There is a shortage of shipping power in Europe. The local headquarters of each shipping company naturally know it, but they cannot change it in a short time. Even if they use decommissioned ships to increase shipping capacity, they will have to undergo simple modifications before they can be put into operation. At the same time,
It also takes time to move ships to Europe.
The time required here may take more than a few months!
In addition, domestic shipping companies, after retiring a number of old ships, naturally need to order new ships to supplement the demand for internal routes within the empire.
At the same time, the shipping demand within the empire has continued to grow, and the combination of the two has further promoted the development of the empire's shipbuilding industry.
The Empire's Ministry of Transportation estimates that the empire's new merchant ship tonnage this year will historically exceed one million tons!
The addition of millions of tons of merchant ship tonnage every year is the best expression of the industrial strength of the Tang Empire, an existence that all indigenous countries cannot even look up to!
After all, the combined tonnage of all the ships of all indigenous countries in the world, except for the Tang Empire, regardless of warships, merchant ships or inland river sampans, is estimated to be only a few hundred thousand tons.
The fact that the Tang Empire was able to build so many merchant ships every year not only fully proved the development and huge scale of the industry in the Tang Dynasty, but also reflected the economic development results of the Tang Empire since the 40th year of Xuanping!
After all, just because we can build so many ships doesn’t mean we need so many ships.
The Tang Empire now needs so many ships!
The rapid economic growth brought about by the economic development plan forty years after Xuan Ping's reign has brought about huge internal transportation needs.
In addition to the internal transportation needs of the Western Pacific Economic Circle, there are also transportation needs in the Americas.
Nowadays, the Americas produce a large amount of grain, cash crops, meat and many other agricultural and livestock products every year, and these require large-tonnage ships to be transported back to the mainland for sale.
The local population in the Americas simply cannot consume the large amounts of agricultural and livestock products they produce, causing the American economy to become more dependent on the local market year by year.
In the 39th year of Xuanping, that is, before economic integration, the amount of wheat imported from the Americas to the mainland was only 120,000 tons, about 200,000 bales of cotton, and some other agricultural and livestock products.
It seems like a lot, but in fact it is not much. A mere 120,000 tons of wheat can be taken on board a dozen 10,000-ton cargo ships heading to the Americas when they return.
But since the 40th year of Xuanping, this figure has begun to soar. In the 47th year of Xuanping, the Americas imported a large number of agricultural and livestock products to the mainland, of which wheat alone reached 820,000 tons!
And this is just one variety of wheat!
In addition, there are about 1.2 million bales of cotton.
In addition, there are large amounts of corn, soybeans, cotton, cocoa, coffee, rubber and many other agricultural products.
In addition to various agricultural products, there are also a large number of livestock products, mainly beef, sheep, pork, etc. that are transported in frozen form. In addition, there are also a large amount of wool, fur, etc.
Today's America is the largest overseas supply base of agricultural and livestock products for the mainland, which can effectively alleviate the shortage of agricultural and livestock products in the Western Pacific region.
As for the Americas themselves, the local market in the Western Pacific region has become an indispensable market for them.
If one day, the trade channel connecting the mainland and the Americas is interrupted, then the Western Pacific region will encounter a food shortage problem, but it will only be a slight shortage, and it is not enough to starve to death. After all, the empire
There are many other places that supply agricultural and livestock products, and there are also strategic reserves. If the strategic reserves are used to survive for a year and a half, other places can immediately fill the gap and supply supplies.
But for the more than 10 million imperial subjects in the Americas, even if their incomes were significantly reduced, they could even make ends meet, eventually leading to bankruptcy.
Regardless of the imperial farmers in the Americas, each of them owns a large area of land, but their farming costs are also high. Whether they use horses or machinery to farm, the cost is not low. If they produce so much food, they will definitely not be able to eat it themselves.
, even the subjects of the entire American empire could not eat so many agricultural and livestock products, and could not use up so much cotton.
Without the empire's domestic market, the prices of these products will plummet in the Americas, eventually triggering a series of social crises.
And this was the core purpose of the "global economic integration" in the Tang Empire's economic development plan, which was to kidnap the Americas and the mainland together so that the Americas would not be able to survive without the local market.
In order to achieve this goal, forty years after Xuanping, the empire even vigorously promoted the development of agriculture and livestock in the Americas, relaxing some mechanical restrictions, allowing farmers in the Americas to use the most advanced steam engine tractors and even gasoline engine tractors, and liberalizing the American railways.
Construction restrictions and port equipment restrictions have resulted in the construction of more than tens of thousands of kilometers of railway mileage in the Americas in just eight years.
It spans the east and west coasts and connects Xinjinshan and Xinnangang. It is more than 3,000 kilometers long. It was fully opened to traffic in the 47th year of Xuanping. It only took seven years to build this railway in the Americas.
A railway artery in North America!
There are also several other main railway lines. Seven years have passed. In the Americas, North America already has more than 7,000 kilometers of railway lines. Central and South America also have more than 2,000 kilometers of railways. This adds up to tens of thousands of kilometers.
.
Coupled with river transportation and offshore transportation in the Americas, the export of various agricultural and livestock products has become more convenient, further reducing the cost of exporting these products.
Eventually, a large amount of it was imported into the Western Pacific region, that is, the native region.
This is not only true in the Americas, but also in other overseas controlled areas of the Tang Empire, such as South Africa, Egypt, Permu State in India, etc., all have similar situations.
With strong local support, the agricultural and livestock industry began to develop on a large scale.
In addition, local areas also plan different agricultural and livestock industries based on the different climates, environments, etc. of each overseas territory.
For example, in the Americas, part of South America is planned for rubber planting, part of North America is planned for cotton production, part is planned for corn production, and part is planned for wheat production.
Different crops are grown on a large scale in different places.
This model is called a single high-efficiency planting model by officials from the Ministry of Agriculture.
That is to plant the same type of most suitable crops on a large scale in a certain place to achieve scale and concentration, thereby increasing yield, improving quality, reducing costs, and achieving higher market competitiveness.
In some parts of North America, there are cotton fields one after another, while in other places there are wheat or corn fields one after another.
This kind of planting model has, to a certain extent, directly promoted the rapid development of the agricultural and livestock industries in overseas territories represented by the Americas in the past seven or eight years.
However, this development itself was not what the empire's top officials said it needed.
The core purpose of the empire's high-level officials in promoting this model is to unify the industries in each overseas territory!
Industrial simplification is another important measure in global economic integration.
In the past seven or eight years, the empire has made many arrangements in its overseas territories, including liberalizing railway restrictions, lowering the price of coal, iron and mineral resources, lowering freight rates, importing large quantities of agricultural and livestock products from overseas territories, and many other things.
There is only one ultimate goal, and that is to completely kidnap overseas territories and local areas together so that they cannot escape from the mainland.
If they want to forcefully get rid of their homeland, they will have to pay a huge price!
Thus curbing the independent tendencies of overseas territories!