I want to be emperor

Chapter 745 Railways and Expansion

In the autumn of the 27th year of Chengshun, the North East-West Railway, one of the two vertical and two horizontal railways, and the Chang'an-Baoji section of the railway were completed and opened to traffic.

So far, most of the construction of the Longhai Railway in the important plan of the East-West Railway has been completed. You can take a train all the way from the coastal city of Haizhou in the east, passing through Xuzhou, Luoyang, and Chang'an, and finally arrive at Baoji.

The Longhai railway section has only the last tough section left, namely the section from Baoji to Lanzhou.

However, it is not easy to build a railway from Baoji to Lanzhou.

Because although this straight-line distance is only more than 300 kilometers, there are mountains in the middle, and the terrain along the way is very bad.

In terms of the current technical and engineering construction capabilities of the Great Chu Empire, it is very difficult to build railways in harsh terrain. The Nanling Mountains section of the Guangdong-Jiangxi Railway currently under construction, and the Nanling Mountains section of the Guangdong-Chu Railway that is under construction are proof , It is extremely difficult to repair and the cost is extremely high.

However, the reason why the Great Chu Empire still builds railways in the Nanling Mountains is because it has the Pearl River Delta economic belt at the bottom... The governor of Guangdong has money, and if your railway company can't afford it, they will directly give you various subsidies. To put it bluntly That is, the local government pays money to help the railway company repair the railway.

However, the economic conditions in the northwest region are not good, especially in Gansu Province to the west of the Longhai Railway. In [-], you need all kinds of financial support from the central government. How can you give the railway company money.

The local finances have no money, and the local economy is not doing well. After the railway is built, it is impossible to rely on commercial operations to recover costs and even make profits...

So purely from a commercial point of view, the Baolan Railway cannot be repaired...

However, due to border defense, the Great Chu Empire also wanted to avoid local separatism and other situations, and to continue to expand its territory in Central Asia, and urgently needed a railway to connect the northwest region.

This is why the Great Chu Empire insisted on monopolizing the official railway operation.

Since it cannot be repaired purely from a commercial point of view, then the official administrative force should be directly used to repair it.

And this level is also called the strategic railway in the Great Chu Empire.

The Northwest Railway, Grassland Railway, and even the Changkun Railway (Changsha-Guiyang-Kunming), Henghe Railway (Hengyang-Nanning-Hanoi), and Hekun Railway (Hanoi-Kunming), which are still under planning, belong to the southwest railway. Very typical strategic railway.

For these places, the Great Chu Empire needs to build railways, not only to ensure border security, but also to strengthen personnel and business contacts between these frontier provinces and the hinterland of the empire, and to avoid local centrifugation.

However, it is difficult and costly to build railways in these places, and the cost cannot be recovered!

This kind of railway is also called a strategic railway in the Great Chu Empire, and it belongs to the kind that has to be repaired even if it loses money.

This is why there is an official railway monopoly operation, because only the government will do this kind of money-losing thing, and it is impossible for private capital to do this kind of thing, which requires the government to invest in the railway.

And in order to secure the funds to do this money-losing business, you need to extract profits from other profitable railroad operations, which requires a monopoly.

This combined is an important reason for the official monopoly on railway operations.

Although the strategic railway in the southwest direction has to be built, it is not too urgent. After all, in the early years, the Great Chu Empire suppressed and cleaned the southwest region very severely. Swept away directly.

Then the Great Chu Empire immigrated to these places in large numbers to fill the vacancies left by the chieftains being swept away.

Therefore, the risk of chieftain rebellion in these places has also dropped to a very low level, and the border troubles existed in the early years, but now there is no danger. After all, the neighboring Myanmar and the two countries of Nanzhang have become the Great Chu Empire. The puppet country of the Great Chu Empire... As for the original Annan, it had already surrendered to the Great Chu Empire and became a part of the Great Chu Empire.

And in recent years, Nanzhang Kingdom is also seeking to join the Great Chu Empire.

