I'm back in 1990

Chapter 444: Lakeside Garden

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Hong Kong returned to China on July 1, 1997, a day of universal celebration.

Huang Xiaochuan, however, remained busy at the school.

The students are already on summer vacation, but Huang Xiaochuan, a university teacher, still has a lot of things to do.

The course teaching summary report should be written, the problems reported by students should be analyzed, and an improvement plan for the next semester should be proposed.

We also need to update the course syllabus, courseware, and reference materials to prepare basic materials for the next semester's lesson planning.

We also need to arrange make-up exams for students who failed their courses and prepare the make-up exam questions.

In addition, I need to attend some academic conferences during the summer vacation, which requires me to register in advance, arrange my itinerary, prepare report materials, and so on. There are countless things to do.

Moreover, there was another major matter weighing on Huang Xiaochuan's mind.

In his previous life, his maternal grandmother passed away in the year 2000. He wondered if she would be the same in this life. In order to prolong his grandmother's life, Huang Xiaochuan not only arranged for her and his aunt to go to a sanatorium every year, but also specially found some well-known retired traditional Chinese medicine doctors to prescribe some prescriptions for his grandmother to regulate her body regularly.

Huang Xiaochuan just wanted his grandmother to enjoy a few more years of happiness, and he also wanted to spend more time with her.

This year, Huang Xiaochuan has another matter to attend to. He has been planning this for a long time, but the conditions have not been right, so he has not been able to implement it. However, he has been making preparations in secret.

Now that the conditions are gradually ripe and time is running out, Huang Xiaochuan wants to complete his plan before 2000 and fulfill his grandmother's dream.

That is to build a garden for my grandmother, that's right, to build a new garden.

Huang Xiaochuan was born and raised in Suzhou. He grew up listening to stories about Suzhou gardens told to him by his maternal grandmother, so he knows Suzhou gardens very well. When he was a child, he often visited these gardens with his grandmother, and at that time, the entrance fee was only one or five cents.

At that time, Huang Xiaochuan didn't know why his grandmother always brought him to visit these gardens. In fact, for Huang Xiaochuan when he was a child, these gardens were far less fun than children's playgrounds. However, having lived two lives, Huang Xiaochuan understood his grandmother's thoughts back then. Those were her memories. In this life, he had the ability again, so he decided to fulfill his grandmother's dream!

At present in China, individuals cannot directly obtain the right to use large areas of land from the government, especially to build a garden on that land; the difficulty is simply hellish.

At this point, the role of the real estate industry becomes apparent.

Huang Xiaochuan instructed Nan Hui to purchase a large plot of land on the shore of West Taihu Lake in Suzhou under the guise of developing high-end real estate. The total area is about 360 mu (nearly 240,000 square meters).

Of course, such a large piece of land will not all be used to build a garden, but this garden will be hidden in this high-end residential area in the future.

However, the villas in this high-end residential area will all be bought by the Hong Kong Highway Group. Outsiders will not be able to buy these houses because Huang Xiaochuan is not yet prepared to sell them. However, after his grandmother passes away, Huang Xiaochuan will sell these residences, but he will keep the garden as the ancestral property of the Zeng Huang family.

The entire project is planned to be divided into four areas. Three of these areas are arranged in a line along Taihu Lake, while the last and largest area is rectangular and lies to the east of the other three areas. As a result, the four areas form a square when viewed from the air, and the garden is located in the very center, separated from the other three areas. It can only be seen from the direction of Taihu Lake.

However, according to Huang Xiaochuan's idea, he will also have people transplant several rows of trees along Taihu Lake and plant them according to different heights. In this way, once the trees have grown into a forest, all that can be seen from the direction of Taihu Lake will be a dense forest.

Following Huang Xiaochuan's instructions, Nan Hui specifically went to the Department of Ancient Architecture at Tongda University to hire Professor Gu Ping'an as the architectural consultant for the construction of the garden.

Professor Gu has been engaged in the study of ancient Chinese architecture for more than 30 years. He has extensive knowledge of the construction techniques of ancient Chinese architecture in the Jiangnan region and has also participated in the restoration of some well-known ancient buildings. He has profound expertise in this field.

Professor Gu was very interested in this project. In all these years, this was the first time he had encountered someone who wanted to rebuild a garden according to ancient techniques. You know, this requires considerable financial resources to do.

It's truly rare to find a real estate company willing to spare no expense in doing this. You have to understand, the cost of building just one garden can cover the entire civil engineering work for the whole project.

If the civil engineering project is also to be completed, then the unit price of the entire building will be ridiculously high. Ordinary rich people will not choose this place. It is extremely remote and expensive. Only a madman would buy it here.

Gu Wenxian sometimes suspected that the real estate company had ulterior motives. Logically speaking, according to such a plan, the project was bound to lose money.

Moreover, the client's requirements were very high. The entire garden area exceeded 20,000 square meters, and some buildings in the Lingering Garden had to be replicated exactly. The pavilions and terraces were all complete, and they spared no expense in introducing fresh water. What Gu Wenxian couldn't understand the most was what the hell the water purification system was.

