Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1267 Three Railway Plans
"The Ministry of Industry has approved the plan to build the Ningwu Railway, but for the privately operated section of the railway, there is only a 30-year franchise period. After 30 years, the government has the right to take the railway back to the state. You probably need to carefully confirm whether it can be used Recover the cost and obtain a certain profit within 30 years."

Yu Sixun, the civil affairs officer of Jianghuai Province, approached Wang Changyuan, the leader of Wuhu businessmen, and explained to him the feedback from the Ministry of Industry in charge of railway construction.

Jianghuai and Zhejiang provinces, where private capital is most active, have the highest enthusiasm for new things like railways. The Ministry of Industry naturally agrees to their request to build railways, as long as the funds they invest in railways will not cause the provinces to go bankrupt.

"A 30-year franchise should be enough to make a profit. After 30 years, the people who invested in us don't know if they are still there. If 30 years can't recover the cost and make a profit, then we will not consider investing at all. For this section of the railway." Wang Changyuan said.

They businessmen have a set of accounts in their minds, and they must have weighed the pros and cons.

"However, building a railway requires a large number of skilled railway engineers and railway workers. Regarding this request, there has been a little change..."

"What happened? Could it be that the government cannot provide us with railway engineers and workers? Can't we pay for it?" Wang Changyuan wondered.

Talents in the railway field are monopolized by the government. Without the government to provide such talents, they would not be able to build railways at all.

"It's not a matter of money, but the government approved the plan to build the Ningwu Railway, as well as the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway, as well as the railway from Guangzhou City to Foshan Town and Macao Island in Guangdong Province. That is to say, the south of the Yangtze River There are three railways to be started at the same time, and the engineers and workers building the Nanjing-Suzhou railway need to be assigned to three construction sites, and they simply cannot build the three railways at the same time."

"Then what should we do with the Ningwu Railway? When we applied to build the Ningwu Railway in the name of private individuals, one of the important prerequisites was that the government should be able to provide us with enough railway personnel to help us build the railway smoothly. And we basically It is enough for the government to provide funds. We don’t know anything about railway construction. If there is no railway talent, we Wuhu businessmen may not be able to invest funds in the Ningwu Railway.”

"Don't be anxious, shopkeeper Wang. The Ministry of Industry has sent some railway experts from the north to the south for this matter. They will come here soon. They are in charge of the Ningwu Railway, and the people who originally built the Ningsu Railway will be in charge of the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway. Construction, as for the railway in Guangdong, there will be students from the Railway Engineering College of Jingshi Datang going there."

Yu Sixun did not appear to be in a hurry, and the Ministry of Industry had already responded in detail.

The Ministry of Industry has already approved the three railways that applied for the area south of the Yangtze River.The Ningwu Railway was built with private funds from Wuhu, and Zhan Tianyou, who had rich experience in railway construction and supervised the construction of the Grassland Railway at this time, was transferred.

After Zhan Tianyou completed the construction of the railway sections from Liaodong to Guihua City, Ningxia Wei, and Xi'an City, he should have continued to build railways in the direction of Lanzhou Wei, Dunhuang, and Urumqi to open up the old Silk Road.

However, under the witness of Dayuer, the provinces of the Western Regions, Tsarist Russia and the Kazakh Khanate signed a 50-year armistice treaty. There are also corps stationed in the area, which is sparsely populated, and the demand for railways is not urgent.

So Zhan Tianyou was transferred to Nanjing City to be responsible for the construction of Ningwu Railway.Places with prosperous commerce and concentrated population often have high requirements for transportation, and at the same time, the people also have money and willingness to invest in the construction of railways.

The Prairie Railway has already spent a lot of money from the government, but the Ningwu Railway does not need a penny from the government, so it is naturally willing to provide them with talents.Moreover, the wages of Zhan Tianyou and other railway engineers and railway workers were temporarily paid by Wuhu Railway Company.

In addition to Ningwu Railway, there are two other railways, Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway and Guangao Railway.

The Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway plans to extend the railway from Nanjing City to Suzhou City to Songjiang Prefecture, Hangzhou City, and Ningbo Port, connecting the Yangtze River Delta along the coast and along the river to form the most prosperous handicraft and commercial center.

The Guangzhou-Australia Railway connects Guangzhou City, Foshan Town, and Macao Island, several important towns at the Pearl River Estuary. After all, Guangdong Province is relatively close to East Cochin Province, West Cochin Province, and Nanyang Province, and it is also a place for ocean trade. important place.

Among them, the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway is the most cumbersome, because it involves different jurisdictions.The Jianghuai Provincial Yamen is responsible for the construction of the railway section from Suzhou City to Shanghai County, the Zhejiang Provincial Yamen is responsible for the railway section from Shanghai County to Jiaxing and Hangzhou, and the merchants of Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and Ningbo jointly funded the construction of the railway section from Hangzhou to Ningbo Port .

In other words, the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway is actually divided into three sections, from Suzhou to Shanghai, from Shanghai to Hangzhou, and from Hangzhou to Ningbo.

This area is also the most prosperous area for business.

"The railway engineers and railway workers from the north, have their skills passed the test?" Wang Changyuan finally confirmed.

"They have been building railways on the prairie for several years. They have to face various complex situations such as grasslands, rivers, mountains, loess plateaus, swamps, and frozen soils. The railways they built are thousands of miles long. Do you think their Will the technology fail?" Yu Sixun asked rhetorically.

"Hiss, thousands of miles of railways? It's incredible." Wang Changyuan never thought that there are such long railways in the north.

"From the capital, through Datong to Guihua City, and then to Lanzhouwei and Xi'an, there may be a railway of more than [-] miles." Yu Sixun said.

"Three thousand miles is more than ten times that of our Ningwu Railway!" Wang Changyuan said in surprise, "We Wuhu businessmen have spent a lot of money to build a railway of more than [-] miles. How exaggerated is the Grassland Railway!"

"The money is naturally paid by the government. It is impossible for ordinary businessmen to spend a lot of money to build a railway on the prairie, and it spans so many provinces." Yu Sixun said.

"What do you think about the capital? If you invest this money in our Yangtze River, Huaihe River and other places, wouldn't it be more effective?" As a businessman, Wang Changyuan was quite puzzled by this matter.

According to his businessman's principle of maximizing profits, if a three-thousand-mile railway is built in densely populated places such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Huguang, and Shandong, the economic benefits will definitely be higher than most of the grasslands and plateaus, right?
"Treasurer Wang, you don't understand. The government also considers many things besides benefits. The north has been infested by nomads in the past dynasties. With the help of the railway, the capital's control over the prairie and the Loess Plateau will be strengthened, and it will also It is convenient to transport troops from the east to the west, and once there is a war on the frontier, the main force in the east can gather in Xi'an Prefecture in a very short period of time and drive to Yumen Pass."

(End of this chapter)