With the further wooing and division of many forces in the Nanzhang Kingdom by the Great Chu Empire, Sorin Nawangsa, the king of the Nanzhang Kingdom, was placed under house arrest in Jinling City in the name of paying tribute for a long time, and the Great Chu Empire was in Nanzhang Kingdom again. The Kingdom sent an imperial envoy to assist the local princes in handling affairs. It was called co-organizer, but in fact it was a supervisor... This imperial envoy of the Great Chu Empire was the veritable Governor of Nanzhang.

At this time, the Nanzhang Kingdom was no longer a normal country. From military affairs to finance and even internal affairs, everything was firmly controlled by the Great Chu Empire.

Many nobles in the Nanzhang Kingdom also resisted in various ways at the beginning... But after they couldn't resist, they felt that they might as well be annexed instead of being squeezed.

How about being a country noble in a small place and being oppressed by Chu officials every day, why not just be a decent gentry in the Great Chu Empire or even become an official of the Great Chu Empire...

As the saying goes, join if you can't beat it!

At present, many nobles of the Nanzhang Kingdom are trying their best to follow the example of Annan and join the Great Chu Empire.

It's just that the Great Chu Empire has been dragging them and not agreeing!
That's right, the current situation is that the Nanzhang Kingdom wants to join the Great Chu Empire, but the Great Chu Empire is very cautious about it.

why?
Because once the Nanzhang Kingdom has joined the Great Chu Empire, the Great Chu Empire will not be able to dump this place on the spot for industrial goods, nor will it be able to reap benefits in various ways. Instead, it will have to build schools, build water conservancy, etc. infrastructure!

To put it simply, this annexation can't make money, not to mention, it has to be posted...

Just like modern Americans in later generations, they don't want Mexicans to join in.

The upper echelons of the empire are fine. After all, expanding the territory can completely solve some potential threats in the southwestern region, but the middle and lower echelons of the empire, especially the people in Yunnan, have great opinions...

The local business community thinks that they have turned all the Nanzhang people into their own people, so who the hell is going to squeeze?
The local people at the bottom think that if the Nanzhang Kingdom is annexed, and the people of the Nanzhang Kingdom go to Kunming and other cities to find jobs, the job opportunities of the local people will not be taken away.

So this matter has been discussed for several years. However, because the middle and low-level groups in the southwestern region of the empire resisted relatively much, it has not been discussed until now.

If you want to annex the Nanzhang Kingdom, you may have to appease the southwest region, or the local people will not agree.

Myanmar has no intention of joining the Great Chu Empire for the time being, and they still have independent ambitions. This kind of independence does not mean fighting against the Great Chu Empire, but wanting to be the younger brother of the Great Chu Empire.

For this reason, over the past few years, the Burmese have sent troops to fight for the Great Chu Empire many times, and they have performed very hard... In fact, they want to show the high-level officials of the Great Chu Empire: We are a qualified younger brother, boss, please don't beat me...

On the whole, there is basically no threat to the southwestern border, and the risk of chieftain rebellion in the southwestern provinces is basically negligible... After all, there are no living chieftains on these lands!

Because the threat from the southwest is not great, the strategic railway in the southwest direction can also be developed slowly.

At the same time, the grassland railway is not a high priority. After all, the grassland is no longer a threat. The northern border of the Great Chu Empire has expanded to the Arctic Ocean... Now the grassland railway is still being built, mainly to solve local people's livelihood problems and solve local problems. The problem of centrifugation.

But the northwest direction is different.

The Central Dynasty’s rule over the Western Regions had been cut off for more than 800 years before the Great Chu Empire. Such a long period of time has caused a huge gap in the cognition of the people in the Western Regions and the people in the Central Plains... In other words, they did not regard Treat yourself as a Chinese.

