Chapter 512
Wide and clean streets, tall and neatly planned buildings, magic spar street lamps standing beside the road like guards, magic projections floating in the air, incredible magic machines on display in the square...
The big businessman Cod sat on the carriage. As a mature and stable businessman, he has successfully adjusted his mentality and began to observe the outside scene with a calm and indifferent expression, but the storm in his heart still did not subside.
Carroll used to be a viscount, but due to its close proximity to the Holy Spirit Plain and prosperous trade, it used to be one of the richest areas in the South. The prosperity of Carroll City has always been a place where Cod is very satisfied and proud, but Compared to 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 rotten smell of feces that is common in big cities, and there is no ragged poor and serfs walking around the streets. An indescribable "order" seems to permeate the air. This sense of order is Cod. Never seen anywhere.
He knew about the new council hall in Carroll City and a series of new laws promulgated by the council -- some of those new laws were supported by the locals, such as lowering taxes and allocating land, while others were difficult to implement, For example, health laws and part of the work system. Frankly speaking, even Codd can't fully understand the meaning of those New Deals - but after seeing the scene of Cecil City today, he at least realized one thing:
Living in such a city is at least more comfortable than living in Carroll City.
After I go back, I should mobilize the people of the business association, at least to make everyone willing to implement the health law...
The carriage left the bustling and lively city street, turned two corners, and the surroundings gradually became quiet.
The Pioneer Square is next to the Government Affairs Office and the Lord's Mansion. There are only two streets between the two. 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 post stopped for inspection.
Cod and Parr prepared the coins they needed to pay the soldiers early. After the carriage stopped, they obeyed the order and got out of the car as soon as possible, and then saw a warrior in magic armor coming over: "Parking check- - Please show proof of identity."
Cord quickly took out from his arms the identification certificate issued by Cecil's Department of Commerce, and the letter of introduction signed by Minister Patrick, and handed it to the soldier while estimating how much such a guard would need to be in place - although he He told Pal that he had been to Cecil, but he had only been here once last year with the family's fleet to sell medicinal ingredients, and he had never been there since, so he really didn't know much about the city.
The so-called "coming to Cecil",
There is a bit of self-promotion in it.
In the brief moment of his thinking, the soldier had checked the document and confirmed the black and white portrait on the document, while two other soldiers checked the carriage, and a crisp voice entered the ears of Cod and Parr. : "The inspection passed - you can go in."
Cod nodded subconsciously, then stunned: "Ah... ah?"
"You can go in," the soldier repeated again, and after noticing the confused look on the merchant's face, he glanced down at the document in his hand and reconfirmed the contents, "There is no problem—go in, Take your passes."
Codd, dazed with the papers and the pass issued to him, went back to the carriage with Parr, and he didn't understand what had happened until the carriage left the post.
Pal was also full of confusion: "Father...Did those soldiers forget to accept our money?"
"How can this kind of thing be forgotten," Codd glanced at his son, and then muttered in disbelief, "Carroll's side, too... how did the Duke do it?"
With a head of confusion, the carriage that the businessman and his son were riding continued to move forward.
After a while, they came to the lord's mansion.
Leaving the carriage and looking up at the tall mansion in front of him, Cod took a deep breath. He carefully hid all the surprise, curiosity, confusion and excitement along the way under that calm and indifferent face, and then sorted it out. After taking a look at his impeccable clothes, accompanied by a guard of the lord's palace, he walked forward with Parr.
There was more than one car parked in front of the lord's mansion, there were obviously other visitors here, and in front of the gate depicting the Cecil family crest, Cord saw a young woman coming out, well dressed. woman in winter clothes, walked down the steps and seemed to be about to leave.
The guard at the door, apparently familiar with the young woman, chatted briefly.
"Miss Jibrley—debriefing so soon?"
The young woman said with a smile: "It's just a routine report."
The guard looked forward with anticipation: "Is there still a show tomorrow?"
"Of course, every day - and there may be new shows to watch in the last few days."
Cod came to the door, and the accompanying guards stepped forward to hand over, while the young woman called "Miss Jibry" turned around and glanced 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!" Cod looked at the young woman in front of him in surprise, only to realize that the other party was the one he had seen on the holographic projection in the city before- —The big businessman was quite surprised by the wonderful feeling of seeing a real person when he was watching on the holographic projection before, and then he saluted with a perfect masculine demeanor, "Miss 'Witch', you are more than It looks beautiful on the projection."
"Thank you for your compliment." Jibry nodded with a smile, 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 certain face in her mind. together.
Cod also glanced at Jibry one more time-after putting aside the "magic projection" barrier, he looked at the "witch" lady, and his heart suddenly moved, and a vague sense of familiarity came to his mind.
The two said in unison, "Have we met?"
At 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 fugitive mage apprentice was living in a foreign land, starving.
The young businessman was looking for business opportunities, and with a certain high mood, he found a fortune-telling booth and wanted to hear a few good words.
She was just a little girl's mage apprentice looking for food. She took out a few tricks she just learned and wanted to change two pieces of bread.
A silent and brief embarrassment stagnated 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 invariable laughter of the two.
"You said the city was full of gold," Codd stepped forward and held out his hand. "Codd, from Carroll."
"Jipley, it's nice to meet you again," Jibry shook the other's hand lightly, "I'm sorry, I lied to you, I'm hungry."
