In Chang'an, Shaanxi Province, with the sound of whistles, a train slowly drove from the station towards Hanzhong. The final destination of this train was Chengdu, Sichuan, bound for the Land of Abundance.
In the first-class carriage of the train, Emperor Hongzhi and Liu Jin were sitting on the train while admiring the scenery outside.
With the arrival of trains, it has become much more comfortable to travel to various places in Daming. You don’t need to travel hard, you can travel long distances easily, and you can also sit on the train and enjoy the scenery along the way.
This is the most popular way to travel in Daming now. Take a train to travel all over the north and south of the Ming Dynasty and enjoy the great rivers and mountains of the Ming Dynasty.
Even Emperor Hongzhi couldn't bear the loneliness. Hearing that the railway to Sichuan had been built and an opening ceremony was to be held, Emperor Hongzhi became interested and came here with Liu Jin, preparing to go to the Land of Abundance.
Since ancient times, the road to Shu has been as difficult as climbing to the sky.
This also means that the vast majority of emperors have never been to the Land of Abundance, and the emperor of the Ming Dynasty has never been to Sichuan.
When the emperor travels, the most important thing is safety.
The Shu Road itself is full of dangers, and it is easy to be ambushed in advance, so emperors will not go to places like the Shu Road.
Now that the train is connected, it is different. With the train, traveling to the Land of Tianfu has become very simple, easy and fast. Emperor Hongzhi wanted to go to the Land of Tianfu, look at this Shu Road, look at this
Grow into a railroad.
Although Emperor Hongzhi's visit to Sichuan met with strong opposition from the courtiers this time, it was of no use now. Emperor Hongzhi took Liu Jin and left, leaving the prince, Wang Shouren, and Han Wen behind to supervise the country and handle the government affairs.
The ministers are also very helpless. Emperor Hongzhi is playing a little wild now. He even ran around the Pacific Ocean before, but now he just goes to Sichuan for a walk. It seems that there is nothing wrong with him.
What's more, now that there is a train, commuting is convenient and fast, so there is nothing more.
The ministers could only sigh that Emperor Hongzhi was no longer the former Emperor Hongzhi. In the past, he was more obedient and listened to what everyone said. He stayed in the palace honestly and reviewed memorials diligently. What a good emperor.
ah.
But now, I don’t like to listen to what everyone says anymore. I have my own thoughts and considerations. I still need to walk around and look around. This makes the ministers also worried. It’s hard for the emperor to fool him. He did it alone.
No, maybe the hat will be lost.
It's hard to be an official now. There are a lot of things to do, and you have to be assessed regularly. If you don't do well, you'll be reprimanded. It's such a sad life.
"Woo~"
The whistle of the train echoes among the mountains. Although the mountains of Daba Mountain are not as undulating as the Qinling Mountains, they are still steep. The mountains are high and the rivers are dangerous. You can see clearly from the train. You can see the mountains stretching as far as the eye can see.
Looking at the mountain stream next to it, it is bottomless.
The train seems to be traveling dozens of meters high in the air. In some places where the water vapor is relatively large, it even feels like it is traveling above the clouds.
The long tunnel seemed to have no end in sight, but when we got out of the tunnel, everything suddenly became clear, and a brand new world appeared in everyone's field of vision.
In the mountains, the sound of the whistle continued to reverberate, startling the sound of monkeys, and then one after another, continuous, as if entering the Huaguo Mountain all at once, the roar of the monkeys echoed in the mountain streams and canyons.
"It's really not easy. It takes a lot of perseverance to build a railway in a place like this."
"It took just over 6 years to build this long-term railway. It was really not easy!"
Emperor Hongzhi looked at the mountains outside and sighed.
I am used to seeing the plains in the Beijing-Tianjin area, and when I came to these mountains, I saw the tall mountains and rivers, the deep mountain gorges, the inaccessible places, and the apes and monkeys that have disappeared.
It is not easy to build a railway in such a place and turn the natural chasm into a thoroughfare. It really makes people feel that this is a great project of the century.
"Such a great project is comparable to the Great Wall built by the First Emperor and the canal opened by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty!"
Liu Jin said with a smile.
As soon as he said the words, he immediately knew that he was wrong. He was comparing Emperor Hongzhi to Qin Shihuang and Sui Yang Emperor. Qin Shihuang was better. He was one emperor through the ages. This Sui Yang Emperor had a very bad reputation in ancient times.
Yes, the king who subjugates his country is the object of warning for the emperor.
"Haha~"
"The world only knows that the First Emperor built the Great Wall and many people died, and they only know that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty opened the canal and led to the subjugation of the country, but they don't know that the Great Wall has protected our land of China for thousands of years. The Grand Canal runs through the north and south, and it still exists today.
It is nourishing the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait."
Emperor Hongzhi was not angry.
He didn't believe this in the past. Civil servants said that the emperor could not carry out large-scale construction projects, which would waste people and money, and that he should rest and recuperate.
Therefore, Emperor Hongzhi was not even willing to repair the palace in the past, for fear of wasting the people and damaging the money.
