During the Mid-Autumn Festival in the 33rd year of Chengshun, compared to the past, the festive atmosphere was limited to a small number of people, and the festival was just a pure festival.
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival has transformed from a traditional festival into a large-scale, even nationwide consumption event!
Countless people, especially those who work and live in other places, made plans in advance, bought train tickets, rushed to the train station when the holiday just arrived, and then took the train back to their hometowns that they had not returned to for many years.
There are also some people who take advantage of the rare seven-day holiday to take their families to the suburbs or even out of town.
Of course, more people will still choose to celebrate the festival locally, accompany their families to enjoy the moon and eat moon cakes, and take their families to shopping streets and eat out in restaurants.
Whether people are returning to their hometowns, traveling, or celebrating local festivals, they will consume more or less!
Although most people are not in the habit of spending money lavishly and their consumption base is relatively small, you can't stand the fact that the Great Chu Empire has a population of more than 400 million!
There are so many people, and the per capita consumption is one Chu Yuan, then the total amount is more than 400 million Chu Yuan.
Chu Yuan is very valuable these days. The Chu Empire's annual central fiscal revenue is only more than 700 million Chu Yuan.
The consumption for one festival alone reached more than 400 million, which had a very obvious economic boosting effect on the Chu Empire.
As people travel more, the development of trains and ships will increase, as well as the development of hotels, restaurants and other service industries.
The development of transportation and accommodation industries can also stimulate the development of more industries.
Economic development has always been driven by one link and another. As long as you boost end-use consumption, you can quickly boost the development of the entire economic system.
Although the role of the festival economy in driving the economy is far less than that of infrastructure construction, it is a real public consumption, and it is not a one-time event and can be developed sustainably.
Therefore, the empire's senior officials are very satisfied with the holiday economy during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Now that I have made a start, I am thinking of waiting until the Spring Festival to do a bigger wave.
The Spring Festival can also stimulate another wave of consumption. After all, during the year, you save on weekdays, but you have to spend some money to get some benefits during the New Year, prepare some New Year's goods, and make new clothes for your children.
Luo Zhixue is quite satisfied with the economic development driven by the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. It seems that the more than 1,000 pages of reports compiled by economists are still somewhat useful!
Although he didn't read the report... he couldn't deny the usefulness of the report.
After the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, all walks of life have returned to normal production rhythms. However, many people have had fun during the festival and are not used to coming back to work.
There are also some people who overeat and drink during the holidays, and there are not a few people who drink themselves into the hospital.
As a result, during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, instead of being able to take a break, hospitals across the country experienced a peak period of medical treatment. Many doctors and nurses had to stay at work for a long time during the holiday.
Also sticking to their jobs are the patrol police from various places and the C Division garrison.
The huge flow of personnel during the long holidays is very likely to cause various problems, such as mass casualties. In order to ensure that public security does not deteriorate during the long holidays, almost all patrol police cannot take holidays and continue to stick to their jobs, even working The time is even longer than usual.
The smooth operation of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday in the Dachu Empire is inseparable from the fact that a large number of staff in the medical, patrol, and transportation industries continue to stick to their jobs.
Of course, after the long vacation is over, people in these industries will gradually make up for their vacation by taking time off.
After the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday carnival ended, people from all walks of life in the Chu Empire returned to work one after another, which also included the railway construction sites of the Railway Corporation in Guizhou.
In the 27th year of Chengshun's reign, the Great Chu Empire formally formulated a construction plan for the Xiangyun Railway, and began preliminary surveys to determine the route.
In the 29th year of Chengshun, the Xiangyun Railway officially started construction.
This Yunnan-Guizhou railway will extend from Changsha in southern Chu to the southwest, pass through Huaihua Prefecture, enter Guizhou, and then arrive all the way to Guiyang, the provincial capital of Guizhou Province, and then extend in the direction of Yunnan, and finally reach Kunming, where the Shengyun Railway will be planned. That is, the railway section connecting Thang Long Province (northern Annam).
From Changsha in southern Chu, through Guiyang in Guizhou, Kunming in Yunnan, and finally arriving at Haiphong Port in Thang Long Province, the Changhai Railway was formed.
This Changhai Railway was the first southwest trunk railway in the Chu Empire, and its economic and strategic roles were extremely important.
In the early days, due to technical and financial problems, the Chu Empire was unable to build railways in the southwest region. However, with the continuous advancement of railway construction technology, especially after the great development of tunnel and bridge technology, there was also a large amount of steam engines. Powered construction machinery and equipment were also used in railway construction.
The Dachu Empire already has the technical capabilities to trim railways in complex mountainous terrain, and at the same time, it can better control costs.
