Chapter 1388 If you want to be rich, build roads first
Steam engines have shown great competitiveness in the navy and shipping fields and attracted the attention of many people. Relatively speaking, trains appear to be more low-key.
Because the railways are currently undergoing large-scale construction, there are relatively few railways in operation, and they are basically short-distance railways. The construction time of some short-distance railways with a length of tens of kilometers in many places naturally does not take long, basically one year.
It is very sufficient, so that the construction could be completed in the 19th year of Xuanping and then officially put into operation in the 20th year of Xuanping.
However, the impact of this kind of short-distance railway is relatively limited. Even the more than 70-kilometer Beijing-Zhenzhen line only caused a huge sensation when it was opened to traffic. And when it entered commercial operation, although there were
A lot of people take the trains on the Beijing-Zhen line, but the social impact is not that big.
For a railway to cause a nationwide sensation, it needs a railway line that is long enough. The Jiangnan Railway has this effect. However, most sections of the Jiangnan Railway are still under construction. If the entire line is to be opened to traffic, it will at least be a long time.
It takes more than three years
Among them, the Shanghai to Suzhou section is progressing faster because this section is under construction in both directions, with one side being constructed from Shanghai to Suzhou and the other side being constructed from Suzhou to Shanghai.
However, even so, it will not be operational until this fall at the earliest.
This speed is actually very fast for railway construction. In order to lay the railway as quickly as possible, the Zhili Railway Company has adopted a segmented construction model. In some places with convenient transportation, river transportation can be used to transport materials on a large scale.
, start the construction point, and then build from this point to both ends at the same time.
Construction of multiple points at the same time is the only way to ensure that the entire Jiangnan Railway will be open to traffic within three years.
At the same time, in order to recover costs as quickly as possible, we also adopted a model of construction and operation at the same time, repairing one section and operating the other.
For example, the Jingzhen Line is also part of the Jiangnan Railway. If it is repaired now, it will be put into operation first. After the railway from Shanghai to Suzhou is repaired, it will also be put into operation first.
It does not mean that we have to wait until the entire Jiangnan Railway is completed before it can be put into operation.
According to the estimates of Datang Railway Corporation, this year, which is the end of the 20th year of Xuanping, the officially operational railway mileage will exceed 500 kilometers.
And this number will reach 1,300 kilometers in the 21st year of Xuanping, and 3,000 kilometers in the 22nd year of Xuanping.
After all, the current domestic railway construction, in addition to the Jiangnan Railway, there are actually dozens of railways of various sizes under construction. For example, the Tianjin and Tangshan railways are now completed and put into operation, and the railway from Guangzhou to Foshan has also begun operation.
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In the future, these operating railways will gradually be extended and eventually form a complete railway network.
When the construction of these railway networks is actually completed, the role they can play cannot be compared to that of river transportation.
After all, although river transport has a large transport volume and is cheaper, due to the limitations of river channels, river transport is not available everywhere. Only some areas can use river transport for transportation.
According to estimates from the Transportation Department of the Ministry of Industry, the country's main railway trunk roads, namely the east-west arteries and the north-south arteries, are expected to be completely completed within five years.
Of course, these railways are basically limited to places with relatively flat terrain where it is easy to build railways, so construction can be so fast. However, for some places with hilly and mountainous terrain, railway construction will be much slower.
In the next five years, coastal and inland water transportation will still be the main force in long-distance material transportation within the empire. Even if the cross-road network of the railway network is completed five years later, the role of coastal and inland water transportation will not be completely fulfilled by railway transportation.
alternative.
Therefore, in the next few decades or even longer, the empire's transportation strategy will still be three-pronged.
Shipping, railway transportation and carriage transportation.
Among them, shipping and railway transportation are used as the main force for long-distance transportation, while horse-drawn carriage transportation is used as the main force for short-distance transportation.
After all, railways cannot be built to every place, let alone rivers, so many supplies pass through ships and trains. After arriving at a certain place, they will be loaded onto various carriages and then transported to the destination.
At the same time, in places where there are no rivers and no railways, horse-drawn carriage transportation will be the only large-scale transportation force. Therefore, regardless of the current Tang Empire's shipping and railway activities, there is a bit of movement, but the imperial official road is the representative
Road construction has never stopped, but investment has been increased year by year.
Especially today, in the 20th year of Xuanping, large-scale water conservancy construction has come to an end. With the completion of the iconic water conservancy project of Hongze Lake Levee, it also represents the construction of large-scale water conservancy facilities that has lasted for several years.
It has come to an end. Although there will be construction projects of water conservancy facilities every year in the future, it will not be the same as in previous years, where more than 10 million yuan was spent on the construction of water conservancy facilities every year.
