I want to be emperor

With the current industrial system of the Dachu Empire, it is already able to meet the industrial system production of internal combustion engine applications. On this basis, it can achieve an annual production of hundreds of thousands of gasoline engines and application platforms.

The current problem is that the demand for city appearance is still relatively small... Of course, the market demand is relatively small because the current gasoline engines and their application platforms are quite expensive. Only agricultural equipment, engineering equipment, and military equipment can withstand such expensive equipment. Technical equipment.

However, the cost can be reduced... As long as the sales volume is large enough and the production capacity is large enough, then the production cost can be significantly reduced.

After all, gasoline engines and their application platforms are very typical industrial products and can be mass-produced to reduce costs.

It's just that the cost is high and the market is small, and the small market means that the cost cannot be significantly reduced... This is stuck. If no external influence is exerted, it may take more than ten or twenty years until technology continues to advance. Significantly reducing costs at the source of technology, and then promoting gasoline engines and their application platforms, can greatly stimulate market demand. Ultimately, greater market demand will in turn reduce costs, thus forming a virtuous cycle!

Just like the original time and space...it took more than twenty years from the appearance of the first gasoline engine, the appearance of the first car, to the large-scale industrial production of cars.

In this regard, Luo Zhixue's solution is to artificially stimulate the market demand for gasoline engines and their application platforms... Stimulate the internal combustion engine market through policies, official procurement, etc., and expand production capacity through forcibly stimulating the market, thereby forming large-scale production and reducing the Cost, when costs are reduced, there will naturally be a larger market size, thus forming a virtuous cycle.

This is why he specifically mentioned the application of agricultural equipment powered by gasoline engines during his inspection.

As the emperor of the Great Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue's every public speech and instruction were not random. Behind them, they often represented the policy direction of the empire's high-level officials, and there was a profound meaning behind them.

Such is the case with the talk of mechanized agriculture in New Sweden!

After inspecting the local agriculture in New Sweden, Luo Zhixue took the patent and continued westward. The most he saw along the way and what made Luo Zhixue the most satisfied were the large amounts of farmland along the railway!

The immigration development of the Chu people was either along the coast and rivers or along the railways. As the North American East-West Railway is a strategic railway artery in North America, its railway lines have also become important areas for the immigration development of the Chu people.

Basically, there will be a city along the railway line at an interval of twenty to thirty kilometers. The size of the city will vary depending on local transportation, resources, climate, historical role and other factors.

Some are small towns with only a few thousand people. These small cities are often built in riverine areas with relatively convenient transportation. They can easily collect surrounding materials and people through rivers, and then transport them to coastal ports through railways or local rivers. or other big cities for transfer.

There are also a few medium-sized cities with a population of tens of thousands or even tens of thousands. These cities are often local prefectures and are also the main local industrial gathering places.

However, there are also large cities with more than 100,000 people, and this is Berta City (Chicago), the capital city of Berta House.

The name of Berta City is taken from the first two syllables of the transliteration of the name of the original local indigenous Bertawatomi tribe. Due to its excellent geographical and climatic environment, this place is very suitable for agricultural development. It is also rich in minerals and is surrounded by rich and high-quality products. The coal mines, iron ore and other minerals are also located along the Great Lakes, allowing for convenient river transportation.

The Chu people had arrived here more than ten years ago and established a small settlement here... At that time, the Chu people had not yet taken over the entire Eastern America region from the Europeans. It's not established yet.

Because the local natural conditions are very superior and the population is large, the development potential is great and it is also easier.

Therefore, when the railway was built back then, the Chu people made a big detour on the East-West Railway and built the railway to this point, where they established Berta Mansion and officially established a city, namely Berta City.

Therefore, from the first day of its establishment, this city has received great attention from American officials, and several groups of official immigrants have been sent here for preliminary development.

However, there are actually not many official immigrants, and more are various self-funded immigrants who continue to arrive through the railway.

At that time, immigrants from the Chu State took a train from the west coast and arrived here. Because of the excellent conditions here and the official attention, they set up a government here. They also regarded it as a logistics supply base for the frontline railway construction and set up a steel factory here. factories, lumber mills and other railway material supply factories.

Therefore, after many self-financed immigrants saw the excellent conditions here, they chose to settle here and became settlers in Berta House.