Only with the maturity of these technologies did the empire's senior officials decide to invest heavily in the construction of the Changhai-Sea Railway, a trunk line.
Construction of this southwest main railway will start from two directions at the same time!
On one side, Chu Nan Huai Hua extends to the west, and on the other side, it is built from Haiphong Port in Thang Long Province.
Both sides start working simultaneously and eventually converge at the midpoint.
The Changhai Railway is also a key project of the second batch of trunk railways in the Chu Empire!
Well, it's not the only one, it's just one of the key projects. In addition to the Changhai Railway, there are actually many other trunk railways under construction in the second batch of railway construction plans.
Including two railways into Sichuan, namely the Guiyang-Chengdu Railway, this railway will end the history of no railways in Sichuan and greatly facilitate the imperial subjects to travel to Sichuan.
Of course... In fact, the Sichuan-Jiang River route has now been opened. After many renovations, and with the use of steam ships, the Sichuan-Jiang River is no longer a waterway that is difficult to cross, but has become an important transportation channel for Sichuan Unicom to connect with the outside world. A large number of people and goods travel to and from Sichuan through this waterway.
However, the Sichuan-River route is still quite limited and quite dangerous. It is far less convenient and safe than the railway.
In addition, the Sichuan Railway has also planned a second route, planning to build a railway from Chengdu to Baoji, Shaanxi Province, so that goods in and out of Sichuan can go south to the east and north to the west.
More importantly, through this railway, the railway network in the southwest region and the railway network in the northwest railway can be connected, allowing the Chu Empire to obtain a second strategic railway channel to the northwest.
The construction of the Changhai Railway and two Sichuan railways will allow all provinces in the hinterland of the mainland to fully implement trains, well, except for Dongkang and Xikang areas...
The terrain in these two places is so harsh that the empire has no plans to build a railway in this area in the short term... It's not that it doesn't want to build it, but it just can't be built.
Not to mention the railway, a lot of money has been spent over the years just to build an official road that can carry carriages. In this way, this road called Liangkang Official Road has been blocked from time to time... because Many road sections have been repaired today, but tomorrow they will collapse for you to see!
Road construction every day...it's so stressful.
If it were not for the purpose of protecting the garrison in the Liangkang area, suppressing the remnant local chieftain forces, and ensuring a high-pressure situation, the Dachu Empire would not even build such a road that requires a large amount of money to be maintained every year.
With the exception of the Liang-Kang region, all the traditional provinces within the Guan pass, including those in the Northeast, will basically be connected to railways.
As for some newly occupied areas in the non-traditional hinterland, it depends on the situation!
Places with relatively good terrain, easy construction of railways, and huge demand are currently being built or have been built, such as Central Asia.
In Mesopotamia Province in Central Asia, railways were built a few years ago.
At that time, the Northwest Railway crossed the Gobi Desert and the desert all the way, and was built from Shaanxi to Gansu, and then to Turpan and Yining.
After reaching Yining, it is actually not difficult to build railways in Central Asia. The local terrain is flat and construction is very convenient. Just build it along the established railway.
In just two or three years, the Great Chu Empire built the railway to the "Tu'er City" where the governor of Lianghe Province was stationed, and continued to build it all the way to the west, preparing to build it all the way to the mouth of the Volga River and the coast of the Caspian Sea.
At present, the Great Chu Empire has established Xihai City, the westernmost fortress city of the empire, on the northeastern coast of the Caspian Sea. It has stationed a large number of troops to guard the border. By the way, it can beat the Russians if they have nothing to do!
In order to provide logistical supplies to the troops stationed on the border, the people of Chu State are also worried. Currently, they rely on the local garrison to graze and cultivate food on the spot, and then spend a lot of manpower and power to organize a large number of horse-drawn carriage teams to drive from the rear. Transport weapons and ammunition there.
In order to reverse this situation, the Army urgently needs to build the railway to Xihai City to solve the logistical supply problem of the western border garrison that has troubled the Army for many years.
Therefore, compared with the railways in the southwest region, the railways in Central Asia are actually easier to repair. At the same time, the strategic needs are more urgent, and they are easier and simpler to repair.
Of course, the rapid construction of railways in Central Asia is also related to the fact that the army has provided a large number of engineers and even ordinary troops all year round to help build railways.
So although this railway belongs to the Railway Corporation, in fact, at many railway construction sites in Central Asia, the construction workers are actually soldiers of the army...
The Army treated this as a military railway and did not charge labor from the Railway Corporation. It only asked the Railway Corporation to continue to build the railway to the west.