In the past five years, the empire has invested a total of approximately 50 million yuan in water conservancy, and this 50 million refers to expenditures from the central government. The expenditures from local finances on water conservancy facilities have not yet been included.
If local investment is also included, I am afraid this number will exceed 100 million yuan.
This kind of large-scale construction of water conservancy facilities has never happened before, even if it happened several times in the past thousands of years.
And the huge investment also brought fruitful results!
Through huge investment, the Tang Empire carried out preliminary management of the three major water systems that are prone to floods: the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, and the Yangtze River. In places prone to flooding, stronger flood control embankments were built. According to reports from the Ministry of Industry
That is, most of the current projects in the three major river systems mentioned above can already prevent floods that occur once in ten years.
In particular, the Hongze Lake embankment can prevent floods that occur once in thirty or even fifty years.
And by setting up a water storage area in the upstream area, when necessary, specific river sections will be blasted to allow floodwater to flow into the flood control area prepared in advance to regulate the flow from the midstream to the downstream, which can more effectively resist large-scale floods.
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In addition to these large projects, there are actually more seemingly inconspicuous small projects, because the construction of water conservancy facilities in the Tang Empire was spread all over the country, whether it was Qiongzhou Prefecture in Guangdong over there, or Liaodong in the north
, or the northwest region to the west, all have related water conservancy construction.
For example, in the northwest provinces of Gansu and Shaanxi, their water conservancy construction is not about flood control, but drought relief. They solve the problem of water shortage in some places by building channels to divert water, drilling wells, etc.
Even in areas with good weather and good weather, water conservancy construction is carried out, and channels are dug to irrigate farmland, turning low-grade fields into medium-grade fields, and medium-grade fields into high-grade fields.
The investment in this series of water conservancy construction is huge, but the harvest is also huge. The weather in the empire in recent years has not been very smooth, but there have been no large-scale floods, droughts, etc. This is because of the new construction
The water conservancy facilities have played a huge role.
The water conservancy facilities of the Datang Empire can be regarded as a typical project that concentrates efforts to accomplish big things, and now, the Datang Empire has used this construction experience in railway construction and road construction.
For this reason, in the first cabinet meeting after the autumn of the 20th year of Xuanping, the Holy Emperor Li Xuan formally proposed the slogan "Transportation Construction" for the first time. The Holy Emperor instructed all aspects of the cabinet to regard transportation construction as the future
The key tasks for the next five years are to be grasped, and it is said that if you want to be rich, build roads first!
The Holy Emperor Li Xuandu personally shouted the slogan of transportation construction, and the ministers below naturally responded actively. First of all, the minister on duty in the imperial study room and the great scholar of Jianji Palace, Liu Bagou, formally petitioned to plan and build several new railways.
Main line.
There are currently three main railway lines planned and constructed by the Tang Empire. The first is the Jiangnan Railway. This Jiangnan Railway mainly consists of two parts. The first part is from Jiujiang to Ningbo, passing through the main cities of Jiujiang, Dangtu, and Jinling.
Zhenjiang, Suzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo. The second part is from Jinling City to Hangzhou, passing through Guangzhou and Huzhou.
The second one is the Northern Railway, which runs from Jinling City to Youzhou and passes through the main cities including Jinling, Fengyang, Xuzhou, Kaifeng, Zhangde, Hejian, Tianjin and Youzhou.
The third one is the Northwest Railway, which runs from Kaifeng to Jiayuguan, passing through the main cities including Henan, Xi'an, Xining, Liangzhou, Suzhou, and finally reaches Jiayuguan.
The above are the three main railway lines currently under construction in the empire. The first two are basically based on dual considerations of national defense and economy, while the third one is purely based on national defense considerations.
Railway lines that are also purely for national defense considerations include the Northeast Railway and the Prairie Railway.
The Northeast Railway runs from Tianjin to the northeast, passes through Tangshan (this section has been completed and operated ahead of schedule), passes through Jinzhou in western Liaoning, and Shenyang in eastern Liaoning, then continues north to enter Northeastern Province, and finally goes all the way to Heilongjiang.
This is expected to be constructed to ensure the empire's immigration development and military defense in the northeastern region. However, except for the Tianjin to Tangshan section, other railways are basically still under planning and will not enter the construction stage in the short term.
The Hetao branch line starts from Youzhou, passes through Xuanfu, enters Fengzhou, and then continues westward to reach Heishan City in the northern section of the Hetao area of the Tang Empire, just on the north bank of the Yellow River.
This Heishan City is located about 150 kilometers west of Dongsheng City and on the north bank of the Yellow River. It is the latest new city built by the Tang Empire in the Hetao area. It is also a strategic city used by the Imperial Army to control the security of the Hetao area.