Chapter 58 Yujing

Once inside the royal domain of His Imperial Majesty the Holy Emperor, it seemed as though all bad luck and misfortune had been left behind at the customs checkpoint. The steady Silver Dragon sped smoothly along the steady Beijing-Shanghai Railway. The cheap "inner cabin" prevented him from seeing anything outside, leaving him with only the two companions right in front of him.

Lu Huaiyang sat completely upright, his back not even touching the cushion, resting his eyes to preserve his energy. Wen Yuan was eagerly devouring knowledge from a book—though having been out and about, he had fallen behind on the latest manga updates and was currently grinning idiotically at the previous issue.

"Ah... I suppose I can never quite keep up with the fashion of the youth."

Yangzhou had just one drawback—its information exchange with the Metropolitan District was always a beat slower. The only periodicals inzhou that could keep up with metropolitan news in real-time were a few nationwide publications like the *Yingtian Daily*. They were the only ones that used transoceanic telegraph lines to send out "Express Selection Editions" at staggered intervals throughout the day.

As the name suggested, this meant critical information was excerpted and urgently transmitted across the ocean. The *Yingtian Daily* was a morning paper, and over in Yangzhou, they could receive the "Express Evening Edition" of that same morning's paper. Most of the news articles remained intact, but serialized novels had to rely on pre-submitted drafts—half of which were flown in a week in advance—while advertisements occupied fixed columns.

Even so, this method could only transmit text, not images. Anything involving manga magazines was delayed even further because the scheduling for manga publications was sometimes tighter than that for newspapers, given that the mangakas' own work was uncontrollable. Distribution in Yangzhou could hardly be called "publishing"; it was merely flying in the bundled omnibus editions.

Throughout the entire empire, the only region that maintained synchronization with the Metropolitan District was the jurisdiction of the Lanfang Company—specifically, the three cities of Pontianak, Singapore, and Java. Moreover, Lanfang synchronized with Guangzhou Prefecture rather than Yujing.

Shang Luo remembered that he truly used to have an interest in following manga when he was a child. But after moving to Yangzhou, he could only read the omnibus volumes, and gradually lost the enthusiasm. Now that he had moved back, he planned to try picking it back up in a couple of days.

[By the way, there is actually something I have been wanting to ask you. Things were rather rushed earlier, so I didn't have the time.]

Seeing that Lu Huaiyang was dozing off, Apollonia popped up.

"You still have questions for me? Can't you just look them up?"

[I can only look up factual data, but concepts and perceptions can only be asked of locals. I want to know, what does Yujing actually mean? What is the specific scope of Yujing? Because your Ming Empire doesn't even have an administrative division called 'Yujing,' yet many places calculate things directly based on it. Is Yujing Nanjing? Or is it Yingtian?]

"Yujing refers to the Yujing Megacity Cluster, because the functions of a world capital require more than a single city to sustain. The specific scope is a massive, interconnected cluster of cities radiating outward with Yingtian Prefecture as its center, extending all the way to Songjiang Prefecture by the coast. As for Nanjing, that is a historical concept and not used very much anymore. Nowadays, mentioning Nanjing generally refers to the city of Nanjing proper—the urban area enclosed within the Nanjing city walls. After all, the imperial palace isn't even inside Nanjing city."

[Oh? So the Son of Heaven doesn't actually live in Nanjing city?]

"Did you forget that I mentioned the 'Palace Museum' earlier? The old imperial palace was converted into the Palace Museum. It seems that when the court moved back there, the place had fallen into disrepair, suffered from land subsidence, and all three of the main throne halls had completely collapsed. The new imperial palace was built on the southern foothills of Purple Mountain, and later, the 108-meter-tall Zhiwei Hall was constructed at the peak of Purple Mountain, modeled after Luoyang's Hall of Supreme Wonders."

[Right, right, that's exactly what I wanted to ask. That is just too exaggerated. Why would you build such a massive wonder on top of a mountain?]

