Chapter 1541 Demonstration of the 10,000-ton giant ship
Li Xuan's attitude in employing people has always been to use people with suspicion and not to use them with suspicion!
Okay, that's bragging!
Li Xuan has always been suspicious of everyone. Otherwise, what do you think Hantong is used for, to really catch spies? In the current international environment, where are there so many spies?
Almost all the surrounding countries were wiped out by the Tang Dynasty. Although several small indigenous countries such as Annam Burma on the Nanyang Peninsula did not directly annex them, the Tang Dynasty actually indirectly controlled their military and political power.
The reason why it has not annexed these small countries on the Nanyang Peninsula is because the Tang Dynasty was unwilling to turn those indigenous people into subjects of the empire.
In order to maintain the purity of the people of the empire, the Tang Empire would rather let the war in the Nanyang Peninsula continue than annex it immediately.
As for countries further away, it is not easy for them to come to the Tang Dynasty, let alone send any spies.
The only ones who can send spies to the Tang Empire on a large scale are the Tatars. However, the scope of activities of those Tatar spies is limited to the northwest area. They dare not come to the hinterland of the Central Plains.
It doesn't make any sense.
With the strength of the Tang Empire, what if you spy on the military and political intelligence? I will beat you anyway.
That’s how awesome!
Therefore, most of Hantong's counterintelligence work was only carried out in the northwest area, and only occupied a small part of the funds and manpower within Hantong.
The core work of Hantong was to maintain stability and monitor all officials.
With Hantong here, Li Xuan dare not say that he knows all the officials, but he basically knows about some big issues. However, he knows but doesn't say it, and in most cases he doesn't deal with it, especially corruption issues.
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If Li Xuan really wanted to deal with corrupt officials, he would be able to wipe out all the officials in the court, but that would be a fool's errand.
Even though Li Xuan employs people with suspicion, he does not show it. On the contrary, he shows that he is suspicious of people and does not employ people with suspicion. Especially for some talented and potential ministers, Li Xuan often has certain qualities.
of patience.
In fact, Li Xuan knew that Xu Chenbing was not doing well in Shanghai, but he never expressed any dissatisfaction with Xu Chenbing, or even more seriously transferred him from the country.
It is to encourage Xu Chenbing not to have pressure and burden, and to work boldly and confidently.
Although Xu Chenbing said he had little confidence, in Li Xuan's view, after last year's decline, the series of measures he started at the end of last year were on the right track.
Last year, Xu Chenbing specially invited professors from the Department of Economics of the Royal Institute of Technology to inspect Shanghai's economic development, trying to find out the reasons for Shanghai's economic stagnation, trying to prescribe medicine for the disease, and find a way to allow Shanghai to continue to develop rapidly.
Here comes the way.
At the end of last year, professors from the Department of Economics at the Royal Institute of Technology submitted a report to him after more than a month of inspection, which mentioned many factors that led to Shanghai's economic stagnation. They were all old tunes, such as
When it comes to things like technology and market, that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that they came up with a solution.
If we want to maintain the rapid economic development of Shanghai, the way is actually very simple, but at the same time impossible to achieve, that is to increase the land supply!
The existing special counties in Shanghai are too small. The county magistrates who have served as special counties in Shanghai over the years have been particularly keen on building industrial zones. Now Shanghai's second industrial zone is already bordering Huating County, and
The North Coast Industrial Zone also borders Jiading County.
The only better thing is the west side, but there is a reason why the western area of the city has not been able to develop in recent years. That is because it is too far from the Huangpu River. If the factory is built in Xicheng District, the cost of land transportation is too high, and companies are generally unwilling to do so.
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Nowadays, various crops are generally grown in the west part of the city, especially various types of cash crops, such as vegetables, fruits, etc. After all, it is adjacent to an urban area with a population of more than one million, and the demand for various agricultural products is huge.
Not only in the west of Shanghai, but also in Qingpu and the neighboring counties of Huating and Jiading, a large number of various crops are grown and mainly supplied to urban Shanghai.
The west side of the city is too far from the Huangpu River, with inconvenient transportation and high transportation costs, so companies are unwilling to go there. However, the existing land on the west bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai's ad hoc counties has been almost developed, and companies in inland areas are unwilling to go there.
Then there is only one east bank of the Huangpu River.
However, the development of the area on the east bank of the Huangpu River is also difficult due to traffic problems, because there is currently no way to build a large bridge across the Huangpu River.
If you want to build a bridge on the Huangpu River, there is a prerequisite, and that is to ensure the normal navigation of ships. The Huangpu River is very busy. Its port throughput is not only the first in the country, but also occupies the empire's mainland coastal ports.
More than 20 percent of total throughput.
However, a cross-river bridge that can allow large ships to pass is not feasible for ordinary bridges. It is quite technically difficult. At least the current Datang Empire does not have such technical strength.
Shanghai has always wanted to build a Huangpu River Bridge, but various design plans and even requirements have changed again and again!
In the early years, when planning the construction of the Huangpu River Bridge, the standards set were just an excuse to allow ships of two thousand tons to pass, because the largest ships at that time were only sailing wooden boats of more than one thousand tons.
However, since the emergence of steam ships, the existing newly built large ships have all been built for 5,000 tons. The Pacific, a large luxury liner built by the Hong Kong Ding Sheng Shipyard for the Pacific Shipping Company, is a behemoth of more than 4,000 tons.
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Moreover, after the Pacific Shipping Company took this initiative, and the Empire already controlled the South Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the demand for large passenger ships for long-distance voyages also increased, so several other shipping companies also followed suit.
