Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 912 The Travel of Money ([-])

Another carload of new immigrants arrived at the railway construction site more than [-] kilometers east of Yuexi Township.

Under the urging of the student cadres, the newly arrived immigrants got out of the car one after another, carrying tools and bags, and then formed four crooked lines and headed for the construction site.Together with immigrants from Ninghai County, Taizhou Prefecture, who walked from the direction of Yuexi Township, they will contribute to the completion of the fourth phase of the Northwest Railway as scheduled.

Of course, these immigrants are now reserve employees of the State Administration of Railways. They only need to learn the standard language of the East Coast and pass a short inspection period before they can obtain East Coast nationality and be promoted to full-time employees of the State Railway Administration.It can be seen that it is much easier for them to naturalize than European males (white men already account for 10% of the population on the East Coast), which is already a huge advantage in itself, enough to make it easier for them to improve their social class than those white men.

By the way, the address of Yuexi Township is located near the later Vera village (Vera). Most of the immigrants are from Ninghai County, so it is named this.There are only a few brick and tile buildings in this settlement, and most of them are still temporary huts for the settlers. Only a few of the settlers are leveling the land and preparing to plant some vegetables in the autumn, so that they can wait until the spring of next year But most of the settlers other than them were temporarily recruited by the Wujiang District Administrative Office to the railway construction site in the east, planning to build the railway to Yuexi Township first, so that It will be much more convenient to do anything.

After delivering the new arrivals and unloading supplies, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a steam locomotive came from the direction of Tieling County, and then pulled the empty train back.And after this train returned, on the morning of the next day (March 3), another group of people came by horse-drawn carriage from Yuexi Township. The leader was Peng Zhicheng, a retired executive member and National Railway Superintendent.

Peng Zhicheng, who was over 50 years old, rode a steed horse and rushed to the side of the construction site first, followed by four or five followers. Seeing how they grinned, these people who usually sit in offices When it comes to riding skills and physical strength, the white shirts are even inferior to Peng Zhicheng.

"Mr. Doria, this is the railway we are building." Peng Zhicheng said with a smile while holding the horse's head in one hand and pointing to the Northwest Railway stretching to the horizon with the other hand.As his words fell, the secretary immediately translated them into Spanish.

"I saw it." Mario Doria got out of the carriage and said with a pale face.They disembarked at Daxing Port, and then took a carriage to the Northwest Railway construction site deep inland.It is obvious that this journey does not seem to be very comfortable, and the bumpy journey makes Mario tortured and sick.

"It's a very magical road. I've never seen it in the old continent." Mario endured a little discomfort, walked to the railroad track that had been laid, bent down and touched it with his hands, and then took a closer look at the structure of the railroad. Finally, I sighed sincerely: "The roads are all made of high-quality steel, what a luxury! It seems that I can suggest that St. George's Trading Company order more steel bars from the east coast in the future, because it seems that you produce Steel is extremely powerful."

The rails required for the fourth phase of the Northwest Railway are all produced by backbone enterprises such as Tieling Special Steel and Western Forging, and then transported to the construction site by train, and the railway is laid section by section. The ultimate goal is to open up the entire inland area and extend To the bank of the Wujiang River to obtain the seaport.

"But I don't think the old continent needs much of the steel bars we produce. The future of this kind of business is very limited." Peng Zhicheng got off his horse, walked up to Mario, and said, "Mr. Doria, I think what you need is more Large-scale projects with investment prospects, please pay attention to the word 'large' I said, only projects with an investment amount of more than 3000 million lire are worth the excess capital inflow of your country."

"3000 million lire is not a small number, especially when I haven't seen the legendary train." Mario shook his head and said, "I can't be convinced by some numbers and words."

"You will have a chance to take the train this afternoon." Peng Zhicheng said solemnly.To be honest, according to his original intention, he did not agree to let the Genoese take the train, because this kind of strategic level thing is too sensitive, and it is a very dangerous thing to rashly let foreigners take the train.It’s just that the civil servant group with the Government Council as its headquarters is very enthusiastic about this. They are very concerned about persuading the Genoese to invest, so the lower limit is also lower. Regarding whether to allow Genoese to take the train, they agreed after only a short discussion , which annoyed Peng Zhicheng, an old military leader.

It’s just that the reasons given by the civil servants are also very good, that is, things like railways have actually been circulated in a small range of European circles, and there are many foreigners who have been aware of this new type of transportation consciously or unconsciously—of course, most of them are far away. I have seen it from afar, after all, it is relatively simple to observe the trains entering the Luocha Railway Station from the sea-plus the information obtained by some hidden spies, I am afraid that such things as trains have long been known to some "careful people".

