"Above, plus regular expenditures, various expenditures have reached 62.4 million yuan. The remaining more than 20 million yuan is mainly for infrastructure construction."

Having said this, Xu Honggang left the meeting after getting Zhu Youdong's permission, walked to the map of the Ming Dynasty behind Zhu Youdong and stood: "Everyone, as of the second year of Tianqi, the imperial dynasty has completed Beijing-Tianjin, Jing-Zhang (Jiakou), Jing-Luo,

The construction of eight cement highways in Luoxi (An), Jingji, Chengyu, Wu (Chang), Chang (Sha), and Ning (Nanjing) Song (Jiang). Since the steam engine technology matured, in accordance with the plan of the Ministry of Industry, the Emperor approved,

Since the year before last, the Chinese government has completed the route planning of the four railways of Beijing-Tianjin, Beijing-Zhangjiakou, Chengdu-Chongqing and Luoxi, and started laying the tracks last year.

At the same time, last year, the country also started construction of eight cement highways in Luowu, Changguang, Jining, Song (Jiang) Fu (zhou), Wuyi (Chang), Yiyu, Yugui, and Chengkun.

Everyone, I don’t need to say more about the significance of building these roads and railways. What I want to say here is that in addition to mobilizing a large number of civilian workers to build these new roads, cement, rails, sleepers and even blasting gunpowder are required.

Demand also increased rapidly. So much so that the country had to spend a lot of money to build cement plants and steel plants in various places. And these factories and mines also required a lot of manpower.

In short, as of the second year of Tianqi, for these four railways and eight highways, the country had built four new steel plants and six cement plants, and the Fangshan Gunpowder Factory in Beijing had been expanded twice. Just these factories,

The imperial court has recruited more than 40,000 new people. As for the hundreds of construction sites on the twelve new roads, more than 200,000 strong laborers are busy working on the construction. And these people's wages, food, and work-related injury pensions are all

White silver coins!"

No matter how bastardized the scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty were, they had not fallen to the level of the corrupt scholars of the Qing Dynasty in later generations. And the high-ranking officials who can participate in the State Council at this moment are the elites among the elites.

Therefore, no one stood up and said that the road should not be built.

Through Xu Honggang's explanation on the map, the ministers here could see very intuitively that the emperor's intention was very clear: first connect the major cities in each region with roads, and take this opportunity to train the engineering team. Then through skilled

The engineering team built new, more difficult roads to connect different areas, eventually forming a dense national road network.

At present, it seems that highways are progressing relatively quickly. If the eight newly constructed highways last year can be successfully completed in the future, then at least in the eastern provinces, the economic center of the Ming Dynasty, the north-south vertical lines will be basically formed. The next step should be

Construction of horizontal lines.

The benefits brought by the new cement highway were all very clear to all the ministers present: as the road surface became harder and smoother, four-wheeled carriages were widely used. As a result, compared with the previous two-wheeled carriages, the freight volume was generally increased by 40%~

60%, and the time on the road has been reduced by more than 50%: In fact, if it were not for the fact that horses are too delicate, this ratio can increase - compared with cattle, the only advantage of horses is that they are faster. This kind of livestock has poor endurance and is prone to disease.

, the strength is also very average. Even if you use Yunnan horses and Mongolian horses, which are known for their hard work and hard work, for transportation, they cannot be driven at high intensity continuously. And if you want it to do freight, you can't let it just eat grass.

Feed it concentrated feed, which increases shipping costs.

In fact, during last year's expedition to Mongolia and the Western Regions, various commanders had already discovered that the imported Western horses were more delicate: at the beginning of the march, the cavalry team waited for the infantry team. But within three days, it was the infantry team.

Stopped to wait for the cavalry.

The construction of railways is a little more troublesome. Some officials who are close to the Ministry of Industry have learned that railways are different from highways. When roads encounter mountains, winding roads can be built, but for railways, the cost of building winding roads is ridiculously high.

The safety is also extremely poor, so in many cases it is better to dig a tunnel directly. However, tunneling puts forward extremely high requirements on the understanding of geological structure, blasting technology, and tunnel stability.

