In Guangdong, due to the obstruction of the mountainous areas in northern Guangdong, it is more difficult to build railways to the northern provinces, and the investment will be greater.
After all, the current earthmoving construction capabilities of the Chu Empire are just like that. There are no large-scale mechanical equipment to use. To carry out earthmoving projects, you have to rely on hoes and shovels, which is very inefficient. At this time, building a railway to Guangzhou is far from difficult. can be compared later.
Therefore, the railway company is still relatively cautious about building the railway to Guangzhou.
But no matter what, Luo Zhixue believes that the railway to Guangzhou must be built, and not too late. After all, once the railway network can be connected to Guangzhou, it will have a great boost to the overall economy of the empire.
Besides, although the railway is difficult to repair and the investment is large, the expected operating profit will not be low once it is built. After all, Guangzhou is there to support it.
Guangdong, because it is located in the south and has the convenience of the Pearl River Basin and coastal shipping, relies on foreign trade and the markets in Guangdong, Guangdong and coastal areas, and its industry has developed quite well.
Its heavy industries include shipbuilding. Guangzhou Shipyard and Lishi Shipyard are the second and third largest shipyards in the country. In addition, there are a large number of small and medium-sized shipyards.
There are also coal, iron ore and steel industries. Guangning County, where the Guangning Coalfield was ceded from the Annan region, directly belongs to Lianzhou Prefecture of Guangdong Province. The iron ore industry also has large-scale rich ores on Qiongzhou Island.
As a result, Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company emerged, a large steel company that can be regarded as one of the top ten in China.
The machinery industry is also very good. There is Guangzhou Machinery Company, which currently focuses on high-pressure steam engines and has almost monopolized the domestic high-pressure steam engine market. It is worth noting that Guangzhou Machinery Company is a comprehensive machinery company, and their business line is not only steam engines. , in fact, they also have various equipment, such as textile machinery and equipment, tea making equipment, and steel making equipment. They are very good at it.
In addition, they also have ordinary civilian iron products business. Various agricultural tools and cooking utensils are not only sold to Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and other places, but also widely exported to various overseas markets.
It is rare to find a large comprehensive machinery company in other places, but in Guangzhou, they actually have two, and the remaining one is Li's Iron.
This company is the one with the highest market value among the many companies that have been listed. Its business coverage is very broad. In addition to its independently operated shipbuilding and machine tool businesses, it still directly manages various comprehensive machinery businesses.
Not only does it produce various types of machinery and equipment, but its various daily iron products are also sold well all over the world.
Then there is the Guangdong and Guangxi weapons company. They are not the largest and most technologically powerful weapons company in the empire, but they are definitely the most profitable.
Its business ranges from large-caliber naval guns to muskets and ammunition, and even cold weapons. Its series of tropical series products specially developed for coastal and tropical areas occupy an extremely important position in the army and navy.
The various weapons and equipment used by the empire's ground combat troops fighting overseas, whether muskets or artillery, are monopolized by their series of salt-resistant and corrosion-resistant individual weapons or mountain artillery that focuses on lightweight design.
In addition, they are specialized in exporting various types of cold weapons business. The plate armor business, matchlock business, and old-style artillery are also very prosperous, accounting for almost half of the empire's arms export market.
The above ones are all large heavy industrial enterprises. In addition to these super large enterprises, there are actually a lot of messy enterprises, especially the light industry, which is very large in scale.
The light industry in Guangdong is mainly cotton spinning industry, porcelain, etc., and these two industries are also very typical export trade enterprises. The model of the cotton spinning industry is very special in the empire. They all import cotton from overseas. It is then processed into cloth and then shipped overseas for sale. The profits in this process are considerable.
Guangdong Province, which has many heavyweight enterprises and a large overall industrial scale, is second only to Jiangnan Province in terms of economic size, and cannot even compare with the capital city of Yingtianfu... After all, in Yingtianfu, there is actually only one Dangtu Industrial Zone that can take advantage of it. You have to start, the others are some service-type tertiary industries.
To develop the economy these days, we have to rely on industry, large-scale industry!
If Guangdong Province, which has an extremely large industrial scale, can be included in the railway network, it will not only greatly promote the economic development of Guangdong itself, but also bring great benefits to surrounding areas.
Not to mention the many factories and huge industrial workers in Guangdong, the industrial raw materials, agricultural products, non-staple food and other civilian products they need add up to an astronomical figure.
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Once connected through the railway network, various resources and products from surrounding provinces can be continuously brought to Guangdong through the railway network, thereby forming new market connections.
This will have a huge economic boost to surrounding areas.
The biggest role of railways is to drive economic development along the railway lines. As for the profitability of the railway itself, it is actually not important.
