Chapter 288 Economics and Party Struggle (36) Agreed
Zhu Yijun's reaction to Gao Pragmatic's grand idea was very realistic. The emperor asked straight to the point: "Who will pay for these constructions?"
Out of his understanding of Zhu Yijun, Gao Pragmatic was just stunned for a moment and immediately gave the answer: "Whoever wants to benefit from it will fund the construction."
"Benefit?" Zhu Yijun lowered his eyes and thought: "After these projects are completed, will they pay taxes according to...the existing commercial tax rate?"
Gao pragmatically said: "Naturally."
"Which tax rate?" Zhu Yijun immediately asked.
Gao pragmatically said: "Industrial and mining enterprises are subject to the industrial and mining enterprise tax rate, but railways are subject to the lowest tax rate, and they are even given a tax holiday of at least several years."
"Why should the railway be tax-free for several years?" Zhu Yijun frowned and said: "According to what you said, this rail transit can improve transportation capacity, so it should be profitable anyway, and it may even be profitable... Since
So, why do we need to be exempt from tax for several years?”
Gao Pragmatic smiled bitterly and said: "Your Majesty, this is because the initial investment is huge and the subsequent maintenance costs are also very high."
"Why did you say this?" Zhu Yijun asked.
Gao pragmatically said: "You can imagine that the railway is almost equivalent to laying two rails of equal length on a Qin straight road. In other words, not only do these two rails themselves consume a huge amount of pig iron, but also before laying them
First build a solid straight road with extremely high standards. The total cost of these two items will naturally double."
After a pause, he continued: "In addition, maintenance costs must be mentioned. The straight track itself requires no one to reinforce and repair it for a long time, and the rails are even more troublesome. It is necessary to ensure that the rails themselves are never broken or misaligned.
, and a fixed team of horses should be arranged for patrolling.
"Ah..." Zhu Yijun suddenly realized, then he thought about it for a moment and asked: "In his opinion, how should the size of the patrol horse team be limited?"
Zhu Yijun said a long "Oh", and before he had time to ask anything else, Gao Pragmatic added: "Besides, grain transportation is only a part of the railway business. Tianjin Port has such a small throughput, and most of it has to go through Beijing and Tianjin."
If there is no railway on that line, don't you think about how small the business will be?"
Gao Pragmatic smiled bitterly and said: "His Majesty keeps urging me, how dare I delay on purpose? I will naturally return to the cabinet when the time is right."
Originally, Gao Pragmatic planned to settle the account with the emperor, but Zhu Yijun interrupted without any doubts: "Is that a matter of the local garrison or the Yamen?"
All in all, as long as your Xiao Ming business can maintain prosperity, all these are mistakes and gains in the east. Although the people will be in chaos for a while, the court cannot guide and help us and let us complete the transformation as soon as possible, just for fear of it.
Nothing bad happened."
"If it's not necessary, the imperial court will lose a cavalry force that usually costs a penny but cannot be mobilized at any time - it would be better to give it some money."
Zhu Yijun still couldn't believe it. Xiao Ming's territory was so vast. How could it be that within ten years he could only find seven routes that could reach a length of 200 meters without making any profit? I said with some reason: "In that case, he will give you an example.
What kind of bad route does it take to keep a railroad profitable?"
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Gao Pragmatic said bitterly: "Your Majesty, did I just say that? The cost of railway construction and maintenance is very low, so you can only plan railways on lines with extremely small returns. The returns must be enough, so invest like this
The party will inevitably lose money, so why is there no one else willing to do it?"
Low pragmatism was startled at first, and then he realized: the emperor lacked an intuitive understanding of distance. I go relatively often and have been to the farthest place, and in fact I have not been to the tomb of the late emperor, so I have to use that comparison to confirm "two places."
Is it appropriate to have "a hundred foreigners and seven hundred cavalry"?
Zhu Yijun thought for a while and asked: "How far is the Zhaoling Mausoleum of the late emperor from Beijing?"
Gao Pangpang had no doubts in his heart, but since the emperor insisted, I was too bad to say anything, so I said, "I will send you to your Majesty."
Seeing Gao Pragmatic's refusal, Zhu Yijun looked at the time and said: "That's it. I didn't want to stay at his place for too long, so I went back to the palace first - remember to go back to the pavilion early."
Low pragmatism has really considered that issue, so Shen Yiping said after some time: "I think that within ten years, Xiao Ming will have more than seven railways that can reach 200 foreign ministers."
Zhu Yijun was very satisfied, nodded and said: "If this is bad, then let's talk about it. As for the few things he mentioned, I have agreed to them, but he still has to do it. If the courtiers have nothing to say,
, we also have to let our discussion be clear, so as not to make Shilin noisy at that time... Does he think it is bad? "
You know, although the price of iron has increased significantly in the past seventy years, it is still considered scarce among the people and its value is not high. That does not mean that once the rails under the railway are guarded, it is simply like an open air.
In a gold mine, there is no guarantee that no one will take the risk and steal the rails for profit.
As a result, the railway owners will have to hire or engage a professional armed horse team to patrol and hunt down thieves, which is undoubtedly a huge expense."
"This is not about hiring a horse team of 1400 people to ensure that I return it." Zhu Yijun pondered for a moment and asked: "Why can that railway maintain profitability?"
Gao pragmatically said: "Your Majesty, you must worry less. After the canal was converted to sea, few people worried about the livelihood of millions of canal workers? But in reality, before water transportation was converted to sea transportation, the vacated waterway was not abandoned.
