I want to be emperor

Chapter 1079 Jinling Night Road

In the afternoon, on the road outside the Songjiang West Station Square, a black car slowly drove up behind a group of horse-drawn carriages.

Although most passers-by are not surprised by this, some out-of-town travelers who have just come out of the train station can't help but look at the car a few more times.

In Songjiang City, a developed super-large city, there are tens of thousands of cars, and people can more or less see cars running on the road.

But for other places, even in some medium-sized cities, cars are still a relatively rare means of transportation... If you are from some small cities or even villages, you have never even seen a car with your own eyes before.

These tourists who arrived in Songjiang for the first time from other places saw cars as soon as they left the train station, and naturally they couldn't help but take a few more glances... That is to say, there are no mobile phones these days, otherwise a group of passers-by would take out their mobile phones and take pictures directly.

In the sight of everyone, after the black luxury car pulled over, two attendants and a maid who were waiting here came forward, opened the left and right doors respectively, and welcomed Sun Xu and Sun Mengshi.

After Sun Xu got off the bus, he took a carriage and arrived at the train station with his luggage in advance. The entourage said: "Sir, your luggage is all ready. You can take the train now."

Sun Xu nodded slightly, and then led Sun Mengshi towards the train station.

We were in a hurry and had a busy schedule, so before Sun Xu had finished working at the company, he had already arranged for someone to buy the tickets in advance and brought his luggage to the train station for check-in in advance.

In this way, after Sun Xu is finished, he can take Sun Mengshi directly to save time.

This is not easy... Every additional increase of ten kilometers or even five kilometers per hour requires more power than just the steam engine locomotive... In fact, it is not difficult. If the power is small, just build a larger locomotive, or even several When the locomotives are spliced ​​together, power can always be provided.

In many old railway lines, the operating speed is still maintained at 40 to 50 kilometers.

As for this, it can only be built on some newly constructed or renovated railway lines and using special new train models.

In train operations, speed is not the most important thing, safety is.

But despite this, Sun Xu and the others did not arrive at Jinling East Station until evening... Although the journey took several hours, Sun Xu was also traveling in a first-class sleeper car, so he was not too tired on the way.

Although his younger brother Sun Yang is not old, he has worked for ten years. As an official of the Gyeonggi Ministry of Rites and Education, his salary is not bad, and he is the bank's favorite high-quality lender. Therefore, in the past few years, I bought a pretty good townhouse in Jinling City and settled down in Jinling City.

After leaving the train station, he called two carriages and went straight to his brother's house.

After twenty or thirty years of continuous efforts, the railway system of the Dachu Empire is now able to operate such fast special trains with a speed of 60 kilometers per hour on part of the main railway network.

The operation speed at night is not that fast. Passenger trains often need to slow down at night, otherwise accidents are prone to occur.

A group of five people quickly got on the train. Not long after they got on the train, the express passenger train between Jinling and Songjiang slowly started to leave the station.

The train that Sun Xu and the others took was a special express train that ran between Songjiang and Jinling. It only stopped at several major stations such as Suzhou, Changzhou, and Zhenjiang to replenish coal and fresh water, so it ran very fast.

Being able to achieve the operating speed of 60 kilometers for passenger trains is the result of the continuous efforts of the railway people for 20 to 30 years.

Naturally, it is impossible for the couple to carry so many things by themselves. They have to bring two attendants. In addition, women like Sun Mengshi have to bring a maid with them when they go out, otherwise they will be in trouble on many occasions. Decent.

If there were no lights, the train would be completely dark when traveling at night, and would not be able to move at all... Otherwise, if there were any obstacles on the track in front, it would have to run into them head-on.

Therefore, the speed can only be improved as much as the safety performance is improved.

Otherwise, a train will derail or crash for you in minutes.

As the steam locomotive continued to emit white water vapor, it also drove the more than ten knots of vehicles to slowly increase their speed, gradually increasing from a few kilometers per hour to twenty or thirty kilometers per hour, and finally to a speed of sixty kilometers per hour.

This is also based on the perfect limited telegraph along the railway line, which can transmit railway operation information in a timely manner. At the same time, the train is equipped with a generator and has electric train headlights that can illuminate a long distance.

