Valley Emperor

Since the Tatars withdrew to the west, the Tang Empire quickly accepted the large grasslands left by the Tatars, and built cities and fortresses in some important strategic areas, and established new state capitals.

For example, after the Daning, Kaiping and Quanping lands in the former Ming Dynasty were also recovered, the empire established Kaiping Prefecture here and built Kaiping City. After recovering the Taiping area, set up Taiping House and build Taiping City.

In the Hetao and Fengzhou areas, it continued to extend westward and northward, and many bastions were built. The northernmost bastion was built more than 400 kilometers away from Fengzhou City. In the northwest direction of Hetao, after the construction of the strategic city of Heishan City, the bastion continued to be built in the northwest direction, which was also extended for several hundred kilometers.

The cavalry activities of the Datang Army were actually larger, and even small-scale cavalry units went to the vicinity of Shuangquanhai.

The Tartars retreated westward. Not only did they leave, but in fact they also took away a large number of vassal tribes. Since the Tartars left, apart from some uncivilized indigenous tribes further north, in fact, the entire In the grasslands, from Hetao to Lake Berga, there are actually no large-scale nomadic tribes, thus forming a vacuum of power.

This kind of vacuum, if the Tang Empire does not fill up in time, will flourish for decades, and a new Tatar will appear in this grassland, and this situation is naturally not allowed by the Tang Empire.

Although it is impossible for the Datang Empire to build the city all the way, and then actually control and develop all the vast grasslands, the cavalry of the Datang Empire has been operating on the vast grasslands to attack any other tribes that intervene in this area. .

This kind of behavior of immigrating and developing in the vast grassland area and maintaining military deterrence is very difficult for the traditional increase dynasty, and it consumes a lot of national strength, but for the Tang Empire, this is very difficult. The pressure is not too great.

Because the traditional feudal dynasties, the actual control of the Hetao area and more grassland areas is basically limited to military control, at most it is to relocate some people to reclamation, but most of the materials consumed still need to be transported from the rear. However, this transportation cost is very high.

However, for the current Datang Empire, due to the large use of heavy four-wheeled carriages on flat terrain, especially in grassland areas, not only the transportation volume is large, but the cost will also be lower.

Not to mention, we are still preparing to build the Hetao Railway. After the railway is opened to traffic, the transportation cost of materials will be astonishingly low.

Railways are the key to the empire's future control of the vast grasslands, not just relying on immigration or garrisoning.

The three main railway lines, plus the two relatively large branch lines of the Hetao Railway and the Northeast Railway, the above five railway lines are the railway lines currently being planned and built by the Tang Dynasty.

In addition to these five railway lines, although there are many other railway lines, even dozens of railway lines, most of them are medium and short-distance railways, and most of them are short-distance railways of dozens of kilometers. These railways either belong to mining area railways or belong to Intercity railways, and the main purpose of building these short-distance railways is to make money and make profits. Therefore, most of these short-distance railways, except for mining railways, are in relatively economically developed areas, such as the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta.

In this situation, naturally, it is impossible. The railway network of the empire needs to cover the whole country.

In order to facilitate the transportation of people and goods from the north to the south, and also to allow the imperial army to reach the southern provinces from Jinling City in a short time, especially the economic center of Guangdong, it is necessary to continue the construction of the railway line to the south. thing.

Considering that many southern provinces are hilly and mountainous, it is difficult to build railways in most areas. Therefore, in the selection of railway lines, Datang Railway Corporation has proposed a plan for the extension of the Jiangnan Railway.

Because of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River, the terminus of the Jiangnan Railway in Jiujiang is not actually located in Jiujiang City, but at the mouth of Jiujiang Prefecture, which is located at the junction of the east bank of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River.

Therefore, the starting point of this extension of the Jiangnan Railway is not the focus of the Jiangnan Railway: Jiujiang Hukou Station, but a new Jiujiang Dehua Station will be established in Jiujiang City, and the connection between these two stations is prepared to use a special Steam ferries transport passengers and goods. The railway company even has plans to build special large-scale ferries to directly drive the train onto the ferry, and then let passengers and goods pass through Poyang Lake without getting off the train.

Starting from Jiujiang, passing through Lechang, Nanchang, Linjiang and then entering Yuanzhou Mansion, why do you have to come here, because there is a Pingxiang coal mine here, and there is a section of tens of kilometers of railways in the mining area.

Then the railway line enters Hunan, then turns south, and then goes all the way south to Zhaoqing, Guangdong, passing through one of the three major capitals of the Datang Empire, and also the provincial capital of Guangdong Province, Zhaoqing, and then goes to Guangzhou, and the local railway network in Guangzhou. Connect, after connecting Shunde, Huizhou and other places, continue to the south, and finally arrive at the Hong Kong Naval Base.

