Chapter 59: The Residence

After many years, Shang Luo had returned to his doorstep once again. This was his family home in Nanjing.

[Is this your house?]

"Yes."

[Your family actually owns a detached house in Yujing! Are you people Roman senators?]

"I know what you want to say, but the situation is different."

He had seen the cityscape of Constantinople in newspapers. Everything within the Theodosian Walls still looked the way it did in 1453, or perhaps even more archaic. Not a single skyscraper stood within the city, and residential houses were almost non-existent. The mansions of the senators filled the old city of Constantinople, and the resident "citizens" numbered only one or two thousand households. To cram over two thousand grand mansions in there was a testament to the truly admirable urban planning skills of the Romans.

It was said that there wasn't a single public transportation route within the Theodosian Walls to this day, because the Roman senators living in their grand mansions simply didn't need, nor did they want, noisy buses packed with passengers running past their front doors. Trams were even more out of the question, and subways were completely unthinkable, as all of those would disrupt the sacred blessing of New Rome's "City on Seven Hills." All modern urban districts had developed outside the Theodosian Walls.

Yujing was an entirely different story. Shang Luo's family home was a very typical residential dwelling.

The high courtyard wall rose to the height of three stories, making efficient use of the mere 80 square meters of land it occupied. The outer boundaries of the entire structure were quite restrained, with the left and right sides completely flush against the neighbors' houses. Only a gap the width of a palm was left between the two residences, narrow enough that even a large rat would have to squeeze through.

The eaves overhead were also separated from one another by horse-head gables, strictly demarcating the living spaces of both parties. The street-facing side extended only a tiny lintel, just enough to ensure one wouldn't get drenched by rain while opening the door, but no further.

The entire street, and indeed the houses throughout the neighborhood, were just like this—individual square boxes of white walls and black tiles, occupying every single inch of available land to the absolute brim.

This was the traditional Jiangnan residential architecture manifested in Yujing, frequently seen in many places across Huizhou, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. Compared to ancient times, the exterior of these dwellings had not changed much; they were still square boxes. Because only a square box could maximize the utilization of architectural space, most residential homes in Yujing were built this way.

Viewed from above, these neighborhoods resembled a vast, interconnected black-and-white chessboard, with nearly every building being the exact same size, each occupying a single grid space on the board. Occasionally, some exceeded a single grid to occupy four, or formed different combinations occupying two or three. They were neatly stacked together just like Tetris.

Narrow alleys extended like capillaries deep into the chessboard, some alleys even too narrow for two people to pass side by side. When facing each other, they would exchange a polite smile and then slide past sideways.

It was cramped here; it was cramped everywhere. But this was the only way to ensure everyone had their own detached house; without squeezing, it simply wouldn't fit. Not only in the city of Nanjing, but in many parts of Suzhou and Hangzhou, it was the same, with many neighborhoods looking much like this since the Wanli era. This was how Yujing's 120 million resident population was squeezed in.

Therefore, the initial decision to build skyscrapers was indeed an urgent necessity; otherwise, given Yujing's commercial volume, this plot of land could never have accommodated everyone. Companies stacking themselves vertically was preferable to residential homes stacking themselves vertically.

One major problem with this approach was that private cars were unusable—there was simply nowhere to park them and nowhere to drive them. There was no helping it; many neighborhoods had histories spanning over three or four centuries, and back then, no one could have anticipated the need to reserve space for private cars centuries later.

Thus, although private cars weren't expensive, commuting within Yujing relied primarily on public transit, and anyone below the fifth rank had to crowd onto the subway. This was why the subway's conversion from coal to electricity had been so urgent, as it was genuinely vital. Yujing citizens spent an hour or two in the subway every day, making a smoke-free subway everyone's most pressing demand.

However, not everyone needed to crowd onto the subway, because most people didn't actually need to commute multiple stations away. For example, Shang Luo's family didn't need to. The Shang family were descendants of military craftsmen from the Left Military Merit Guard, and the land for this entire neighborhood belonged to the various garrisons. The territory of the Left Military Merit Guard was located nearby at the "Heaven No. 16 Workshop" on the western slope of Mount Qingliang, a straight-line distance of just one kilometer, reachable by bicycle.

Places as crowded as Wutaishan actually didn't house all that many civilian households. The territory outside the city of Nanjing was considerably more spacious; the imperial palace and the court had relocated outside, and the outer urban districts were somewhat newer.

Yet, despite how cramped it was, this little realm belonged to them, and they wouldn't trade it even for the post of a county magistrate.

Shang Luo unlocked the front door. The lock was newly replaced, and the floor inside had just been swept. The house was pitch black with the lights off, but moonlight and the glow from outside shone in through the skylight, illuminating the floor in the center of the courtyard.

Upon stepping through the threshold, he felt a sense of solid weight beneath his feet; the black stone bricks had been worn down to a lustrous sheen over countless footsteps.

In theory, this was an ancestral home, but the land was not ancestral property. Generations of the Shang family had served as military craftsmen for the garrison, but one wasn't forced to remain in that profession. After the Taichang era, household registrations were decoupled, making it entirely one's own freedom whether or not to serve as a military or artisan household, valid only for oneself. Once chosen, descendants would have to make their choice anew. They could inherit the shift or become independent commoners to carve out a new path; the number of military and artisan households had remained essentially unchanged since that time—every radish had its own designated hole.

A family generally had at least one person inheriting the military or artisan household registration. One could choose not to inherit it, but the military and artisan registrations were tied to other privileges. For example, the eligibility to enroll in the Wutaishan training and instructional institutions, and likewise, this plot of land.

This land actually belonged to the Left Military Merit Guard. Though they had lived here for God knows how long, the garrison's land could not be bought or sold, and leaving the garrison's employment meant the land would be reclaimed. Conversely, as long as the family line didn't die out and the Great Ming Dynasty didn't collapse, you could live on this plot of land for as long as you liked, complete with a reliable job immune to droughts and floods, and a base salary that at least kept you from starving. If one could put in the effort and pass the examination for a senior machinist, the salary was quite considerable.

Furthermore, judging by today's land prices, even if the land were up for sale, his family could no longer afford it. A monthly salary of 50 taels was still far too little for this prime location, and Shang Luo didn't even dare calculate just how exorbitantly expensive the land was. Anyway, outside companies were stacking vertically, department stores were stacking vertically, and the underground subways were stacked nearly eighteen layers deep, yet right here, nothing was stacked. The garrison's attitude was: everyone can figure it out for themselves, and having a designated radish hole has its own advantages.

In addition, although the land belonged to the garrison, the house itself belonged to the family. Shang Luo vaguely remembered old Shang mentioning that the house had been remodeled once during his great-grandfather's time, and slightly altered a few years ago when the electrical wiring was installed. Even the Jinyiwei had come by earlier to clean up.

[Good grief, are these Jinyiwei housekeepers? How on earth did they scrub this floor until it looks like a mirror, and they even left a note on the table for you?]

"I heard that's the kind of work they do in the Inner Court... Let's get some sleep first; things get busy tomorrow. My room, I remember it's over here... Good grief, they even made the bed. How did they know which room was mine? They even brewed tea..."