The first thousand three hundred and sixty-ninth chapters railway explosion
The success of Fung Shipping Company's shipbuilding and shipping integrated model in the market has also been greatly welcomed by the capital market. In recent years, it has continued to raise large amounts of funds through the stock market.
These funds were used to acquire shipyards to expand shipbuilding scale, acquire other shipping companies, expand fleets and operating routes. At the same time, through acquisitions, they leased more dedicated terminals for a long time and began to get involved in the port service industry, thus forming
A huge super shipping enterprise that integrates shipbuilding, shipping and ports. In terms of size, it is not much worse than the Yangtze River Shipping Company!
The Yangtze River Shipping Company has more than 500 large and small river vessels in total, while the Feng Shipping Company has nearly 500 vessels. The difference is only a few dozen ships.
In terms of coastal ships, Feng's Shipping Company is worse. Yangtze River Shipping Company has more than 80 ships, and Feng's Shipping Company has more than 40 ships.
However, in the lucrative inland waterway freight market segment, Feng Shipping Company has surpassed the Yangtze River Shipping Company and became the number one in the country.
The Yangtze River Shipping Company still relies on its foundation, a large number of coastal ships, to maintain the share and profits of coastal transportation, and coupled with the professional inland waterway passenger transport market, it can maintain its position as the number one shipping company.
Fung Shipping Company also has shipbuilding and port operations. Through these businesses, they can pass on the cost of shipping to increase competitiveness.
In the end, Feng Shipping Company's bulk cargo transportation costs were lower than other companies, but its company's profits were always higher than other companies.
But if this continues, it is estimated that Feng Shipping Company will surpass the Yangtze River Shipping Company with a high probability. For this reason, the management of the Yangtze River Shipping Company has been worried in the past two years.
In fact, they also want to engage in diversified development, but they are limited by risk control issues. They have never obtained approval from the management department of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. There is no way. They are an enterprise affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and the company's assets are state-owned assets.
The company's development strategy cannot be as radical as that of Fung Shipping Company, and it is impossible to raise funds by giving up equity and other methods.
In terms of flexibility and risk tolerance, these enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises are still inferior to ordinary private capital enterprises.
There is no way around this!
The management department of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises will not allow excessive risk investment, which will lead to the loss of state-owned assets. They would rather adopt a more conservative strategy.
After all, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises does not actually expect them to make money for the enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. The main purpose of the Tang Empire in establishing many enterprises under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises was to control some important industries and lead the development of industry and commerce.
It’s not about how much money the companies of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises should make, or how much they should compete with private capital companies.
On the contrary, sometimes, for the sake of overall domestic economic development and to stimulate private capital to enter certain industries, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises will even sacrifice the interests of some enterprises of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.
The enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises are just a tool of the imperial government, and they are not a money-making tool. Therefore, it is destined that many enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises still face relatively large restrictions on their operations.
It is not allowed to adopt other more passionate marketing strategies, or even use some competition methods that kill the enemy by a thousand and cause a loss of eight hundred, because this is not what the superiors want to see.
Therefore, the Yangtze River Shipping Company has almost been able to watch helplessly in the past two years as many shipping companies with private capital catch up and threaten their leading position.
Feng's Shipping Company is just one of them. In fact, all the top ten domestic inland river and coastal shipping companies are competitors of Datang Yangtze River Shipping Company.
But now, the emergence of steamships has allowed the management of the Yangtze River Shipping Company to see an opportunity to leave their competitors behind again, and this is an opportunity without much political risk.
Without the slightest hesitation, after seeing the success of the Lady's maiden voyage, the Yangtze River Shipping Company had officially determined its steam strategy even before commercial shipboard steam engines appeared!
They plan to take out all the profits they have earned over the past many years, and are also preparing to mortgage many of their assets in exchange for funds to refit and purchase steamships!
They want to be the first to realize steamization in front of all shipping companies, take advantage of the spring breeze of steamization to regain lost market share, and further lower the price of the inland and coastal transportation market to squeeze the profit margins of other competitors.
After the Yangtze River Shipping Company saw the success of the Lady's voyage, it made strategic adjustments to steamization, which was in line with the imperial official's requirements for them.
Because the imperial officials originally hoped that the Yangtze River Shipping Company could take the lead and lead domestic shipping companies to steam, realize the steamization of domestic shipping, and set off a shipping revolution.
The successful trial of the Lady was not only stimulated by the Yangtze River Shipping Company, but also by many military and political officials who accompanied Li Xuan to watch the trial.
