The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

If analyzed according to geographical knowledge, the Liszt River is not a river in essence, but a man-made waterway in a saline-alkali swamp.

The Lister Swamp is the largest saline-alkaline swamp in the northern part of the entire New World. The terrain here is low and concave. Every time the sea tide rises, the seawater will pour into this area, eventually forming a very huge swamp.

There is only one species of red-leaved shrub growing in this swamp. This kind of red-leaved shrub can resist the corrosion of saline-alkaline swamps, and survive by absorbing and purifying the saline-alkaline water of the swamp. Its growth momentum is very strong, densely covering the entire area of ​​Li Si. Special swamp, a large number of animals and birds inhabit this swamp.

The earliest construction purposes of St. Paulia Port and Nice City are the same. One side is a transit port that provides supplies for ships going south and north, and the other side is a transit city that provides supplies for expeditions that go deep into the interior of the New World. The positions of the two are exactly one east and one west, both at the waist of Lister Swamp, and the two places happen to be the narrowest straight-line distance among all areas of Lister Swamp.

Later, as countries in the Old World began to breed rare animals in the New World, the Lister Swamp, home to countless animals, became a paradise for hunters. For example, the ancestors of several big families in the city of Nice were hunters, and even the city of Nice still retains the traditional festival of hunting festival.

Later, with the continuous improvement of the subject of geography, someone measured that the straight-line distance from the city of Nice to the port of St. Paulia was very short, and it was estimated that as long as a road was opened, it would only take a few days for businessmen to travel between the two places. It is possible to complete the trip, unlike before the Liszt River was not opened, it took at least two months to get there, and it was easy to encounter robbers and robbers during the detour. Man-made accidents have lost property and even life.

When someone put forward the idea of ​​opening a river and connecting the two cities in the councils of these two cities, this idea quickly became a proposal, and then became a formal plan in a short period of time. Passed, mainly because businessmen traveling between the two places have had enough of the time wasted and the dangers encountered by traveling overland.

Although the opening of the river channel has become a formal planning plan, it is somewhat difficult to implement, because it is far more difficult to dig a channel in the middle of the List Swamp than to dig a channel on other solid land, and each time the tide rises, a large number of The backflowing seawater can easily destroy the construction results of the previous day.

It was also because of this difficulty that the whole plan had a stagnation period of nearly three years after it was passed quickly, and even the city councils of the two places wanted to give up the plan. In the end, there was a child of a member of the Port of San Polia in a A whimsical suggestion was put forward at the festive banquet held by the city council, which enabled the implementation of the plan, which had been stagnant for three years, and finally built the current Lister River.

This suggestion is very simple, that is, since it is impossible to excavate an artificial river channel according to the conventional method, then abandon the conventional method and cut down a river channel in the red leaf shrub forest directly by cutting down trees, and the boats traveling on the river channel The middle pier that needs to be docked at night does not need to be built according to the conventional method. It only needs to cut out a pier shape on both sides of the river, and then use wooden boards to erect it on the red leaf bushes to become a usable pier.

Although this method is simple and crude, it is quite practical. Soon the city councils of Nice City and St. Paulia Port passed a new planning plan and began to officially promote the construction of the river.

Less than half a year later, a river running through the two major cities in the east and west appeared on the Lister Swamp, and the Lister Swamp was divided into the South Lister Swamp and the North Lister Swamp because of the emergence of this river channel.

Judging from the common sense of geography in this world, the Lister River does not have the characteristics of a river at all. Even if all the trees on the river surface are cut down, the roots still remain at the bottom of the river, and there are swamp shrubs on both sides. There is no so-called river bottom. , the river itself is part of the swamp, and even the depth of most of the river can only reach the waist of an adult.

However, this river, which cannot be regarded as a river, played a huge role in the early and mid-term migration of the New World. At that time, more than 80% of the goods in the entire inland area of ​​the New World were transported from this river to the Port of Santa Priya, and then transported To the old continent, and the goods of the old continent are also transported to the inland of the new continent through this river.

It is precisely because of such a huge cargo throughput that the two cities at both ends of the river, St. Paulia Port and Nice City, became the first two cities in the New World with populations exceeding one million.

In addition, in order to better serve the boats traveling to and from the river, the councils of the two cities spent a lot of money to build three special rest wharfs in the deepest sections of the river. Later, these three wharves even became three A water town built on red leaf shrubs.

However, this prosperity began to decline gradually with the appearance of the steam train, because the steam train is not only fast, but also has a huge carrying capacity, which is far from what those flat-bottomed boats on the Liszt River can match. A lot of money is spent every year to clean up the stubborn roots growing in the river. If not cleaned up, these roots will grow to the surface of the river and become dangerous things like hidden reefs. Basically, flat-bottomed boats will be scrapped if they hit it. This can be seen from the large number of hulks on both sides of the river that have not had time to clean up thoroughly.

The appearance of the steam train had a lesser impact on the city of Nice, because the city council of the city of Nice at that time had excellent foresight. When building the continental railway network, it took the initiative to invest, and even increased investment later, and gained decision-making power, making the city of Nice a The central core of the continental rail network.

Although it is far from being able to compare with the past in terms of freight monopoly, the current status of the central hub of the New World still allows it to maintain prosperity.

On the other hand, the port of Santa Polia is different. Although the port of Santa Polia also saw the future of steam trains, they hesitated in choosing whether to invest in the construction of the railway network, because the investment is huge, but the short-term There is basically no possibility of returning the capital, and there will even be lost contributions. In addition, the conservatives in the city council of the Port of St. Paulia have the upper hand. In the end, the Port of St. Paulia chose to wait and see, and even sold a part of Lis in the city of Nice. When he bought the river channel rights of the Te River, he became the actual controller of the List River.