Fortunately, when the Great Chu Empire entered the Western Regions, it adopted military conquest. At the same time, before the Great Chu Empire entered the Western Regions, this place had been cleaned by the Zhungeer people, which greatly reduced the number of local indigenous people. At the same time, the Great Chu Empire After the empire took control of Turpan Province, it implemented a large-scale enlightenment policy and organized a large number of Han people from the Shaanxi-Gansu region to immigrate to Turpan for reclamation.

At present, the number of Han people in the local population has occupied the mainstream, but the number of indigenous people is still quite large, and local centrifugation is very serious.

The Great Chu Empire urgently needs a strategic railway to strengthen the connection between Guanzhong and even the Central Plains, Gansu and Turpan.

Furthermore, the number of immigrants was further increased, and the population and business exchanges between the people of the two places finally completely integrated these two places into the economic and cultural system of the Great Chu Empire.

At the same time, the Great Chu Empire also hopes that after the completion of the Northwest Railway, it can completely solve the logistics supply problem in the northwest direction.

The military problem of the Great Chu Empire in the northwest has never been about how powerful the foreign race is, but about its own logistics supply.

It is more than 3000 kilometers to transport food, weapons and ammunition from Chang'an, an important industrial town in the Guanzhong area, to the Yining area at the front line, and even to the Yibohai (Lake Balkhash) at the front line. !
The terrain along the way is not good, either mountains, Gobi Desert, or simply desert, sparsely populated along the way, and the size of the city is limited.

Such a long distance greatly limited the number of troops stationed in the front line area of ​​Yining and the ability of the Great Chu Empire Army to launch large-scale battles.

This is why the Great Chu Empire has not launched a military strike against the Kazakh Khanate in these years!

The cost is too high, and the logistics can't bear it!

After all, the Great Chu Empire still needs to maintain the battle against the Russians in the Ob River Basin in the north. If two fronts are opened in the northwest direction at the same time, the logistical pressure will be too great.

And if you want to completely solve the logistics problem in the Northwest, there is no other way but the railway.

Therefore, even if the Baolan section of the Longhai Railway is difficult and costly, the Great Chu Empire will repair it.

A few years ago, the route survey began. After the opening of the Chang'an-Baoji section of the railway, the construction team of the Railway Corporation did not stop. Instead, they continued to build the railway westward and began to build the Baoji-Lanzhou railway line.

Moreover, the construction scale is very large. Tens of thousands of railway workers are working hard here, striving to get through the throat of this section of the Northwest Railway as soon as possible.

After all, as long as this section of road is passed, the subsequent railway construction from Lanzhou to the Yining area seems to pass through the Gobi Desert and desert all the way, but except for a few places, the terrain in most places is actually fairly flat and does not need to be built. Too many tunnels... The difficulty is how to transport a large amount of construction materials from the rear to the Gobi Desert at the front-line construction site... But, this may be difficult for other types of projects, but it is not for railway construction itself What is it... because the construction materials in the rear can be transported all the way forward through the already built railway.

This railway is being built while transporting materials.

For the current Great Chu Empire, the most troublesome thing about building a railway is encountering mountains... This means that a large number of tunnels need to be built.

There is also the fear of encountering big rivers... ordinary small rivers are fine, and the construction of small and medium-sized railway bridges is not a big problem for the engineering technology of the Great Chu Empire. bridge.

This is very difficult!

The Yellow River cross-river railway bridge in Zhengzhou has tormented the bridge design and construction-related institutions and enterprises in the Great Chu Empire, and the cost is extremely huge.

However, the Yellow River Cross-River Bridge in Zhengzhou did not take into account the navigation needs of large-tonnage ships... After all, the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River itself does not have the ability to navigate large-tonnage ships.

However, if it is a river with navigation needs of large-tonnage ships, then the construction of bridges will be more troublesome, because the bridges to be built need to ensure the clear height of navigation, which is very difficult for the current Great Chu Empire.

This is why until now, the Great Chu Empire has still not built bridges in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River... In fact, simply building a bridge across the Yangtze River, then a bridge spanning several thousand meters can also be built, but this kind of porous There is no way for bridges to ensure navigation needs!
If you want to build those single-hole long-span bridges with a clear height of tens of meters, this is not something that the current Great Chu Empire can handle.

