Geng Scroll Chapter 96 The economic front decides success or failure
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But Feng Ziying still advocated promoting the construction of this road.
Because he believed that the journey from Lulong to Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) via Funing should not only be viewed from an economic sense, but also from a military and political sense.
Needless to say, the economic significance is that the completion of the Lulong-Funing-Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) road can greatly improve transportation efficiency, especially in winter and summer rain and snow seasons, so there is no need to worry about delays.
In addition, Lulong will become the most important industrial center in the Jingdong region in the future. The development of iron smelting, ironmaking, charcoal (coke), military industry, and cement industries will be enough for Lulong to prosper quickly, but the biggest bottleneck restricting it is
Outsourcing.
Lulong, which is located inland, can only use the most convenient way to get through this bottleneck, and it can greatly promote the development of Yuguang Port, and the prosperity of Yuguang Port can directly radiate to the entire western Liaoning corridor, making the future through western Liaoning and
The grasslands of Eastern Mongolia are more closely connected, making the entire grasslands of Eastern Mongolia economically dependent on the Great Zhou Dynasty.
This is a huge value in an economic sense.
From a military perspective, Yongping Prefecture has very favorable conditions to become a core area relying on iron smelting, ironmaking, military industry, and building materials industries. This core area can not only effectively support the military needs of the entire Liaodong, but also
Coordinate the entire east block of the nine-sided defense, including Ji Town and Xuan Mansion, to meet the military needs of Liaodong, Ji Town and Xuan Mansion.
According to Feng Ziying's vision, in the future Yongping Prefecture will not only become a pioneer area for industrial development in the entire Northland, but also become a new crop experimental area for planting potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. Potatoes, in particular, are very suitable for planting in various counties of Yongping Prefecture.
The growth can also play a very good role in alleviating the food pressure in Liaodong and Jizhen, which all require the use of this road.
The political meaning is even simpler and more straightforward. Qi Yongtai also asked Feng Ziying to give him a few words before he left. The meaning is also very simple. It is expected that Shuntian Mansion may encounter great pressure on the livelihood of the refugees this winter and next spring. Of course, the imperial court needs relief.
However, the hundreds of thousands of refugees were not given relief just because the government was short of financial resources and needed to be raised from all parties.
Then Yongping Mansion can divert some of the refugees and help the court reduce some pressure.
As long as we can survive the next spring, the problem of refugees will be much easier to solve.
In Feng Ziying's view, even if the iron smelting factories, iron-making factories and even charcoal plants and cement plants in Lulong and Qian'an fully expand their production, they cannot accommodate too many refugees. So the jobs that can best accommodate the refugees are
What, naturally it’s just engineering, it’s been like this throughout the ages.
In this case, it is better to build the concrete road from Lulong-Funing-Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) first. The road in the early stage requires a lot of labor. This can just achieve work-for-relief, so that these refugees can
They worked hard to participate in road construction, thereby obtaining food for themselves and their family that could survive the winter and spring.
Feng Ziying has also told Wang Shaoquan and others to transport rice and wheat from Shandong and Nanzhi to Yuguan as early as possible to prepare for the arrival of refugees in the next few months.
"What do you mean, sir, this kind of iron track will definitely have to be built in the future?" Wang Shaoquan was greatly troubled.
"Shao Quan, do you think the current output of the iron smelting furnace is much greater than our original estimate?" Feng Ziying asked rhetorically.
Wang Shaoquan was speechless for a while. Previously, everyone had doubts about what the new process would be like and the quality of the iron produced. But until the batches of molten iron came out, they saw this kind of
Only after the smooth operation of the model that could be continuously replicated did they realize the power of this new technology.
"You think now that we can continue to expand and replicate. As long as we can keep up with mining, there are actually many mines available for mining in Lulong, Qian'an, and Luanzhou. What limits us now is just the number of our craftsmen.
Especially those skilled craftsmen are not enough. When batches of craftsmen grow up in three to five years, how much do you think the production capacity of this iron material will expand? How much the cost will drop? This has not yet been calculated. If we do this during this period
Are there any new and better processes to improve output and quality?”
Feng Ziying's words were full of longing, "So what I'm talking about is not now, maybe five years from now, maybe ten years from now or twenty years from now. You also know the price of iron now. A pound of pig iron is about eight copper coins. Now
It has risen to 12 cents. A pound of scrap iron was only worth 30 cents in the 30th year of Yuanxi, but now it has risen to 45 cents. A pound of mung beans and iron wire was worth about 45 cents in the 30th year of Yuanxi.
, now it’s sixty-five articles, what’s the reason for this?”
Wang Shaoquan pondered and said: "The output of the North Railway has basically not changed much in the past twenty years. On the contrary, the output of the Zunhua Iron Works has declined due to various reasons. In addition, the demand has increased, including the North itself and the grasslands.
With frequent wars in Liaodong, the demand for iron materials is even greater..."
In fact, there is another reason here, and that is the rise in the price of silver. Due to the sea ban of this dynasty, the channels for the massive amounts of silver brought by Japanese and Spanish galleons in the previous life to enter the Zhou Dynasty were seriously blocked, so the price of silver continued to rise, to a certain extent.