If the railway construction was not too big and railway profits were needed to support railway construction, Luo Zhixue would even dare to directly charge railway transportation at an operating cost price to further stimulate the development of the overall domestic economy.
Because the railway network connecting Guangdong has a great driving effect on the economy, even if it is very difficult to build railways in the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong and southern Jiangxi, the investment will be greater. However, Luo Zhixue believes that we must withstand the pressure and grit our teeth. Build a railway to Guangzhou.
At this transportation meeting, Luo Zhixue brought up the railway issues in Guangdong for discussion.
And when Luo Zhixue personally set the tone that "railway construction should be bolder and faster," people at the Ministry of Transport naturally had no objections.
The bosses of the empire have said that they will build the railway to Guangdong in advance, even if they have to pay a certain higher construction cost for it, so what else is there to say, just build it!
It's nothing more than a larger investment, several times the investment in building railways in other plain areas...
Moreover, the money used to build this railway will not be financed by the government, but will be obtained from bank loans. The worst thing is to extend the repayment period of the loan and pay it back slowly in the future. Anyway, relying on a city like Guangzhou It is an important industrial and commercial area, and Guangzhou, Chunan and Jiangxi do not have convenient river transportation. , there is no need to worry about railway business being taken away by river transport.
As long as the railway can be built, there will be no need to worry about passenger sources and freight business. I dare not say that we will make a fortune every day in the future, but we will definitely make money.
The big boss has set the tone. After the Ministry of Transportation follows the emperor's footsteps, the Railway Corporation below will naturally have nothing to say...
If the bosses above say do it, then do it!
Even the railway planning does not need to be done temporarily. They have done some research before and sent people to visit the terrain in the mountainous areas of southern Jiangxi and northern Guangdong to formulate a basic railway line plan.
The plan is also simple. It extends directly from Jiujiang Hukou to the south, passes through Fuzhou, Ji'an, and Ganzhou, then goes all the way south, enters Guangdong, passes through the mountainous area of northern Gansu, and finally reaches Guangzhou.
In this way, you can take the railway from Guangzhou all the way north to Hukou, follow the Jiangnan Railway to Jinling City, where you can ferry to Jiangpu, continue all the way north to Liaodong, or all the way east to Songjiang, Shanghai, and Zhejiang Hangzhou. , Ningbo.
At the same time, you can also turn to the northwest when you are in Fuzhou, Jiangxi, passing through Nanchang and heading to Hantianfu, Changsha, Hengyang and other places. You can also ferry to Hantianfu to the north, continue to take the train all the way north to Luoyang, and exit Tongguan Later arrived in Xi'an.
Canton will completely connect the entire railway network and lead to almost all the population and economically important provinces of the empire.
This Guanghu Railway is expected to be very difficult to build because there are real mountainous areas along the way, especially where Guangdong and Jiangxi are connected.
It is very difficult to build railways on this kind of railway, and the railways built will most likely be winding and winding... Not to mention the number of railway bridges and tunnels to be erected, there will definitely be many.
By then, the overall cost will be a very scary figure, and the Railway Corporation is very worried that the investment will be too large. By then, relying solely on the railway's own profits, I am afraid that the loan will not be repaid in twenty or thirty years!
But... these increased construction costs are acceptable to Luo Zhixue. It is not worth mentioning to pay off the loan in 30 years. It is not a big deal to build a railway and pay off the debt in 30 years. People in future generations will just buy a house. It takes more than ten or twenty years to repay the loan, and there are also many who repay it in thirty years.
As long as the overall economy does not collapse, the economic benefits this railway will bring to the empire as a whole will far exceed the profits of the railway operation itself.
This is also the difference between Luo Zhixue and even the senior officials of the empire, and the heads of specific railway companies and even local officials below.
Luo Zhixue, as well as the counselors and co-organizers in the imperial study, all looked at the whole country and valued the overall effect.
But railway companies and even local officials only see the quality of the industry or a certain place itself.
This is not to say that they are short-sighted, but that they are in different positions, see different things, and pay attention to different things.
The same is true in railway construction.
This is also the reason why Luo Zhixue wanted to make railway construction and operation a central government-run exclusive business, instead of directly opening it up and not letting local governments do it.
Because once it is liberalized, even if it is only liberalized to local governments, many problems will arise, because they will not and have no need to consider railway construction issues from a national perspective.
They will only build railways that are good for them.
People are all like this, and the same is true for officials. They don’t seek to achieve their goals if they are not in their positions. They are not co-ministers or counselors. They don’t say whether they are willing or not. It can even be said that they are not qualified to consider issues from a national perspective. …
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After finalizing the plan for the Guanghu Railway, Luo Zhixue didn't pay much attention to railway affairs. With so many officials from the Ministry of Transportation and the Railway Corporation down below, they would naturally handle the planning and subsequent construction of the new railway line.
