In addition to watching the test firing of a batch of iron-spine crossbows newly produced by the Ordnance Supervisor today, Xu Huai invited the main generals of the Sikong Mansion. The main reason was that he wanted to build an avenue between Biyang and Xiangyang to further improve the distance between Biyang and Xiangyang.
transportation capacity.
In addition to returning the capital to Xiangyang and the Sikong Prefecture permanently stationed in Biyang, relying on the mountain water resources outside Xiangyang and Biyang to develop textile, smelting and other manufacturing industries, as well as the southern foothills of Funiu Mountain to develop coal and iron smelting, equipment casting, and porcelain burning.
Yunyang, dominated by the system, will form the core iron triangle of the empire's future economic development.
In the past, in addition to the continuous improvement of the connections between the three places, widening the waterway of Tangbai River and improving navigation conditions, in recent years, the post roads crisscrossing Nanyang counties have also been continuously widened and renovated, and multiple iron bridges have even been built regardless of cost.
, replacing the old floating ferry to improve the efficiency of land transportation.
However, after returning to Xiangyang, with the increasing development of the industrial manufacturing industry in Biyang, Yunyang and other places, the connection between the three places became closer and closer. Objectively, it is necessary to build a higher-level link between Yunyang and Biyang and Xiangyang.
Post roads, or main roads, can further reduce traffic costs.
There is also an urgent need for a high-grade main road from Biyang to the north via Fangcheng to Ye County in Caizhou on the bank of Lishui River to reduce the flow of supplies going north.
transportation cost.
In the 1560th year of the founding of the Dai Viet dynasty, Bianliang, located in the northern part of the Hohuai Plain, was its capital. In addition to relying on river shipping such as Cai-Bian, there were also a large number of large carts loaded with more than 300 to 50 dan to transport goods to and from surrounding cities.
Make up for the shortage of shipping.
Beijing and Xiangzhou developed coal and iron smelting. Due to the requirements of ore transportation, they have also been working hard to improve the technical level of heavy-duty oxen and horse-drawn carriages.
However, today's heavy-duty carts, even if they adopt more sophisticated four-wheel and steering structures, usually require eight to twelve oxen to pull the goods after loading, and even when fully loaded, the speed is extremely slow, about the same as a day.
It can only travel thirty or forty miles.
The biggest limitation is not that the current heavy-duty carriage technology is not up to par, but that the traditional post roads are mainly compacted with Sanhe soil, and the traffic conditions are very limited.
Not only will traditional post roads become muddy in rainy weather, but the ruts created by large and small oxen and horse-drawn carriages often make the post roads rugged and even unavoidable.
In the past, county-level government agencies relied on one to two hundred or two to three hundred weak troops to shoulder most of the construction and maintenance of public facilities, and there was no way to keep the post roads solid and smooth at all times.
There are such big restrictions in plain areas, let alone promoting this kind of heavy-duty horse-drawn carriages in mountainous areas.
Therefore, although heavy-duty carts have been used for transportation for thousands of years, they have little influence and are far less popular than wheelbarrows.
Between Biyang, Xiangyang, and Yunyang, if we want to break through the existing land transportation bottlenecks and continuously promote the development of heavy-duty carriage technology, the second, more important, and core thing is to upgrade the roads.
With the development and promotion of hydraulic equipment, Sikong Mansion has already had the technical conditions to upgrade roads.
The large-scale use of hydraulic crushers and low-cost preparation of gravel as aggregate for paving in quarries near rivers is a necessary technical condition for upgrading traditional post roads to gravel roads.
Of course, the cost of building a gravel road between Biyang and Xiangyang, which is more than 250 miles long and can be used for heavy carriages, is still astonishingly high.
although
Mountain mining areas in Yunyang and other places have long used cinder and gravel to build roads in addition to sleeper tracks, and have accumulated certain experience. However, there is no precedent for large-scale construction of gravel roads in plain areas.
Therefore, Changshiyuan followed Xu Huai's instructions and built a ten-mile-long experimental gravel road between Biyang and the Ordnance Supervision Testing Site. At the same time, it also urged the Ordnance Supervision to continuously develop new heavy-duty carriage technology.
, now it’s time to accept the early results.
Of course, if the Engineering and Manufacturing Department and the Ordnance Supervisor dared to show the results to Xu Huai at this time, they would have already achieved quite dazzling results.
The structure of the heavy-duty carriage, which is mainly made of fine iron forgings, has been further improved. The application of differential gears has also made the heavy-duty carriage easier to drive on gravel roads. It not only increases the speed of the fully loaded carriage by nearly three times, but also makes it easier to drive.
The number of draft horses that drove the carriage was also reduced to four.
Compared with the traditional vehicle road system, the new heavy-duty carriage and gravel road can suddenly increase the traffic efficiency to six to eight times. No matter where it is placed, it can be said to be a leap-forward innovation.
Everyone first took a new carriage and drove around the testing site for a few times, and then took a ride from the testing site and drove smoothly back to Biyang City on the gravel road.
This ride was so light, comfortable and fast that everyone was impressed.
In the past, it was not impossible to travel from Biyang to Xiangyang in one day by carriage.
However, that is completely regardless of the wear and tear of the carriage - in addition to the need to replace the horses many times along the way, no matter how strong a man is, he will have to shed his skin for this trip.
Xu Huai and others would rather go to Xiangyang by horse than by car.
