On the outskirts of Chang'an (Cordoba), two steam trains emitting thick smoke entered the train station with their piercing whistles.
Chang'an Railway Station is located in Wen'an Town, twenty miles away from the city center. Benefiting from the government's large-scale railway development plan, Chang'an Railway Station has become an important hub for north-south railway transportation. Tens of thousands of businessmen and soldiers arrive every month.
Ordinary people take trains to transport the food, meat, industrial and commercial products, and important mineral resources that local people need daily to different regions across the country.
Railways are the lifeline industry that revitalizes economic development. Among the four main railways planned and constructed by the government in 1879, the northern section of the Songjiang-Zhangqiu (San Salvador-Dejuy City) railway started construction in May 1880.
On December 29, 1881, the construction of the Huaiyang-Songjiang branch railway was completed. On December 29, the construction task of the Yongnian (Tucumán City)-Zhangqiu branch railway was completed. On January 7, 1881, the Huaiyang-Songjiang branch railway was completed.
The Huaiyang-Chang'an branch railway, which was completed in 2001, was merged and opened to traffic. On January 14, 1881, all four branch railways of the Songjiang-Zhangqiu Railway were merged and opened to traffic. As a result, the Han Dynasty had its first railway connecting the northern forests.
Long-distance railway between the northwestern mountains and the central Pampas plains.
The Songjiang-Zhangqiu Railway was delayed by about one and a half months compared to the government's planned construction date. During the construction process, due to insufficient construction experience, two railway embankment collapses and a cave excavation failure occurred, which led to the German design engineer
and the local engineering construction team temporarily changed the construction plan and bypassed a mountainous area about 12 kilometers long on the Jinzhou railway section, increasing the total mileage of the Jinzhou railway section by eight kilometers and delaying the overall construction progress.
It was the first time that a railway was built with the assistance of foreign engineers. It was inevitable that there would be some difficulties and setbacks along the way. However, in view of the important position of railways in national economic development, on March 20, 1881, after discussions with the chief officials of various central departments, it was reported to Li Mingyuan for approval.
, the Railway Development Department was separated from the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Railways was established separately, responsible for railway construction, management, maintenance and other related matters.
As the country's population grows, its land area increases, and various internal government affairs increase, the functions of some departments in the twelve central ministries and departments established in the early days have increased, and the responsibilities and functions of each subdivision are unclear, which has also brought about
There were hundreds of incidents of wrangling and shirking of responsibilities between departments, and there were even four cases involving important military and political affairs, and the lawsuits came to Li Mingyuan.
The Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the General Staff Department are the departments most involved on a daily basis. The Ministry of Industry often has functional conflicts with the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the General Staff Department because of water conservancy construction, financial construction appropriation, military industry, and other fields.
The Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Finance will also have disputes with the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Personnel and other departments due to other reasons.
Faced with the chaos among various departments, Li Mingyuan has already discussed with key officials the issue of reorganizing the Central Committee and dividing the functions of subdivided departments, and has initially reached an agreement to divide the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Industry, and the General Staff
There is a consensus among the four departments of the ministry that power is too concentrated.
According to Li Mingyuan's plan, the Ministry of Finance will split into two new departments: the Audit Department and the National Bank and Financial Management Department.
The Ministry of Household Affairs will be divided into the Ministry of Land and Resources Management, the Ministry of Works will be divided into the Ministry of Water Conservancy and Construction in addition to the Ministry of Railways, and the General Staff Department will be divided into two, establishing independent Navy Department and Army Department respectively.
Among them, the Audit Department is mainly responsible for the statistics of major projects related to national development, the implementation of the Ministry of Finance's annual budget, national fiscal revenue and expenditures and other fiscal revenue and expenditures, as well as the supervision and management of state-owned industrial assets.
On the basis of its original functions of issuing currency and maintaining stable foreign exchange rates, the National Bank and the Ministry of Financial Management have added management and supervision powers over local private banks, finance, and lending fields, and at the same time upgraded its administrative level to be consistent with the original twelve ministries.
Have the same administrative level and are directly responsible to the emperor.
The Ministry of Land and Resources is responsible for the allocation and management of local land resources, the planning, management, protection and rational utilization of national mineral resources, agricultural and forestry resources, marine fishery resources and other natural resources.
The Ministry of Household Affairs retains the functions of local household registration management, implementation and supervision of the fertility policy, rewards and living security for military dependents, meritorious personnel, and disabled servicemen.
The Ministry of Water Resources is responsible for the construction, maintenance and management of water conservancy projects in local areas.
Formulate national and cross-regional long-term water supply and demand plans and plans and supervise their implementation. Responsible for water resource dispatching in important river basins, regions and major canal excavation projects. Organize people to conduct flood discharge, drought relief and disaster relief drills, formulate natural disaster response plans, formulate and
Supervise the actual situation of industrial and agricultural water use and other aspects.
