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Chapter 460 New Road 2

"If it rains continuously for two or three days in summer, can you still drive to Tianjin Wei alone?"

"...It should be possible to take the official route." Xiong Sanba thought for a while and felt that it was not a big problem.

"What if we load a thousand kilograms of cargo on the car?"

"This...the wheels will get stuck...Your Majesty wants the carriage wheels to run on the wooden strips!"

Xiong Sanba has really caught up with this matter before, and he knows the result without even thinking about it. Then he realized the purpose of the ladder on the drawing, and his eyes suddenly widened. What a fucking genius. The Ming Emperor, who had been mythologized by many people, finally showed another miracle in front of him.

"Yes, I call these wooden strips tracks. Not only can they overcome road obstacles, but they can also save the number of horses and increase transportation capacity. Think about it, connecting a few or a dozen carriages with only three What would it be like to be able to walk freely while being pulled by four horses?

The track from Dongbianmen to the Tongzhou Canal Terminal is just a test product. After a period of use, if feasible, I will build the track to all parts of the country, even through Russia and all the way to Europe.

You may not be able to catch up, but in the future everyone who uses the railway to travel between Europe and the Ming Dynasty will know your name and the names of many builders. I will carve it into a stone tablet and stand it high at every station along the track. "

Xiong Sanba guessed correctly. The emperor really wanted to put the carriage on the wooden bars and walk on it. This is the rail transit system designed by Hong Tao for the Ming Dynasty. In the next hundred years, this system will take on the main land transportation tasks.

It will transport raw materials from production areas to processing areas, transport grain from grain-producing areas and ports to remote mountainous areas, mobilize troops from camps to war zones, and at the same time extend imperial power from the Forbidden City to anywhere within orbit.

If you want to rule a big empire, in addition to stabilizing the court and grasping military power, the third most important thing is not education or economy, but transportation. Without fast transportation, effective management cannot be carried out, let alone economic development.

A few lives ago, Hong Tao laid a road network in the Song Dynasty. The effect was pretty good, but it was too time-consuming and labor-intensive. Without ten or twenty years of paving the way, it would not have much effect. Moreover, the maintenance cost is very high, and the transportation cost is also relatively high.

This time he doesn't plan to take the old road again, and wants to use railways instead of roads. It doesn't matter if there is no steam engine, horses can also pull the carriage. It doesn't matter if you don't have rails, and it will work just as well if you replace them with wooden rails.

This set of tools has been actually used in mines, and the effect is satisfactory, but we cannot draw any conclusions about whether it is suitable for large-scale deployment. Again, practice is the only criterion for testing truth. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know, just give it a try.

A few days ago, the Ministry of Heavenly Works issued a statement saying that the waterway outside the city of Yuhe River (Tonghui River) was in disrepair for a long time, the river was silted up, and the water level had dropped, which seriously affected the passage of canals. It requested an order to clean it up and introduce new water sources.

The Tonghui River is the lifeblood of the capital and is related to grain transportation. No one in the court objected to the dredging and diversion of the canal. However, Hong Tao was more thoughtful and asked Zhao Shizhen to write in the memorial that building a track along the north bank of the Tonghui River was called a towpath.

As long as no one from the six ministries and the cabinet thinks much about it, it will be too late to wait for the imperial edict to find fault. The Tonghui River definitely needs to be dredged, but just digging a new canal will leave the money and labor saved to Xiong Sanba to build the track.

In fact, what Hong Tao lacked was not money. Even if the internal funds were not enough, the Ministry of Industry's Jieshen treasury had been full in recent years, so there was no need to use Taicang. But it’s too troublesome to go through the process. If I explain to Liubujiuqing what rail transit is and what its benefits are, they will most likely not understand. They may understand or pretend not to understand. They can delay the start of construction for ten to eight years before they are sure how much benefit can be distributed. Now that Hong Tao has military power, he is more confident, and his behavior is less arrogant.

When encountering matters that are not easy to achieve consensus, the strategy adopted is often to coax if you can, to deceive if you can, or to lie if you can't coax. Anyway, no one dares to flip the table in a hurry. I'll tell you next time if I have a bad memory.

"When I stayed in Goa, I saw local people using a special kind of wood to make farm tools, called ironwood. This kind of wood is oily and hard. It is also used for rigging connections on ships and is very wear-resistant. If you can use this The tracks are made of wood-like material and should last for many years without rotting.”

By now Xiong Sanba had been attracted and shocked by the majestic scenes described by the emperor, and he very much wanted to use the track to connect the East and Europe together in his lifetime. This is destined to be a great project, compared with which the stars seem a bit far away.

"Yes, this is a very good suggestion. I happen to know this kind of wood, and there is a place where it can be obtained in large quantities. Let's select people to survey the route first. I will hand over the wood matter to the navy so that the construction schedule will not be delayed."

Although Hong Tao has never been to Goa, he can still find similar wood from Xiong Sanba's description. It should be called Ironwood in China. It grows widely in Guangxi, Yunnan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and other places. It is not a very precious tree species, and the stock is not bad.

But it is too early to tell whether it is suitable for laying tracks. The higher the hardness and wear resistance, the better, but the cost must also be taken into consideration. If the cost of transporting it over a long distance from the south to the north is more than two or three times higher than using ordinary wood, it makes no sense.

"Your Majesty, Priest Pang Di sent a letter from Hao Jing Ao last month and wanted me to present it to you." Xiong Sanba had already bowed and left, but he turned around and came back after just two steps.

"Last month? Why didn't you mention it earlier?" Since Matteo Ricci's death, Pang Di has been in charge of teaching affairs in the church in Hao Jing'ao. Together with Xiong Sanpu, one south and one north, we shared the absolute power of the Jesuits in the Ming Dynasty. most affairs.

Compared with Xiong Sanba, he was more passionate about religion itself. He was aloof from the emperor's solicitation and had not contacted him for several years. Suddenly a letter came, and Hong Tao instinctively felt that it was related to the visit of the Spanish envoy. After all, Pondy, I am also Spanish.

"I thought that His Majesty would not agree to his request, and I did not want His Majesty to have other ideas about the Society of Jesus."

"Then why do you suddenly want to hand it over again?" Hong Tao hooked his fingers, motioned to Wang Chengen to take the letter, and continued to ask with interest.

"I thought your majesty might not care..." Xiong Sanba's expression was a little awkward and he hesitated.

"...Hahaha, you guessed it right, I really don't care. Just reply to him. Jesuit priests can participate in the project of Guangzhou Cathedral. I will specifically authorize this matter to the Governor of Nanyang, and you can also choose a few from it. A priest with architectural talent joins the orbital project.”

What did the letter say? It's actually not a big deal. Pang Di learned about the plan to build a cathedral in Guangzhou, so he volunteered to participate in it, and was also willing to call some missionaries from Europe who were better at architecture to help.

(End of this chapter)