Civil officials also pointed out that there is no possibility of trains appearing in Europe in a short period of time because of the lack of necessary industrial and technological foundations.First of all, they lack a large amount of high-quality steel, secondly they lack processing and manufacturing technology, and then they lack railway design and construction technology. Of course, the most important thing is that they cannot produce even the most primitive steam locomotives - this is strictly kept secret by the East Coast government Core Technology.Based on this judgment, the civil servants think that there is nothing wrong with inviting Genoese VIPs to take a train to strengthen their investment determination.

In this way, this afternoon, Mario and his entourage will take a train to pull construction materials to the construction site and arrive at Xiayihe County through Tieling County, thoroughly feeling the advent of the railway era.Although Peng Zhicheng and the others were very dissatisfied with the decision of the Government Affairs Council, after many considerations, they finally accepted it holding their noses.Of course, they didn't give in completely. These guys tried their best to cover most of the front of the train with things, so as not to be seen through by outsiders. Although this seems to have limited effect, it is better than nothing.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, with a long whistle, the train that had just unloaded supplies began to start slowly, preparing to return to Tieling Railway Station to add coal and water. In the passenger compartment of this train, Mario, Peng Zhicheng and others were carrying Sitting upright in it, with the rhythmic shaking of the car body, it moved forward at a speed of 36 kilometers per hour.

The expressions of Mario and others can be said to be as surprised as they want at this time. They seem to be unable to believe that everything in the rumors is true. The means of transportation——I believe that if the timing is not right, they will definitely break into the front locomotive to see what happened.

It was already night when the train arrived at the train station in Xiayihe Town, but Mario Doria and the others were still extremely excited. They seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the train as a means of transportation.In fact, Mario was no longer reserved, and expressed his willingness to invest in the East Coast Railway many times in his words. The premise is that the transportation task of the planned Southwest Railway is as busy as that of the Northwest Railway. After all, only such a high-investment railway will Possibility of cost recovery.Therefore, he is now eager to go to the Southwest Railway to see how it is developing.

The situation along the Southwest Railway naturally disappointed the people of Genoa. The small number of settlements, the endless farms and the sparse population are enough to describe the current situation here. This made Mario, who had been wandering around for several days, hesitate. He worried that if the development of the people on the east coast did not keep up, the profit prospects of the Southwest Railway would also be cast a shadow.Out of such concerns, Mario said that if Genoese capital is to invest heavily in the Southwest Railway of the East Coast Republic, then an item must be added to the agreement, that is, within three years after the railway is officially opened to traffic, the Genoese have the right to The price of 6000 million bank lire is to sell the entire railway with interest to the people on the east coast, otherwise they will not invest because the uncertainty is too great.

The Government Council expressed understanding for the concerns of the Genoese, and they also sent a commissioner to explain to Mario the plan of the people on the east coast, that is, they will arrange dense settlements along the railway line to make full use of the dividends brought by the railway to develop the inland area , Southwest Railway's profit prospects will be very good.But Mario obviously wouldn't be fooled by the people on the east coast. He insisted on including the clause that the east bank repurchased the Southwest Railway into the agreement, otherwise they would definitely not invest in the Southwest Railway.

After going back and forth for a few days, on March 3, the Executive Committee finally agreed to the conditions proposed by the Genoese, and then the two parties sent representatives to sit together and formally launched more than a dozen projects, including the Southwest Railway. joint venture negotiations.But there is no doubt that the brilliance of other projects is completely overshadowed by the Southwest Railway. This super project with a total investment of between 28 and 4000 million bank lire is likely to be recruited by the Genoese in the old continent. Then they went to the east bank to build the railway, and at the same time they also had to be responsible for the wages, clothing and food of the laborers, which was equivalent to "bringing their own dry food" to repair the railway-it was not comparable to the "small project" of 10,000+ and hundreds of thousands of lire.

The negotiation finally lasted for about a month. On April 4, the day before the opening of the Qingdao Autumn Commodities Fair, the two parties finally reached a preliminary agreement, and the Genoese also sincerely went eastward through the Qingdao branch of the Bank of La Plata. An intentional deposit of 30 million lire was transferred to Anren's account as an initial investment for some projects.As for the much-watched Southwest Railway project, Mario said that he still needs to return to Europe to negotiate with various families. At the same time, mobilizing such a huge amount of funds will not be completed in a short while, so he estimates that the most optimistic situation is before the end of this year. Conduct a second round of consultations with people from the East Coast.

(End of this chapter)