In late September, Chen Qiang took the train to Nanjing.

The Fifth National Games in Old China was held in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China.

As early as the end of the Hangzhou National Games, the Republic of China government had decided to hold the fifth National Games in Nanjing on October 10, 1931.

However, in the first half of 1931, the nationwide flood broke the original plan of the Republic of China government. Nanjing was flooded, so how could the National Games be held? Therefore, the date of the fifth National Games was delayed until May 1932.

But the rain was raining all night long, and Japan conspired to launch the "September 18th" Incident, and then troops entered Shanghai. The government made every effort to deal with the Battle of Songhu and would temporarily move the capital to Luoyang. The National Games naturally could not be held and could only be postponed again.

In 1933, the Japanese in the Northeast calmed down a little, and the national sports meeting was once again put on the agenda.

In that era when soldiers were frequent, the Nanjing government still insisted on hosting the National Games and spent huge sums of money to build a large central stadium. It may not be that it sincerely hopes that Chinese sports can develop. The main purpose is to consolidate its domestic political rule and establish the prestige of the Nanjing government. In addition, the big guys in Nanjing also hope to use this athlete to enhance the cohesion of the nation and promote the spirit of unity.

When Chen Qiang arrived in Nanjing, he bought a newspaper, which happened to be the news of sending troops to Jiangxi and Fujian. This time, Nanjing claimed to have mobilized 1 million troops, which is the highest in history. In fact, in the summer, Nanjing borrowed a large amount of money from the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries to purchase arms, and also opened an officer training regiment in Lushan. It has been planned for a long time and is well prepared.

The newspapers in Nanjing naturally praised the Nanjing bosses in various ways, saying that they were all kinds of wise and powerful. Chen Qiang looked at the newspaper in his hand, but kept sighing.

If the Nanjing bosses have such a spirit when dealing with the Japanese, the Great Wall will not be lost.

After crossing the Yangtze River by boat, I arrived in Nanjing. There were people from travel agencies waiting at the Nanjing Wharf.

For this National Games, the organizers of Nanjing reached an agreement with the travel agency to welcome and see off athletes and referees who attended the conference.

During the Republic of China, China had already had travel agencies. In fact, China's first travel agency was established in the 19th century. The boss at that time was an Englishman, and his main business was to collect train tickets and ship tickets. By the 19th century, the business development of travel agencies was very widespread, including passenger transport and freight transport, such as guesthouses, hotels, restaurants, restaurants on trains, domestic and foreign tourism, overseas procedures to be handled, and even direct investment in and develop attractions, all of which are the business scope of travel agencies.

The travel agency has a list of players, which contains a list of all referees and athletes, arranged according to the strokes of the surname, so that it is easy for receptionists to find them. However, Chen Qiang is so famous that when he reported to his home, the receptionist of the travel agency did not need to compare the list of athletes and directly picked up Chen Qiang into the car.

The travel agency directly received Chen Qiang to the venue of the competition, Nanjing Central Stadium, and continued to introduce attractions to Chen Qiang along the way.

The travel agency receptionist felt that it was a great honor to be a tour guide for Chen Qiang.

"Jin Chen, do you think our Nanjing stadium is big enough? It should not be worse than the American stadium, right? Our Nanjing stadium was built for more than 1.4 million yuan!" The travel agency receptionist introduced.

Chen Qiang just smiled and nodded, but did not respond. Although the Central Stadium is very large, it is really much worse than the Los Angeles Stadium.

Moreover, when Chen Qiang heard the cost of more than 1.4 million yuan, he felt a ridiculous feeling in his heart.

Because the stadium in Qingdao cost less than 200,000 yuan in total.

In terms of land occupation, Nanjing Central Stadium is 1,000 acres and Qingdao Stadium is 760 acres. In this regard, Nanjing Central Stadium is larger, but at that time, the cost of land acquisition was almost zero and it could be ignored.

