Chapter 706 Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar was formerly known as Kulen. The name was changed after the independence of Japan, just like the Koreans changed Seoul to Seoul City.

Ulaanbaatar is built on the hilly land between the mountains. The buildings in the main streets have a strong Russian flavor and are very elegant. They usually have three to five floors. The tallest building in the city is only a dozen floors. There is a grand square in the city center, and there is a shopping mall in the business district that is exactly the same as the Wangfujing Department Store in Beijing. Even the stone used for the stair handrails is the same, and it is said that the same drawing was used.

New residential areas are rising in Ulaanbaatar. In comparison, the buildings in the 1970s and 1980s are very similar to the five- and six-story buildings built in China during the same period. Although the buildings in earlier years are very old, But if you look closely, it's very elegant. There are a large number of low houses built on the slopes, with many yurts sandwiched in between.

A little out of the city, large tracts of mountain pastures suddenly come to you. The grass is not high, and livestock can graze freely. Mongolia's animal husbandry is basically in a state of natural grazing. On weekends, there are often beautiful places on the grasslands with beautiful scenery in the city. People drive out to play.

Relative to the capital's population of 800,000. There are still quite a lot of cars in Ulaanbaatar. All the cars on the streets are foreign cars, with the largest number of second-hand cars from Korea.

Because Mongolia basically has no manufacturing industry of its own, the three pillars of its economy are mining, agriculture and animal husbandry, and retail. Due to the small population, the natural resources per capita are relatively abundant. Housing here uses a lot of wood, and trees are cut down haphazardly.

Although there is little rain, the city is not short of water, and the water in several rivers is abundant and clear. There are basically no restrictions on the land for Mongolians to build houses, except in the city center, and it is easy to obtain government approval.

Ulaanbaatar is a city with relatively high latitude and altitude, and it is located deep in the mainland, so it has long winters, but its summers are cool and charming. The days are long, and the sky is still bright after nine o'clock in the evening. It's just that the shopping malls in Ulaanbaatar close early, and the department stores close at 8pm.

It is difficult to draw a conclusion about the living standards of Mongolians. The average monthly salary of Mongolian civil servants is about 40 US dollars, and taxi drivers can earn 70 US dollars a month. However, everyone's actual life seems to be better than what these figures reflect.

According to someone from the embassy, ​​this figure may have been lowered by the Mongolians themselves in order to get more financial assistance from Western countries. In fact, the Mongolians themselves believe that their lives are much better now than in previous years. .

"The urban population in Mongolia is highly educated. Many people have gone abroad and are generally well-informed. In the pastoral area, we visited a herdsman family. In addition to the old couple, there are four daughters, two of whom are abroad. The walls of the yurt are covered with photos taken by the daughters from all over the world,” the embassy staff said to Fan Wubing, “The living habits of the Ulaanbaatar people are greatly influenced by Russia, and although the food structure is still Mongolian. , but the tableware and eating methods are all Western-style.”

Fan Wubing and the others were strolling on the street,

Although I didn’t encounter beggars, there were many children selling small commodities at tourist spots. Some of them were chasing customers to buy them, but they couldn’t be driven away, just like in some tourist areas in China.

"This is the largest shopping mall in Ulaanbaatar?!" Fan Wubing couldn't help but widen his eyes when he saw the scene in front of him, and he was speechless for a long time.

Although he had no high hopes for the people's livelihood in Mongolia, when he saw the largest shopping mall in Ulaanbaatar, Fan Wubing still felt that he was a little out of place and could not keep up with the development of the situation.

Although the building in front of me looks quite big and sturdy, and the exterior decoration is also marble veneer, it looks like a Soviet-style building from the 1950s. When I was in Pingyuan Factory, It is often seen in the factory area. Later, Panshi City carried out large-scale demolition, and these old buildings bid farewell to this era long ago and became a piece of history in old photos.

"That's right, this is the largest shopping mall in Ulaanbaatar. It is also one of the first batch of large buildings built by my country during the Sino-Soviet friendship period in the 1950s." The staff of the embassy was very enthusiastic. Di explained to Fan Wubing.

In the 1950s, New China sent more than 20,000 people to Mongolia twice. With their help, factories in Mongolia were built one after another, and roads ran through all parts of Mongolia. Many economic projects that Mongolia urgently needed to develop were developed. It was done with the help of Chinese workers.

However, after the conflict between China and the Soviet Union, Mongolia immediately sided with the Soviet Union without hesitation and turned around to deal with China.

Over the past few decades, Russia's influence on Mongolia has penetrated into all levels of politics, economy, and culture. Take language as an example. After independence, Mongolia promoted Russian education, the upper class of society spoke Russian, and the children of powerful people went to study in the Soviet Union. Mongolian culture and traditions were gradually disappearing.

