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208 Railway

However, Concubine Tian quickly realized a problem and asked immediately: "Your Majesty, the cavalry and archery must be outdoors. It will take a lot of time just to prepare the screen!"

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he was slightly shocked, then he came back to his senses and said thoughtfully: "What Liu Weichao meant was to prevent future generations from seeing that he was in the Forbidden City, and to promote his company. Based on this, I feel

, you can find an open space to play in the Royal Garden, and you don’t need too many screens to block it. If it can show his company, that’s fine!”

Before he knew it, he had begun to use the experience he had summarized before. That is to understand what the purpose is, and then do things according to the purpose!

If it were Emperor Chongzhen from the beginning, facing the problem of Concubine Tian, ​​he would definitely not know what to do. He would either follow the previous practice and use many screens to block it, or he could only contact Liu Weichao again and ask his opinion.

At this time, Concubine Tian was very happy when she heard Emperor Chongzhen's words that there was no need to go to such trouble, and she replied: "Then your Majesty, give me half a day to arrange the place and practice some more!"

Emperor Chongzhen naturally had no objections after hearing this. After he returned home, he summoned the prince Zhu Cihong and asked him to read the test paper passed by Liu Weichao, and then the prince's people dictated it. As for himself, he was handling government affairs on the side.

While he was busy, suddenly the chamberlain came to report that the sweet potato vines shipped from the south of the Yangtze River had arrived in Tongzhou, and there were ten ships in total.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard that he was overjoyed, he immediately issued an order that the capital should have five ships and the other five ships should be distributed to surrounding prefectures. According to the previous order, all government offices at all levels and the residences of local officials should plant these sweet potatoes.

Wang Xiangjin will take the lead in this matter.

Compared with potatoes, the promotion of sweet potatoes is much simpler.

The first is that at this time, sweet potatoes have become popular in Fujian and Guangdong, and are even partially planted in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and South Zhili.

The second is the planting of sweet potatoes. You don’t necessarily need sprouted sweet potato pieces, but you need to cut the sweet potato vines and plant them in the ground.

For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen could only promote sweet potatoes on a large scale first.

This decree immediately became one of the topics on the streets of the capital.

Sweet potatoes are not only grown in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City, but also in the open spaces of government offices at all levels. It is even clearly stipulated that they must be planted in the official residences. So, what exactly do these sweet potatoes look like? It can be said that people

People are curious!

Sometimes, the biggest obstacle to promoting crops and the like is that the people don't know whether the thing is good or not, and people won't believe it if you just talk about it.

However, the emperor and those high officials took the lead in planting. Even if they were planting dog shit, it would become a treasure in the eyes of many people.

They would think, if this thing is not good, can the emperor grow it? Can the officials grow it?

Also, now even emperors and government officials grow it. Whether or not you have this thing at home is a symbol of status!

It doesn’t take up much space anyway, just use it as a flower garden.

Top-down cultivation of sweet potatoes suddenly became a hot topic in the Ming Dynasty.

So, spontaneously, some businessmen saw business opportunities and transported sweet potato vines from the south to the north, and they were all sold out.

The promotion of sweet potatoes started smoothly.

Of course, it will take time to reap the benefits and fully promote it.

Emperor Chongzhen, after asking Wang Xiangjin to do things, naturally would not pay attention to the subsequent development of things. At this time, he just stared at the copying of the test papers.

In order to prevent the test questions from being leaked, no one who copied them was allowed to leave. After they were compiled into papers and then printed, the prince personally watched them.

The reason why Emperor Chongzhen attached so much importance to this matter was because the Military and War Bureau was really short of manpower, especially knowledgeable people.

According to Liu Weichao's reminder, all matters within the war bureau must be compiled into a book, and problems and phenomena encountered during the process must be described. Various processes must be studied and improved, etc.

Nowadays, the training of Yongwei Camp and Jingying Camp is in full swing, because these two armies are expected to focus on firearms. After the first phase of queue and basic battlefield skills training, firearms will be issued for actual training.

The production of the Bingzhan Bureau must keep up and provide enough flintlock muskets. This is a major issue that Emperor Chongzhen urgently needs to solve.

Only by grasping this matter well can we build a strong army according to the plan.

As time goes by, the day for Jianlu to enter the Pass is getting closer, and Kaifeng has been holding on for longer and longer. Both of these things are imminent!

While he was busy, Fang Zhenghua came to see him and posed another problem to him: "Long live my Lord, some of the iron ore needed for the military campaign is not available."

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he was immediately shocked and asked quickly: "What's going on? But some miners escaped? Didn't I say that I wanted to improve their treatment and give them money?"