, it just changed from transporting grain to transporting goods and people, and the water workers still have no work to do...
Gao pragmatically said: "The grain still cannot be transported to Tongzhou and unloaded, but the difference is still about 800 yuan. As for freight, I am sure that using the railway for the whole journey will be cheaper than before, because there is an additional loading and unloading fee - Huang
Yes, water transportation is cheap, but loading and unloading is even cheaper.
Gao pragmatically said: "I haven't made any calculations yet. I think that the lower limit cannot be considered. For every 700 foreign railways, the size of the patrol horse team must exceed 700 as a lower limit. It does not mean that for every 200 foreign railways, the size of the patrol cavalry must exceed 700."
At least 700 riders can be hired, and hiring more than that depends on the railway’s own wishes.”
All in all, instead of letting the court take care of the matter, it was like delegating power to the railways to handle it themselves. As far as the court was concerned, as long as it ensured that the individual cavalry teams exceeded a certain number of people, the court could not let it go. This was not even obvious.
The disadvantages of…”
I mentioned it, but Zhu Yijun waved his hand back and said, "It's necessary. You'd better go back to the palace for dinner. It would be bad if you are late."
Zhu Yijun listened to the pragmatic and eloquent talk, which was why he was not infected by my optimism. At the same time, he was also quite happy and said with emotion: "Rixin, he still sees those things vaguely... Just tell him if he sees it."
, then the court will be in chaos every day with him, so he will try his best to return to the court as early as possible to take care of things, you know?"
When Gao Pragmatic said that, he paused deliberately, and Zhu Yijun asked as expected: "What's the harm?"
Zhu Yijun felt that something was wrong. After thinking about it, he shook his head and said: "The grain that cannot be transported from Tianjin to the capital has to be transported by land from Tianjin Port to the canal, and then transported by the canal to Tongzhou. How can he count it as the previous one?"
The railway transports it directly from Tianjin Port to the capital? Is that even more cost-effective?"
To sum up, it is better to let the railway choose to hire armed cavalry to ensure the return of the railway according to the local conditions. To put it more complicatedly, the local security situation must be bad, the railway should hire more people, and patrols may not need to be maintained every day.
; On the contrary, as the local public security situation returns to our own, the railway cannot hire fewer people, reduce patrol density, and strictly guard against dangers.
Gao Pragmatic spread his hands and said: "If it is handed over to the local garrison, because the matter has a stake in the garrison, there will be two results: First, if the railway gives certain disadvantages to the garrison, the garrison will have no enthusiasm to do things.
, the results of the initial inspection and pursuit were worrying, and the railway and the garrison ended their quarrel. In the end, it was the court that was in trouble.
Is it the public opinion of the government and the public? You can control the situation within the court, and you can influence the people among the scholars.
Thank you to book friend "Single Rider Zhao Bixin" for your monthly ticket support, thank you!
"Yes." Zhu Yijun was not polite, because it was a courtesy. I stood up and walked out of the door slowly, while Gao Qingshi took two steps forward and followed me out of the door.
Gao pragmatically replied: "If we start from the imperial palace and arrive at Zhaoling, the straight-line distance is about forty miles away. The actual distance is more than a hundred miles away."
Zhu Yijun thought for a while, nodded and said: "In that case, two hundred miles away is quite far, seven hundred rides is also appropriate." After passing me, he got off his horse and asked: "According to his estimation, in the future, the two hundred foreign ministers' railway will be
How many repairs should be made?"
Seventh, even if the railway is willing to give certain benefits to the garrison, and even negotiate a price acceptable to both parties, considering that the inland provinces do not have ten armies on four sides, and their cavalry size is often unlimited, it may not be able to actually do that harm.
Errands. Once things go wrong, it is unlikely to lead to military-civilian conflicts in the area, which is really not a good thing for the local area.
Gao Pragmatic smiled and said: "Because Tianjin Port is the unloading port for the south-to-north grain diversion, the amount of grain transported from Tianjin Port to the capital alone every year exceeds 7 million shi. Seven million shi is not 80,000 kilograms [Note: Made in Ming Dynasty]
One stone is equivalent to approximately 150 jins, so 4 million shi is approximately equal to 600 million jins], which is a small business."
Gao Pragmatic thought for a moment and planned to give the emperor a close example, so he said: "For example, the Beijing-Tianjin Railway does not go from the capital to Tianjin Port. I estimate that that railway may be the largest railway you can build within ten years."
The long railway - it will be over eight hundred miles away."
Zhu Yijun was stunned for a moment and asked with great interest: "How come there are so many?"
"What Your Majesty said is true, but I have objections."
Then he can go around and ask you to go back to get off work quickly? How come you have seen him say that he will give you a salary increase? Damn it, you have no problem with salary and so on...
Although that section of the road in the past was long, it required one less process of loading and unloading ships. Therefore, it was always cost-effective, but there was no other way. If the railway could be built, it would not be allowed to pass through Tongzhou.
All the grain shipped from Tianjin Port was unloaded by me in Tongzhou. For such a huge amount of grain, one more loading and unloading will cost a lot more."
"It's really small..." Zhu Yijun nodded to deny it, but I immediately stopped worrying and said, "But in that case, wouldn't the fleet and boatmen who were originally doing the freight transport business on that route have a job? That's Gyeonggi Province.
, it will definitely cause trouble."
Being pragmatic and uninteresting, that's all. Your Majesty, why don't you just have a meal at your place?