"I know," Codd let go and took a polite step back, "I can see that you don't know divination at all."
Jibry smiled. "But it will be from that day."
They passed by, the big businessman walked to the gate of the lord's mansion, and the witch went to the carriage that was parked by the road, but before getting on the carriage, Jibrley suddenly stopped, turned her head and said loudly: "Ke Mr. De - this city is full of gold."
Cord looked back in surprise, and he saw the witch lady 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 Cod and Parr stepped into the gate of the lord's mansion.
"Father," the young Parr finally said after entering the door, "you know that witch lady?"
"I met when I was young—she was a little girl then," said the big businessman casually. "She taught me my first lesson."
"first lesson?"
"Yeah, the content is 'Don't trust roadside divination'."
...
In front of Gawain, there were two documents.
One is from Rebecca, an analysis report on the "Universal Traction Chassis". In this report, there is a detailed interpretation of the complete system of the first-generation magic drive car, and on this basis, the magic guide The technical experience of the car is the starting point to manufacture the solution of the universal traction chassis.
The magic car was successfully manufactured. The R&D personnel of this world used magic technology and the unique resources of this world. After a lot of difficult development, they finally successfully solved most of the technical problems they encountered, and made a magic drive. , The means of transportation that can be manipulated by ordinary people are on the road. Although it is still very early from perfection and has problems of one kind and another, this first step is undoubtedly a success.
A means of transportation that is stronger than cow horsepower, faster, tireless, and does not need to consume forage. With it, the transportation problems encountered by Cecil during the large-scale construction process will undoubtedly be greatly alleviated. 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 the magic car.
Under the influence of Gawain for so long, Rebecca already has the concept of modular design and general technology, and has tasted great benefits from it, so after the magic car was built this time, it did not wait for Gawain's requirements. , 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" magic vehicle a modular chassis that can be easily connected to other shells and towed objects, and then based on this She built a large number of derivative vehicles, including trucks, passenger cars, agricultural machinery, and engineering machines. She even drew a simple schematic diagram of a chariot at the end of the report—the basic structure was welded on the chassis of the 475 Magic Vehicle. A light magic gun, and then a circle of steel plates surrounds the car shell...
The front of the car even had a nondescript collision angle.
Simple, rough, simple and crude, but very surprising.
To be honest, after seeing this report, Gao Wen was surprised for a long time, because he hadn't had time to come up with this concept at all...
And next to this report, the second document is a plan that Gawain himself is drafting——
"Exploiting the Potential Value of New Media"
Newspapers have gradually become popular in the southern border, and their coverage has basically reached every town-level unit. The brand-new magic web broadcast is centered on the cross axis and is covering more and more cities. People in the southern border are gradually familiar with these new Things, on the other hand—people who make newspapers and broadcasts are getting familiar with these new jobs.
The role of the new media in information dissemination has gradually emerged, especially in the Luan City incident, the power of public opinion propaganda impressed everyone in the Government Affairs Office. The strength is no less than that of a fully armed army.
But Gawain knew that the value of these new media was far from being developed—they were still narrowly used tools limited to the publicity of government affairs.
The content is single, the category is lacking, and the commercial revenue is lacking. It is not so much a new media as a larger bulletin board.
This is far from Gawain's original goal.
He picked up the pen and listed the next step in the plan in the plan - to find a way to teach the lords to actively participate in these new things, so that people can more deeply realize that the things created by the lords are not only the lords can use It can also be used by ordinary people. Find a way to create more civilian markets, make these new things "live", and maximize their value...
The benefits of doing this are obvious. Just by opening up the commercial sector of newspapers, on the one hand, people’s intelligence can be opened up more quickly, and ordinary people can be stimulated to think and act, so as to accelerate Cecil’s cultural construction, and on the other hand, it can generate Economic benefits to ease the increasing financial pressure on Cecil's government office - too many 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 have almost no cost recovery (or can only recover the up-front costs without generating subsequent benefits), they are 100% "Government Office Industry", and are almost completely out of touch with various civil organizations.
While it's fine at this stage, this will become a huge problem sooner or later.
Of course, how to carry out effective management and control in this process to prevent these new things from losing the control of the Government Affairs Office, that is also something to be seriously considered...
Gao Wen frowned and pondered, and his writing stopped. He not only had to consider the future development direction of the new media and the corresponding management system, but also how to guide the people and consider the way of thinking of people in this era. It is not easy to make a plan.
At this moment, Betty's voice suddenly came from outside the door, interrupting Gawain's thinking.
"Sir! Mr. Codd and Mr. Parr of Carroll are here!"
Gawain was stunned for a moment, then remembered who these two somewhat unfamiliar names were.
It was the businessman father and son recommended by Minister of Commerce Patrick.
"Let them in."
The door opened, and Cord and Parr walked into the lord's study with a hint of nervousness.
They finally saw the ruler of the South with their own eyes.
He was sitting behind a large desk, holding a pen in his hand, a huge French window behind him, the sunlight poured into the room through the French window, and fell on the shoulders of the founding duke, like a pale golden cloak.
He was taller than Corder imagined.
"Lord Duke," after a brief stupor, the big businessman hurriedly grabbed his son and saluted respectfully, "We are extremely honored—your splendor shines on this land."
(Mommy!!)