"Well... actually, it's for political reasons. You probably won't see this in publicly published literature, but we all know it among ourselves. The reason is that all architecture is strictly regulated by code, and the Fengtian Hall is the highest-ranking structure. Including its Sumeru throne, it stands a total of 35 meters tall, and theoretically, no other building is allowed to surpass it. Although there are tall structures like the Yueyang Tower or the Yellow Crane Tower, they aren't government-commissioned buildings, nor are they located in front of the imperial court, so they could simply be overlooked.

"However, with the development of the times, land in Yingtian Prefecture became exorbitantly expensive, and building skyscrapers became an absolute necessity. Wouldn't a skyscraper taller than Fengtian Hall constitute a violation of the building codes? Therefore, after a joint consultation among the Six Ministries, it was decided that the imperial court should simply build something massive first! Consequently, they erected the 108-meter Zhiwei Hall atop the 449-meter-high Purple Mountain, which, when combined with the Sumeru throne, reaches nearly six hundred meters. That way, absolutely nothing could possibly be taller than the imperial palace, and skyscrapers would no longer be considered a violation of the codes."

[Brilliant... that move is truly brilliant... Will I be able to see it when I get off the train?]

"You actually won't be able to see it. Well, you originally could have seen it from the train, but this is an inner cabin, so you can't see outside at all. When we arrive, it's a station-to-station transfer. My home is inside Nanjing city; there are no trams in the city, only subways, so stepping out brings you right to my doorstep. Unless we take a detour, I recall it's not visible due to the dense surrounding buildings. However, since you'll be meeting the Dao Ancestor soon, you'll have to visit the Jinyiwei anyway, and you can view it up close then."

Shang Luo took a sip of ice water. Although he hadn't visited other parts of the train, having a built-in ice maker definitely deserved praise. Once the Great Western Railway was finally extended all the way to Rome, he wouldn't mind taking this "landliner" all the way for a tour of Constantinople.

Just as he was speaking, he suddenly felt a push from behind—

"We've arrived." Lu Huaiyang opened his eyes.

"We're here? We've reached Yingtian?" He calculated the time; it certainly seemed about right. "But doesn't it stop at any other stations along the way?"

"Of course it doesn't stop. The Beijing-Shanghai Trunk Line runs directly from Songjiang to Yingtian without a single intermediate stop. Operating at a commercial speed of 200 kilometers per hour using steam engines is still a bit too demanding, and merely accelerating to that speed takes at least half an hour. If there were intermediate stops, the average speed would drop to just over a hundred kilometers per hour, making it no different from ordinary-speed rail. I hear the Railway Bureau is researching the use of high-speed internal combustion engines paired with electric transmission to push speeds higher, and they'll probably succeed soon. After all, they figured out marine diesel engines last year, so they just need to scale up the submarine engines."

Inquired Shang Luo, "Tell me... Commander Lu, won't running this fast strain the old ticker?"

"Time waits for no one, and having so many Qi practitioners willing to brave risks and charge ahead one after another is a good thing. It's much better than all the Qi practitioners holing up in the mountains to cultivate immortality. We practice the Dao, but we engage with the world rather than fleeing from it. Longevity and enduring vision—longevity exists precisely for enduring vision, so that one may truly witness the world. Oh, right, speaking of which, did Captain Lin mention anything to you about Lanfang's lunar cannon? That's Lanfang's latest major undertaking."

"Oh? So you all knew about it?"

"Of course we knew. They stripped the mountains of Borneo bare, who wouldn't know? Besides, the previous ruling family actually reported it to the imperial court for record-keeping back then, though we simply assumed they were conducting feasibility studies. As it turns out, after the current ruling head inherited the title of Marquis of Yanping, he seems significantly more radical than all his predecessors. Did he ask you to go take a look in the Nanyang region? I heard their plans haven't been going smoothly; they actually blew up a mountain peak just a couple of days ago."

"That is indeed what he told me."

Lu Huaiyang glanced at the tabletop and thought for a moment. "I have a case on my hands right now and things are rather busy lately. You'll also be tied up with graduation matters over the next few months. Once everything is settled, the Jinyiwei will need to dispatch an inspection team over there. If you're going, you can come along with us. Exploring the cutting-edge frontiers is a virtuous endeavor, and it is only right that we lend a helping hand."