Cutting 1719

Chapter 585
Regarding the torture from the emperor's soul, Yang Yongping, who had just become the director of the Dachu Railway Bureau, couldn't help but wiped the sweat from his face. He almost knelt on the train floor and began to explain in a low voice.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, it's not that I set the price so high on purpose. It's because the train is costly. The total length of the railway from Nanjing to Shanghai is 400 miles, and each mile needs about [-] catties of iron. Calculated, it will cost a total of [-] jin. [-] million catties of iron is barely enough for the cost of the railway, and this is only the cost of the railway, not counting the train itself.”

Yang Yongping couldn't help but not complain. It is true that railways are really a luxury and a rarity these days, because in the 59th year of Kangxi, the country's iron production was only about 500 million catties. After the province, after vigorously developing the mining and iron smelting industry, the iron output quickly rose to more than 9000 million catties. It was not until last year that the major iron mines entered full production that the pig iron output jumped to 3000 million catties.

However, according to the railway material development method, all the iron materials in Ningchu can only build a three thousand-mile railway. In addition to building the Ninghu Railway, it is also enough to build a Beijing-Shanghai Railway from Nanjing to Beijing. Once here, all other places that need iron materials can only be stared at.

Speaking of this, Yang Yongping could only helplessly say: "Reporting to Your Majesty, all the costs of the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway, including pig iron raw materials, forging costs, transportation costs, and the cost of the railway construction project and the train itself, have already exceeded For 1000 million silver dollars, if the daily maintenance costs are included, the ticket price of five silver dollars per person can only guarantee that the cost will be recovered within 30 years."

That's right, it will take at least 30 years to recover the cost. The reason is very simple. Based on the ticket price of five yuan, after excluding the operating costs, the profit that can be obtained is only four yuan and two cents. Based on the input cost of 1000 million silver dollars, it needs to carry 30 million passengers within 240 years, which means about 8 people per year.

In later generations, carrying 8 people per year is naturally a trivial matter, but in this era, it is not easy to carry 8 people on the basis of this fare, which means that it needs to carry about 220 to 230 people on average every day No matter how you look at it, it is very difficult.

Yang Yongping also cried silently in his heart, and only charged five silver dollars for the fare. He was really doing charity.

But don’t think that everything will be safe for the Dachu Railway Bureau as an institution subordinate to the imperial court. In fact, under the guidance of a certain emperor, although the shares of the Dachu Railway Bureau belong to the imperial court, it also needs to bear the profit requirement. It's not that they have to earn some money, but they can support themselves and earn back the cost.
Under such circumstances, Yang Yongping, as the director of the Railway Bureau, had no choice but to bend down and cry to the emperor about his difficulty, so as to prevent the emperor from cutting the fare in half with a wave of his hand. There is a way to make up for the huge deficit owed by the Railway Bureau at this time.

After hearing all this, Ning Yu felt a little embarrassed immediately, and said softly: "Since you also have your difficulties, I won't say much, but you have to understand that the empire attaches great importance to railways. For hundreds of years or even longer, railway planning will become the key development direction of the Ministry of Communications, and it will also have a relatively large investment weight in finance."

The officials of Dachu who were sitting on the side, after listening to Yang Yongping's accounts, still felt that the emperor's construction of the railway was too hasty, and it seemed a bit worthless to spend so much money to build a broken road. It never occurred to me that the emperor was still thinking about building railways everywhere!

"Your Majesty, according to Director Yang, railways seem to be too expensive and useless. Is it inappropriate to build too many railways? Besides, it is very convenient for the imperial court to use water transportation now, and the cost is quite low."

Soon, someone began to persuade the emperor tactfully, hoping to persuade the emperor to give up this crazy idea.

Ning Yu knew that every time this time came, some outdated officials would come out to stop him, so he didn't care about it at this time, so he explained softly: "As officials of Dachu, it's better for you to take a long-term view. Water transport is good, but what about those places where there is no water transport environment? The construction of railways is a great thing that benefits the country and the people, so why is it useless?"

Speaking of this, Ning Yu didn't wait for the ministers to refute his opinion, so he began to count the benefits of the railway with his fingers.

"First of all, you can see that the imperial court's construction of railways is by no means aimless, but in prosperous places that need inland transportation. Like these places, faster transportation methods are needed to speed up the communication of business travelers and goods, which is beneficial to economic development and business. There are big benefits to development.”

"Secondly, for some key strategic locations of Dachu, every time something happens, it will take a lot of time to gather troops and rush there if there is a need to dispatch troops. However, with the railway, our army mobilization speed and The logistical support capability will be significantly improved, which is also of great benefit to national security."

"Finally, think about it carefully. The current railway seems to have limited functions, but this is not what it will look like in the end. When the steam engine technology is further developed, the speed of the train will only become faster and faster. Maybe one day in the future, the morning Starting from Nanjing, you can arrive at the capital at night, think about the significance of this matter!"

It has to be said that after Ning Yu's education, the officials finally came to their senses. Although they didn't quite believe the last point the emperor said, they still couldn't deny the first two points. After all, in order to promote economic development and In terms of national security, the construction of railways is not a complete loss-making business.

After all, in this era, except for places with dense water networks that can be transported by water, the traffic in other inland areas is simply hard to describe. Basically, horse-drawn carts and donkey carts can be used in places with flat roads. In other places, horses are basically carried by people. Where there are no horses, only manpower can be used for transportation, which makes the cost of land transportation extremely high, which is almost ten times or even a hundred times that of water transportation.

When ten times or a hundred times the cost of transportation capacity is generated, the development of inland industrial and commercial industries is restricted. This is why the coastal areas, the Yangtze River, and the Yellow River have developed commerce and trade, because in addition to these places, water transportation can be used to reduce transportation costs. Others There is no better way at all in the local area, so the commodity economy is naturally greatly restricted.