To put it simply, the Railway Corporation provided money and technical personnel, and the Army provided personnel to build the railways in Central Asia.
As for other places, this is not the case for the time being.
However, the railway in the west is currently limited to Mesopotamia Province, while there are no plans to build railways in the vast Siberian region in the north.
For the strategic railway going west, one is enough in a short period of time. There is no need to build another one further north in Siberia... After all, there are really few people in Siberia now, so it is useless to build a railway there.
The Northwest-Central Asia railway network can allow the Chu army to fight to the west, and then travel to various parts of Western Siberia through rivers.
I have to say that the water network in Siberia is really easy to use.
In the past, the Russians were able to rely on the dense water network in Siberia, and in just a few decades they expanded to the easternmost Bering Strait.
The current Chu Empire can also rely on Siberia's dense water network to successfully fight its way to the Ural Mountains.
The reason why they don't continue to fight to the west is simply that the senior officials of the empire now feel that the Russians in the west are not a threat. At the same time, the railway has not been repaired yet. It would be too expensive to continue to fight to the west. After all, the land in Eastern Europe to the west is there. There would be no long legs to run away, so the senior officials of the Dachu Empire decided to wait for a while in the west and wait until the Central Asia Railway is extended to Xihai City.
In recent years, it has focused its expansion on overseas regions such as India, Africa and North America.
Especially North America!
In order to expand rapidly in North America, the Chu Empire was frantically preparing to build a railway across the east and west coasts of North America.
Just building railways in North America. Judging from the current local population of more than 100 Chu people, I am afraid that this railway will cost the railway company and even its internal treasury!
So even if it was decided to build a railway, the question of how to build it... specifically how to raise money to build it and how to repay the money in the future was still a headache for the empire's senior officials.
This thing looks like a loss no matter how you look at it now... But if you want to colonize and occupy North America, you especially want to go deep into the center of North America, or even to the east coast.
Railways are indispensable.
The empire's North American expansion strategy requires this railway, but the investment cost of this railway will be very high, and the cost recovery will also be very long.
In order to reduce the financial pressure of the Railway Corporation, it also gives the public more confidence to purchase railway company bonds of the Railway Corporation and then raise funds.
After discussing with a large number of cabinet bosses, Luo Zhixue decided to give more specific rights and interests to the construction of the East-West Railway in North America.
That is to allow railway companies to obtain land ownership within five kilometers of the railway line, and mineral mining rights within five kilometers and twenty kilometers.
Granting assets along the railway line had actually been adopted during the construction of the local railway in the Great Chu Empire. However, it was not meant to be given along the railway line, but to land near the train station.
Currently, all the land near the train stations in the Dachu Empire will be assigned to the Railway Corporation. After the train station is completed, the Railway Corporation will auction the land to collect funds. At the same time, businesses closer to the train station will be opened. In circle areas, the railway company will invest in the construction of some commercial buildings and then rent out the properties or real estate to make a profit.
Relying on this method, the Railway Corporation obtained a second piece of income besides train operation...
Well, the Railway Corporation is also currently the largest commercial local developer in the country...
Similarly, the Railway Corporation itself will also open hotels, convenience stores, etc. in train stations.
In short, it is to create more income around train operations, thereby subsidizing train operations and railway construction.
There is no way, the train fares and cargo freight in the Dachu Empire cannot be set too high in order to support the country's economic development. Many times, some of the railway lines of the railway company are not profitable, or even operate at a loss.
At the same time, the funds for railway companies to build railways come from the capital market, either bank loans or railway company bonds, and these funds all require interest!
Operating expenses, construction expenses, and capital costs have all resulted in the railway company's financial pressure being always very tight.
If Luo Zhixue doesn't give them some sideline income, they won't even be able to pay back the interest... You must know that the railway company owes hundreds of millions, and the interest every year is a huge amount.
This requires paying off debts, while continuing to invest heavily in building railways, and using some strategic railways at even costs or even at a loss.
It is also very difficult for the Railway Corporation.
Therefore, Luo Zhixue gave land near the railway station to the Railway Corporation and allowed them to operate and develop these lands.
In North America, the situation is even more special, and the funding problem is more prominent and serious.
Considering the land in North America, the land that the future railway will pass through will be unclaimed land, and there will be no land acquisition costs or property rights disputes.
In order to stimulate future development along the railway line, Luo Zhixue simply waved his hand and directly gave the land property rights within five kilometers along the railway line, as well as the mineral development rights within five kilometers and thirty kilometers away to the Railway Corporation.
In this way, relying on these land and mineral development rights, the Railway Corporation will be able to solve the funding problem.
(End of chapter)
