Chapter 864 - Phoenix Villa

The Jiangnan Inspection Team's transportation discussion quickly moved into road construction planning. But building roads was also impractical—even if Jiangnan were immediately brought under their control and all officials obeyed their commands, the Elder Council's current capabilities would still be insufficient.

"Building roads in a place like Jiangnan would be a nightmare for us," Lü Zhonghang said. "The earthwork volume would be enormous, and there'd be countless rivers and ponds requiring bridges along the way."

"Labor would be manageable, but construction materials would be astronomical," Mei Lin sighed. "Our production capacity—the gap is just too great."

Although Lingao's industrial capacity had already begun to demonstrate its enormous power and was a myth in this time-space, set against the vast backdrop of China, Lingao's production capacity was insignificant. The Lingao industrial system that the elders enthused about as "playing the overture of industrialization" couldn't match China of 1949 in production scale, let alone the heyday of the late Qing Self-Strengthening Movement.

Xu Ke said: "Don't focus only on inland waterways and land. Shanghai to Hangzhou can also go by sea. Don't forget Hangzhou is right on the Qiantang River. Oceangoing ships can leave from Wusong, then enter the Qiantang River through Hangzhou Bay. As long as the hydrological conditions are surveyed, sailing ships of several hundred tons up the Qiantang River won't be a problem. After all, maritime transport is our strength."

Zhou Dongtian said: "Sea transport is too conspicuous. Oceangoing ships going directly to a provincial capital might cause a commotion—might even stir up the whole province. Going to Zhapu would be more reasonable. After all, that's already a seaport."

The group engaged in lively discussion about transportation issues throughout the journey. With topics to discuss, time passed quickly. Within a few days, the inspection team arrived in Hangzhou and disembarked at Gongchen Bridge—the terminus of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, a very famous location. However, at this time, Gongchen Bridge was still under construction.

Sun Wangcai had received the coded scroll from the Shanghai branch and calculated that the ship should arrive around April 20th. So from April 10th, he sent people daily to watch near the Gongchen Bridge docks. When they spotted a ship with Qiwei's lantern markers approaching the dock, they immediately reported to the Zhao residence. Sun Wangcai immediately ordered Cai Shi to bring servants and sedan chairs to the riverside to respectfully receive them, transporting everyone and their personal luggage to Zhao Yingong's residence.

The population of the Zhao household had swelled considerably in these days. For caution's sake, Sun Wangcai, the Hangzhou intelligence station's manager, had tightened security, dividing the residence into inner and outer compounds. Any newly-pledged servants were forbidden from entering the inner compound; only personnel brought from Lingao who had been vetted by the Security General Administration were permitted inside.

The population increase was making the Zhao residence feel cramped. Even including the unused abandoned garden area, space was becoming insufficient. By now, Cai Shi had already purchased a sufficiently large tract of land on Phoenix Mountain. Zhao Yingong was eager to begin building his estate there. He had already adjusted his strategy based on the telegram from the External Intelligence Bureau.

According to the Bureau's instructions, Zhao Yingong decided to temporarily present himself as a gentleman-scholar with a passion for agriculture. Managerial landlords were quite common in the late Ming. Many landlords no longer leased land to tenants for rent but hired long-term and short-term laborers, personally managing the planting, cultivation, irrigation, and other agricultural matters, directly operating the land and agricultural products.

In the new plan, he decided to build a farmstead villa on Phoenix Mountain, relocating Wang Siniang's entire family there to specialize in sericulture. First, he would extensively plant mulberry trees on the estate and conduct small-scale silkworm-raising and reeling—laying the foundation for personnel training for future large-scale industrialized reeling. He had already sent a telegram to Wu Nanhai requesting that sericulture specialists from the Tiandihui be dispatched with silkworm eggs to serve in Nanjing.

Phoenix Villa would in the future handle a series of tasks including personnel purification and transfer, serving as the Hangzhou Station's headquarters and core. Zhao Yingong planned that once construction was complete, he would move most core personnel, materials, and equipment to Phoenix Villa. The Zhao residence in Qinghe Ward would serve as the Hangzhou Station's "front."

The front would be the planned cultural bookshop. The plan was to use the abandoned garden land at the Zhao residence to construct a comprehensive building combining teahouse, bookshop, garden, and printing office. Besides selling tea and books, Zhao Yingong also planned to sell and promote "cultural products" with Australian characteristics at this cultural bookshop. Initial ideas included Western and Chinese-style ship models, various tabletop games including chess and card games. Zhao Yingong also considered introducing billiards—he still remembered the "billiard craze" of the 1980s and 90s. The technology for manufacturing billiard equipment could be met in this time-space; the Pearl River Delta during the Ming-Qing period was famous for producing ivory handicrafts, and many billiard balls used in Europe were manufactured in Guangzhou and similar places. However, he wasn't sure what scholars would think of it, and manufacturing billiard equipment wasn't something that could be done overnight. He decided not to introduce it for now, first submitting the project to the Planning Commission and Light Industry Department for the record.