Now, the official language of Mongolia is Khalkha Mongolian. It is written using the Cyrillic alphabet created by the Slavs. People who are familiar with linguistics will know that Russian uses exactly this alphabet. Inner Mongolia still uses the traditional Mongolian language. Although the languages ​​​​of Inner Mongolia and Inner Mongolia still sound similar, translation is needed to truly communicate. This can not but be said to be a very sad thing.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, China's territory stretched from the Altai Mountains in the west to Lake Baikal in the north and the Ergun River in the east. At that time, the Mongolian nation had not yet formed. In the Tang Dynasty, the prefectures were set up there and direct jurisdiction was implemented. In the Song Dynasty, a branch of the northern nomadic tribes began to flourish. Genghis Khan unified the tribes in the desert and established a unified Mongolian Khanate. Soon, the Mongolians defeated the Song Dynasty and established the Yuan Dynasty. After that, this fierce and warlike nation marched into Central Asia, West Asia and even Europe, sweeping across the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the Baltic Sea, and established the largest empire in the world at that time.

The establishment of the Yuan Dynasty further integrated the Mongolians and the Han people and became an important part of Chinese civilization. Soon after the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing government, China entered an era of warlord separatism. Various provinces or regions declared independence one after another. Outer Mongolia also joined this process, and the driving force behind it was Tsarist Russia.

At the beginning, Tsarist Russia still recognized Outer Mongolia as Chinese territory, but only demanded that Outer Mongolia implement autonomy. However, during the peace talks between the two sides, the Duan Qirui government sent General Xu Shuzheng to lead troops into Outer Mongolia. Forced Outer Mongolia to give up its autonomy by force.

Unexpectedly, the Duan Qirui regime collapsed the following year, and a group of bandits from Tsarist Russia supported the princes and nobles of Outer Mongolia to drive the squadron out of Dukulun. A year later, the troops of the Mongolian Revolutionary Party attacked the squadron in other areas with the help of the Soviet army. The squadron was defeated, and the Mongolian king who accepted the canonization of the central government was overthrown. Mongolia became a constitutional monarchy. After that, the squadron never entered Outer Mongolia again, and the Soviet army remained stationed in Mongolia until 1986.

Fan Wubing looked at everything in front of him and shook his head, saying, "In the past, the country's assistance to these white-eyed wolves was really too much. When the people in the country were still hungry, a lot of money was spent here. It can't be said that it was not a failure. In fact, we didn't get any real return. If it were me, I would never do these big and inappropriate things."

The staff of the embassy immediately fell silent. Fan Wubing could say that they were not suitable to participate in this topic of criticizing the founding leader. It was a question of position.

China is poor, this is a sentence that every leader has said, but at the same time, the number and amount of China's foreign aid are also jaw-dropping.

Since the late 1950s, China has provided too much aid to North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Pakistan, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Mongolia, Albania, Tanzania and "African brothers", and the government has provided too much aid, and each time the funds are huge.

It is said that the Prime Minister of Pakistan visited China and asked the Chinese for aid. China was not rich at that time, so the Prime Minister decided to give 50 million after consideration, but when he showed the report to the Chairman, he added a zero at the end.

For North Korea, during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, China almost used up all its national resources to support it. After the end, in order to maintain this regime, it continued to provide various aids, and this situation has continued to this day. According to foreign media reports, China provides North Korea with 500,000 tons of food, 1 million tons of oil, and 2.5 million tons of coke every year.

In the war against the US and aiding Vietnam, according to the principle of "giving as much as you need", China gave Vietnam all its assistance, including guns and ammunition, food, trucks, medicines, and communication equipment, with the amount of aid reaching 20 billion US dollars, and even sent 100,000 troops to participate in the war. Helping them fight for free, building roads, doing logistics, and serving as soldiers, using the blood of the Chinese people to exchange for their victory.

But in turn, they used the guns and cannons sent by the Chinese as weapons, and used the rice donated by the Chinese as gun racks and shelters to shoot Chinese soldiers.

For Albania, within six years, they gave them 9 billion yuan, which is equivalent to hundreds of billions of yuan now according to the gold content and purchasing power of the currency at that time. As a result, the factories built with precious foreign exchange resources were heavily in debt by them, most of the factories stopped production, and the equipment was completely abandoned. The aid fortress was used by them to raise chickens, and the aid trucks were thrown all over the mountains and fields by them, rusting.

For Tanzania, despite the limited railway capacity, they built a 1,800-kilometer-long railway for them. The 1,800-kilometer-long railway track had to be transported to Africa by the Chinese themselves, and the engineering team of tens of thousands of people had to reimburse all their own food and accommodation expenses, blast the mountains to open the road, pave the road and build bridges, and all the raw materials and construction costs were paid by the Chinese for them.

The cost of building this railway exceeded the country's tolerance limit, so the project took ten years and cost more than 2 billion. If this kind of investment was used in China, not to mention one, five railways of the same length would be built.

Whenever Fan Wubing thought of these things, he couldn't help but sigh, thinking that God had given him such an opportunity, he had to get back everything that had been thrown here from Mongolia before, right? This request was really not excessive.