Needless to say, the navy generals have already started the steam battleship plan. The design plan for the new steam patrol ship in the 18th year of Xuanping has been finalized, and the intense hull construction is now underway.
The army generals also believe that steaming inland river transportation will bring great convenience to future inland river supply transportation, thereby greatly facilitating the army's operations in inland river basins.
For example, for military operations in the Heilongjiang Basin, although the ships are under the control of the navy, the navy's ships are ultimately used to provide supplies to the army.
The relevant officials in charge of the railway plan and several officials from the Datang Railway Corporation have worried faces. They are worried that the steamization of inland water transportation will have an impact on the upcoming railway construction plan.
By then, I'm afraid there will be fierce competition between river transport and railway transport, which is not a good thing for railway development.
At this time, the officials in charge of railway construction were already planning whether to modify part of the planned railway route. Part of the route they designed before was parallel to rivers and canals.
Now it seems that it is best to keep a certain distance from the main rivers to avoid direct competition between river transportation and railway transportation!
These railway-related officials whispered to the side: "It seems that several railway lines in the north are going to be adjusted. The previous plans were inadequate, so it would be better to change to the backup plan!"
"Yes, it's good to change it. To avoid direct competition, build the railway first and then build it. For the northern road network, Plan No. 8 can be adopted!"
There are actually several railway network construction plans in the north. The top one is from Jinling City to Fengyang, then to Xuzhou, Jinan, and then to Tianjin.
Among them, Tianjin is a strategic transfer station in the north, pulling out the northeastern branch line to Tangshan, passing through Shanhaiguan and entering western Liaoning and eastern Liaoning.
Going north, we will arrive at Youzhou, then continue north to Xuanfu, and then go west to Fengzhou.
The focus of this plan is to connect Hebei and Jinling City!
However, today's maritime transportation is still relatively developed. Maritime transportation plus inland water transportation are enough to meet demand for the time being.
But for the eighth plan, the focus is not on connecting Hebei, but on connecting Henan, the strategic hinterland of the Central Plains, and using Henan, the hinterland of the Central Plains, as a transportation hub to connect Shanxi and Hebei to the north and Shaanxi to the west.
As for the eighth plan, it is actually more of a comprehensive plan. The core is to use Henan as a cross-transfer station and then radiate to the surrounding areas.
Of course, the entire empire's railway network construction still centered on Jinling!
According to the current planning, several main lines, such as Jiangnan Railway, Northern Railway, and Southern Railway, these three major railway trunk lines all use Jinling City as their starting point.
The problem lies in the specific directions of these three railway lines!
Around Jinling City, the Tang Empire will build several main lines and numerous branch lines!
For example, the railway line plan from Jinling City to Hangzhou has actually been planned. Although there are already railway lines from Jinling City to Shanghai and Shanghai to Hangzhou, the Department of Transportation still planned that Jinling City passes through Guangde, Huzhou and then
The railway line that reaches Hangzhou. This is to connect with the Jiangnan Railway to form a complete line around Taihu Lake.
Of course, these are still just plans. Currently, only the Beijing-Zhenjiang Railway is under construction, not even the Jiangnan Railway!
When the Lady was undergoing a trial voyage, although it took several hours, Li Xuan did not leave first. Instead, he stayed in the building of the Guards Fleet Base, listening to the trial report and occasionally talking to his ministers.
When it comes to government affairs, most of them are related to steam engines.
In particular, it focuses on the application of steam engines, promotes and popularizes them in industry, and promotes and popularizes them in transportation.
It also involves steel production and coal supply issues.
The Ministry of Commerce proposed that a large amount of coal resources have been detected in Shanxi, but it has been difficult to develop on a large scale due to transportation channel problems. If it joins the construction of railways, it hopes to build railways to the coal producing areas of Shaanxi.
Solve the problem of coal transportation in Shanxi.
At the same time, they also proposed that they have discovered more coal in Tangshan, Hebei and Pingxiang, Jiangxi, and they also hope to build railways to these mining areas.
It may sound exaggerated to build a special railway just for a little bit of coal, but it is actually not an exaggeration, because with the increasing application of steam engines, the importance of coal is increasing.
As for the Northeast, the relevant detection departments have actually discovered a lot of minerals, but there are no people there now, various infrastructures are poor, and the severe cold weather makes large-scale development difficult.
On the other hand, the Guangning Coal Mine in Annan is relatively easy to develop and has huge reserves. It has now become the most important supplier of high-quality coal in the empire.
In view of the increasing strategic status of coal resources, especially high-quality anthracite coal, Li Xuan also considered that it was time to bring Guangning in Annan under imperial rule!