Inflation has been suppressed, otherwise the increase would have been even greater, but this would be detrimental to people's livelihood.
However, with the lifting of the sea ban, the speed and intensity of silver entering the big week in the past two years have obviously shown a rapid upward momentum. I believe that prices will rise significantly in the next few years.
However, the whole story is very complicated, and even Feng Ziying has a hard time explaining it clearly. He can only know a rough idea.
"Then once the output of our iron smelting factories and ironmaking workshops increases significantly and continues to increase, even in the future, other areas with iron ore will gradually use our existing new iron smelting process, you
Do you think we can consider this feasibility in the future?
Wang Shaoquan knew that he could not convince the other party, but the other party also said that this was a relatively distant future, so there was no need to think about it for the time being. This also made him feel relieved. At that time, the business group would have spent a fortune
There's nothing wrong with satisfying this person's hobby.
Feng Ziying was too lazy to talk to Wang Shaoquan, not to mention that it was a summer insect but it was incomprehensible to these people at this stage, and he had to accept this reality.
*********
Jia Yun took a deep breath and walked into the Hubu public house with steady steps.
When he received the notice from the Ministry of Household Affairs, he felt an indescribable sense of joy and relief, which was even better than when he ordered a Qinghuo Ren at Yunxiang Tower.
He is not someone who has never seen the world. In the past few years, he has had many dealings with the Ministry of Revenue, but the money was all handed over from other places, passed through the channels of Haitong, and finally handed over to the bank of the Ministry of Revenue.
But this time is different. It is the first time that the Ministry of Revenue has borrowed money from Haitong Bank. The amount is actually not large, just five hundred thousand taels. For other merchants, it is of course a quite astonishing amount, but for the imperial household department, it is
It's a small amount.
Without him, the imperial treasury is empty, and it will take some time for the autumn taxes to be paid to various places. However, the current situation in the southwest war is dangerous, and more than 50,000 prisoners from the Beijing camp need to be redeemed. In addition, the Japanese pirates from South Zhili are in Nantong Prefecture.
After disappearing, he suddenly appeared in Zhenjiang Prefecture. Dantu was caught off guard, and Danyang was attacked by Japanese pirates one after another. Water transportation was interrupted and Jiangnan was shaken.
The defense of the Yangtze River in South Zhili has always been fragile, especially in the past ten years, which has been almost non-existent. Therefore, after being attacked by Japanese pirates, the Nanjing Ministry of War wrote to the court and strongly requested to revitalize the defense of the Yangtze River. This also received a collective response from Jiangnan scholars in both the government and the public.
This also put great pressure on the court.
According to the opinion of the Nanjing Ministry of War, the Yangtze River Navy should be established immediately, with a scale that is even twice as large as the Denglai Navy, in order to protect the Yangtze River and coastal defense of the entire South Zhili and even Huguang. The standards have been set very high.
In view of the Japanese pirate attacks that blocked water transportation, and this winter and next spring, the capital city is facing the pressure of displaced people from the northern part of Shuntian Prefecture. It also needs to transport a large amount of food and cloth from the south of the Yangtze River to ease the demand. Under these circumstances, the request of the Nanjing Ministry of War seems to be reasonable.
middle.
As a last resort, the cabinet also preliminarily agreed to establish the Yangtze River Navy, allocating 300,000 taels of silver first, plus the silver taels needed to redeem the Beijing camp and the military salaries prepared in advance for the Denglai Army and Guyuan Army for the Southwest War.
It needed 1.2 million taels of silver, but there was less than 800,000 taels of silver in the bank. The difference was huge, so the court had no choice but to borrow 500,000 taels from Haitong Bank.
"Jia Yun has met Mr. Wei."
Wei Dazhong looked at the young man in front of him and couldn't help but sigh in his heart. The imperial court was in a difficult situation, but Haitong Bank developed extremely rapidly. Now all the banks in Beijing are following Haitong's lead. How many years has it been?
I think Haitong Yinzhuang also hoped that the imperial court would become a shareholder, but the imperial court hesitated for a long time and finally rejected the invitation. But now it seems that it was a mistake.
"Sit down, Shopkeeper Jia." Wei Dazhong knew that this man was a descendant of Rongguo Gong's Jia family. He was originally quite down and out, but later he got in touch with Feng Ziying, and he also had some business skills, and he became Haitong Bank in one go.
Zhuang is the big shopkeeper in Beijing.
"Thank you, Sir." Jia Yun's previous high-spirited courage quickly disappeared after entering the Household Department, and was replaced by indescribable depression and restraint.
Although he kept cheering himself up mentally, this time the Ministry of Revenue borrowed money from him, and he was the creditor, but this innate awe of the government still lingered. To be able to behave like this, Feng Ziying saw that
I almost feel that Brother Yun has become a promising man, and he can actually enter and exit the public house of the Ministry of Household Affairs.
"Yeah." Seeing that Jia Yun was also respectful, Wei Dazhong's inner resentment calmed down a little. He also knew that this was not the time to be impulsive, so he nodded, "I'm here to ask you. I'm afraid you also know the specific matter. The imperial court
The current situation is difficult, and the autumn taxes have not yet been paid, so I have to temporarily spend some money, so I want to make some money from your Haitong."