As the saying goes, "Do not sell woodcutters for hundreds of miles, and do not sell goods for thousands of miles", this is the ultimate manifestation of this problem.

Of course, such education by Ning Yu only allowed officials to understand the great significance of railway transportation, but it is still impossible to carry out large-scale construction of railways. After all, without further development of technology and productivity, even if it costs Huge sums of money to build the railway, it is difficult to play a role in boosting.

Therefore, when Ning Yu arrived in Nanjing, he put aside the issue of the railway, and immediately devoted himself to another key matter, which was to launch a general propaganda of the war against Russia, and to publicize the war against Russia from the internal environment. Inevitability and justice, in order to internally veto the possibility of reconciliation with Russia first.

This matter does not seem to be that important, but combined with the situation of this era, it is a very important matter, even related to the final outcome of the war against Russia.

To understand this problem, you need to understand one thing first, that is, the Chinese culture seems to have a strong demand for expansion, but it has a strong pragmatism, so that it cannot be compared with the Russians in terms of real desire for expansion. This is also the key factor that led to Siberia gradually falling into the hands of the Russians.

To put it simply, when the core civilization of China is expanding, it usually depends on whether this place can farm and feed the people. If there is no way to farm and feed the people, then there is no way to invest in this place on a large scale. It is also difficult to make long-term investment in the follow-up competition.

For example, in the eyes of Chinese people, Siberia is a place of bitter cold in the north. Even if prisoners are sent to exile, the farthest is only to Ningguta, which is the corner of Heilongjiang. They don't think that people can survive further to the north, that is to say, as far as Ninggu Pagoda, and go further north.

But the Russians don’t think so. They not only exile prisoners to the north, but also establish strongholds in the north to rule those places. Large areas like Siberia and the Far East were successfully built under the influence of this kind of thinking. of.

Could it be that the Russians are more technologically advanced?More productive?
This is not the case. Even during the Qing Dynasty, the Russians were not more advanced than the Qing Dynasty except for a slight lead in the military. The reason why they were able to occupy Siberia and the northern lands was entirely because of their It is more able to endure hardship and has a stronger tolerance to cold environments.

And this can be seen from the geographical differences between the two countries. Before Russia developed, it was basically at the same latitude as Siberia. It was mainly a temperate continental climate. The Arctic Ocean coast was a frigid climate, and the north had an extremely low climate. The climate is monsoon, with short summers and long, cold winters.

China, on the other hand, has a temperate continental and monsoon climate, and the south has a subtropical monsoon climate, which means that China is warmer overall, which is completely different from Russia and Siberia, and this difference in climate has led to Russia's expansion in Siberia. have more advantages.

In addition to the climate, Russia itself has a poorer geographical environment, lower land carrying capacity, and lack of good ice-free ports, and these have also prompted the Russians to continue to expand abroad, but China itself occupies the best land in East Asia. The income is also higher, which makes the people more inclined to the rich land in the inland, and naturally they are unwilling to develop in the bitter cold land in the north.

That is to say, the people of China simply look down on places like Siberia, and naturally they are not willing to fight for this kind of bitter cold place, and the ministers of the DPRK and China are even less willing to fight for it year after year. In their view, it is not worthwhile to invest a large amount of funds in the fight for that bitter cold land.

Therefore, even though Ning Yu led the Privy Council to launch a war against the Russians in the Far East before winter, this war did not receive as much support as the previous Battle of Mobei. In the eyes of more people, this It's just that His Majesty the Emperor wants to show his own force, which doesn't make much sense.

If it was only for a few months or half a year, Ning Yu could still fight on with his unparalleled prestige, but when the war dragged on for several years or even longer, it would be difficult to rely on prestige alone. It is definitely not possible to fight by force. Ning Yu must get more support, that is, to find the interests of this war.

With the support of greater interests, Ning Chu can get more people to support the war against the north from the heart. Even if Ning Yu no longer asks for it in the future, the people can continue to fight—that is the ultimate strategy of the north. The guarantee of victory, otherwise any results obtained now will be meaningless.

As for whether the Russians can stay in Siberia for a few years?Ning Yu has no doubts about this possibility, and he must make preparations in advance, just like what he told the Privy Council, the bottom line of this war is to completely win East Siberia, that is, the entire North Sea. Incorporate the entire Siberia into the territory of Great Chu, push the Sino-Russian border to the Ural Mountains, and completely eliminate the great trouble in the north.

However, in the heart of the ambitious emperor Ning Yu, there is not much that can be used for the war with the Russians in the north. If it is just to eradicate the remnants of the Qing court, the first battle of Yunchun has already done it. The remaining lingering Vladivostok will be delayed until next year at most, and it can basically be leveled off.

If the Russians send a negotiating peace agreement at that time, giving up the entire Far East, what reason can Ning Yu use to continue fighting?At that time, if you continue to use the Qing court as an example, it will be too bullying the IQ of other people.

"Difficult, difficult and even more difficult is that Dachu has not been established for a few years, and its foundation is not so solid. Is it really necessary to watch this great opportunity pass by? But if you miss the period of civil strife in Russia, you can wait until such a good time. Opportunity, but it’s really too difficult.”

Ning Yu sat on the imperial chariot returning to the palace and muttered something, his brows were tightly frowned, and he thought carefully about the reason why he could drag everyone into the water to beat the Russians together
However, after returning to the palace, Ning Yu still didn't think of a better reason, but he got good news at this time. It turned out that after a long period of research and development, the General Armament Department finally followed Ning Yu's thinking and found There are signs of developing a new generation of standard weapons for the Han army!
(End of this chapter)