When the royal train arrived in Hangzhou City, many officials who had been extremely worried at first felt relieved.
They were also worried that Li Xuan would be furious because of the village he had raided before.
But in fact, Li Xuan was not as furious as they imagined.
From the beginning to the end, Li Xuan looked at many problems from a spectator's perspective, whether they were good or bad.
Therefore, after the inspection, Li Xuan did not reprimand anyone because there was no need and a few scoldings would not change the problem.
Because many problems are not just problems for one family, one village, or one place, but are national problems.
To change these, what is needed is a comprehensive consideration from a national perspective.
In Li Xuan's initial opinion, the root cause still lies in the land.
Although problems such as low efficiency of rural production, grain output, and official inaction also exist, these are not major problems, but secondary problems.
The root cause is that there are too many people and too little land!
The series of problems that extend from this are why there are still so many poor families in the empire!
An extremely poor family where even survival is a luxury!
And this also strengthened Li Xuan's determination to expand abroad: he wanted to obtain land for the people of the empire to survive, not just to satisfy the vanity of expanding the territory, but also to truly solve the problem of the people.
problem of survival.
The thorough localization process in the Nanyang region must be accelerated and intensified. In addition, the large-scale immigration to Australia must also be upgraded.
Last but not least, America!
The previously set number of 200,000 to 300,000 immigrants within a few years now seems to be too small!
If we were still in the age of sailing, immigrating 200,000 people within five years would definitely be a hugely expensive task.
But now is the age of steam. The newly built ocean-going ships are generally motor-driven sailing ships of more than 1,000 tons. There are even many ships of 2,000 tons. The top passenger ships are even running to 5,000 tons.
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According to the current technological development, in fact, within a few years, the tonnage of ordinary civilian ocean-going ships will generally reach more than three to four thousand tons!
This development speed will generally remain the same as that of warships. When warships cross the two thousand tonnage mark, civilian ships will also rush towards this tonnage.
When warships reach four to five thousand tons, civilian ships also reach this tonnage. When foxes can build warships of seven thousand tons, civilians can actually use ships of the same or even larger tonnage.
Moreover, the technical requirements of civilian ships are much lower than those of military ships. For example, they do not have much requirements in terms of power, let alone protection.
At the same time, on civilian ships, especially cargo ships, the average transportation cost of larger tonnage is actually lower. Otherwise, why do you think those ocean-going freighters and cruise ships in later generations all go with hundreds of thousands of tons? Isn’t it because
The cost is lower than the transportation cost of tens of thousands of tons of small boats.
At present, the newly built ocean-going merchant ships in the empire are generally over one thousand tons.
In five years, this standard may rise to more than 2,000 tons.
Ten years from now, Li Xuan is certain that the tonnage of ocean-going merchant ships will rise to more than 5,000 tons.
As the tonnage of merchant ships becomes larger and larger, the shipping capacity becomes larger and larger, and overseas transportation becomes more and more convenient, larger-scale overseas immigration can also be put on the agenda.
It seems that 200,000 immigrants to the Americas within five years are not enough. This number needs to be at least doubled, and preferably it can reach 500,000.
Li Xuan hoped that in five years' time, he would see more than 500,000 imperial civilians and military and political populations in North America, and rely on these 500,000 people to completely conquer North America and prepare for more imperial immigrants.
After completely controlling North America, Li Xuan plans to increase the number of imperial subjects in North America to more than ten million!
Li Xuan will not stop immigrating and conquering North America until North America is built into China's second home.
In addition to increasing immigration development in North America, the thorough localization of Beihai Province, Luzon Province, Banten Province, Malacca State and Australia is also a top priority.
To this end, the Empire will need to adopt a more proactive development strategy in the above-mentioned areas so that there is sufficient land and resources to accommodate more immigrants.
All parts of Nanyang, even with today's technological level, can support at least tens of millions of imperial subjects!
As for Europe and West Asia and Africa, the localization policy in the above-mentioned areas can be slowed down, but they can imitate the colonial policies of Western countries. Immigration relies on the spontaneity of the people. Except for a few core strongholds, the official
Official immigration will not be organized on a large scale in the short term.
The few core strongholds are naturally strategic locations such as South African Port and Ceylon Island.
In addition to overseas immigration, Li Xuan also decided to further increase investment in hybrid rice on his way to Hangzhou. At the same time, foreign crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn should also continue to be cultivated locally for early promotion.
Speaking of these two points, the empire has actually been unable to achieve any results.
