Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 294 The Age of Transition from the Old to the New

"Master, you are back."

The two servants standing at the door saw Zhang Zhenxun coming back with a middle-aged Chinese man who looked like an official, and they trotted forward a few steps to flatter him.

"Is the young lady in the backyard?"

"Miss went out with Miss Wu today. I heard that she went to Nanhua First Women's College to audit classes."

"Ah."

Zhang Zhenxun whispered, then turned to Sun Bin and said, "Master Sun, my daughter is not at home today, so you have made a wasted trip."

"Mr. Zhang, you are too polite." Sun Bin waved his hand and said with a smile, "It is only half an incense stick away from here to the Nanhua First Women's College. If Mr. Zhang doesn't mind the trouble, why not take a bus to the Nanhua First Women's College? On the way, you can also see the scenery around Chang'an City (Cordoba). What do you think, Mr. Zhang?"

"As Lord Sun said."

Zhang Zhenxun nodded in agreement, and then the two of them got on the carriage they came in and turned around and headed the other way.

Nanhua No. 1 Women's College is a women's college under construction. The school is located in the West District of Chang'an. The surrounding area of ​​the city is mostly light industrial textile factories such as garment factories, spinning mills, and textile factories that have just relocated and have not yet officially started production operations.

After passing through a gravel official road, the carriage entered a bustling commercial district. Both sides of the street were lined with two-story Western-style brick and stone buildings, but the owners of the buildings had changed from Argentine whites to Chinese.

"Master, we are only two miles away from here and we will reach the Nanhua First Women's College."

Arriving at the entrance of the street, the coachman said respectfully.

"The streets are crowded with people, so be careful when catching the bus."

"Hey. Don't worry, sir."

The carriage slowed down and slowly passed through the crowded crowd. Zhang Zhenxun opened the curtain of the carriage and turned his head to look outside. What he saw were small vendors hawking their wares and Chinese people in various costumes.

People are divided into different classes, and businesses are divided into high, medium and low classes. Among the merchants engaged in business activities in the Han Dynasty, they are divided into merchant warehouse merchants, fixed stall merchants, mobile vendors and rural peddlers according to their size, from high to low.

Merchants in trading houses who have been doing business for several years and have a lot of wealth can usually buy one or several trading houses to engage in commercial activities. Broadly speaking, Zhang Zhenxun also belongs to this class of merchants, but Zhang Zhenxun used his personal relationship with the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies to expand his business.

Fixed stall merchants and mobile vendors are easy to understand. They either rent a small stall or carry goods on the move. Mobile vendors are different from the first three. Most of them are overseas Chinese who have lost their land and emigrated or unemployed people in urban slums. They lack the funds and connections to rent a fixed stall. They use carts loaded with groceries, department stores,

Vegetables and other daily necessities, or carry a peddler's pole on his shoulders, shake a peddler's drum and walk through the streets, shouting and selling, or
Go deep into the village of "Jiapigou" to purchase local specialties, go out in wind and rain, get up early and work late, abide by the law, and earn a small profit with the hardest work.

The country peddler is the lowest among the merchants.
As early as in Southeast Asia, there was a saying among the Chinese that "Don't be a peddler when doing business."

When Chinese went to Southeast Asia to make a living, they were forced by the environment to work as peddlers in the countryside, even though the conditions were tough. The income of peddlers in Southeast Asia was meager, and most of them could only support one person's living expenses, not to mention their families. Therefore, 70% to 80% of the male Chinese who went to Southeast Asia could not save enough money to get married and start a family, and ended up dying of illness in a foreign land and being buried in a wasteland.

Zhang Zhenxun, like other Chinese who went to Southeast Asia, started as a rural peddler and worked hard for more than 20 years to achieve his current status. However, compared with the Chinese who risked their lives to go to Southeast Asia dozens or hundreds of years ago, overseas Chinese now have another way out, which is to immigrate to South America. Li Mingyuan led the South American Chinese to take root in the La Plata region little by little. After more than ten years of external publicity and influence, coupled with the infiltration and expansion of the Taiping Society and the Military Intelligence Department in Southeast Asia, the development of the Han Kingdom and the real living conditions of the immigrants gradually became known to overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and other regions.