But more importantly, the faster the driving speed, the higher the safety challenges. The requirements for railway track technical performance indicators, railway dispatching requirements, etc. are becoming more and more demanding.

The speed of sixty kilometers per hour is currently the fastest operating speed in the Dachu Empire's railway system.

Today, the Sun couple are different from the past. Their status and status are different. They need to carry a lot of things when traveling far away. They only need to bring four large boxes for clothes.

The carriages were driving on the slightly empty road, which made Sun Xu somewhat unaccustomed... Although it was past nine o'clock in the evening, there would still be a large number of carriages on some of the main roads in Songjiang City at this time, and occasionally There will also be cars on the road.

Those public carriages were still crowded with a large number of people who had just returned home from get off work.

Some shops along the road were also open.

Even after twelve o'clock in the evening, many places in Songjiang City are still bustling... With a population of several million, it is also the most economically developed city in the Chu Empire. After the successive application of electric lights, the entire Songjiang City has gradually evolved For a city that never sleeps.

But in Jinling City, Sun Xu could not see such a scene... the overall feeling was much peaceful.

After all, Jinling City is a very typical political and cultural center. The urban population has never been large. Even today, fifty years after Chengshun, the permanent population of Jinling City is only about 700,000 to 800,000... …There are not as many as some ordinary large industrial cities.

After all, there are no factories here in Jinling City. The only large-scale factory is an arsenal: Jinling Arsenal.

The Jinling Arsenal is also a comprehensive arsenal that is relatively rare in the contemporary Chu Empire. Basically, it can produce commonly used equipment in the Chu army. In particular, the production lines for various types of ammunition are very complete, whether it is an eight-millimeter smokeless bullet. , or 300mm coastal defense artillery shells can be produced.

Because the Jinling Arsenal is a dedicated ammunition supply factory for the Guards... the Guards need to ensure that if the peripheral army or navy rebels, the Guards army and navy units stationed in Yingtianfu and surrounding areas can still obtain conventional light weapons. Ordinary A replenishment of artillery, and at the same time a replenishment of almost all the ammunition currently in service in the Guards.

In other words, even if the peripheral army and navy rebelled and cut off the supply of weapons and ammunition to Yingtian Mansion and surrounding areas, the Guards could still obtain sufficient ammunition supplies from the Jinling Arsenal.

These ammunition supplies, coupled with the large amount of weapons and ammunition stored by the Guards all year round, are enough to enable the Guards to rapidly expand to more than 200,000 people during special periods and maintain regular operations. Of course, this is also related to the special weapons reserves of the Guards!

The weapons reserves of the Guards are more interesting, that is, they never reserve and seal old weapons... but will reserve and seal active weapons of the same period... to ensure that after emergency expansion in special periods, the weapons and equipment used by the newly expanded troops are all available. It is active weaponry.

For example, in the era of single-shot rifles, the Guards used Type 18 rifles and also stocked Type 18 rifles.

After entering the era of repeating rifles, the Guards used Type 24 eight-millimeter black powder bullet rifles, and also stocked Type 24 rifles... and the number of reserves exceeded the number in active service.

At the most, that is, before the formal replacement of Type 27 rifles, the Guards used only about 70,000 Type 24 rifles in active service, but 130,000 Type 24 rifles were mothballed... these The sealed Type 24 rifles are all brand new and unopened.

It's not like the Army's sealing of weapons, which mainly seals old and decommissioned weapons!

This is because the Guards are not short of money and have a rather special mission.

The special nature of the Guards means that Jinling City, which is said to be free of factory pollution, still has a large comprehensive arsenal such as Jinling Arsenal.

Of course, there is only one Jinling Arsenal. Apart from that, there are really no factories in Jinling City, especially none of those polluting factories.

All this is because Luo Zhixue doesn’t want to live in a smoky and smelly capital city...

Jinling City only needs to undertake political, cultural and some financial functions... There is no need to build any factories, let alone develop the so-called economy, there is no need.

Of course, it is impossible for the capital city of Yingtianfu to really not develop industry or economy... In fact, the industrial development of Yingtianfu is mainly located in the Dangtu Industrial Zone in the west, which is not only the industrial center of Yingtianfu. , in fact, it was an important industrial center in the Chu Empire.