Hybrid rice is not that easy.
As for the cultivation of potatoes and sweet potatoes, it is not easy. Why, the soil and water are not suitable for them!
It is not easy to make crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes suitable for the local climate of the empire, so that they can grow quickly and well, and at the same time achieve relatively high yields. It also requires constant cultivation.
The empire is currently only promoting these new crops in a few places. This small-scale promotion is actually more appropriate for practical experiments.
On the one hand, small-scale promotion and large-scale cultivation of improved varieties were adopted. This was the compromise approach adopted by the empire in promoting and cultivating these new crops.
Another point is that Li Xuan also believes that the promotion of crop fertilizers must also be increased.
In fact, fertilizer is not a new thing. Farmers have been using farmyard fertilizer for a long time.
However, Li Xuan has been waiting for the emergence of chemical fertilizers. Whether it is nitrogen fertilizer represented by urea, potassium fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer or even ammonia fertilizer, Li Xuan wants them all, and he can even have any of them.
But it is a pity that although the above-mentioned compounds have long appeared in the laboratory of the Royal Institute of Technology, they have not been able to produce them on a large scale and cheaply.
Nowadays, the output of various compounds in the Tang Empire is actually quite large, and it can satisfy the operation of the entire industrial system. However, it is still beyond its capabilities to produce fertilizers on a large scale.
It’s not that it can’t be produced, it’s that the cost is too high!
The value of chemical fertilizers applied is higher than the food grown, many times higher!
Under such circumstances, it is simply impossible for chemical fertilizers to be promoted on a large scale.
There was no hope for chemical fertilizers, so Li Xuan could only turn his attention to bird droppings!
In fact, in the early years, some people discovered a large amount of seabird excrement on some islands, and they also knew that guano can be used as fertilizer.
However, the cost of ocean transportation in the past was quite high. The tonnage of the ships was used to transport spices, porcelain, silk and other luxury goods. There were no merchants to transport bulk goods such as guano.
But now, with the development of navigation technology, especially the emergence of large-tonnage motor boats, maritime transportation costs have begun to drop significantly. In Li Xuan's view, today's maritime transportation costs are enough to transport bulk goods across the ocean.
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Li Xuan was on the train, thinking about various solutions to various people's livelihood problems caused by more people and less land, and how to solve the lives of the large number of extremely poor people in the country.
The imperial special train also arrived in Hangzhou smoothly!
After arriving in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, Li Xuan would naturally stop and inspect for two days, but it was only two days.
Relatively speaking, Hangzhou's development is actually relatively mediocre, and there aren't many aspects that make Li Xuan worthy of attention.
How should I put it? As a provincial capital, it is also a city in the traditional Jiangnan and Taihu Lake areas. Hangzhou’s traditional agriculture is good, and there are also traditional commerce and handicraft industries. After the industrial revolution, many factories were set up, which is also a development
A certain industry has emerged.
But that’s it!
Being sandwiched between the two commercial ports of Shanghai and Ningbo, it did not bring much development opportunities to Hangzhou. On the contrary, it sucked a lot of blood. When people talk about investing in the southeast coast, they basically go to Shanghai.
Who goes to Hangzhou anymore?
Even when mourning, people generally choose coastal trading ports, such as Ningbo.
As for Hangzhou, I’m sorry to say that it was ignored by businessmen!
Although relying on the political and cultural status of the provincial capital, Hangzhou's development is actually not bad, but compared with Shanghai, the gap is too big.
However, Li Xuan was more interested in Ningbo, which he went to later.
Because Ningbo has taken a more specialized path of competition, they have not foolishly competed with Shanghai for the leading position in industry and commerce, especially the textile industry. They have honestly relied on the advantages of Ningbo's commercial port, and added
The traditional advantages of tea in northern Zhejiang Province.
They don't do anything else, they only work in the tea business. In the early years, there were raw silk and porcelain businesses, but now they have actively abandoned them. They do nothing and focus on tea processing!
There are even more tea brick factories in Ningbo than in Shanghai. It has become the largest tea processing and export base in the entire Jiangnan region, second only to Fujian.
Focusing on this industry means that although Ningbo is close to Shanghai and faces huge competitive pressure, it still has a certain say in the tea industry.
This development model seems good to Li Xuan.
Local governments do not blindly pursue all-round development, but rely on their own advantages to become bigger and stronger in a certain aspect. This is the correct way for most regions to develop local economies. If you want to imitate the comprehensive development of big cities,