From the beginning to the end of each year, groups of overseas Chinese gather in South America from all over the world. Among them, the majority are peddlers engaged in the sale of small commodities. They have worked hard in Southeast Asia for half their lives but earned very little. If they unfortunately get sick or are attacked by natives while selling small commodities in the countryside, the only way left for them is death.

In contrast to the living conditions in Southeast Asia and South America, nine out of ten peddlers from Southeast Asia chose to leave the scorching heat and poisonous insect-ridden Southeast Asia, and followed the ships of immigrants to South America with only a few copper coins on them.

The Han Kingdom in South America has been in a period of expansion of developing industry and reclaiming wasteland. After arriving in the Han Kingdom in South America, some small peddlers entered factories as workers after being introduced by government officials, while most of the small peddlers saw the business opportunities in the newly built immigration settlements across the country and still chose to do their old business, carrying their simple peddlers' poles and going deep into Chinese settlements, delivering necessary daily necessities to Chinese immigrants while earning profits several times higher than in Southeast Asia.

The Plains of La Plata, the Pampas, the dense forests of northern Argentina, and even the relatively desolate Patagonian wilderness are all covered with the marks of peddlers.

When a country is developing rapidly, all walks of life will develop rapidly from nothing to something, and from small to large. In such a historical opportunity that may last for decades, hardworking and willing to endure hardships Chinese people can easily accumulate initial wealth.

As time passed, the small peddlers from Southeast Asia who arrived earlier earned their start-up capital and began to turn their attention to other areas such as industry and agriculture. The peddlers who arrived later followed in the footsteps of the earlier comers and continued to start their own entrepreneurial process step by step.

The hawkers hawking their wares on the roadside brought back memories of Zhang Zhenxun’s earlier business days, while the pedestrians on the street dressed in different clothes made Zhang Zhenxun smell the atmosphere of a great era of alternation between the old and the new and prosperity.

Measures such as cutting braids and changing clothes, abolishing bad habits such as foot binding and infanticide, encouraging ordinary Chinese to wear new Hanfu with narrow sleeves and short shirts, and issuing new decrees every few months show that the Han government's reform and innovation is not just a short period of time, but has been ongoing. According to information leaked by some senior government officials, the Han government's reform and innovation movement may continue for decades.

Although the new Hanfu was established as the standard clothing of the Han Dynasty, due to the influence of the trend of opening up people's wisdom and learning Western technology, Western-style formal wear and military uniforms can also be seen in some large cities within the Han Dynasty.
He wore a Lushi hat and rubber shoes produced in the Han Dynasty. His upper body was a short shirt uniform of the Han Dynasty’s garrison troops, and his lower body was a British suit and dress.

Walking on the streets of Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty is like an international fashion exhibition.

Zhang Zhenxun had stayed in the Han Kingdom for several months and had already adapted to the streets of Chang'an City (Cordoba) and the historical scenes unique to this era to a certain extent. However, the two servants sitting in the front of the carriage and driving the carriage had eyes full of curiosity.

A young woman with Chinese hair accessories, a pink fitted skirt and wooden clogs walked in front of the carriage with a Chinese man in an old-fashioned Wehrmacht uniform, causing a servant to glance at them furtively.

"Everyone has left, don't look at it anymore."

Another servant who was driving the carriage whispered to remind him, "It's not like I haven't seen Japanese women before. There are many Nanyang sisters (Japanese women who went to Southeast Asia) in Singapore, but I haven't seen you being so obsessed with them."

"Hehe, the Nanyang sister over there is not as pretty as this one."

"You are not even beautiful enough. Didn't you see that there is a man in an old military uniform following her? He was the man who followed the King of Han to conquer the world. How can you compare with him?"

"I'm just saying"...

"Zhang An, Zhang Ping, don't talk too much and be careful on your way."

A stern reprimand came from inside the car, and the two servants immediately fell silent.

(End of this chapter)