; In today’s world, traveling by car is only suitable for slow driving. Traveling fifty or sixty miles a day is the most comfortable distance.
Normally, it takes four to five days to take a carriage from Biyang to Xiangyang.
If it is carrying cargo, it will take seven to eight days to travel - this speed is even slower than shipping.
However, the water channel of Tangbai River is still shallow and narrow.
Nowadays, tens of millions of pieces of porcelain, hundreds of millions of kilograms of iron materials (including forged castings), and millions of pieces of cotton cloth, plus bulk commodities such as tea, paper, and dyes, are shipped south to Hanshui River via the Tangbai River every year.
At this time, the Tangbai River waterway was already overwhelmed.
The further upstream you go to the Tangbai River, the more severe the shipping restrictions are, and shipping may even be interrupted in autumn and winter.
However, Sikong Prefecture currently mainly relies on water resources in mountainous or hilly areas to develop industrial construction. The industrial and construction base must be built in the middle and upper reaches of rivers with certain terrain differences, and river transportation is severely restricted by terrain.
The construction of a new road system suitable for large-scale commercial cargo transportation in mountainous areas is actually the most critical point for the development of the industrial and manufacturing industry in Beijing and Xiangzhou to break through the existing bottleneck.
Others may have to wait until a bottleneck appears, or even have the bottleneck stuck in their necks for many years, before they even think of making a change. Xu Huaize saw this early on, and pushed for implementation after the initial conditions were met.
Everyone knows very well that except for low-mountain areas, if a gravel road can be built between Biyang and Xiangyang, and a light carriage can be used to truly achieve one-day access, how significant it would be.
In addition to further increasing the export of commercial goods from Biyang and Yunyang to the Jianghuai and Jinghu areas, the control of Xiangyang will also be raised to a new level. There is even no need to consider the move of Sikong Mansion back to Xiangyang in a short period of time.
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However, on the post road between Biyang and Xiangyang, even if it is not further widened and just paved with a layer of gravel, the cost is still astonishingly high.
Liu Shiwang and Chen Zixiao saw the documents from the Department of Engineering and Construction. It was initially estimated that three million yuan of money and food would be invested in the reconstruction of Biyang-Xiangyang Avenue. It did not seem completely unaffordable, but the current military expenditure was too high.
.
Cao Shixiong's troops have shown signs of withdrawing from Heluo. Even if no major war breaks out, the Heluo camp will eventually be able to regain the entire Heluo area without any bloodshed. However, in the future, it will have to establish a foothold in Heluo, and in Mengjin, Gongyi, Yanshi, etc.
To establish a line of defense, at least tens of millions of dollars of extra money and food will be invested in it.
At a time when the war situation is so urgent and military resources are being consumed in such a huge amount, it is obvious that no one advocates spending an additional three to four million to build this main road - the gravel road in the mining area can be built first, and the mileage is much shorter.
accepted.
After all, things have different priorities.
In addition, the gravel road from Fangcheng to the north and through Ye County also needs to be repaired first; this is to support frontline operations and can be specially allocated from military resources.
Currently, the Heluo and Jingxi camps are the two most important war zones in Sikong Prefecture. Every year, two to three million shi are transported north through the Fangcheng pass.
After the completion of this gravel road, it will be able to triple the efficiency of material transportation to Heluo and Beijing's westbound camp. It may only take two or three years. The saved transportation costs will be enough to offset the construction costs.
"We are still determined to build Bixiang Avenue," Xu Huai stepped out of the carriage and looked at the setting sun hanging above the West City Tower. "But this part of the money and food does not need to come from the Duzhi Envoy Division or the Lu Division. It can be set up specifically
A Bixiang Avenue Construction Bureau issued bonds to raise funds for road construction, and after the Bixiang Avenue was completed, part of the additional tax revenue was used to repay the debt!"
With the prestige of Sikong Mansion at this time, it is not difficult to issue bonds of three to four million yuan. What is difficult is sustainable borrowing and debt expansion.
Borrowing and repaying, and repaying the interest, can form a stable and continuous cycle; borrowing and not repaying, it becomes destructive plunder.
In Memento, toll roads are not a rare thing.
Not only is the Sikong Mansion going to build Bixiang Avenue now, but the empire's post road system will also need to be upgraded in the future. Such a huge cost cannot be fully borne by the central government, and it is impossible for the local government to have such large financial resources.
The traditional tax will be split and a vehicle and horse toll will be set up to make up for the lack of road construction funds.
Of course, Xu Huai was determined to promote the construction of Bixiang Avenue at this time. The main reason was that he needed new stimulus points to expand the development of the industrial and manufacturing industries in Beijing and Xiangzhou.
At present, the smelting of refined iron in Beijing and Xiangzhou has exceeded 200 million kilograms. However, in addition to the huge demand caused by war and the development of armaments, the scale of demand for iron materials in traditional agricultural production has an upper limit.
The construction of a larger-scale and higher-level road network will not only stimulate the development of industry, but also promote the empire to move into a new era.
In addition, from the southern area of Fangcheng County to the north to Ye County and Zhaoling along the Lishui River, there is no canal running through the Tongbai Mountain-Funiu Mountain Pass (Fangcheng Pass) to facilitate the transportation of bulk materials, which requires direct funding from the Sikong Prefecture.
It is urgent to build a high-grade gravel road so that food, ordnance, clothing and other materials in the hinterland of Beijing and Xiangzhou can be transported more conveniently and quickly to various war zones to support frontline operations...