The first thousand three hundred and eighty-nine chapters steel and cement explosion
After the Tatars withdrew westward, the Tang Empire quickly accepted the large tracts of grassland left by the Tatars, built cities, fortresses, and established new state capitals in some important strategic areas.
For example, in the pre-Ming Dynasty, after Daning, Kaiping, and Quanping were recovered, the empire established Kaiping Prefecture here and built Kaiping City. After the Taiping area was recovered, Taiping Prefecture was established and Taiping City was built.
In the Hetao and Fengzhou areas, many bastions were built extending to the west and north. The northernmost bastion was already built more than 400 kilometers away from Fengzhou City, and
To the northwest of the Hetao, after building the strategic city of Heishan City, they continued to build bastions to the northwest, which also extended for hundreds of kilometers.
The scope of cavalry activities of the Tang Army was actually larger, and there were even small-scale cavalry units that went near Shuangquanhai.
When the Tatars withdrew westward, not only did they leave themselves, but they also took a large number of vassal tribes with them. Since the Tatars left, except for some uncivilized indigenous tribes further north, in fact, the entire
In the grasslands, from the Hetao to Lake Baikal, there are actually no large-scale nomadic tribes, thus forming a vacuum in terms of power.
If the Tang Empire did not fill this vacuum in time, a new Tatar would appear on this grassland in decades. Naturally, this situation was not allowed by the Tang Empire.
Although it is impossible for the Tang Empire to build cities all the way and then actually control and develop all the vast grasslands, the cavalry of the Tang Empire has been active in the vast grasslands to attack any other tribes that interfere in this area.
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This kind of immigration development in vast grassland areas and maintaining military deterrence would be very difficult for the traditional increase of dynasties and consume a lot of national power. However, for the Tang Empire, this
The pressure is not too great.
Because the traditional feudal dynasty's actual control over the Hetao area and more grassland areas was basically limited to military control. At most, it would just relocate some people to colonize, but most of the materials consumed still needed to be transported from the rear.
However, this kind of transportation cost is very high.
However, for the current Tang Empire, due to the heavy use of heavy four-wheeled carriages in flat terrain, especially in grassland areas, not only the transportation volume is large, but the cost will also be lower.
Not to mention, we are currently preparing to build the Hetao Railway. Once the railway is opened to traffic, the transportation cost of materials will be astonishingly low.
Railways are the key to the empire's future control of the vast grasslands, rather than simply relying on immigrants to colonize or garrison.
The three main railway lines, plus the two relatively large branch lines of the Hetao Railway and the Northeast Railway, the above five railway lines are the railway lines currently being planned and built by the Datang Empire.
In addition to these five railway lines, although there are many, even dozens, of other railway lines, most of them are short- and medium-distance railways, mainly short-distance railways of tens of kilometers. These railways are either mining area railways or railways.
Intercity railways, and the main purpose of building these short-distance railways is to make money and gain profits. Therefore, except for railways in mining areas, most of the short-distance railways built are in economically developed areas, such as the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta.
This situation is naturally not feasible. The empire's railway network needs to be a railway network covering the whole country. This is also the main starting point for Liu Bagou's proposal to build the southern railway trunk line.
In order to facilitate the transportation of people and goods between the north and the south, and to allow the imperial army to reach the southern provinces from Jinling City in a short time, especially the economic center of Guangdong, it is necessary to continue to build the railway line southward.
thing.
Considering that many provinces in the south have hilly and mountainous terrain, it is difficult to build railways in most areas. Therefore, when it comes to the selection of railway lines, Datang Railway Corporation has proposed a plan to extend the Jiangnan Railway.
Because of the connection between Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River, the terminal station of the Jiangnan Railway in Jiujiang is not actually located in Jiujiang City, but at Hukou in Jiujiang Prefecture, which is located at the intersection of the east bank of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River.
Therefore, the starting point of the Jiangnan Railway extension line is not the Jiujiang Hukou Station, the focus of the Jiangnan Railway, but a new Jiujiang Dehua Station in Jiujiang City, and the connection between these two stations is planned to use a special
Steam ferries transport passengers and cargo. The Railway Corporation even has plans to build special large-scale ferries to drive trains directly onto the ferries, so that passengers and cargo can pass directly through Poyang Lake without getting off the train.
Starting from Jiujiang, we pass through Lechang, Nanchang, Linjiang and then enter Yuanzhou Prefecture. Why do we have to come here? Because there is a Pingxiang coal mine here, and there is a mining area railway of dozens of kilometers here.
The railway line then enters Hunan, then turns south, and then all the way south into Zhaoqing, Guangdong, passing through Zhaoqing, one of the three major capitals of the Tang Empire and the capital of Guangdong Province, and then to Guangzhou, where it connects with the local railway network.
