Wide and clean streets, towering and neatly planned buildings, magic spar street lamps standing by the roadside like guards, magic projections floating in midair, incredible magic machines on display in the square...
The big businessman Ke De sat in the carriage. As a mature and stable businessman, he had successfully adjusted his mentality and began to observe the scene outside with a calm and indifferent expression, but the storm in his heart still did not subside.
Carroll used to be a Viscounty, but because it was close to the Holy Spirit Plain and had a prosperous trade, it was once one of the wealthiest areas in the southern border. The prosperity of Carroll City has always been a place that Kord is very satisfied and proud of, but Compared with the city in front of me...
No, there is no need to compare the two cities at all.
The air here does not have the smell of excrement and rancidity common in big cities, nor do you see poor people and serfs in ragged clothes walking on the street. An indescribable "order" seems to permeate the air. This sense of order is what Kord Never seen anywhere.
He knew about the new government office in Carroll City, and a series of new laws promulgated by the government office. Some of these new laws were supported by the local people, such as lowering taxes and allocating land, while others were difficult to implement, such as sanitation. Frankly speaking, even Codd can't fully understand the significance of those new policies. However, after seeing the scene of Cecil City today, he realized at least one thing:
Living in such a city is at least more comfortable than living in Carroll City.
After we go back, we should mobilize people from the business association, at least let everyone willingly implement the sanitation bill...
The carriage left the bustling city street, turned two corners, and the surroundings gradually became quieter.
The Pioneer Square is next to the Government Office and the Lord's Mansion. There are only two streets between them. There is no city wall or moat in the middle. There are only some outposts guarding the road leading to the administrative area. The merchant's carriage is in one of them. The outpost stopped for inspection.
Kodd and Parr had prepared the coins needed for the soldiers early on. After the carriage stopped, they immediately obeyed the order and got out of the carriage, and then saw a soldier in magic armor walking over: "Stop and check, please." Show me your ID."
Cord quickly took out the identity certificate issued by Cecil's Department of Commerce and the letter of introduction signed by Minister Patrick from his pocket, and handed it to the soldiers while estimating how much such guards would cost to get in place. Er said that he had been to Cecil, but it was only once last year with the family's fleet to sell medicinal materials. He has never been here since then, so he really doesn't know much about the city.
The so-called "been to Cecil" is more or less boastful.
And in the short moment he was thinking, the soldier had already checked the document and confirmed the black and white portrait on the document, and two other soldiers checked the condition of the carriage, and a crisp voice reached the ears of Kord and Parr : "After the inspection, you can go in."
Kord nodded subconsciously, then he was taken aback: "Ah... ah?"
"You can go in," the soldier repeated again. After noticing the confused expression on the businessman's face, he looked down at the document in his hand and confirmed the contents above again, "It's really no problem to go in, take Your pass."
Cord dazedly took the documents and the pass issued to him, and returned to the carriage with Paal. He didn't understand what happened until the carriage left the post.
Pal was also full of confusion: "Father... Did those soldiers just forget to collect our money?"
"How could this kind of thing be forgotten?" Cord glanced at his son, and then muttered incredulously, "Carroll's side is the same, and this side is also... How did the Duke do it?"
With a lot of confusion on their foreheads, the carriage in which the businessman and his son were riding continued to move forward.
After a while, they arrived in front of the lord's mansion.
Leaving the carriage and looking up at the tall mansion in front of him, Cord took a deep breath. He carefully hid all the surprises, curiosity, confusion and excitement along the way under his calm and indifferent face, and then sorted out After taking a look at his impeccable clothes, accompanied by a guard from the lord's mansion, he led Paal forward.
There was not only one car parked in front of the lord's mansion, apparently there were other visitors here. In front of the gate depicting the Cecil family emblem, Cord saw a young woman coming out, she was well dressed women's winter clothes, walked down the steps, and seemed to be about to leave.
The guard at the door obviously knew the young woman well, and they chatted briefly.
"Miss Jibri finished reporting so soon?"
The young woman said with a smile: "It's just a routine report."