Luo Zhixue turned his attention to steamship matters. Steamships were as important to the Chu Empire as the large-scale railway network.
Even for a short period of time, steamships, especially river steamships, were more important than railways.
After all, the scale of the current railway network is still too small. It will probably take decades of continuous construction to form a trunk railway network and numerous branch railway networks throughout the country.
In the short term, or even within ten or twenty years, large-scale external transportation in many places can still only rely on river transportation.
For example, Sichuan's external transportation will rely heavily on steam passenger ships for many years to come.
At the beginning of this year, the Chuanjiang Shipping Company used their first steam inland river ship to sail all the way up the river from Hantianfu, passed through the dangerous Three Gorges section, and finally arrived in Chongqing.
This successful trial of the steam passenger ship in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, that is, the Sichuan River section, is of great significance to the development of Sichuan.
The Sichuan Governor's Office has made a very strong support plan for steam inland river cruises, including supporting the construction of modern ports and maintenance facilities for steam ships to berth, supply and repair.
At the same time, it is also planned to dredge the Three Gorges reaches, the upper reaches of the Sichuan River, and other tributaries.
Whether it is supporting the inland river passenger ship project or dredging various river sections such as the Three Gorges, it is a very large-scale and expensive project. The Sichuan Governor's Yamen naturally needs to report to Jinling.
Of course, the more important thing is to apply for central financial support.
With such a large amount of money, it would be difficult for the Sichuan family to pay for it alone. Jinling would have to pay some amount no matter what.
When Luo Zhixue looked at this report, he considered not only Sichuan's convenient inland river steamship development plan, but also other areas that were not suitable for the large-scale construction of external railway networks and were still capable of navigable steamships. River transport development in the region.
Not every place is suitable for building a railway network.
This has topographical constraints, as well as operating cost constraints caused by the local economy. There are also some places where the economy is average, but if there is already river transportation, then these places will be temporarily put aside during railway planning, and priority will be given. Build railways in areas that lack river transportation and have difficulty in communicating with the outside world.
What Luo Zhixue has to do now is to provide these places with some policies and financial support so that they can increase their efforts to develop steamship transportation. Even if they are limited by the navigation capacity of the river and cannot achieve full navigation, they still need to Minimize land transportation distances as much as possible.
Just like the Chu Empire's current material transportation in Siberia, it is actually difficult to transport materials directly to various places by ship. Some land transportation is still needed as a transition, including some Lianshui passages and steep river sections.
In this way, the railway network and river/offshore shipping can form a complementary whole. I cannot say that it will completely open up the national transportation network, but it can at least open up the external communication channels of most state capitals.
To achieve this, large-scale dredging of rivers across the country is indispensable. As for supporting steamships, it comes second.
After all, river navigation is convenient and steam ships are easy to use. Naturally, shipping companies will purchase steam ships and put them into operation.
There are many kinds of messy shipping companies in the Dachu Empire. There are not only many government-run shipping companies, but also countless private shipping companies.
The larger ones include some government-run shipping companies. These shipping companies are usually sponsored by local provincial or state governments and are generally named after rivers or place names. For example, the Chuanjiang Shipping Company invested and established by the Industrial Department under the Sichuan Governor's Yamen, the Yangtze River Shipping Company invested and established by Yingtianfu, and the Jiangnan Shipping Company invested and established by the Jiangnan Governor's Yamen.
There are also industrial shipping companies established by the Central Ministry of Industry, which are mainly engaged in bulk cargo transportation on local rivers and offshore; Pacific Shipping Company, which is mainly engaged in ocean freight, traveling to Southeast Asia, and has many Fusang routes; Huaxia Shipping Company, which is a specialized company Enterprises engaged in long-distance passenger transportation business such as large rivers and offshore seas.
Of course, their business focus is just different. In fact, the three major shipping companies basically have different businesses such as freight, passenger transportation, long-distance and short-term ocean shipping, and they compete with each other.
These are talking about shipping companies organized by the central and provincial levels. In fact, each prefecture and county has a large number of shipping companies run by itself.
These shipping companies are similar to some urban public carriage companies and intercity long-distance carriage companies on the ground. They are part of the local public transportation facilities. They are basically operated in every place, but most of them are limited to the local area.
This is also a major characteristic of quite a few local small and medium-sized government-run enterprises, that is, they are basically industries that provide public facilities and are related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and they are rarely directly engaged in general industries.
As for the light industry, the superiors generally do not approve it... because in principle, official capital does not participate in light industry where private capital is relatively active.
If your local government wants to develop industry and develop the economy and attract investment, why do you have to set up a factory to compete with private enterprises for business?
