Whether it was compiling a simple English textbook plan, acquiring Reuters or running a telegraph, it didn't cost much money. The real big expenses finally came. The respected Duke of Buckingham came to find the rich manor, hoping that he could buy his manor - Situo Garden. The Duke is second only to the prince, and the nobles are basically known for their luxury of life.

Under normal circumstances, the duke owns huge land, and the income from land rent alone can reach tens of thousands of pounds for a year. However, since the Industrial Revolution, the value of farmland has been shrinking. The debt situation of the Duke, who is used to the luxurious life, is becoming increasingly unoptimistic. In this case, the Duke actually wants to save face. In order to bring the newly ascended queen and her husband, Prince Albert, to the manor to live for a while, the Duke, who will not die if he does not work, borrowed money and purchased a large amount of precious furniture and paintings. Well, face is earned. The Queen and her husband lived here happily for a long time, and then... the Duke was miserable. He accumulated huge debts over the years, reaching 1,464,959 at the peak, and was called "the most awesome debtor in history". When the bull reached its peak, he had to escape from creditors.

1848 was the turbulent year of the European Revolution, the carnival year of the common people and the tragic year of the nobles. When the tragic Duke returned to London, he found that his son had almost sold out his real estate. The Buckingham Building on Belmer Street, London was sold. A total of 36,000 acres of land in Ireland, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Middlesex were sold. The precious furniture, artworks, 21,000 bottles of red wine, and 500 bottles of white wine could not escape the bad luck of selling. All of this was raised in total? 75,400, a fraction of the debt, and the huge debt was still as calm as the breeze of the hills.

After the auction was over, the land of Situo Manor shrank to 10,000 acres, and the garden workers were reduced from 40 to 4. Everything would be fine if the garden was not completely abandoned. The duke himself had lived in the "Gentleman's Club" to join the "poor".

The down-and-out Duke of Buckingham could not find the buyer of the most important property, Situo Manor, and was too cheap and reluctant to leave. It was not until the news came from the Congress that the British Telegraph Company had a tycoon worth 3 million pounds that he "condescends" to come to find Tang Ning, a super big buyer who donated 1.5 million yuan without frowning. Life is full of joy, so buying a manor is inevitable. When he saw Tang Ning's residence in the eastern suburbs of London, he asked, it was rented! He was even more confident - to kill the rich man well.

These days, there are various investment opportunities coming to you, but this is the first time such a expensive manor. This Situo Garden is quite famous. Tang Ning has heard of it and is even more impressed by this "largest debtor in history".

There is a "creditor's prison" in the UK, which specifically detains debtors like the Duke of Buckingham. However, the nobles are nobles, and he is fine! It may also be related to his huge sums of money to support the Royal Buckingham County Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Not all debts are owed by luxury life. He also contributed great efforts to the country. He once participated in the war with the French Emperor Napoleon under the command of the Duke of Wellington. It was a life-and-death battle between Britain and France. Our Duke, who is not good at managing finance, was also aristocrat who had made military achievements.

Stole Garden is considered one of the most elegant gardens in Britain in the 18th century, demonstrating the skills of the top landscape architects of that era. The garden is full of gentle and continuous peaks, woodlands and lakes, and the natural beauty is dotted with many magnificent neoclassical buildings and statues.

Ten thousand acres are really vast, and this is the land after "reduction". What's more amazing is that the wall plan for Situo Garden by the garden designer is "hidden wall". Well, the hidden wall. Situo Manor is divided into an independent world by this hidden wall composed of a small river. But you can't see the physical wall at first glance. For those living in the garden, the view and scenery have greatly expanded.

In order to distinguish it from the entire manor, we call the magnificent building in the center the Palace of Situ. The main entrance of this golden palace is towering in front of 6 Roman columns, which is very imposing. It is very similar, but fewer than the 8 giant pillars of the Roman Pantheon. In front of the Roman column is a huge lawn, and further forward the lawn is a wide lake. It is November, and the lotus on the lake is deserted and there is no man to clean it up, but it can be imagined that this will be a beautiful and pleasant landscape in summer.

The first hall that enters the palace is the South Hall. Wuqi, and inside, it is the largest room in the building - the Marble Salon. Its style is also based on the famous Roman Pantheon. The oval dome is 17 meters high from the ground, with a huge oval lighting glass in the center, covering 19*14 meters of space. This dome alone costs 12,000 pounds when it was built. There are many plaster statues stored in the salon, and many valuable ancient Roman statues were auctioned off by his "unscrupulous" son, and the reliefs of 280 humans and 14 animals are still alive.