But now, after years of infrastructure development, the Ming Dynasty has overhauled roads, railways, rivers, reservoirs, etc. These projects have greatly stimulated the development of the Ming Empire, and have made communication between various parts of the Ming Dynasty smoother and smoother.
,fast.
The benefits of infrastructure projects are also highlighted. If there is a famine, food can be easily mobilized from the local area to provide disaster relief. The disaster is no longer terrible.
With the reservoir and river diversion, a large amount of farmland has been irrigated. With the river diversion, the Yellow River has not burst its banks for many years, and the people on both sides of the river have benefited immensely.
After cleaning up the river channels and building water conservancy projects, Yunmengze on the Yangtze River turned into a fertile field. The grain output increased year by year, and it still became another large granary of the Ming Dynasty.
The Yangtze River runs from east to west, and ships can go directly to Huguang. The development of Huguang and Jiangxi has become rapid, and tax revenue has increased rapidly year after year.
There is also the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, a bridge that flies from the north to the south, and the natural chasm becomes a thoroughfare. From now on, traveling from the north to the south of the Yangtze River will be more convenient and faster. Trains can run directly from the capital to Songhu and Jiangxi, and even in two years, they can run directly to
Guangdong and Guangxi, Jiaozhi, Xianglin and other places.
This is the benefit of infrastructure!
It may take a lot of financial, material and manpower to build, but after the project is completed, it will benefit the entire country and the people along the way.
Emperor Yang and Emperor Hongzhi of the Sui Dynasty also have new views now. Perhaps this emperor is not as unworthy as those civil servants said, and he also has his own vision.
He saw the benefits of infrastructure and knew that such a canal was needed to connect the north and the south.
It’s just that it was not as good as it is now. Today’s Ming Dynasty not only has strong national power and can undertake many large-scale projects, but more importantly, the engineering and construction technology that Ming Dynasty now has far exceeds that before. A large number of construction machinery not only speeds up the process, but also saves money.
of manpower.
If Ming Dynasty wanted to build a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal now, there would be no difficulties or problems at all, and it would not cause any great burden or impact on Ming Dynasty.
"Yes, infrastructure projects are a major event that will benefit the present generation and benefit the future."
"The prosperity that Ming Dynasty has today is inseparable from the development of infrastructure."
"After the opening of the Great Wall Railway, Sichuan will be able to develop rapidly. At that time, it will also radiate to the entire Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan regions and drive the development of the entire southwestern region of the Ming Dynasty."
Liu Jin also nodded and said.
Sichuan is the most important place in Southwest China and has unique natural conditions.
The land in the Sichuan Basin is purple fertile soil, with developed agriculture and a large population.
Since ancient times, what Sichuan has developed now is its external transportation conditions. It is surrounded by mountains, and external transportation is extremely inconvenient.
As long as the external communication network can be opened up, Sichuan's development is just around the corner.
For the current Ming Dynasty, the truly underdeveloped areas are Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan. The transportation here is only inconvenient, communication is difficult, and development is extremely slow.
Industrial development has already taken off in other places. After the Yangtze River was dredged, Huguang and Jiangxi also developed rapidly, except for the southwest region.
The construction of the Changcheng Railway will drive the development of Sichuan, and Sichuan can drive the development of the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan regions. In the future, this railway can also be built to Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing and other places.
Of course, the cost must be very staggering, and Ming Dynasty may not be willing to repair it now.
But as long as Sichuan can develop, it will be like a black hole, attracting people from surrounding areas and driving the development of surrounding areas.
Southwest has always been a worry for Ming Dynasty.
In the past, it was because the southwestern chieftains, the chieftains in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, were always capricious and often rebelled. The court could not finish the suppression, and after the suppression, they would rebel again, and it was like there was no end to it.
It was not until later that Liu Jin proposed the method of returning the natives to the locals, appointing local officials to replace the chieftains, and combined with the use of force to attack and suppress the rebellion, the southwest region was gradually stabilized.
However, the development of the southwest region has been sluggish and has seriously failed to keep up with the development pace of the Ming Dynasty.
There are many minority tribes here, and they are disobedient to discipline and unwilling to obey the imperial decrees.
For example, the imperial court wanted to relocate people from some mountainous areas in the Yunnan-Guizhou region, but there were very few responders. No matter how good the conditions were, they could not attract them to immigrate to Nanyang or outside the customs. They would rather live a poor life in the mountains than
When I immigrated, I always felt that the court would deceive people, and I didn't want to leave the mountainous area where I grew up.
It's fine for a short period of time, but it won't work if it continues like this for a long time.
The development of the Ming Dynasty must be balanced. It cannot be like that of later generations. The eastern region is more developed than developed countries and the western region is comparable to Africa. This is not acceptable.
This is also an issue that the Ming Dynasty has always paid attention to, that is, the development of various places must be paid attention to and balanced, and cannot only favor certain places. This is reflected very well in the imperial examination system. The quotas for each province are equal.
Almost, it is determined based on the population, they are all valued, and they are all the people of the emperor.