The guard had a tinge of expectation: "Will there be another show tomorrow?"
"Of course, there are new programs to watch every day and maybe in the last few days."
Cord came to the door, and the accompanying guard stepped forward to hand over, while the young woman called "Miss Jibril" turned her head and looked curiously at the big businessman from Carroll City.
"Hello." The young woman nodded slightly and said politely.
"Ah, I saw you on that... magic projection!" Kord looked at the young woman in front of him in surprise, only to realize that she was the person he had seen on the holographic projection in the city before. Looking at it on the holographic projection, the big businessman was quite surprised by the wonderful feeling of seeing a real person suddenly, and then he saluted with a perfect manly demeanor, "Miss 'Witch', you are better than what you saw on the projection Still beautiful."
"Thank you for your compliment." Jibri smiled and nodded, but in the next second, a strange sense of familiarity emerged in her heart. The face of the middle-aged businessman in front of her overlapped with a face in her mind together.
Cord also took another look at Jibri. After putting aside the "magic projection" barrier, he looked at the "witch" lady, and his heart suddenly moved, and a vague sense of familiarity surfaced in his heart.
The two said in unison: "Have we met?"
In the same instant, they both found the source of this familiarity.
In a certain autumn more than ten years ago, a young businessman who had just taken over the family business traveled to the south and came to a strange city with great ambitions.
In that autumn, a fleeing mage apprentice was in a foreign land, hungry.
The young businessman was looking for business opportunities, and with a certain high spirits, he went to the fortune-telling booth, hoping to hear some kind words.
The mage's apprentice, who was only a little girl, was looking for food. She took out a few tricks she had just learned, and wanted to exchange two pieces of bread.
A wordless and short-lived embarrassment froze in front of the steps of the lord's mansion. Carroll's big businessman and the well-known witch lady on the magic net stood face to face. After a few seconds, the embarrassment was broken by the two people's unanimous laughter.
"You said that the city is full of gold," Kord took a step forward and stretched out his hand, "Cord, from Carroll."
"Jibri, it's nice to meet you again." Jibri gently shook the other person's hand, "I'm sorry, I lied to you at that time, I was very hungry."
"I know," Cord let go of his hand and took a step back politely, "I can see that you don't know how to divination at all."
Jibri smiled: "But from that day on."
They passed by, the big businessman walked towards the gate of the lord's mansion, and the lady witch walked towards the carriage parked by the side of the road, but before getting into the carriage, Jibri stopped suddenly, turned her head and said loudly: "Ke Mr. De's city is full of gold."
Kord looked back in surprise, and he saw the lady witch waved to him: "This time it's true."
The big businessman laughed: "I know."
The carriage on the side of the road drove away, and Ke De and Paal stepped into the gate of the Lord's Mansion.
"Father," the young Pal finally couldn't help but speak after walking through the door, "do you know that Miss Witch?"
"I met her once when I was young, when she was just a little girl," said the big businessman casually. "She taught me my first lesson."
"first lesson?"
"Yeah, it's 'Don't Trust Wayside Divinations'."
…
In front of Gao Wen, there were two documents.
One is an analysis report from Rebecca on the "universal traction chassis". In this report, there is a detailed interpretation of the complete system of the first-generation magic drive vehicle, and on this basis, the magic guide Taking the technical experience of the vehicle as the starting point, it is a plan to manufacture a general-purpose traction chassis.
The manufacture of the magic vehicle was successful. The R&D personnel of this world used magic technology and the unique resources of this world. A means of transportation that can be manipulated by ordinary people is on the road. Although it is still a long way from perfection and has various problems, this first step is undoubtedly a success.
A means of transportation that is stronger than a horse, faster, tireless, and does not need to consume fodder. With it, the transportation problems encountered by Cecil in the process of large-scale construction will undoubtedly be greatly alleviated, and In order to maximize the value of this technology, it is necessary to manufacture a variety of special engineering vehicles with different functions based on the principle of magic vehicles.