It's not the kind of purified water people drink, but a purification system used to clean Taihu Lake. It's said to make the waterways in the park crystal clear—truly unbelievable! Explore the infinite possibilities of urban novels, all at p>

Moreover, in order to quickly give the garden a rustic feel, the client even planned to transplant the mossy stones from the original riverbed to the garden's water system exactly as they were, and also planned to transplant a large number of mature trees, including some precious plants. The key point is that the permits for transplanting ancient and famous trees have already been obtained. Gu Wenxian looked at the catalog and saw that it contained a large number of century-old camphor trees and ginkgo trees. It was simply outrageous.

Furthermore, regarding the antique-style blue brick and black tile kiln proposed by Gu Wenxian, Guangda Real Estate has already found an old craftsman who still preserves this technique and plans to invest heavily in building a kiln less than five kilometers away from the project to fire it. Even the gold bricks laid on the ground have been prepared to be fired by gold brick craftsmen, because the entire gold brick will take one or two years to complete. If we don't prepare early, it will be too late to use it.

Not long ago, Nan Hui took Gu Wenxian to a warehouse where Taihu stones and countless stalagmites were stored. There was even a Taihu stone there that could rival the Guanyun Peak in Liuyuan Garden. Although no one had named it yet, it had all four characteristics of being porous, translucent, slender, and wrinkled. Gu Wenxian was absolutely captivated by this Taihu stone. Of course, there were many other Taihu stones in the warehouse, each one extraordinary, which left Gu Wenxian speechless with amazement.

Although Gu Wenxian did not ask how much these Taihu stones cost, he knew they were quite valuable based on their quality.

After seeing those Taihu stones, Gu Wenxian was even more eager than anyone else to see the garden completed as soon as possible.

There are also mountains of whole logs, all precious tree species from Southeast Asia, such as teak, which can be used for beams, pillars, doors and windows, as well as carving decorations in traditional buildings, and are especially suitable for pavilions and towers.

Even more precious is Dalbergia cochinchinensis, also known as rosewood, which is the main material for making rosewood furniture.

Other woods include rosewood, merbau, camphorwood, sandalwood, ironwood, etc.

These timbers were purchased cheaply from Southeast Asia during the Southeast Asian financial crisis. Because the price was very low, averaging only a few hundred US dollars per ton, Huang Xiaochuan immediately imported more than a thousand tons. There are still more than two thousand tons of timber on cargo ships returning to China.

The entire high-end residential project is named "Tantai Villa," while the proposed garden is tentatively named "Lake Retreat Garden."

Nan Hui took the entire garden design plan to Huang Xiaochuan and reported it to him in person.

"Mr. Huang, Professor Gu's opinion is that the garden axis should avoid the due south of Taihu Lake and be 15 degrees west to take the shape of 'distant peaks shrouded in mist'. He also suggested transplanting three century-old ginkgo trees in front of the main hall to take the meaning of 'three giving birth to all things', and drawing running water around the artificial hill in the backyard to subtly match the meaning of 'winding stream party'."

Huang Xiaochuan listened to Nan Hui's report while looking at the completed renderings, nodding occasionally.

Then he asked, "Approximately how long will the entire project take?"

Nan Hui paused her report and replied, "According to the old craftsman's estimate, the entire garden will take two and a half years to complete. After that, it will take a considerable amount of time to maintain the trees. The garden will truly be complete after a long period of time."

Huang Xiaochuan knew this was true. Although money could bring some century-old trees, precious stones, and original moss stones into the garden, this garden lacked historical depth and would require a long period of time to accumulate. But it didn't matter, as long as his grandmother liked it. Huang Xiaochuan planned to spend his grandmother's old age and pass away in this garden, letting it accompany her through her final days.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death are beyond our control. Huang Xiaochuan is just a lucky reborn person. He is not a god. In the end, he will also return to dust. All he can do is try his best to make life better for himself and those around him while he is still alive.

"You've worked hard. Once this project is completed, you can choose one of the other courtyard houses besides this garden. Consider it a gift from me."

Huang Xiaochuan knew that if he wanted people to work wholeheartedly for him, he couldn't be stingy with money and resources.

However, this project is different. The houses here are all traditional southern courtyard houses, two stories above ground and two stories below ground, all with large open rooms facing south. Each household has its own private garden, and each courtyard occupies an area of ​​about three acres. The courtyards are nearly 100 meters apart, and there are many trees between them, ensuring excellent privacy. With only less than eighty courtyard houses in an area of ​​240,000 square meters, it is clear how luxurious the houses here are.

According to the plan, once the project is completed, a dedicated property management company will be established to manage it, ensuring 24-hour uninterrupted control even if no one moves in.

Moreover, only she knew about this project and there was no plan to sell it to the public. According to Huang Xiaochuan's plan, the project would be financed and constructed by Guangda Real Estate from Dadao Group. On the eve of completion, Guangda Real Estate would transfer the entire project to Dadao Group as debt repayment under the pretext of project losses. After obtaining the property rights, Dadao Group would not sell it to the public, but would instead use it as a fixed asset for Dadao Group's investment in the mainland.

Afterwards, the ownership of the garden will be transferred multiple times, eventually ending up under the name of an overseas trust fund established by Huang Xiaochuan himself. In the future, unless the garden is taken away by the state, no one else can dispose of it at will.