Therefore, the current construction cost and time of railways are much higher than those of roads.

However, no matter how high the cost is, it is still worth repairing: once the railway is repaired, the cargo capacity and transportation time reduction will not be a matter of increasing by a few percent, but directly doubling, several times or even tens or hundreds of times!

Once the road is built, the economy along the way will naturally grow rapidly, and the tax revenue received by the country will increase exponentially. At that time, the money invested will be earned back dozens or hundreds of times. After the road is built, there will be no trouble in the country.

The deployment of the army will become very fast. Once the road is repaired, the issuance of imperial decrees and local responses will also become extremely fast - a road will drive the overall improvement of the country's politics, military and economy!

Therefore, whether it should be repaired or not is not a question.

"Your Majesty, I think there is no problem in building roads. But, can we build less roads every year? With eight new roads opened every year, the court's revenue and expenditure are in such a shortfall. What's the point of continuing like this?"

The person who stood up to speak was Zhao Huan, the Minister of Civil Affairs. After he said this, many ministers in the venue nodded in agreement.

Hey, I also know that haste makes waste. But isn’t it because there are other time-travelers competing? Besides, China is so big. Even at this speed, I don’t know when we will be able to achieve the goal of interprovincial capitals.

There is a highway throughout.

"Otsuka Zai's words are out of concern for the country and the people. However, I also have some considerations here."

"I would like to ask your Majesty to give me your instructions."

"First, there is the issue of money. Although last year's revenue and expenditure were even, with a loss of nearly 20 million, you must understand that the imperial court also collected more than 30 million shi of grain last year. This grain was converted into silver dollars, which was more than 10 million shi.

.So, this loss is not particularly large. Moreover, the war in the Western Regions may continue this year, but Mongolia in the north will definitely not need to be fought much. In other words, if there is no new war this year, the court's income and expenditure will

Larger profits will automatically be achieved.

Secondly, even if there is a loss this year, in fact, through the bank, we do not need to use the remaining salt mine fund and war fund, and we can still barely balance the balance of payments."

"Huh?"

Amidst the doubts of the ministers, Cao Sanxi stood up: "Everyone, the imperial court currently has more than 40 million yuan in salt mine funds and more than 13 million yuan in war funds. These more than 50 million yuan are sitting in the bank and doing nothing.

Earning interest can generate an increase of more than one million yuan. Not to mention, banks have been using this money to lend money over the years to encourage businessmen from all over the country to open various factories. In fact, after the bank's income and expenses were evened out last year, the actual

The profit reached more than 7 million yuan. This amount, including the discount on grain prices, has actually broken even."

"Oh~ I see."

"My lords." Looking at the ministers below, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Zhu Youdong smiled and said: "I don't do things as I please. How much money I should spend every year and how much I can spend are all carefully calculated in advance. The previous points

The court had too many things to do, so it had to draw down a lot of the principal of the salt mine and the war fund. Now these more than 50 million silver dollars are what the country keeps at the bottom of the box. Unless it is a last resort, I will

This principal will not be used. In fact, with the end of the Mongolian war, peace and business opportunities have ushered in the grasslands, and the pressure on the nine-border town has been relieved. Even if roads and railways are built, there will be no benefits for the time being. The income and expenditure of the imperial court

It will also continue to maintain a surplus. The principal of the two major funds will also be replenished."

"The Emperor is wise and the ministers are sincerely convinced."

"Well..." Just when the ministers understood that the court actually did not lose money this year, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, Zhu Youdong's next sentence made everyone nervous again: "My lords,

, I plan to start the construction of highways from Xi'an to Lanzhou and Lanzhou to Dunhuang in the third year of Tianqi."

"Ah? Your Majesty! This is not possible."

"Yes, it is estimated that the income will continue to rise in the next three years of Tianqi. However, from Xi'an to Dunhuang, we need to cross the Longshan Mountains, cross the desert, and stretch for thousands of miles. How much money will be needed to build such a long road?"

"Your Majesty, why not wait until the highway construction in the eastern provinces is completed before opening new roads?"
Chapter completed!