The east side of the marble salon is the National Concert Hall. You read that right, it is the National Concert Hall. The National Concert Hall is a popular name in the aristocratic mansions of the 17th and 18th century. It uses magnificent and gorgeous decorations to attract attention and entertain the head of state. Look, Queen Victoria has been served here for so long. The heartless queen even bought a lot of heirlooms from her when she went bankrupt and auctioned.

There are still many plaster statues in the concert hall, and even the bricks on the mantel are inlaid with gold, which are artworks that reach the auction level. Two words - attention.

Further east of the National Concert Hall is the largest of the three libraries, called the Big Library, 23*7.6 meters. The huge mahogany bookcase has 500 bookshelves on the lower floor and 240 bookshelves on the upper floor. However, they are now withering. In the auction in 1849, more than 20,000 books are mostly collected by the first generation of Buckingham Dukes, and the auction lasted for a total of 24 days.

Because it is a library, there are some busts of intellectuals here, such as Homer, Bacon, and Newton.

After visiting the east, I returned to the marble salon and headed north to the main hall at the entrance of the palace - the North Hall. On the ceiling is a gray painting of William Kent, a famous 18th-century architect and garden artist. There are five Roman mythological gods in the painting. According to the introduction of the Earl, they are the messenger of the gods and the business gods of Mercure, the king of gods Jubit, the goddess of love and beauty Venus, the god of agriculture Saturnus, the god of sun god Apollo, the moon and the goddess of hunting Diana.

Tangning smiled and said, "Maybe Mochuri is the god I should worship."

The Duke replied: "I'm afraid you have received the blessing of Mercury!" Even the Duke in his heyday envied the rich man's million-dollar fortune. Now he is owing millions of debts, and he is even sour in his words. If he remembers correctly, after the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the newly established British government had no credit and established the Bank of England in order to raise 1.2 million pounds! Now he has money? He actually spent 3 million to buy the stock of a telegraph company, and it was only 25%! I wonder!

Go back to the salon and head west, the "National Painting Hall" is empty for well-known reasons and has nothing to appreciate.

Further west of the painting hall is the "National Restaurant". At least the murals on the ceiling are still there, and the paintings are quite interesting. The goddess of youth feeds Jupiter's eagle, Cupid plays with two goddesses Meimei, who dances for the gods, Cupid sleeps with two goddesses Meimei, Diana and her hound. These four paintings occupy the east, north, south and west respectively. The decoration between them is animal painting, including swans and their babies, pigeons, and rabbits.

There is also a warm small restaurant to the west of the National Restaurant. This is probably the place where the owner often eats. Who can bear it when going to the National Restaurant every day?

The room where Queen Victoria lived when she came to live was on the west side of the small restaurant, called Guard Room.

The nobles all had tastes. There were as many as three studios in Situo Palace, and two small studios. There was a Japanese-style closet for placing the duke's treasures, but unfortunately there were only shelves left now. There was also a closet with a portrait of Shakespeare called Shakespeare's Closet. Well, the portraits of this era were probably from the painter and Shakespeare face to face, so they were treasures.

In addition, there are Rembrandt's room, chapel, Gothic library, Egyptian hall (walking carriages, maybe because of Egyptian chariots,), and Ante Library, which are all in one place.

In short, although it has withered, you can still vaguely feel the luxury and taste of the life of the great nobles, which is probably not cheap.

In order to kill the price, I had to take a look and said, "I finally finished reading it! Huh, it's really good, but unfortunately... it's a bit conflicting with my plan. I opened a factory in the eastern suburbs of London and have been considering buying a large piece of land there to build a large shipyard. Buckinghamshire is in the northwest, which is really a bit far away."

The Duke smiled and said, "Geographical location is not a problem. How can all the homes be arranged near London? Don't you hate dirty London too? I used to have real estate in Ireland! Alas, now they all..."

Tang Ning: "Well, then you can offer a price. If I finish building the steel mill, there will still be a lot of surplus after the shipyard. Let's discuss it with you."

The Duke was going to offer a sky-high price of 300,000 pounds, but he was bargained by Tang Ning's needles, so he didn't dare to make it too outrageously. After thinking for a long time, when Tang Ning was about to leave, he reluctantly offered the price: "200,000 pounds, my bottom line."

Tang Ning nodded: "Okay, I'll go back and think about it carefully, and then discuss it with my friends. Thank you very much for taking me to visit Situo Garden in person. No matter what, this is an unforgettable experience!"
Chapter completed!