After the separation of the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Railways, the administrative functions of the Ministry of Industry were changed to planning the development layout of local light and heavy industries, applying for and reviewing major industrial development projects, and supervising and managing local industrial enterprises, factories, and companies from a national perspective.
.
After the decomposition and separation of various administrative departments, the number of central first-level administrative agencies will increase from the original 12 to 19, namely the Ministry of Accounts, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Punishment.
Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Supervisory Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Consultative Council (composed of representatives elected by retired soldiers and representatives elected by local people), Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Audit, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of National Bank and Financial Management, Ministry of Land and Resources
, Department of the Navy, Department of the War.
The newly added departments have refined and clarified functional responsibilities, while also avoiding the shortcomings of some departments having overloaded responsibilities and lack of checks and balances on power.
Differentiation and checks and balances are necessary political means to govern the country. By subdividing administrative functions, conflicts and contradictions between various departments are solved. At the same time, it also leaves a smoother space for advancement for the officials and military officers under their command, so that they can pass a relatively fair process.
This is the purpose of changing the functions of various central departments to achieve class advancement.
The train stopped and entered the station. After the doors of the two trains opened side by side, people of all colors poured out of the carriages. Ordinary people wearing coarse shorts, Westerners wearing suits and holding civilized sticks, diplomats, and more
Most of them were soldiers and officers who were in a hurry and wore excessively worn green uniforms.
The large railway plan was an important part of the ten-year development plan. By July 1881, the local railway construction project was in full swing. These soldiers wearing green military uniforms and carrying various construction tools on their bodies,
They are all members of the engineering corps. Before the ten-year development plan was released, although the Han Kingdom had a standing engineering corps, its number was only three to five thousand, and its scale was not as large as it is now.
After the Argentine War officially ended in September 1879, in order to meet the huge labor force needed for railway construction and local transportation development planning, the Han government decided to recruit soldiers from the second-line guard army and the third-line militia reserve army to enrich the engineering force, and within three years,
The number of engineering troops was expanded to 100,000,
After the rapid expansion of the engineering corps, except for the technical arms of 4,000 people, the remaining troops will be mainly used to perform railway construction work after simple military skills training. During the service of the engineering corps, their military pay and labor subsidies will be based on the second-line security
Military standard issuance,
After expiration of the service period, soldiers with good performance and qualified professional skills will be allowed to serve in the field force of the Engineer Corps, and from then on they will become an enviable technical soldier.
Those soldiers who do not meet the requirements of the army and are unwilling to continue construction work will choose to receive military salary subsidies according to their own wishes after their service period expires, or respond to the national call and go to newly developed states and counties to receive national priority
A reward of 50 acres of cultivated land or 500 acres of pasture is given to each household to start a new life in a newly reclaimed home.
The local industrial development has significant advantages compared to the general late-developing countries. However, due to the limitations of the times and the relative lack of the country's population, the number of people that the light and heavy industries can accommodate only accounts for a small part, and ordinary workers engaged in the industrial field,
A year's salary does not occupy an economic advantage compared to a Chinese farmer with a family of six who owns 100 acres of farmland or 1,000 acres of pasture. Therefore, in the late 19th century, South America's agricultural development ratio was
In places where industrial development is more beneficial, more engineering soldiers choose to go to newly developed states and counties after their service period. Their families are allocated fifty to sixty acres, one hundred acres of cultivated land, or five hundred to one thousand acres of land.
pasture.
The core of the Han Empire was the vast La Plata Plain and the endless Pampas prairie. In the central region, the grassland area was even wider. One immigrant family had an area of 500 to 1,000 acres of grassland.
It can raise cattle and sheep ranging from hundreds to a thousand, and compared with farming land, a family with the same population can be allocated nearly ten times more pasture land, and the cattle and sheep produced on the pasture
, the selling price is also higher than that of grain. For this reason, more and more people see the benefits and are more inclined to choose pastures that require less labor and have a higher output ratio as the basis for starting a family and starting a business.
The boundaries between farming people and pastoral peoples quickly mixed and even disappeared in South America. The reason is that although the Pampas area is mainly grassland, the local rainfall far exceeds 400 mm, and the Pampas grassland does not have Mongolia.
Extreme weather such as drought and cold is common in grasslands, but the climate is mild, making it very suitable for Chinese people to live. However, due to special reasons, pasture has not been replaced by forests.
Therefore, the Chinese who raise livestock do not need to go through the test of nomadic people facing the harsh natural environment. They can settle in an area according to their original living habits and plant trees near their houses. Because there is abundant rain, trees planted near their houses
Trees can grow normally, but trees are rarely seen on uninhabited grasslands. As for the reason, neither Li Mingyuan nor ordinary Chinese people know the reason, and they only attribute this phenomenon to a unique type of South America.