At the same time, these immigrants took Berta City as the center and spread to the surrounding areas... established small towns, developed farmland and minerals, and fished and developed fishery resources on Lake Berta.

Eventually, an agricultural and industrial distribution center in central North America was formed.

This place is currently one of the top five largest cities in the three provinces of North America. In terms of city size, it is second only to Golden Mountain City (San Francisco), Summer City (Seattle), New York City (New York), and more than River City (New Orleans). ).

And it is the only inland city in North America among the five major cities...the other four are all coastal cities, and they are all coastal estuary cities!

It can stand out from a large number of coastal cities and become one of the five largest cities in North America, with the fourth largest population... This is inseparable from the rich and excellent local natural conditions. Otherwise, it would not be possible just by relying on a railway.

After all, the East-West Railway in North America is very long...and there are many towns along the way. Why is it that among so many towns along the railway, only Berta City has developed?

This is supported by the excellent local conditions.

Luo Zhixue will naturally pay more attention to such a population and economic center in North America. The planned inspection time is not just one or two days like some previous railway towns along the way, but he plans to stay here for at least ten days. above.

On the one hand, it is to set aside time for engineers to inspect the trains, and on the other hand, it is intended to conduct a detailed inspection of the local economic development.

On the first day after arriving there, after briefly meeting with local civil and military officials as usual, Luo Zhixue did not participate in any other activities, but began to rest in a local manor.

Traveling by train is less comfortable than traveling by boat. Luo Zhixue's rest during the inspection was actually not very good.

After all, when it comes to taking a ship, Luo Zhixue is riding the Royal Princess with a capacity of 30,000 tons. As long as there are no strong winds and waves, ordinary winds and waves will not affect it in the slightest.

Therefore, when traveling on the Royal Princess and the weather is good, Luo Zhixue basically does not feel any bumps and no noise. Everything is almost the same as on the ground.

But on the train... even if you are riding a specially designed royal train, the comfort has far exceeded the standard of a train.

But it is still unavoidable to feel some slight vibrations and continuous noises... The steel wheels of the train are running on the rails, making a continuous friction sound and the clanking sound of the steel wheels passing through the rail connection.

These sounds are unavoidable as long as the train is moving...

Even if it's a royal carriage... it can't avoid this kind of noise. Fortunately, for the sake of safety and personnel rest, the royal train does not run at night, so I can still have a good sleep at night.

But no matter what, the experience of taking a train is far inferior to taking a large-tonnage luxury liner like the Royal Princess!

This... is actually because there are already trains, but between two cities that can be reached by trains and passenger ships, rich people still prefer to take passenger ships.

Taking a train these days is not a great experience!

Compared with the riding comfort of later generations of high-speed rail, it can be said that it is in the sky and on the ground. The difference is huge...

Therefore, when traveling these days, if they have the choice, people are more inclined to choose large-tonnage luxury liner travel... Of course, it is only limited to large-tonnage liner, preferably luxury liner... Even if it is only a third-class cabin, then It’s also more comfortable than taking the train…

After all, riding on a small-tonnage ship... it would bump up and down and sway left and right when encountering wind and waves, which was more uncomfortable than riding on a train.

In the contemporary Chu Empire, people travel by both trains and ships, and each has its own choice. Both modes of transportation are mainstream modes of travel for the people.

Luo Zhixue took the special train all the way and didn't get a good rest. After arriving in Berta City, he rested early, and there were not many activities planned for the next two days. He mainly rested.

It was not until the third day that Luo Zhixue's schedule became intensive. In the morning of this day, he went to the central city of Berta City for inspection... There are many ways to see the economic development of a place, but in the end The simple and most intuitive way is to look at the local urban construction level.

Although the level of urban construction alone cannot accurately reflect the local economic development, it can still be seen... How to put it, a place may be rich, but the city is poor... but it is absolutely impossible for the place to be poor. , the city is tall, clean, beautiful and tidy.

There are 10,000 reasons why local governments don’t repair urban infrastructure if they have the money!

But if the local poor want to build urban infrastructure, they can't do it even if they find 10,000 reasons!

Having money and not spending it, and not having money to spend...these are two different concepts.

In Luo Zhixue's opinion, the urban construction in Berta City is pretty good... at least for an overseas territory city with a history of only more than ten years and a real rapid development of only about ten years, its achievements are already very outstanding.