After connecting to Shunde, Huizhou and other places, continue south and finally arrive at the Hong Kong Naval Base.
This entire railway line is called the Southern Railway.
Of course, Liu Bagou's plan is not limited to just such a railway line, but also a railway line extending from Jiujiang to the west to Wuchang, Hubei Province. In addition, there is a railway line from Kaifeng to Wuchang, a railway line from Wuchang to Changsha, etc.
Li Xuan looked at the planning plan for this railway network and basically knew that they just took a pen and directly drew lines in major cities to create such a national railway network.
However, this is also a reality. After all, the railway network is just to facilitate transportation connections between various places, and it naturally has to pass through some important cities.
Liu Bagou took the lead, and others were not to be outdone. Soon someone came up with a plan to dredge rivers across the country, and someone else proposed a plan to expand official roads.
Some of the existing main roads will be widened and leveled, and standard official roads will be constructed in some areas that do not yet have access to standard official roads.
Although most of the plans were nonsense, Li Xuan was still very pleased that at least they knew how to do it.
As for whether it is done correctly or not, that is not important. Anyway, the real road planning and construction cannot be decided by these important ministers. It must be decided by the technical personnel of the Datang Railway Corporation and other professionals.
Personnel, planned after conducting on-site surveys.
Li Xuan and many ministers were just making a statement. The real people doing the work were many middle and lower-level officials and many technical personnel.
In order to further expand public opinion and form a nationwide transportation construction, the Chaobao Department of the Ministry of Rites of the Tang Dynasty officially reported a series of reports on the transportation construction in the latest issue of the Chaobao.
This is to convey the message to the people of the country that the empire is preparing to carry out major transportation construction across the country. All local governments must actively carry out transportation construction, and many enterprises are also seizing the opportunity, making relevant preparations, and seizing the opportunity.
, then it will explode overnight, fail to seize the opportunity, and go bankrupt!
Just like the last large-scale water conservancy construction project, the empire also carried out publicity and publicity across the country, and this not only brought about the construction of full-scale water conservancy facilities, but also led to the majestic development of many industries such as steel and cement.
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According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, in the past few years, due to the favorable impact of the construction of water conservancy facilities and the development of domestic industry and commerce, the development of the cement industry cannot be described as rapid, but as explosive.
In the 18th year of Xuanping, there were already more than 150 cement companies in the country. But by the 19th year of Xuanping, the number of cement companies in the country had reached more than 400. By the time of Xuanping,
Today, twenty years ago, there are more than 700 cement companies nationwide.
Branches are located in every state capital across the country, and basically there is a cement factory in every state capital.
Of course, most of these cement companies are small-scale cement factories, and there are not many large-scale cement factories. This is because the technical content of the cement industry is not large, even if it is only a few thousand yuan,
Even with capital, a cement factory can be built, and once it is built, there will be no worries about sales.
Water conservancy facilities in various places have lasted for many years. In addition to the construction of water conservancy facilities, cement is now gradually being used in other construction industries, especially because a large number of cement factories have been built and compete with each other. The production cost of cement has also increased.
And the selling price has dropped significantly.
Today's cement has become a common building material. Even if ordinary people build a house, they can buy cement and use it in the construction of the house. It is not a high-end building material like a few years ago, and ordinary people cannot use it at all.
rise.
The water conservancy construction in the past few years has directly led to the explosive development of the cement industry, and the large-scale transportation construction proposed now will also have this effect, and even the effect of driving industrial development will be even greater.
Transportation construction is not just as simple as building a few railways, cleaning up a few rivers, and building a few official roads. It will bring about a series of reactions.
Building railways requires a large amount of cement, steel, wood, stone and other building materials.
The train itself requires a large number of steam engine locomotives, carriages, etc.
The same is true for shipping, which requires a large number of steamships.
The construction of official roads will also require more carriages.
These demands will be directly reflected in industrial development.
This is directly driven, and more importantly, with improved transportation, transportation costs will be lower, which will greatly promote the prosperity of domestic industry and commerce.
With improved transportation, raw materials that could not be transported in the past can be shipped out, and the transportation cost is lower. This means that the cost for companies to obtain raw materials is also lower, and the transportation cost of their goods is also lower.
As the cost of goods decreases, the selling price will also decrease, and then they can be consumed by more people, thus driving larger-scale industrial production and forming a virtuous cycle!
Therefore, transportation construction is not just to build a few roads, but more importantly, to make domestic industrial and commercial development more dynamic!
If you want to get rich, build roads first. This sentence is not just a false slogan used for propaganda, but it actually has such an effect.