Accompanied by bursts of whistles, the train was running on the rails. The early October cold in the Beijing-Tianjin area could not dampen the lively discussions among the passengers on the train.
“It’s really a pleasure to enjoy the great rivers and mountains of Ming Dynasty by train!”
Emperor Hongzhi looked at the scenery outside the window. It was already October, the golden month of October, and the earth was dyed golden. Looking up, he saw the endless wilderness, the golden mountains in the distance, and the curling up of villages everywhere.
Smoke from cooking, endless carriages on the cement road...
Emperor Hongzhi was fascinated by everything he saw.
Although this kind of scenery is too ordinary, for Emperor Hongzhi who lives deep in the palace, it is not easy to go out for a walk. What's more, it is the first time to take a train. This feeling is very different.
.
"Haha, Your Majesty, in the future, I will build such railways from east to west, north and south of the Ming Dynasty. In the future, it will be very convenient for Your Majesty to go wherever you want. Then you can take a train to see all over the country."
Zhang Mao on the side also laughed and said that he would never take second place in the matter of flattery.
"The carrying capacity of trains and railways is so powerful. If there are a large number of railway connections in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, as well as at home and abroad, then the Ming Dynasty will become extremely strong."
"These railways are like meridians, firmly connecting our vast land of the Ming Dynasty."
Li Dongyang also nodded.
It is difficult to understand the powerful carrying capacity of trains without taking a train yourself.
Only by taking a ride in person and feeling the powerful carrying capacity and terrifying speed of a train will you understand its importance to a country, society, and economy.
Especially in an era where traveling relies on legs and transporting goods relies on picking up goods, the emergence of trains is definitely an epoch-making thing.
"I also support our Ming Dynasty to overhaul the railways. In the future, wherever our Daming Railways go, our country will become extremely strong, and at the same time, it will become more prosperous."
Liu Jian also nodded solemnly.
"The railway naturally needs to be built, but the method in which it is built is very critical."
Emperor Hongzhi nodded slightly, thought for a while and said.
Then he looked at Liu Jin and said: "Liu Aiqing, you built the first railway in the Ming Dynasty. You have the most say. Please tell me."
After hearing Emperor Hongzhi's words, everyone looked at Liu Jin in unison.
"Your Majesty, gentlemen~"
"Our Ming Dynasty has a vast territory. Not to mention Golden Continent and Australia, on the Asian continent alone, it is nearly 30,000 miles from Liaodong in the east of our Ming Dynasty to Nanyun Province in the west of our Ming Dynasty."
"The north and south of our Ming Dynasty, from the Arctic Circle in the north to Xianglin Province and Zhenghe Province, are also more than 20,000 miles apart. With such a vast territory, this is definitely the largest empire in history."
"If you include the Golden Continent and Australia, it would be even more huge and incredible."
Liu Jin took out a world map, pointed at the map and said.
Everyone nodded slightly while listening.
"Trains have extremely powerful carrying capacity and are very convenient and fast whether they are used to transport people or goods."
"This will be very helpful to strengthen our Ming Dynasty's control over the entire huge land, and at the same time, it can also promote our Ming Dynasty to become more prosperous and prosperous."
"To give a very simple example, the Ming Dynasty is about to enter winter. When the cold winter comes, the vegetables and fruits in Beijing and Tianjin will suddenly disappear."
"But in Ryukyu, Luzon and other places in the south, they are located in tropical and subtropical areas. Even in winter, it is not too cold and you can still grow vegetables and fruits."
"However, due to transportation restrictions, it takes several days to reach the Beijing-Tianjin area, and vegetables and fruits are seasonal and cannot be stored for a long time."
"If we can build a railway connecting the north and the south, relying on the railway, it will only take three or four days to transport a large amount of vegetables and fruits from the south to the Beijing-Tianjin area."
Liu Jin drew a line on the map, basically along the Beijing-Shanghai line of later generations. This was the most valuable line.
"Hmm~"
Everyone nodded after hearing this.
As the top leaders of the Ming Dynasty, they are of course very aware of this. Every winter, when there is no season for vegetables and fruits to be produced in the Beijing-Tianjin area, there will be ships transporting large quantities of vegetables and fruits from Ryukyu, Nanyang and other places to Beijing.
Come from Tianjin area.
Not to mention that the price is extremely expensive, the key point is that they are not fresh, but even so, in the winter, vegetables and fruits are still hot commodities, and there is no need to worry about selling them.
"Another example is from the westernmost Nanyun Province, Hezhong, and the Western Regions to our Beijing-Tianjin area in the Ming Dynasty."