At the same time, because Berta City is a newly established city, there is no need to consider any historical issues when planning the city, and the city planning can be done whatever you want.

Therefore, the urban planning of the entire Berta City is very good. The main roads in the city are very wide... Although only the middle driving lane is a cement road, and most of it is cinder surface, the reserved road surface is very wide, and there will be demand in the future. If you have money, you can lay cement or asphalt in minutes.

At the same time, the industrial area and the living area are also well divided. There is a certain distance between the two, which can effectively prevent the soot emitted by the steam engines in the industrial area from polluting the air in the living area.

At the same time, in order to facilitate commuting to get off work, the distance between the two is not too far. There are also a number of main roads with very good road conditions connecting them, and they are equipped with corresponding public carriages.

Just looking at these road plans and industrial zone plans... you can tell at a glance that the designers who originally planned Berta City must have been to Songjiang City and even inspected it in detail. They have perfectly avoided many of Songjiang City's pain points: the industrial zone. It is mixed with residential areas, and the roads planned in the early stage were not spacious enough, resulting in extremely serious environmental pollution problems and traffic congestion.

Although in many other fields, especially in the industrial field, Songjiang City is a learning object for other cities... But when it comes to urban planning, Songjiang City is often a typical negative teaching material...

There is nothing we can do about it. When Songjiang City first developed, it was planned with the local Shanghai County as the center. The planners at that time never thought that one day this place would become a city with a population of five to six million. It’s a super big city…

Even when planning back then, advance planning had actually been done. For example, the industrial zone established back then was several kilometers away from the central urban area at that time, which was the county seat of Shanghai... The farthest one was in Jiangbei. Got it!

Generally speaking, this distance is actually enough.

But who would have thought that Songjiang City's urban planning would expand so rapidly. Today, decades later, many industrial areas that were once suburban areas have all become part of the central city!

Even places belonging to other counties...which were more than ten or twenty kilometers away from Shanghai at that time have now become part of the urban area.

As for transportation, let alone that. There were only so many people at that time, and the two-lane and four-lane urban main roads that could be used for carriages were actually not small... But who would have thought that in forty years Later, Songjiang City actually had a population of more than six million, and there were more than 400,000 mules and horses to maintain transportation!

The designers tried their best back then, but they couldn’t have predicted today’s situation!

Therefore, some people today say that those designers back then were idiots and planned such a shabby urban area... The designers are also very frustrated!

With the typical negative teaching material of Songjiang City... When other backward cities carry out urban planning, they will pay special attention to the layout of industrial zones and transportation planning. They would rather plan in advance and leave a large area unused, but also leave enough margin. Measure it.

Berta City is also a typical example. The overall urban planning is very advanced... and the advanced planning of that year also gave Berta City a very good development space.

In the end, the Berta City that Luo Zhixue saw was formed, a city that is not crowded, has clear layers, and looks very clean and tidy.

Moreover, in this city, the city center does not have the coal smoke that is common in many contemporary cities...

The main reason is that the local industrial areas are all in the suburbs, and the residents' living areas are relatively scattered. In addition, this is a city along the lake, so the soot emitted by industrial coal and domestic coal will not gather in one place. If it does not disperse, it will cause serious environmental pollution.

As long as the problem of coal smoke pollution is solved, other problems will not be big... As for the problem of human and animal excrement caused by population concentration and traffic problems, because the scale of urban industry and population are not large, the problem is not serious.

After all, not every city has millions of people like Songjiang City...and millions of people are still gathered in a small area.

Other cities have learned from experience early on and made their cities larger, which are so-called flat cities.

This has advantages and disadvantages... But Luo Zhixue looked at Berta City in front of him, which had a small population but a very large urban area. He thought to himself that the scene of skyscrapers gathered in modern Chicago in this original time and space would probably not be seen in this city. This time and space appeared.

There are not many four- or five-story buildings in this place now... The place is too big, the land is not valuable, and the government tends to build a flat city, so there is no market for high-rise buildings here!

There is no market for high-rise buildings not only in Berta City, but also in other cities in the Americas, including Xinjinshan, Xindan City and other places...

Unlike in East Asia, many cities have more people and less land, and they are following the example of Songjiang City in building high-rise buildings!