Dangtu Industrial Zone is also the heavy industrial base of the Dachu Empire. It houses the Dangtu Steel Factory, Dangtu Machinery Company, one of the three major domestic steam engine manufacturers, and the Dangtu Artillery Factory... By the way, the Dangtu Artillery Factory is the capital of the Empire. The main naval gun production factory.

Most of the 300 mm caliber battleship main guns are produced here and then transported by ship to Songjiang Naval Shipyard or Guangzhou Shipyard for outfitting.

At the same time, the factory is also the main and most advanced manufacturer of hydraulic spring-type ship-borne rapid-fire guns.

Jiangnan Weapons Company is the most important supplier of shipborne weapons in the Dachu Empire, and Dangtu Artillery Factory is the core naval gun production factory under Jiangnan Weapons Company.

From this we can see the importance of Dangtu Industrial Zone&…

However, Dangtu also belongs to Yingtian Mansion, but this still does not affect the fact that Jinling City is a purely political, cultural and military city, and incidentally a financial city, without any industrial and economic functions.

This has led to the fact that the permanent population in Jinling City is actually not much of an industrial population. It is only about 100,000 people, and most of them are light industrial people who provide services to the city.

If the industry is not good and the population is small, there will naturally be few other types of commercial institutions that provide services to the industry.

Even though it is the capital city, it can be seen at a glance that Jinling City is relatively peaceful and lacks the surging vitality of Songjiang City.

This can be seen from the main road at night.

There are still many vehicles at night, and there are few vehicles at night.

However, although there are few cars and it looks a bit deserted, the road is very wide and flat. You don't even have to look at it. You can tell that the road is paved with asphalt while sitting on the carriage. The carriage is very smooth and comfortable to walk on.

On both sides of the wide road, there are electric street lamps. Behind the street lamps are tall evergreen trees one after another.

This road alone can show the magnificence of the capital city of Jinling... In ordinary cities, even in today's Songjiang City, there are not many roads that can be illuminated by electric lights along the way. Most of them still use gas lights, and the electric lighting renovation project on the roads has not yet been completed. It has to last for a long time.

But the roads in Jinling City have already used electric lights as street lights on a large scale.

Sun Xu could only say tut, Jinling City deserves to be the capital, but it doesn’t hurt to spend other people’s money...

Although electrification is in full swing these days, it still cannot change the fact that power equipment is expensive.

After Sun Xu purchased the new manor, he also spent money to install electric lights. Not to mention the later electricity bill, the initial installation fee and the cost of electric lights and other equipment alone totaled more than a thousand yuan.

The Xicheng Branch of Songjiang Electric Lighting Company can already provide electric lighting business to customers in nearby areas, but it is expensive... Depending on the distance of the route, the installation fee can range from hundreds to thousands.

We can't blame people for their expensive installation fees...but these days, power supply, power generation costs and grid deployment costs are relatively expensive, and then from the main line to the customer's home, a dedicated line is often required...and these days, wires They are also all copper wires.

These costs are not cheap. Without charging expensive installation fees, the investment cost of this premise is too high, and Songjiang Electric Lighting Company cannot bear it.

In terms of the relatively expensive installation fee, the subsequent electricity bill is quite acceptable. Using electric lights for lighting is two or three times more expensive than using candle lighting, which is nothing to wealthy people... Of course, this so-called inconvenience Even if it is expensive, it is only relative to rich people, and ordinary people will definitely not be able to afford it.

Generally speaking, in the initial development stage of electrical applications, whether it is a power company supplying power or building a steam engine to drive a generator to generate electricity, the cost of these equipment and wiring is relatively high... The high cost has made the current power facilities only It can only be seen in industrial or commercial facilities and wealthy families.

There are still relatively few street lights, and even the wealthy Songjiang City has not started to build them yet.

But in Jinling City, it has already begun, and it has already reached a large scale... It is a pity that there are not many cars on the roads in Jinling City that use electric lights at night... This expensive The electric lamp seems to be used to show the night scene for people to see... No, not many people see it...

Of course, having fewer cars also has the advantage of having fewer cars. Naturally, Sun Xu's carriage moved quickly and steadily, and it didn't take long to arrive at the door of Sun Xu's brother Sun Yang's house.

(End of this chapter)