1771, the climax of the second phase of railway construction
Chongzhen finally sighed and agreed.
Only by selling these ownerless lands can we actually get money. If we keep it and manage it ourselves, given the conduct of the people below, I am afraid that not only will we not be able to collect any money, but we may even suffer losses every year.
Originally, Empress Zhou was considering leaving 10 million acres to grow cotton and provide raw materials for spinning mills. However, she thought over and over again and still did not dare to do so. What was the state of the royal estates? It was impossible for her not to do so.
Know.
The output of the same land is only two-tenths of that of ordinary people's land.
These royal lands are far better than the common people's thin fields. It can barely produce some food to support the households, eunuchs, and petty officials who farm the land. The royal family does not have much left, because the output of the land will always be
Inexplicably disappearing. Almost every link passed will lose a part.
Finally, the day came for Yang Fan to set out. Yang Fan wrote a memorial to Chongzhen and left for Guihua City to take up his post.
Yang Fan's special train finally started, with an armored train serving as the lead train. Yang Fan's special train followed closely behind, followed by another military train. The military train transported all the men, horses and equipment of the Jia Ding Regiment.
Yang Fan took Zhang Geda and the servant regiment to the front line. The cavalry teaching regiment and the Xinghe regiment were left behind in the territory to take care of Yang Fan's family property.
Before Yang Fan left, he approved the largest railway investment project in the history of the Yang family. The second phase of the railway project was officially launched. Yang Fan directly allocated 10 million taels of silver from the small treasury for special expenses for railway construction. Don't let your finances fail.
Can't afford such a huge expense.
This money will be used for the construction of multiple railways.
Each of these railways is more important than the last, and none of them can promote the economy now. Their effects will not be reflected for a long time in the future.
So, they are all sunk costs for the time being.
In order to meet the time and urgency of the war, the previous railway to the Western Regions used the 762 narrow gauge railway with small investment and short construction period. Now, Yang Fan has repaired the railway past Hami with relatively small investment and construction difficulty.
.It is advancing towards the Dihua City area.
At this time, Urumqi had not yet been formally established as a city.
There are just a lot of scattered settlements here. It was not until the Qianlong Dynasty that the city was officially built and named Dihua.
At this time, this place was called Tingzhou. Now it is an area controlled by Junggar. The Junggar Basin on Tianshan North Road is one of their core areas.
Now Yang Fan’s new railway project will not build narrow-gauge railways.
One reason is that Hyundai has basically acquired all the second-hand narrow gauges it can acquire. Most of these railways are in scenic areas and forest areas, and the lines are not long. They are all used up when connecting to Yili. The rest must be done by themselves. In Xincheng Steel
The factory produces its own rails.
At present, the train technology that Yang Fan has a complete understanding of is the 381mm fifteen-inch super mini railway, which is the small train planned to be used from provincial capitals to prefectures and county towns.
This kind of small train can accommodate two people in a row. If it is used to transport goods, a whole train of cars can carry more than 500 tons.
It is cheap and has a large transport capacity. The key is that there is no need to pave ballast. After the road is compacted, sleepers and rails can be installed directly. The cost is very cheap. Maintenance is simple, investment is low, and construction is fast. And there is not a big problem in the area.
Regarding transportation capacity requirements, this transportation capacity is sufficient.
In terms of local transportation, steam trucks and mini trains will be relied upon in the future.
The trunk railway between provincial capitals is constructed using standard gauges. The branch railway is the smallest mini railway. Currently, this railway runs from Beitangkou through Tianjin, along Zhangjiakou, Guihuacheng, Hami... all the way to Tsaritsin.
It is the only narrow gauge main line railway.
After the entire line is opened to traffic, this railway will immediately undergo track and double-track construction and be transformed into a double-track standard gauge railway.
Yang Fan decided that the 1435 standard track would be most suitable for the future main line railway. The 762 track was just a temporary transition.
These standard rails currently need to be transferred. However, this heavy-duty rail with 80 kilograms per meter is already being studied. Once the Xincheng Steel Plant solves the technical problems, it can produce heavy-duty standard rails on its own.
More than 120 sets of old steam locomotives on the standard track have also been transferred. The ones that can be used are being repaired and debugged. They are ready to be used on the newly constructed standard track. The ones that cannot be used are being dismantled by the Power Research Institute.
Surveying, reverse research, replication.
In the second stage, the first railway is the Daqin Railway.
This railway starts from the port of Qinhuangdao in the east, passes through Zunhua, Yanqing, and ends at the coal mining area of Datong, Shanxi. This railway was mainly built for the transportation of coal from the north to the south. Yang Fan plans to spread light industry to the entire coastal and river areas of the Ming Dynasty in the future.
In the future, steam engines used to power factories will definitely use a large amount of coal. However, the South lacks energy minerals. Whether it is oil or coal, the South has very little. If the South develops industry during this period, it can only rely on low-cost, high-volume water transportation.
, get coal from the north.
This railway transports coal from Datong, Shanxi, to Qinhuangdao, an ice-free port in the north, and then transports it by sea to coastal areas and along the Yangtze River to provide power fuel for local steam engines.
This railway will intersect with the 762-gauge Eurasian Railway in Zhangjiakou. In the future, after the Eurasian Railway realizes the transformation of the standard track, the two railways will be able to pass through it uniformly.
The second railway is the China Eastern Railway.
This railway starts from the port of Vladivostok in the east, along the Shuangchengzi, passing through Harabin, Sartu, Bukui, Hailar, Chita, and ends at Ulan-Ude. It directly connects the Buryat-Mongolia region on the east side of Lake Baikal.
Take control and communicate with the port of Vladivostok.
This railway directly controlled northern Manchuria in the hands of the Yang family. It confronted Southern Manchuria controlled by Jiannu, Chahar and other Eastern Mongolia controlled by Lin Dan Khan.
The third railway is the American Railway.
It starts in Shuangchengzi City, and then goes all the way to the northeast until it reaches the shore of the Bering Strait. The super shield machine that Yang Fan obtained here is digging a huge undersea tunnel.
This railway will cross the Bering Strait here, enter Alaska, and then go all the way south. Along the Pacific coast of the American continent, all the way south, through Canada, California, Mexico, Central America, and into the Latin American world.
Passing through Panama, then along Peru, Chile and other places to the southernmost tip of the continent.
Long-term planning will be carried out for the horizontal branch line. This railway will connect Asia and the Americas. In the future, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas will be double-tracked by heavy-duty railways and connected together to become one piece of land.
Yang Fan hopes that this railway will be opened to traffic within 30 years. In his lifetime, he hopes to use double-track heavy-haul railways to connect all four continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States. In this era, Southeast Asia and Australia are not very important and their populations are not large. This is equivalent to connecting the entire world with railways.
world.
The Yang family not only wants to monopolize sea rights for intercontinental navigation, but also firmly controls land rights with railways as the backbone and highways as auxiliary. If you control transportation, you control the entire world.