use. Let’s talk about the future.

In the foreseeable future, banks like Daming will definitely have a lot of bad debts.

However, that's also a future matter.

It’s not that Zhou Mengchen has no vision, but that sometimes people will not have a memory if they don’t suffer a few losses. Moreover, different eras have different requirements for banks and cannot be improved all at once. After all, even in the development of Western finance, there is an era of extensive and wild running.

Anyway, banks and ordinary people have nothing to do with these days. Ordinary people don’t even have the power to open an account.

Zhou Mengchen is confident that he can clean up this mess in the future.

Zhou Mengchen immediately said: "Please choose a piece of land in the Wusong River channel in Shanghai. I want to build a shipyard here. It is called Jiangnan Shipyard. My disciple Yin Zongyi will arrive soon. You can lay a solid foundation first."

Zhou Mengchen had already sent a letter to Yin Zongyi and asked him to come over quickly.

I just looked for him because many of the Yin family's industries are related to shipping, so I won't talk about the steam engine ships on the Sanggan River. After all, Zhou Mengchen now feels that the steam engine ships cannot be used as sea ships for a long time because they are too unsafe.

After all, an accident occurred on the Sanggan River, and the crew only had to swim for more than ten meters before they could get ashore. However, if there was a problem at the sea, it would be difficult to deal with.

Now Zhou Mengchen’s biggest problem is not that the ships or shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty were not advanced enough. Many people have a misunderstanding, it seems that after Zheng He went to the West, the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty plummeted. In fact, it is not the case.

Zheng He's treasure ship's technology seems to have been lost. Nanjing's treasure shipyard is no longer there. But if the technology of treasure ship building is revealed in that corner, Zhou Mengchen is not surprised at all. Just like the relationship between the Longjiang Shipyard and the treasure shipyard, the addresses of the two are close together. When the treasure shipyard was established, many craftsmen were transferred from the Longjiang Shipyard.

It can be said that the Longjiang Shipyard and the Treasure Shipyard are more similar to brother factories or mother-son factories. Just think about it, the Treasure Shipyard has been revoked. Could it be that all the people who built the Treasure Shipyard were going to be killed? It must be back to the original unit.

Therefore, Zhou Mengchen is not sure whether the treasure ship technology exists, but the cutting-edge technology is gone, but the basic technology still exists. For example, sand ship shipbuilding technology. A ship-type like a sand ship can be built with a tonnage of more than 1,200 tons, which is enough in this era. Of course, these ships were not prepared for the future artillery era. They are not special warships.
Chapter completed!