Two years later, Zhu Jingyuan got on the same train again and returned to Jiangnan along the same route he took two years ago.

Zhu Jingyuan sat by the window again, admiring the scenery beside the railway outside the window, or in other words, observing the scenes on both sides.

As the train continued to move forward, Zhu Jingyuan slowly discovered that compared to two years ago, the surrounding rural and urban scenes had changed again.

Zhu Jingyuan couldn't tell at the moment, but after seeing more, he realized that there were more machines and fewer people.

Two years ago, on his way here, Zhu Jingyuan often saw villages that were still crowded, many of which seemed to be home to dozens of families.

There are many people inside and outside the village, there are also conspicuous stables and cattle pens, and there are farmers riding horses.

That is the villages that have not yet replaced agricultural machinery on a large scale and still rely on manpower and horses for plowing.

At that time, many villages had begun to replace the latest agricultural machinery.

The stables in many villages are empty, and some have been converted into garages.

Some villages have built simple airstrips, and you can see flying agricultural aircraft.

In all villages of this type, the number of people in and around the village has also decreased, and there may be only a dozen families left, because there is no need for so many people to work in the village.

However, these so-called villages are not actually the rural areas that Zhu Jingyuan was accustomed to in his previous life, but are gathering places for workers on large farms.

Usually one or two families are farmers, while most other families are his employees.

Or they are all hired workers.

The land around these villages usually belongs to one or two families.

Or directly the land of Huangzhuang.

The villagers living in these villages are basically wage laborers.

Now two years have passed, there are almost no densely populated farms anymore, and the stables are almost empty.

On the contrary, garages and airstrips have become almost universal.

There were once again fewer active residents in and around the villages, and in most villages no one could be seen at all.

There is only well-cultivated and sown land around it, indicating that people are still producing here.

A village that originally had hundreds of people living there may now only have a few families left.

A farm that originally had only a dozen families might even have only one family left, the farmer himself alone.

While Zhu Jingyuan sighed in his heart, he also subconsciously recalled the data he had read.

Daming’s local mechanical production capacity is really very strong.

We have designed mature diesel engines and agricultural machinery ourselves, and after practical testing, they have been spread very quickly in the local market.

Both private farmers and imperial farm operators quickly purchased these agricultural machinery.

In the Central Plains region of the Ming Dynasty, where the economy and industry were the most developed, the transition from animal power to mechanization was very fast, and it entered the final stage in just a few years.

At the same time, in the past few years, the size of built-up areas in major cities in Ming Dynasty has also expanded.

This is particularly evident in the great plains of the Central Plains.

But after entering Jianghuai Province, this trend slowed down slightly.

There are a lot of small towns here.

Zhu Jingyuan has long known that large-scale scattered small towns can only be built in relatively wealthy places.

This is because the local area must have enough money and resources to provide relatively high-quality basic living facilities and services to the small residential areas despite a relatively dispersed population.

Formerly Nanzhili, now Jianghuai Province, its central and southern regions are the most economically and industrially developed regions in the world.

Traditional Ming people have a deep attachment to their land and hometown.

Even though we have entered the industrial age, while wealthy businessmen in the Jianghuai region are opening factories, many people will still retain or invest in traditional land and farms.

This has promoted the construction of small towns in the central and southern regions of Jianghuai Province. Many towns and villages have various large and small private factories.

When we reached the county level, various medium-sized factories sprouted everywhere.

When it reaches the prefectural level, many local industries in large prefectures have already taken the lead in the entire Ming Dynasty.

On the contrary, when it reaches the level of a provincial city, the size of the city does not have much advantage compared to its subordinate prefectural cities and inland provincial cities.

Yingtianfu is the capital, but its overall economic strength is on the same level as Suzhou and Songjiang.

For people in the Jianghuai area, they may regard the provincial capital as another provincial capital.

Your Yingtian Mansion is your mansion, and my Suzhou Mansion is also my mansion...

The characteristics of bulk Jiangsu may have existed since the Ming Dynasty and the Zhili era.

Southern Zhili was originally a group of prefectures directly under the central government, all of which were directly under the administration of Nanjing. There was no province of Southern Zhili.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has established Jianghuai Province, this concept will be difficult to eliminate in the short term...

When the provincial capitals, prefectures, county towns, and built-up areas of towns and villages in Jianghuai Province gradually became connected, the train Zhu Jingyuan took also entered the urban area of ​​Yingtianfu.

Yingtianfu is one of the most developed cities in the Ming Dynasty, and also one of the most antique cities in terms of overall construction.

Because it is another capital of the Ming Dynasty, and even the real spiritual capital, there are a large number of official and royal buildings with political and cultural traditional attributes in the city.

These buildings have the strongest traditional style, and their presence has influenced the style of local wealthy class houses.

Therefore, in residential areas in the city, you can often see traditional garden-style buildings with cornices and brackets, and carved railings and painted buildings.

Zhu Jingyuan came back here again after an absence of two years, and he felt a little emotional looking at these pictures.

This was Charlotte's first visit to the richest place in the Ming Dynasty, and her first visit to another nominal capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Extraordinarily novel and exciting, I leaned against the window and stared at the surrounding scene with my eyes wide open.

"This is Yingtian Mansion. We have finally arrived at Yingtian Mansion, the heart of the largest empire in the world!"

Two maids from the royal palace and two royal maids from England were guarding Charlotte.

They are all very worried about Charlotte's belly. If anything happens, they will not be able to escape responsibility.

Fortunately, this worry did not last long.

After the train entered the urban area of ​​Nanjing, it shut down its engine and continued to slide forward on the rails.

Finally, it stopped at the platform dedicated to the royal family in the imperial city.
Chapter completed!