Since the 61st year of Xuanping, the Tang Empire launched its second great industrial development plan, the economy of the Tang Empire has once again developed substantially, and at the same time, a large number of advanced technological products have continued to appear and have been used.
application.
With the continuous construction and improvement of power supply facilities, major cities have begun to use electricity, the night sky of the city has begun to light up, and some prosperous areas have even appeared as a city that never sleeps.
Not only electric lights, but also various electrical appliances represented by electric fans have gradually entered ordinary people's homes.
Although electric lights, electric fans and other types of household appliances may seem obvious, they were not actually the focus of the electrification process of the Tang Empire.
The core of the electrification of the Tang Empire was to replace steam engines with electric motors and become the main driving force for industrial production, thus improving production efficiency and reducing production costs.
This can be known from the fact that most of the construction of power supply facilities in the early stage of the Tang Empire was carried out around major industrial zones.
And this has also achieved great results. Starting from the 61st year of Xuanping, power supply facilities were built nationwide. By the 68th year of Xuanping, almost all major industrial areas in the Tang Empire were already connected to electricity.
, a large number of companies began to use electric motors to replace steam engines as the main driving force for production, promoting the further development and improvement of productivity.
At the same time, the development of internal combustion engines continues to accelerate. Various types of freight vehicles and construction machinery using internal combustion engines have appeared in large numbers and are widely used in construction, transportation and other industries. The most typical one is Beifeng Trucks and other freight trucks, which have become the main force in short-distance transportation.
By the sixty-eighth year of Xuanping, it was almost impossible to see the four-wheeled freight carriages loaded with goods swaggering through the streets in major cities anymore. Instead, there were a large number of trucks.
These trucks travel between railway stations, ports and other material transfer stations and various places in the city, transporting countless materials to meet the needs of urban people's lives and industrial development, while also constantly creating greater economic benefits.
With the comprehensive rollout of the national highway network construction, a large number of provincial highways have been built, many of which are paved with cement or asphalt and hardened, making cars the main force in short- and medium-distance transportation.
This is even more obvious in the area around Taihu Lake. In this area, which was the most economically developed in the Tang Empire and also had the largest logistics needs, even though there was a dense train network and river transportation system, it still could not meet the huge material transportation needs.
need.
Now, with the construction of the Taihu Lake Highway and many straight-line highways, cars have truly become the main force in mid-way transportation.
When the direct highway from Shanghai to Jinling was fully opened, the traffic volume was huge, exceeding everyone's imagination. A large number of passenger cars and trucks passed through this direct highway, traveling between Shanghai, Jinling, and Suzhou, Zhenjiang, and Changzhou along the way.
and other areas.
When the section from Jinling to Wuhu, the section from Wuhu to Hangzhou, and the section from Hangzhou to Shanghai are all opened to traffic, the Taihu Lake Highway will be fully opened to traffic, and countless vehicles will drive on this artery every day.
Due to the excessive traffic volume, not long after the Taihu Lake Highway was opened, preparations were made to upgrade the highway and prepare to fully upgrade this ordinary highway into a closed high-grade highway.
However, the Ministry of Transport has rejected the plan to upgrade the Taihu Lake Highway because it conflicts with the national closed high-grade toll road network planned by the Ministry of Transport in the past two years.
The Ministry of Transport already has plans to build closed high-grade toll roads in the Zhili area, especially in the Taihu Lake area.
As for the Taihu Lake Highway, even though its name is a bit fancy, this kind of highway is still part of the national highway network according to the Ministry of Transport.
The development of highways and automobiles complements each other, and this transportation development brings more convenient transportation and lower costs.
In addition, highway construction and the development of the automobile industry will not only bring convenience, but the two industries themselves will also bring huge market demand.
Infrastructure construction such as highway construction can bring about a large amount of demand for cement, sand and gravel and other construction materials as well as engineering machinery. The most obvious thing is that in recent years, the annual production capacity of the empire's cement industry has almost doubled or even doubled every year.
The speed has doubled, showing ultra-high growth. The road construction itself and the huge market demand and jobs indirectly brought by it have further contributed to the economic prosperity of the empire in recent years.
Not to mention the automobile industry. When the scale of the automobile industry exceeded one million vehicles per year, the automobile industry had undoubtedly become one of the important industries of the Tang Empire.
When the annual output of similar automobiles exceeded five million, the automobile industry had undoubtedly become one of the pillar industries of the Tang Empire.
In the automobile industry, the annual output value of passenger cars alone has reached more than 1.3 billion yuan. This does not include trucks and various professional construction machinery. It seems that the annual output of this part is not as high as that of passenger cars.
High, but the unit price is more expensive and the overall output value is not low.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, in the 68th year of Xuanping's reign, the annual output value of the entire machinery industry, led by internal combustion engines, including passenger cars, trucks, construction machinery, etc., exceeded 2 billion yuan. The internal combustion engine industry alone,
It can contribute hundreds of millions of Tang Yuan in direct tax revenue to the empire every year.