"Back to Lord Long Live, no, no miners have escaped!" Fang Zhenghua heard this and quickly echoed, "It's just that steel production is getting bigger and bigger, and the daily consumption of iron ore is too much, and the mines can't supply it.

Already."

Having said this, he thought for a moment and then immediately added: "I have checked, and the most important thing is that the speed of transporting iron ore from the mine is too slow, and the speed of transporting it to the capital is not fast enough, and there is a lack of sufficient iron ore."

oxen and carriages!”

The supply of iron ore in the capital is mainly from the capital. If it is not on the canal line, it can only be transported by land, which is very time-consuming and expensive.

When Fang Zhenghua said this, he knew what the current Emperor Chongzhen liked to see the most, so he presented a memorial, which stated the specific data of digging pits and transporting ore. They were all written in Arabic numerals, which was clear at a glance, and it took a lot of effort.

Not much space.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately thought of something and said to him: "I have a way to solve this matter. You go ahead and work on it. I will tell you later!"

Fang Zhenghua was a little curious after hearing this. He didn't know how the emperor would solve it?

Because he has actually thought of the solution that he should have thought of. If he wanted to solve this problem, he would increase the manpower at the mine, but he has already done that, and there is really no way to add more people.

He has already deployed all the oxen and carriages that can be deployed from the mines to the capital, so where else can the emperor deploy them? It is impossible to mobilize the war horses from the Yongwei camp and the Beijing camp, right?

If the war horse is used to pull goods, it will be useless!

With doubts and expectations in his heart, he didn't know what Emperor Chongzhen would do to solve this transportation bottleneck and return to his war bureau.

As soon as he left, Emperor Chongzhen immediately contacted Liu Weichao. When the call was connected, he first asked: "I remember that there is a steam train that can pull many carriages, right?"

He had already seen it through the video, so he told Fang Zhenghua, but he had not cared about it before, so he did not ask about the specific situation.

When Liu Weichao heard this, he immediately nodded and said, "Yes, you want to build this steam train now?"

"Yes!" Emperor Chongzhen listened and replied, and then explained the current iron ore transportation bottleneck.

Hearing this, Liu Weichao smiled and said: "If you build a railway to solve the transportation capacity, there will be absolutely no problem. But if you want to build a railway in Gyeonggi, there is another problem that must be solved."

"What's the problem?" Emperor Chongzhen asked curiously upon hearing this, "Do you need manpower? I can conscript labor. Anyway, it's not a busy time for farming now!"

For those craftsmen who worked for the royal family, Emperor Chongzhen had begun to pay wages instead of labor.

However, it is impossible for him to be exempted from all the original labor at this time, at least he does not have the confidence at present.

The money in hand must at least be used to ensure the needs of a strong army. There must be a process of changing the forced labor service to paid labor.

When Liu Weichao heard this, he shook his head and said, "It's not a matter of manpower."

Having said this, he paused and said to Emperor Chongzhen: "In addition, you just said that you can conscript labor. My advice to you is that it is best not to do this!"

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he suppressed the first question and explained to Liu Weichao: "It's not that I don't want to stop working, but now..."

After hearing his complaints, Liu Weichao laughed and immediately said to Emperor Chongzhen: "The reason why I said it is best not to use labor is not for this reason. It is because building railways is a technical job. You'd better do it

Select a group of people from the beginning to specialize in building railways. You can't just build a road and then pull it down, right? When the time comes, you will need familiar railway workers urgently!"

Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen realized that he had misunderstood, and couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed, but then he said a little embarrassedly: "But I don't have enough craftsmen at hand, how can I find a group of people who specialize in building railways!

"

Liu Weichao listened and gave him some advice: "When our country built railways, we used the army. Later, the army that built railways was changed to railway corps, which built railways for all parts of the country. Later, it was restructured into a company, which belongs to the railway corps.

It’s controlled by the imperial court. I feel like you can learn from it!”

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, his eyes suddenly lit up. But then he wondered: "But the Yongwei Camp and the Jing Camp are being rebuilt, and their future responsibilities also need to level the bandits and destroy the built barbarians, so how can they build railways?"

Liu Weichao laughed as soon as he heard this. It was true that the authorities were obsessed with the onlookers. He reminded Emperor Chongzhen: "Don't you still have local guards? They can't fight, but you can use them to build railways! If there are not enough young people, you can raise more.

Isn’t that enough to provide military pay?”

"Yes!" Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard this.

Today's local police stations are really in ruins. It is absolutely useless to let them fight to quell the rebellion of bandits and rebels.

According to Liu Weichao's suggestion, waste can be reused! In this way, the manpower problem for railway construction will be solved.

Thinking like this, he asked happily: "Then what is the other question you said?"


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