"This line is very long. If four-wheeled carriages are used to transport goods, it will take two to three months to reach the capital."
"In this area, the Nanyun and Hezhong areas have fertile land, a very large grain output, and extremely good pastures. They produce an unknown number of cattle, horses, and sheep every year."
"There are many pastures in the Western Regions, and the output of cattle, sheep and horses is very large. In addition, the Kazakh Khanate attacks our Ming Dynasty with 100,000 horses every year."
"At the same time, this area is the most important cotton producing area in the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, in these areas, there are few Han people and many tribes. The rule of the Ming Dynasty is not stable."
"Because of the vast territory and inconvenient transportation, although there is an extremely rich output of grain, cattle, sheep and horses, it is too far away from our Central Plains and transportation is inconvenient."
"There is simply no way to transport the cattle, sheep and horses here to the Central Plains on a large scale, resulting in a huge waste."
"The Beijing-Tianjin region and our Ming Dynasty Central Plains region have a huge population, but they are very short of high-quality meat, milk sources and livestock power such as cattle, sheep, and horses."
"If we can build such a railway and use trains to transport cattle, sheep, horses and grain, the grain, cattle, sheep, horses, cotton, etc. from these places can be transported to the Central Plains on a large scale."
"Not only can the diet structure of various regions be balanced, but eating more meat can strengthen the body of the people of Ming Dynasty, and using a large number of horses and cattle can save manpower. This is of great significance to our Ming Dynasty."
"And as long as there are trains and railways, if there is unrest in the Western Regions, Henan and other places or in border areas, the imperial court can quickly dispatch troops to quell the unrest and consolidate the borders as quickly as possible."
Liu Jin also drew a line from east to west in the area.
To be honest, this is the railway that Liu Jin wanted to build the most. The Ming Dynasty's rule over the Western Regions, Hezhong, and Nanyun Province was actually relatively fragile.
Because there are so few Han people in these places, there are only a million newly migrated Han people in each place, and the majority of the population are still local tribes.
And these places are rich in products, the most important of which are cattle, sheep and horses. There are too many high-quality pastures here.
North and south of the Tianshan Mountains, there are rich and vast rivers, not to mention Nanyun Province, so that the cattle, sheep, horses, etc. produced here are simply endless, there is a large amount of surplus, and dried meat has become a unique kind here.
specialty.
If there was a railway connecting the east and west, the situation would be completely different. The cattle, sheep and horses here could be transported to the Central Plains one by one to enrich the diet of the people of the Ming Dynasty.
Eating is very important.
Whether a person grows taller, stronger, and develops well has a lot to do with what he eats.
The important reason why Europeans and Americans in later generations are generally taller and taller is because they eat a lot of meat, such as beef and mutton, whatever they want, because most of their countries are vast and sparsely populated, with a large number of high-quality pastures.
The yield of meat is very high.
In comparison, we look very short, and our average height is much lower than that of Europeans and Americans. This situation has persisted until the 21st century. With the development of the country and the improvement of people's living standards, we eat more meat.
The height of the new generation of children has increased rapidly. Not to say that they have caught up with Europe, but they are still much taller than before.
This is enough to illustrate the importance of eating.
If you want to improve the physical quality of the people of the Ming Dynasty, the proportion of meat is very important, and the pastures in the Western Regions, Hezhong, Nanyun Province, Northern Grassland Province and other regions are very critical and important.
"Not bad~"
Everyone nodded after hearing this. The reason is very simple.
"In addition, I have said before that the weather in our country is controlled by the subtropical high pressure, so various natural disasters occur every year in our country."
"Drought in the south and drought in the north, or drought in the south and floods in the north. In the past, once there was a famine, there would be refugees everywhere and wars going on. It would easily cause great turmoil in our Ming society."
"But if every province has trains and railways, our court can calmly dispatch food, materials and manpower from surrounding areas to provide disaster relief."
"In the past, it might take ten days and a half to transport food. With trains and railways, it might only take two or three days. Even if there is a serious famine, I, the Ming Dynasty, don't have to worry about anything from now on."
"Because our Ming Dynasty has many production areas. The traditional Central Plains area, Jiangnan, Liaodong, Western Regions, Hezhong, and Nanyang. If there is a problem in one place, the impact will not be big. Other places can quickly provide food support."
After saying this, Liu Jin continued to talk about the important role of railway trains in disaster relief.
In later generations, floods also occurred every year, but the impact on the entire society and country was minimal. However, for the Ming Dynasty, it would be a terrible thing if a famine occurred anywhere, because if there was a famine, all kinds of chaos would inevitably occur.
Elephants and even beacons broke out, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang kept coming out.
