Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 753 Northwest Construction Corps
The market for the construction industry is too huge. With the strength and ability of the relatives of the country, it is absolutely impossible to take over everything. The Four Seas Commercial Bank is the real protagonist of each emerging industry. Now the booth of the Four Seas Construction has been fully rolled out in Daming territory. The number of employees is constantly changing every moment, and the exact number is not yet available.

In the daily operation of funds, the imperial court and domestic funds occupy a small part, and most of the rest are reinvested by Universal Construction with the distributed profits in order to expand market share.

As for the construction of water conservancy facilities and the exploration and construction of roads and bridges, the two major infrastructure constructions, the Sihai Commercial Bank's position is even more irreplaceable, no matter it is now or in the future.

Zhu Youjian intends to build it into a model of a certain bureau of China Construction in later generations, taking on the important task of laying a good foundation for the development of Daming, which cannot be achieved by other individual capital.

Due to the wide scope of these two projects, the long construction time, and the long period of investment return, all the investment came from the imperial court in Taicang, and domestic funds were not injected into them. The basic state policy of the people.

Construction, construction of water conservancy facilities, and construction of roads and bridges are the three infrastructure projects that require the most manpower, and they also have the most obvious effect on promoting economic development and increasing people's income.

Moreover, in the construction process of these projects, it is not only the accumulation of various engineering experiences, but also the improvement and innovation of various production tools. This invisible scientific and technological progress often changes the whole world unconsciously. .

In order to prevent the occurrence of serious problems in the quality of the project caused by the use of low-quality materials due to officials' embezzlement of project funds, in addition to strengthening the inspection of the entire project by the censor and Jin Yiwei, Zhu Youjian also specially decreed that every piece After the project is completed, the company must strictly inspect the acceptance procedures, and engrave and erect the names of the person in charge of the project and the main craftsman.

In addition to irresistible factors, if a major accident occurs in the entire project due to the quality of the construction, the main officials and craftsmen will be punished. In the lightest case, the family property will be confiscated and the whole family will be exiled. In the severe case, the family property will be confiscated.

Although most people in this era are simple and honest, in order to prevent tragedies from happening, Zhu Youjian believes that we should take precautions before they happen, and use strict criminal laws to prevent such incidents from happening from the source.

The large-scale development of infrastructure projects not only directly increases the employment population, but also indirectly drives the prosperity of related industries.

Under the guidance of the imperial court's investment, in most prefectures and counties in the northern border, brick and tile factories, timber factories, cement factories, lime factories, quilt factories, sandstone factories, ironwork factories, etc. have sprung up like mushrooms In front of people's eyes, there are both government-funded and local big households, but regardless of public or private, these workshops need to hire workers to work, which benefits countless families.

Different from the regulations implemented by the Ming Dynasty officialdom and the Four Seas Commercial Firm, the workshops run by these big households implement the wage settlement system. The employees all go to the owner to receive the day's wages after finishing work in the afternoon. This method is very reasonable, Zhu After being informed by the prosecutor, he also thought about implementing it in various government-run industries, but considering that the demand for working capital would be very large, he finally chose to give up.

Most of the current road widening and leveling projects are concentrated in the north of the Yangtze River, especially in the northwest and northeast directions. This is mainly a decision made by Zhu Youjian based on strategic considerations.

The progress of repairing the road from the capital to Shanhaiguan is currently the fastest. This is mainly due to the non-stop work of about 20 "free laborers" for more than three years. More than [-] people have died successively due to the occurrence of accidents such as diseases and work injuries.

In this road widening and hardening project, the improved gunpowder played a huge role. After learning the characteristics of gunpowder that can explode in a confined space, under the supervision of the army, the craftsmen adopted a method of concentrating large-capacity gunpowder. Blasting and clearing the mountains along the way has greatly accelerated the progress of the project.

After nearly four years of construction, the [-]-mile-long road widening project has basically been completed. As long as the remaining part of the mileage is leveled, it only needs to be thoroughly hardened with cement.

The design width of the entire road is more than three feet, which is equivalent to about ten meters in later generations. It can accommodate two four-wheeled carriages facing each other, and pedestrians and small vehicles can run side by side on both sides. Compared with the traffic efficiency, the traffic efficiency has been greatly improved, and the comfort level is even more different.

Now the only thing to wait is cement.

Due to the limitation of raw material mining and transportation, the output of cement has not increased significantly. Although the Ministry of Industry has successively built three cement factories along the road, with an average of one in more than [-] miles, the output of cement still cannot keep up. Speed ​​on road widening and levelling.

Zhu Youjian has no good solution to this. He also knows that large-scale infrastructure projects cannot be completed overnight, especially in an era of backward technology. Without modern terrain exploration and construction equipment, he can only rely on crowd tactics Finish.

The cost of building roads in the northeast direction is not too high, because those laborers are free, and they only need to eat every day, and there is no pay for them, which saves a lot of expenses.

Of course, this is not a long-term solution. Zhu Youjian's original intention was to spend the court's money through infrastructure construction, so that more people in Ming Dynasty can benefit from it, and the use of free labor is also limited.

He has issued a decree on this matter, and those who are diligent and steadfast in their work, and have the intention to repent of past crimes and obey the management, will be given the right to choose after five years.

In the future, they will either stay as hired labor and continue to build roads, and their labor income will be no different from that of ordinary people; or they will be placed by the court to farm in other areas and become a pure farmer. These two are up to personal choice.

Now most of the labor force has been transferred to the northwest direction, and has begun to participate in the reconstruction and expansion of the road from the capital to Xi'an, and the construction difficulty and time span of this project will be unprecedented.

The total length of the official road from the capital to Xi'an is about 20 miles. Based on the time of the last project, if only these [-] people built it, it would take at least ten years.Such a long-term and arduous working environment, in the end, it is unknown how much of this labor is left.

Fortunately, this huge project is not a one-way construction, but the two sides of the capital and Xi'an will start at the same time, facing each other, and the number of people involved will exceed 50. This will make the progress of the project faster and the construction period will be shortened accordingly. .

After this main artery runs through, the project will extend westward.

The ultimate goal is Xinjiang for future generations.

The penetration of the road can quickly send a large number of troops to the northwest, and it also greatly assists the economic development of cities and towns along the way.

In Zhu Youjian's strategic plan, after Cao Bianjiao and Luo Shifang regained the four towns of Anxi in the Tang Dynasty and restored the territory of the Han family, they and their troops will form the Northwest Construction Corps under the command of Cao Wenzhao, in the form of military and civilian reclamation. Yongzhen Daming Western Regions.

(End of this chapter)