Qingdao's stadium only has east-west auditoriums, so it can only accommodate more than 15,000 spectators, while Nanjing's Central Stadium auditorium requires more, so it can accommodate 35,000 spectators.

In terms of other facilities, Qingdao Stadium has a dedicated volleyball court, tennis court, basketball court. Nanjing's Central Stadium has an additional swimming pool, a racecourse and a baseball court than Qingdao Stadium.

There are two additional stands in the Central Stadium, and then one more swimming pool, a baseball stadium and a racetrack. The cost of the swimming pool will be higher. For example, the racetrack has only a row of simple stands, and the others are flat.

As a result, the cost of Nanjing Stadium is more than seven times that of Qingdao Stadium.

Qingdao was a first-tier city at that time. Although Nanjing was the capital, it could only be regarded as a second-tier city. Chen Qiang did not think that Nanjing's prices and labor prices were more expensive than Qingdao. It was obvious that the real fraud of this central stadium was probably less than 400,000 yuan. I don't know how many noble people had bought the remaining one million.

The travel agency's receptionist led Chen Qiang to the dormitory assigned to the Shandong team.

The accommodation for this National Games was also arranged by the organizers.

All the track and field referees live in the Central Hotel, but the Central Hotel originally had one bed in each room, but now there are two beds temporarily, which means three beds in each room. The other referees live in the Xincun Cooperative and the Reich School.

The athletes live in dormitories under the central stadium. There are 72 dormitories under the central stadium, each room can accommodate about thirty beds.

Chen Qiang is not used to this kind of situation where many people live in the same room. When encountering those who are unhygienic, sleeping, grinding teeth in the middle of the night, their sleep quality is particularly affected. The most annoying thing is the kind of snoring, and there are often several people who snore, as if they are competing, one is louder than the other, and the others cannot fall asleep at all.

After resting for a night, Chen Qiang came to the restaurant for dinner the next morning.

The restaurant in the Central Gymnasium is large, but it has been contracted to merchants. There are several square tables in the restaurant, each table can be used for eight people, and the restaurant serving dishes is calculated based on one table, and all of them are clearly marked.

There are two levels of breakfast, one yuan per table and one yuan per table, and the quality of breakfast for one yuan per table is much better than that for one yuan. However, in Chen Qiang's opinion, this breakfast is definitely not worth one yuan per four.

Lunch and dinner are all four standards: 10 dishes, one soup is five yuan, eight dishes, one soup is four yuan, six dishes are three yuan, four dishes, one soup is two yuan, four dishes are two yuan, and all are meat and vegetables. For example, ten dishes are six meat dishes, including "big items", which are roast chicken and hard dishes within the elbow.

But at that time, this was still quite expensive. If you usually invite eight people to a restaurant for dinner, it would normally not cost five yuan. The contractor of this restaurant also knew that he was monopolizing the business, so he deliberately raised the price a little, and clearly marked the price to make money.

The contestants' meal expenses are all borne by participating groups in each province and city, and the meal expenses are paid first and then eaten. Chen Qiangzuo's Shandong team is more generous and directly chooses the highest standard food.

Shandong people have always been very proud of their face. When everyone is eating in the cafeteria, there are participating teams in various provinces. If they eat worse than others, it would be embarrassing to see that there is not even a meaty fish on the dining table!

Moreover, the Shandong team's participation funds are relatively sufficient. Chairman Han of Shandong intercepted the tax that should have been handed over to Nanjing. He has money in his hand, and the participation funds of thousands of oceans are still affordable. Therefore, Chairman Han is not stingy in terms of funding. Chen Qiang will not be treated unfairly with the Shandong team at least in terms of food.

The more miserable ones are the four participating teams, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Rehe. The four teams have less than 100 people in total. However, due to the destruction of the province, no one paid for them to participate in the competition. They obtained one-quarter of the participation funds through fundraising. In the end, they only relied on donations from the Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and the Nanjing Municipal Government to come to Nanjing to participate.

...