Since the Planning Commission had equipped him with printing equipment, not publishing a newspaper or magazine seemed wasteful. Currently, besides the Lingao Times in Lingao, there was no true newspaper in the Great Ming. He could certainly do some pioneering in this area with newspapers and magazines—after all, there was no Publication Law in the Ming, publishing required no registration numbers or ISBN, and there was no concept of copyright. The role of newspapers as a mouthpiece was very obvious. Zhao Yingong was prepared to exploit the gap in traditional society's news media to seize the propaganda high ground. As for magazines, he planned to use lithographic printing equipment to create a Ming Dynasty version of the Dianshizhai Pictorial.

Of course, all these things required a material foundation. Zhao Yingong had been eagerly awaiting the inspection team to bring him supplies and technical personnel for quite some time. Now that these people had finally arrived, he was overjoyed. He immediately arranged a banquet at the residence to "welcome" the group.

At the welcome banquet, everyone divided up the work for their upcoming activities in Jiangnan. Zhou Dongtian would be accompanied by Sun Wangcai and others to conduct a comprehensive survey of the book-carving and publishing industries in Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing. Mei Lin and Zhao Yingong would be responsible for the construction of Phoenix Villa and the bookshop. Xu Ke and Lü Zhonghang would be accompanied by Qiwei personnel to conduct a comprehensive survey of road and transportation conditions in the Jiangnan and Northern Zhejiang regions. The terrain and geography of Jiangnan had changed greatly over the hundred years of the old time-space, especially the rivers and marshes—there were far more in this time-space than in the old one. If they ever needed to march and fight in the Jiangnan region, it was essential to prepare in advance.

The next day, Zhao Yingong and the inspection team came to Phoenix Mountain. This was the future "lair" of the Hangzhou Station and quite possibly one of the central hubs for all Jiangnan activities. Everyone wanted to offer their opinions.

Phoenix Mountain was outside Fengshan Gate. This city gate was quite deserted in the Ming Dynasty, as beyond it lay only Phoenix Mountain and the Qiantang River. With neither good farmland nor being a transportation hub, ordinary people rarely came here.

Phoenix Mountain's terrain was gentle, mostly gradual slopes. Anyone with some knowledge of vegetation could tell this was typical secondary forest landscape—the hillside had been developed, the original vegetation long since destroyed. Among the thorny brush and thickets, one could occasionally see low, crumbling walls and ruins. In some places, stone pedestals that had once supported great palace pillars and stone beams and columns remained. Looking carefully, one could see many traces of Buddhist temples.

"This is the ruins of the Five Temples and One Pagoda," Zhao Yingong said, having walked until tired, sitting on a large stone pedestal and fanning himself. "It's said the five temples originally used many architectural components from the Southern Song palaces—some were simply Song Dynasty halls themselves. A pity I don't understand archaeology, otherwise I could do a thorough excavation and survey here."

The Five Temples and One Pagoda had already fallen into ruin by the end of the Yuan Dynasty. When Zhang Shicheng built the Hangzhou city walls, he demolished the remaining structures and used their building materials. Over the more than 270 years since the founding of the Ming, people had continuously removed various building materials from here. Besides broken tiles and rubble scattered among the thorns, only some large components too difficult to move remained.

"How much land did you buy?" Mei Lin climbed onto a stone pedestal and surveyed the area, estimating the scale and size of the entire estate.

"I told Old Sun, the bigger the land the better. Most of the Phoenix Mountain area is ownerless government land, worth very little. There are some places with private graves—those are more troublesome to deal with. Buy what we can; avoid what we can't for now." Zhao Yingong pointed. "From the riverbank at the foot of the mountain all the way to here—this land definitely needs to be bought. I want to build a dock."

"There's a problem with building an estate here—water supply isn't easy to solve." Mei Lin observed the area he indicated. "Drawing water from the river requires solving the elevation problem—drainage would be very convenient, though."

"There are springs on the mountain."

"We'll need a water collection system." Mei Lin looked at the terrain. "Actually, water lifting isn't difficult either—just set up a Lanzhou waterwheel. It could be a scenic feature in the future."

Zhao Yingong nodded: "That's a good idea, because I'm also planning to farm at Phoenix Villa." He gestured grandly: "Fruit trees and tea on the slopes, mulberry trees on the land near the water, dig fish ponds, develop sericulture and fish farming. Then set up a tea processing workshop and fruit processing plant."

"You're planning to play farming simulation games in Hangzhou," Mei Lin laughed.

"We need to be self-sufficient—it's thousands of li from here to Lingao. We can't rely on the Planning Commission to ship everything." Zhao Yingong pondered for a moment. "Help me with a good design. Don't make it look like a bastion fortress. Just make it to the standard of local landlords' walled compounds. After all, this is a provincial capital—we can't attract too much attention."

Mei Lin said: "First you need to give me the estate's definite boundaries. While Xu Ke is still here, have him survey and draw a topographic map—I'm not good at that. Building houses is easy, but for layout and planning, you absolutely need a detailed map. As for the estate buildings, I'll first draft a preliminary sketch according to your requirements. Once you approve it, I'll start construction."

"Good," Zhao Yingong nodded. "I have one more request."

"Go ahead—here you're the client. Everything for the client's consideration."

"Build me an ancestral hall in the estate," Zhao Yingong said. "Make it as imposing as possible."