This entire railway line is called the Southern Railway.

Of course, Liu Bagou's plan is not limited to such a railway line, but also a railway line extending westward from Jiujiang to Wuchang, Hubei, in addition to a railway line from Kaifeng to Wuchang, a railway line from Wuchang to Changsha, and so on.

Li Xuan looked at the planning plan of this railway network, and basically knew that they were actually holding a pen directly, and then directly drawing lines in major cities, and then creating such a national railway network.

However, this is also a reality. After all, the railway network is only for the convenience of transportation connections in various places. Naturally, it has to pass through some important cities.

Liu Bagou took the lead, and the others were unwilling to lag behind. Soon, someone proposed a plan to dredge the rivers across the country, and someone else proposed a plan to expand the official channel.

Part of the main roads of the existing official roads will be widened and the roads will be leveled, and for some places where there are no standard official roads, the construction of standard official roads will be carried out.

Although most of the plans are nonsense, it still makes Li Xuan very gratified, at least they know they have done it.

As for whether it is right or not, this is not important. Anyway, the real road planning and construction cannot be decided by these important officials in the court. It is also necessary to let the technicians in the Datang Railway Corporation and other professionals. personnel, planning after conducting on-site surveys.

Li Xuan and the many ministers were just making a statement. The real work was done by many middle and lower-level officials and many technicians.

In order to further expand public opinion and form a nationwide transportation construction, the Ministry of Rites of the Tang Dynasty reported a series of reports on the transportation construction in the latest issue of the Chaobao.

This is to convey a message to the people of the whole country, that is, the empire is preparing to carry out major transportation construction across the country, and local yamen should actively carry out transportation construction, and many enterprises are also seizing the opportunity, making relevant preparations, and seizing the opportunity. , then it broke out overnight, if you can't seize the opportunity, go bankrupt!

Just like the last major water conservancy construction, the empire also carried out public opinion propaganda across the country, which brought not only the construction of full-fledged water conservancy facilities, but also the majestic development of many industries such as steel and cement. .

According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, in the past few years, due to the favorable influence of the construction of water conservancy facilities and the development of domestic industry and commerce, the development of the cement industry cannot be described as rapid, but rather as explosive.

In the eighteenth year of Xuanping, there were more than 150 cement enterprises in the country, but by the nineteenth year of Xuanping, there were more than 400 cement enterprises in the country. Twenty years later, there are more than 700 cement enterprises nationwide.

Branches are located in every state capital of the country, and basically every state capital will have a cement factory.

Of course, most of these cement companies are small-scale cement factories, and there are not many large-scale cement factories. This is because the technical content of the cement industry is not large, even if it is only a few thousand yuan. Capital can also build a cement factory, and basically no worries about sales after construction.

The water conservancy facilities in various places have lasted for many years, and in addition to the construction of water conservancy facilities, cement is gradually being used by other construction industries, especially because a large number of cement factories have been built and compete with each other, the production cost of cement And prices have dropped significantly.

Today's cement has become an ordinary building material. Even if ordinary people build houses, they can buy cement and use it for the construction of houses, instead of being a high-end building material like a few years ago, ordinary people don't use it at all. rise.

The water conservancy construction in the past few years has directly led to the explosive development of the cement industry, and the transportation construction proposed now will also have this effect, and even the effect of driving the development of the industry will be even greater.

Transportation construction is not just about building a few railways, cleaning up a few rivers, and building a few official roads, which will bring about a series of reactions.

Building a railway requires a lot of building materials such as cement, steel, wood, and stone.

The train itself requires a large number of steam locomotives, carriages, etc.

And the same goes for shipping ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ which requires a lot of steamships.

The construction of official roads will also require more carriages.

These needs will be directly reflected in industrial development.

This is directly driven, and more importantly, with better transportation, transportation costs will be lower, which will greatly promote the prosperity of domestic industry and commerce.

With better transportation, raw materials that could not be shipped in the past can be shipped out, and the transportation cost will be lower, which means that the cost of obtaining raw materials for enterprises is also lower, and the transportation cost of their goods is also lower.

When the cost of goods is reduced, the selling price will also be reduced, which can then be consumed by more people, thereby driving larger-scale industrial production and forming a virtuous circle!

Therefore, transportation construction is not only for building so many roads, but also for making domestic industrial and commercial development more dynamic!

If you want to get rich, build roads first. This sentence is not just a false slogan for propaganda, but it has such an effect.