After breakfast, Chen Qiang came to the south side of the Central Stadium, where nearly 100 oil-paper-topped huts had been temporarily built here. As shops for merchants to operate temporarily, these temporary shops had been rented out, and many shops had already started to place goods.

Since the Central Stadium was far away from the city of Nanjing at that time, it was inconvenient for viewers to visit, many of these temporary stores sold food. The most were selling health products and books, magazines and newspapers for the first time. In addition, tea shops, fruit and vegetable shops, candy shops, grocery shops, silk shops, shoe shops, photo shops, etc., there are also everything.

"Where is the shop of Guangming Bookstore?" Chen Qiang found a store and asked.

"Guangming Bookstore seems to be in the middle." The store owner pointed the way to Chen Qiang. Chen Qiang quickly found the temporary store of Guangming Bookstore in the direction pointed by the store.

Chen Qiang walked into the store and saw the guy busy putting the books off the shelves.

"Is Boss Liu here?" Chen Qiang asked.

A middle-aged man raised his head, looked at Chen Qiang, and then asked with a look of surprise, "You must be Chen Jianjiang!"

"Hello, Boss Liu, I am Chen Qiang, I have been waiting for you for a long time." Chen Qiang replied.

"Where is it! Chen Jian will ask you, we have printed your book. Look, you're still satisfied with it." Boss Liu said, and took a copy of Chen Qiang's self-passing from the shelf and passed it over.

"Thank you, Boss Liu." Chen Qiang took the book and carefully looked it through, and felt that the quality of the printing was quite good.

Among the historical materials that Chen Qiang has read, the fifth national athlete in Old China in 1933 was the largest national sports meeting in the entire Republic of China period. It is said that 400,000 tickets were printed in a single day. In addition, there were two-day tickets and multiple-day consecutive tickets. Conservatively estimated, at least 600,000 people watched the National Games competition, which was unprecedented.

For Chen Qiang, hundreds of thousands of people came to the competition, which was a good opportunity to sell books, how could he miss it!

Chen Qiang's autobiography was originally printed by Nankai University Bookstore, but it would cost a lot of money to transport books from Tianjin to Nanjing. Moreover, the main place for selling books this time was around the central sports field. Chen Qiang could not rent a stall specifically to sell his autobiography. The cost would be too high. So Chen Qiang simply found a local bookstore in Nanjing, reprinted 10,000 autobiography, and borrowed the stalls rented by others to sell them, which was a killing two birds with one stone.

Chen Qiang discussed with Boss Liu of Guangming Bookstore and said that at the end of the competition every day, he would come here to sign and sell books. Boss Liu was naturally very happy after hearing this. If Chen Qiang was in charge, his shop would definitely be crowded and his business would be prosperous.

...

On October 10, the 5th National Games of Old China officially opened.

That day happened to be the National Day of the Republic of China, and the whole country was on holiday. Therefore, from 6 o'clock in the morning, traffic in the entire Nanjing city began to be congested. Various agencies, schools, and people from all walks of life in Nanjing went out to visit the National Games. The scene was really crowded. The central sports field was surrounded by traffic and crowded, and it seemed that it was half empty, and it became much quieter in an instant.

In that era, ordinary people basically had no nightlife. They basically got up at dawn and went to bed when it was dark, so it was normal to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and go out. Unlike people today, they don't go to bed at twelve o'clock in the evening and don't think about getting up at 10 o'clock in the morning.

The Central Stadium was about twenty miles away from the center of Nanjing at that time. On this day, at least 300,000 people gathered near the Central Stadium, basically everyone was close to the crowd, and the shorter ones probably couldn't see the light. Fortunately, Nanjing had already had the coolness of autumn in October, otherwise I wonder how many people would fall to the ground if they had heatstroke.

The opening ceremony will be held at 10 a.m., and the government officials will basically attend. In addition, the ministers of various countries in China were invited to attend the opening ceremony. The US Minister Jansen, British Minister Lampson, French Consensus Willid, German Minister Todman, Japanese Minister Akihime and others also came to the scene.