How can private companies compete with you if you set up a factory directly on your territory?
This kind of thing undermines market fairness too much, and the empire's top officials have always maintained a negative attitude towards it.
In the early years, the textile industry was so profitable, but for the sake of the overall development of the textile industry, the empire's senior officials forcibly transferred and sold a large number of government-run textile companies, leaving only Hantian Textile Company.
Until now, there is still only one Hantian Textile Company in the government-run capital of the Great Chu Empire, whether it is a central or local textile enterprise.
In fact, in recent years, many local governments have applied to establish textile enterprises in order to make money and alleviate their own financial difficulties. However, without exception, they have been rejected by the Industrial Department and even the Ministry of Industry.
In the early years of the empire, the empire withdrew from the textile industry in order to promote the overall development of the textile industry. Now, local officials can still enter it just to make a few bucks.
This situation of state retreat and private advancement is particularly common in the light industry. From the perspective of government-run enterprises themselves, this situation would be a huge loss.
But from the perspective of the local economy and even the national economy, the empire has made a lot of money.
The same is true for supporting river transportation this time. Luo Zhixue actually does not intend to provide any special support to those government-run shipping companies. He only intends to provide basic infrastructure, such as dredging waterways, building docks and other infrastructure, and then provide some policies to the shipping industry as a whole. support.
Then let these government-run shipping companies and private shipping companies compete within business rules.
In this way, no matter who loses or wins in the end, it will be a good thing for the empire!
With this mentality, Luo Zhixue held several shipping meetings in May and initially finalized a plan to support the development of the shipping industry.
The core of this is dredging the river.
After all, for the inland shipping industry, the river is the biggest advantage and the biggest limitation. Some rivers with shallow rapids need to be dredged. For some places with waterfalls and cutoffs, it is also necessary to see if a canal can be built, or It is a navigation gate for navigation.
And these projects, without exception, are very expensive.
Therefore, in terms of funding, the initial plan is to follow the construction plan of water conservancy facilities in earlier years, with all levels of finance funding together.
The county provided some, the government provided some, the province provided some, and then the central government also provided some, and everyone jointly contributed money to get things done.
Among the many plans, the largest project is undoubtedly the river dredging project in the Three Gorges. There are many shoals and rocks in this place, and the river water is extremely fast.
Therefore, it is very dangerous for ships to run in this place. In the current era of sailing, at least one hundred ships are wrecked on the Sichuan and River routes every year, and a large number of them occur on the Three Gorges route.
A large number of shipping accidents result in the loss of ships, casualties and cargo losses.
Of course... these risks still cannot stop people from traveling on the Sichuan River. Many ships travel on the Sichuan River every day.
In the early years, the Chu Empire organized the migration of landless people from Huguang, Jiangxi, Jiangnan and other places to the Sichuan Basin, and organized the migration of millions of people. These people all entered Sichuan through the Sichuan River Channel.
Now that the Chu Empire wants to further improve the shipping capacity of the Sichuan River, it must carry out dredging projects for the Sichuan River waterway, especially the Three Gorges section.
To this end, it is planned to set up a special Chuanjiang river dredging agency to conduct specialized research and rectification on the dredging of rivers along the river. Not to mention other things, at least some of the rocks along the way that can easily cause shipwrecks must be cleared first.
At the same time, river dredging work in other places also needs to be put on the schedule.
At the same time, the work of dredging rivers in some areas and increasing navigation capacity should also be combined with flood control and irrigation to more effectively integrate and utilize resources and avoid repeated construction waste.
After several meetings, basically all measures have been arranged.
While Luo Zhixue and other senior officials of the empire were preparing for the work of dredging the rivers, the Liuhe Shipping Company in the south went a step further and started operating the Xijiang, Dongjiang, and Beijiang rivers using more than a dozen steamships that had arrived earlier than other competitors. These three main waterways in the Pearl River Basin have regular steam passenger flights.
As the inland river steamships of the Liuhe Shipping Company went north along the Dongjiang River, the people along the way, especially those in northern Guangdong, also witnessed the miracle of the industrial age!
The steamship, which does not use sails and is sending out white smoke, is sailing upstream at a speed that traditional sailboats cannot match!
This steamship not only shocked the local people, but also brought various industrial products that were lacking in the local area.
At the same time, there is Wang Tu, the newly appointed magistrate of Heping County, Huizhou Prefecture. This gentleman is very young. He is standing on the bow of the boat and looking at the scenery on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. He is still wearing ordinary Confucian casual clothes.
They look no different from ordinary scholars!
But no one around him dared to despise him!
Not just because he is the newly appointed Heping County Magistrate, but because he has a great background and a strong background!