In the end, a series of wrong decisions caused the port of San Polia to lose its importance on the freight lines of the old and new continents after the opening of the mainland railway network, and eventually the entire port city also declined rapidly.

Now St. Priya Port has returned to the state of the original cargo transfer station. If the city of Nice hadn’t cared about the old feelings, it would still distribute some of the goods to the Liszt River, and then transfer them from the St. Priya Port to the Old Continent. Perhaps the current St. Even the superficial prosperity of Polyya Port can no longer be maintained.

However, although the Port of San Priya is no longer able to obtain huge monopoly benefits from freight, the decision-makers of the Port of San Priya have found another way to make money, and this route is still a costless business .

Because the Port of St. Paulia holds more than 90% of the shares of the List River, it is not an exaggeration to say that the river that runs through the Lister Swamp belongs to the Port of St. Paulia, and the three dock towns on the river Naturally, it is completely attributed to the port of St. Paulia.

St. Paulia Port centered on the three wharf towns and developed to the depths of the northern and southern Lister Swamps respectively, establishing a large number of jungle towns dedicated to swamp adventurers and hunters, and completely controlling the Lister Swamp. hands, and the various natural resources of Lister Swamp are also completely controlled by it.

As for how much wealth and interests are hidden in the Liszt Swamp, no one else knows except the city council of St. Paulia Port. Maintaining the superficial prosperity, it can be seen that the wealth obtained by St. Paulia Port from the Liszt Swamp is not a small amount.

However, this situation has changed in recent years, because some countries around the Lister Swamp have also begun to claim part of the ownership of the Lister Swamp, and some even sent troops into the swamp, seemingly wanting to forcibly occupy the swamp.

In the end, these troops disappeared in the swamp without a sound. Although St. Paulia Port did not admit that it was done by him, anyone with a discerning eye knew that thousands of people could be wiped out in the swamp of Lister without a sound. I am afraid that only the Port of St. Paulia, who knows the Liszt Swamp like the back of his hand, can do it.

After seeing that they could not be forcibly occupied by the army, those countries did not give up. Instead, they secretly encouraged some social activists to publicize that the Lister Swamp belongs to the entire New World, and any New Worlder is the owner of the swamp. The port of Santa Polia is pushed to the opposite side of the whole New World.

These social activists may feel that it is not enough to publicize outside the swamp. Some daring ones even ran into the swamp to conduct various publicity and speeches in the dock town controlled by the port of St. Paulia.

When the Sanctity docked at the first resting wharf town, many social activists led their students to promote their idea of ​​sharing the swamp on the wooden shelves on the wharf.

It's just that most people who come to the harsh environment of the swamp are aiming to catch a rare creature and get rich overnight, so how can they have any spare time to stand in front of those people's simple wooden shelves and listen to their nonsense? , and those who want to experience the swamp adventure will not care about who the swamp belongs to, they just need to play fast.

It was also the attitude of these guests that the San Polia Harbor Guard, who was responsible for the security of the wharf town, did not drive these social activists away. Instead, they opened up a place on the simple wharf for these people They gave speeches and publicity, as if they regarded this as a sideshow with local characteristics.

When Leo and the others disembarked, it was already dark, sailing on the pitch-black Liszt River, even the most experienced old captain would have committed suicide, so they had to live in this wharf town for one night and leave tomorrow morning.

After disembarking, Leo and his party did not rush to the small hotel reserved by the Holy Ship, but called a few social activists who were about to leave the pier and return to their place of residence, and then they went to the tavern on the pier, Treat them to a dinner.

The reason why Leo and Sylvia are interested in these social activists is because these social activists are from the Old Continent, and the two of them can just learn something about the Old Continent from these few people.

These social activists originally didn't want to talk to Leo and the others. It wasn't because they saw that Leo and Sylvia had any bad intentions, but because they saw that they were following them, wearing the false heart church After Joan in knight armor, he simply regarded Leo and Sylvia as members of the Church of False Heart.

In the impression of the few of them, the clergy and believers of False Heart are all lunatics. One moment they may be kind and friendly to you, but the next moment they may turn their faces in an instant and turn swords against each other, so try to stay away from the people of False Heart Church It is the consensus of the people of the old continent.

However, after Leo and Sylvia explained, these social activists realized that they had misunderstood, and they also readily accepted their invitation, of course, provided that Joann did not sit at the same table with them.

Under Sylvia's conscious guidance, the social activists who had been drinking didn't hide anything, they said everything they should say and what they shouldn't say.

What makes Leo and Silvia interesting is that these social activists did not come to the New World voluntarily at all. They all fled to the New World. In fact, in their minds, only criminals and thieves would be willing to move to the New World. It is also a common view among people in the Old World.

In fact, these social activists don’t know much about the countries of the Old Continent. They have lived in a small country called Latovik since their birth, because a very famous social activist came out of this country, and wrote He created a social structure that is similar to a textbook, so most of the scholars in this country are social activists.

Because most social activists use sharp words to criticize politics to show their political opinions, they often offend some powerful people, and these social activists put a neighboring country with real power because of some radical words. In the end, the big shot was notoriously narrow-minded, so he sent people to assassinate these social activists, forcing these social activists to leave their homes and flee to the New World.

Although these social activists don't know much about the situation in other countries, they still have some basic understanding of the political environment of the entire Old World. On the train, it is impossible to get off, and at the end of the train track is a high mountain called revolution, if it hits it, the car will be destroyed and people will die.