Not to mention, the internal combustion engine industry is also a downstream industry. If you want to produce cars, you also need all-round support from various machinery industries, steel industries, chemical industries, mining industries, transportation industries, etc. This indirectly drives hundreds of output values.
It is worth more than 100 million yuan, and it has created countless jobs.
The huge direct and indirect output value and huge number of jobs made the internal combustion engine industry, represented by automobiles, one of the new pillar industries of the Tang Empire.
Just like the steam engine industry back then, it not only helped the industrial upgrading of the Tang Empire, but the steam engine industry itself was also a huge industrial chain with a large output value that could directly and indirectly drive a large number of jobs and market demand.
When factories began to widely use electricity as the main power, short-distance transportation relied on automobiles as the main transportation, supplemented by the traditional steam engines that the empire had developed for decades and a series of related industries such as shipbuilding, shipping, trains, and the petrochemical industry.
As well as the new type of mechanical agriculture and the comprehensive explosion of the chemical fertilizer industry.
These laid the foundation for the second round of explosive economic development of the Tang Empire!
The explosive development of the economy has brought output value, tax revenue, the application of new technologies, etc. to the empire. These are all secondary, but the most important thing is.
In the autumn and October of Xuanping 68, the School of Economics of the Royal Institute of Technology published a sensational paper after detailed investigation and careful argumentation. The paper stated that due to the strong driving force brought by the second great industrial development, the economy was comprehensively
With development, agricultural and livestock production continues to increase, and people's incomes continue to increase.
In the 68th year of Xuanping, after decades of development, the Tang Empire finally reduced the food index to less than 40%!
This means that the Tang Empire as a whole has entered a wealthy society!
And in the autumn of this year, the eighty-four-year-old Holy Emperor Li Xuan announced to the world that he would abdicate the throne to the emperor's grandson Li Hongcuo in advance.
In the first month of the sixty-ninth year of Xuanping, the Tang Empire officially held an abdication ceremony. After the abdication, the Holy Emperor Li Xuan was honored as the 'Great Emperor of the Tang Empire'. The emperor's grandson Li Hongxu ascended the throne as emperor and was honored as the 'Great Emperor of the Tang Empire'.
Emperor', and according to tradition, he announced the new year's name "Taiping" to express the intention of inheriting the Xuanping era.
In fact, before the abdication, when Li Hongxu was first crowned the emperor's grandson, Li Xuan had already asked Li Hongxu to act as the imperial study room and take full control of military and political affairs.
From that time on, apart from controlling the general direction, Li Xuan no longer intervened in detailed affairs.
It was still the same after the abdication. Li Xuan still controlled the overall situation. Even the memorial was sent to Li Hongchuo and Li Xuan in duplicate, but he still did not interfere in any specific affairs.
Therefore, the abdication had no impact on many policy matters of the empire, because Li Hongzhu was originally responsible for these, and he is still responsible for them now. The most important change in the abdication ceremony was a nominal change.
Li Xuan wanted to completely confirm Li Hongchuo's status as emperor before his death to avoid any turmoil.
In recent years, he has learned that many overseas areas have evil intentions.
After the death of Prince Li Hong, all the overseas vassal princes began to be dishonest. It was only in the secret records of the Han Dynasty that Li Xuan received in recent years that a certain vassal prince was trying to win over people's hearts and set up private factories.
There are dozens of guns hidden privately.
Of course, the methods of the then-emperor grandson Li Hongxu were not much different. In the past few years, he had found many opportunities to severely beat the vassal king.
Li Xuan knew all this, but he didn't care too much. As long as it was not a matter of principle, such as the vassal king immediately raising troops to rebel, or Li Hongxu ruthlessly killing the vassal king directly, Li Xuan generally ignored it.
.
As for whether conflicts or even wars may break out between Li Hongzhuo and these vassal kings in the future, that is their own business.
We are all adults, smart people, we have to choose our own path and bear the consequences ourselves. He, an old man in his eighties, can't control that.
What's more, the conflict between the homeland and the overseas territories is not just the conflict between the new emperor Li Hongzhuo and the overseas vassals, let alone the overseas vassals who want to return to the homeland to seize the throne. Some of them may have thought so before,
Some people think so now, but I guess no one in their right mind would do it.
Overseas lords, what they want now is independence!
And this independent tendency is often not the idea of the feudal kings themselves!
Many vassal kings lived a very leisurely life, and there was no need or desire to confront the local royal family!
Sixty years ago during the Xuanping reign of Li Xuan, in order to appease the vassal kings and also to finalize the pattern of all royal families in the world being the Li family, Li Xuan granted twenty-five vassal princes Ke Yuanjue to inherit and retire with the country.
The fiefdom cannot be changed, and the kingship cannot be changed!