After the athletes' team entered the court, several government tycoons began to speak unanimously, saying that one was better than the other. For example, "The rise and fall of individual physical strength is actually related to the rise and fall of the Republic of China, and we should exercise diligently", "The sound spirit must be contained in the sound body", "Promote sports, revitalize the national spirit, and achieve the purpose of strengthening the country and strong seeds", etc.

In general, the speeches of these senior officials and political leaders expressed their importance to sports. At that time, the Chinese people did regard revitalizing sports as an important measure for national self-reliance and to enhance international status. The speeches of the government's people also reflected the expectations of this era.

Then there were various performances at the opening ceremony. More than a dozen planes sent by the Aviation Administration in the sky were distributed leaflets for the opening of the conference at high altitudes. There were more than 2,000 students from Nanjing in the venue, performing Tai Chi together, and the scene was very grand.

The work was busy until noon, and the opening ceremony finally ended. Nanjing also prepared a luncheon, inviting ministers from various countries and other guests to attend.

...

US Minister Nelson Jensen stood up and asked the Nanjing official in charge of the reception, "Where is the athlete's lounge?"

"Minister Jansen, what's the matter with you looking for the athlete's lounge?" the receptionist asked immediately.

"I want to meet your country's athlete. His name is Chen Qiang. You should know him, right?" Jansen said.

The receptionist was shocked. He didn't understand why Jansen wanted to see Chen Qiang, and he didn't dare to ask.

The receptionist did not dare to directly refuse the request of the American minister. He could only report the matter, and his boss could not make a decision, so he could only continue reporting. In a blink of an eye, the news that the American minister Jensen wanted to see Chen Qiang came to the ears of several big bosses.

Diplomacy is nothing small, and the American minister named him and wanted to find someone, which was enough to alarm the top leaders.

"Why did Minister Jameson meet Chen Qiang? Could it be that Chen Qiang offended the Americans? So Jameson came to seek revenge!" Big Boss A said.

"Chen Qiang's identity is a bit special after all. He is the best athlete in China. If Chen Qiang offends Americans, should we protect him?" Big Boss B said.

"It's not worth offending Americans for an athlete! We need American support now," said Br. C.

"But now it's a national sports meeting. At this critical moment, I still have to protect Chen Qiang, after all, it involves the face of the national government." The boss Ding said.

Finally, the boss spoke up, "Since Minister Jameson called to see Chen Qiang, we cannot refuse, and send someone to follow him. If the matter is not serious, we will talk about it from it. If the Americans' request is acceptable, we will try our best to agree. Those who should admit their mistakes will apologize, and those who should apologize for the game must continue. If Minister Jameson really asks for the crime in a formal manner, he can admit his blow and accept the punishment, and don't cause any death."

...

After the opening ceremony, Chen Qiang was about to go for lunch when an official who claimed to be Director Lin came to him.

"Chen Qiang, do you know the American Minister Nelson Jensen?" Director Lin asked directly.

"I don't know." Chen Qiang shook his head.

"Don't know?" Director Lin obviously didn't believe Chen Qiang's statement. He continued, "Chen Qiang, I'm here to save you. Please tell the truth!"

"Save me?" Chen Qiang looked confused.

Director Lin continued, "The American Minister Jensen wants to see you by name. Think about it carefully, did you offend Minister Jensen?"

"I really have never seen this Minister Jensen." Chen Qiang paused and then said, "I have always been in Tianjin, and it is impossible to see the American Minister!"

"Then have you offended Minister Jensen when you participated in the Olympics in the United States?" Director Lin continued.

"When I was participating in the Olympics in the United States, this Minister Jensen should have stayed in China, right? We can't see you either." Chen Qiang said.

Director Lin nodded helplessly. He sighed lightly and said, "I'm going to take you to Minister Jensen now. You agree to me whatever he says. Don't worry about right or wrong. If you ask you to apologize, you apologize. If you ask you to apologize, you apologize. In short, you admit the beating and punishment. Do you understand?"
To be continued...