At the end of last year, in order to completely defeat its old rival Yangtze River Shipping Company, Fung Shipping Company, which has always been aggressive, also wanted to suppress its younger brother Pacific Shipping Company that appeared out of nowhere.
A large number of scholars were invited from the Department of Navigation of the Royal Institute of Technology and the Department of Shipbuilding of Jiangnan University, as well as many shipbuilding experts from the Royal Dingsheng Shipyard in Hong Kong, even Qingdao Naval Shipyard, Jiangnan Shipyard, etc. to demonstrate the feasibility of building a 10,000-ton luxury liner.
sex.
In the end, after argument and argument, the experts' opinions are very consistent. With the current technical means, it is completely feasible to build a 10,000-ton giant ship.
But after Feng Shipping Company got their conclusion, they were not happy at all, but were very speechless!
Experts say that this 10,000-ton giant ship can definitely be built. The current technology of basic materials such as steel is enough to support the construction of a 10,000-ton giant ship, and it also has advanced reciprocating steam engines as power, which is enough to propel it.
A giant ship of 10,000 tons.
But it can be made, but the cost is hard to say.
To build such a 10,000-ton giant ship, you must first develop a series of special shipbuilding steel materials, then build a 10,000-ton shipyard, and develop a super-large reciprocating steam unit. Not to mention the cost of the shipbuilding itself, these are just the preliminary research and development and preparations.
It’s impossible to get it without a million-dollar foundation!
Adding in the cost of building the ship, the final calculation shows that Feng Shipping Company has to invest at least two million, and it will take at least five years to obtain such a giant ship of 10,000 tons.
Upon hearing this cost, Feng Shipping Company immediately reduced it.
Then they honestly went to Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard and ordered a 5,000-ton luxury ocean liner. As for why it was not more or less, it happened to be stuck at 5,000 tons. Naturally, it was because it was more than 4,500 tons.
The Pacifica is bigger.
As for why it is not more than 5,000 tons, it is because Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard can only build ships of this size now, and there is no shipyard in Dalian.
However, although Fung Shipping Company's 10,000-ton passenger liner project was shelved, they still built a 5,000-ton luxury liner.
The empire's major shipping companies have always been engaged in fierce competition, and one of the main directions of competition is the competition to build large ships!
Although the cost of building large ships is high, the operating costs are higher, and there may even be losses, but this is the best way for them to demonstrate their corporate strength.
This has also led to the fact that the flagship luxury passenger ships of several large shipping companies are about four to five thousand tons. However, maybe within a few years, ships with larger tonnage or even tens of thousands of tons will be built by companies that dare to invest huge sums of money.
However, even if they are not flagships, the tonnage of those large-scale main passenger ships and cargo ships is much larger than before. The newly built coastal passenger ships in recent years have basically reached 2,000 tons.
On the other hand, the tonnage of passenger ships and cargo ships in inland rivers and lake areas is still limited to a few hundred tons. This is not because their shipping companies do not have the strength to build large ships, but it is just that it is difficult to use these large ships on rivers and lakes.
However, in the Yangtze River Basin, that is, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the section of the Yangtze River from Jinling City to Shanghai, the main passenger ships of major shipping companies are basically more than 1,000 tons.
Nowadays, a thousand-ton ship is no longer considered a big ship. The mainstream newly built large ships generally exceed two thousand tons, and the top ones are even four to five thousand tons. The Huangpu River Bridge was originally set to be navigable at two thousand tons.
The standard of ships is already far from adequate.
Considering that the technical ability to build a 10,000-ton giant ship is now theoretically available, it is just that the cost is too high and no one has built it. Therefore, no matter what the future Huangpu River Bridge is, it will have to be built for a 10,000-ton giant ship.
Leave navigable width and height.
Such requirements for bridge technology are really too high, at least the current technical capabilities of the Datang Empire cannot achieve it.
When he first took office, Xu Chenbing also wanted to build up the east bank of the Huangpu River and build a Pudong industry. But in the end, after all the arguments, the Huangpu River Bridge could not be built, and the only alternative was to build a ferry. But how could a ferry be built?
Instead of a bridge.
In the end, he had no choice but to set his sights on the western area of Shanghai. That is, the large area near Qingpu County.
But it is not easy to develop the western area of the city because Xicheng District is too far from the Huangpu River.
Contemporary entrepreneurs are all very smart. They will not move their factories far away from the dock. Basically, they are generally unwilling to move more than five kilometers away from the dock because the transportation costs will be high.
will increase significantly.
There were no cars these days, so short-distance cargo transportation relied on horse-drawn carriages or simply manual transport, which was not cheap.
And since the empire is so big, people don’t have to come to Shanghai to invest. Even if they come to Shanghai to invest, why don’t they open factories in the First and Second Industrial Zones and the North Bank Industrial Zone?
No matter what happens, they can go to the Huating Development Zone next door and the Yanjiang Development Zone in Jiading and build factories along the Huangpu River. This is the general consensus among contemporary entrepreneurs.
We had been shouting for several months at the beginning of last year. As a result, except for a few companies invested by local finance in Shanghai's ad hoc counties, who had the courage to influence and call for the construction of factories, other companies, even other companies from the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, did not follow Xu Chenbing's so-called west city development.
plan.
But Xu Chenbing didn’t give up!
Since those businessmen said that transportation is inconvenient and it is too far from the Huangpu River Pier.
Xu Chenbing gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I will build a railway for you!"
And this is the source of Shanghai’s urban railway plan.