Not to mention the important trunk waterway in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, even the tributary of the Huangpu River has no bridges in the middle and lower reaches...

There is only one reason. After the bridge is built, this large-tonnage merchant ship will not be able to pass!
Therefore, before the major technological breakthroughs in the bridge technology of the Great Chu Empire, it is basically impossible to have any bridges across the river on any river that undertakes major shipping.

This is why many railway lines do not have cross-river railway bridges, but need to take boat barges.

Tunnels and bridges are the two main problems in railway construction at present, and the solution of the Great Chu Empire Railway Corporation is to detour as much as it can. Bridge up.

The Baolan Railway is a section that cannot be bypassed!
When the Baolan Railway was built westward from Baoji, the Great Chu Empire was also preparing for the subsequent construction of the Northwest Railway and the further development of the Northwest Region.

The core of which is to continue to organize large-scale immigration to Gansu and Turpan provinces for reclamation, further increase the number of local Han people, increase the actual control of the Great Chu Empire over the local area, and also develop some local specialties, such as cotton.

The textile industry of the Great Chu Empire discovered that the geographical climate in Turpan was very suitable for the cultivation of high-quality long-staple cotton, and the quality of the grown cotton was no less than that of Egyptian cotton imported from Egypt.

At present, many people are planting cotton in Turpan Province, but it is very difficult to transport the cotton grown locally.

At present, it can only be transported by traditional horse-drawn carriage, all the way from Turpan to Lanzhou, and then transported to the hinterland of the Central Plains through the Yellow River to supply local enterprises to process and sell high-quality cotton products.

The entire transportation route is long and the cost is extremely high...that is, the quality of the locally produced long-staple cotton is high, and even if the freight is expensive, some people will pay for it. After all, if you import long-staple cotton from Egypt, the freight is also very expensive.

However, if the Northwest Railway is opened, the long-staple cotton in the Turpan area can be transported all the way to economically developed areas such as the hinterland of the Central Plains and even the Yangtze River Delta. The economic stimulus is huge.

Therefore, even though the construction of the Baolan section of the Northwest Railway is currently underway, it is still far from opening to traffic, but the local government offices and some enterprises have begun to make long-term plans.

Suqin Textile Company, the largest textile company in China, has started to set up a subsidiary in Turpan Province. Apart from supplying wool spinning to the local area, this subsidiary also has a major task to open up cotton fields in the local area.

The idea of ​​Su Qin Textile Company is very simple. Once the Northwest Railway is opened, they will be able to continuously obtain a large amount of cheap and high-quality long-staple cotton, which is very important for the future development of Su Qin Textile Company.

After all, for a textile company, nothing is more important than ensuring the supply of high-quality raw materials.

As for the imported Egyptian cotton... that thing is their own, and there are many uncertain factors. Unexpected factors such as wars and storms can lead to the cessation of the import of Egyptian long-staple cotton.

Suqin Textile Co., Ltd. began to deploy ahead of schedule in Turpan in the northwest, and other textile companies did not fall behind. The advanced investment layout of these enterprises also brought new economic vitality to Turpan and drove local economic development.

The local economic development, coupled with the long-term continuous support from Jinling, has also led to rapid growth in the population and economic scale of Turpan Province.

Not only has the grain output increased significantly, but the production capacity of the Yining Arsenal has also increased significantly.

And Turpan Province, to a certain extent, is the supply base of the frontline army. The food and military production capacity in the rear has increased, and the logistics supplies of the first army on the frontline will also be able to come up.

Even if it is still impossible for the First Army to fight a large-scale battle for a long time, it can barely fight a medium-scale battle.

In addition, the Kazakh Khanate fell into internal turmoil following the death of Yang Jier Khan.

The top leaders of the Great Chu Empire believed that the time was ripe to attack the Kazakh Khanate.

(End of this chapter)