Under the influence of Gao Wen for such a long time, Rebecca already has the concept of modular design and general technology, and has tasted great benefits from it, so after the magic guided vehicle is built this time, it will not wait for Gao Wen's request. , the girl figured out a "universal chassis" plan by herself.
In this plan, Rebecca believes that it is necessary to make the chassis of the first-generation "Type 475" magical vehicle into a modular chassis that can be easily connected with other shells and tractors, and then build on this basis A large number of derivative vehicles including trucks, buses, agricultural machinery, and construction machinery have been built on the Internet. She even drew a crude tank diagram at the end of the report. The basic structure is a door welded on the chassis of the 475 magic vehicle. A light magic cannon, and then a circle of steel plates around the outside of the car shell...
The front end even had a nondescript ram angle.
Simple, rough, simple and rough in thinking, but very surprising.
To be honest, after seeing this report, Gao Wen was surprised for a long time, because he hadn't even had time to come up with the concept of this aspect...
Next to this report, the second document is a plan that Gao Wen himself is drafting
"The potential value of developing new media"
Newspapers have gradually become popular in the southern border, covering basically every town-level unit, and the brand-new Magic Web broadcast is centered on the cross axis, covering more and more cities. People in the southern border are getting familiar with these new Things, on the other hand, the people who make newspapers and broadcasts are getting familiar with these new jobs.
The role of new media in information dissemination has been gradually manifested, especially in the Luan City incident, the power of public opinion propaganda has impressed everyone in the Government Affairs Office. Hetty also lamented that those newspapers and programs No less powerful than a heavily armed army.
But Gao Wen knows that the value of these new media is far from being developed. They are still a tool with a narrow range of application, limited to the government affairs department to announce affairs.
The content is single, the categories are scarce, and there is no commercial benefit. It is not so much a new media as a larger bulletin board.
This is too far from Gao Wen's original goal.
He picked up the pen and listed the next step in the plan to advance the plan. He must find a way to teach the lord to actively participate in these new things, so that people can understand more deeply that the things created by the lord are not only usable by the lord. It is also usable by ordinary people. Find ways to create more civilian markets, make these new things "live", and maximize their value...
The benefits of doing this are obvious. Just from the opening of the commercial section of the newspaper, on the one hand, it can open up the wisdom of the people more quickly, stimulate ordinary people to think and act, and accelerate Cecil's cultural construction. On the other hand, it can generate Economic gains, to alleviate the increasing financial pressure of the Cecil Administration Office Excessive construction projects are squeezing the economy of the Principality of Cecil, and many new things created by Cecil are completely "official projects" ", they are completely dependent on the Principality's finances, but they can hardly recover their costs (or they can only recover their initial costs, but cannot generate subsequent benefits), they are 100% "government affairs industry", and they are almost completely out of touch with various civil groups.
While it's okay at this stage, sooner or later this will become a huge problem.
Of course, how to effectively control and prevent these new things from losing the control of the government affairs department in this process also needs to be seriously considered...
Gao Wen frowned and thought, and stopped writing. He had to consider not only the future development direction of new media and the corresponding management system, but also how to guide the people and the way of thinking of people in this era. Making a plan is not easy.
At this moment, Betty's voice suddenly came from outside the door, interrupting Gawain's thinking.
"My lord! Here comes Mr. Corder and Mr. Parr of Carroll!"
Gao Wen was stunned for a moment, then he remembered who these two strange names were.
It was the businessman father and son recommended by the Minister of Commerce Patrick.
"Let them in."
The door opened, and Cord and Parr entered the lord's study with a touch of nervousness.
They finally saw the ruler of the southern border with their own eyes.
He was sitting behind a large desk, holding a pen in his hand, a huge floor-to-ceiling window was behind him, through which sunlight poured into the room, falling on the shoulders of the founding Duke, like a pale golden cloak.
He was taller than Cord had imagined.
"My lord duke," after a brief moment of astonishment, the big businessman hastened to give his son a hand, and saluted respectfully, "We are extremely honored that your brilliance shines on this land."
(Mom!!)