War will change the fate of many people, when the war machine of the Ming Dynasty began to operate, thousands of factories and workshops in the rear began to be busy, and a steady stream of military supplies from various places in the Ming Dynasty were transported to the central capital by waterway, and then loaded into a train from the central capital to Luoyang, and finally sent to the front line of Tongguan by horse-drawn carriage.

And beside the official road leading from Luoyang to Tongguan, thousands of sappers and road builders are working overtime there to build the railway day and night, the construction of this railway, not only from Luoyang to Tongguan, from Xi'an is also being built in the east and west directions, and even the land is directly requisitioned by the army, regardless of whether the landlord agrees or not, as long as it is necessary, a notice of requisition, the land will be directly expropriated.

For this kind of "arrogance" of the army, those people who are accustomed to the slavery of the Manchu Qing Dynasty often accept their fate, even in the face of the relocation of graves, even if they are unwilling, in the end they only reluctantly choose to agree, and no one is willing to resist the army's guns. Perhaps, under the enslavement of the Manchus, these people have been tamed, at least to some extent.

"Hey, although it's just a river away, Shaanxi and Shanxi are really different!"

Sitting at the tea stall on the side of the road, looking at the busy railway construction site not far away, Qi Ziying said with a sigh.

"You see, it was a notice posted on the wall, and the people gave up their ancestral homes and ancestral graves, and they didn't dare to ask about anything else."

As soon as his words fell, Qi Zitao said with a smile.

"Big brother, that's because they are afraid, just like we were afraid of the Manchus in the past, this place has just been recovered, and they are naturally extremely afraid of the government, besides, this is the army that expropriates land. They are already grateful to God that they have not been harmed, how can they provoke the army? ”

After revealing the key in one sentence, Qi Zitao looked at the eldest brother and said.

"It is now simple to requisition land and build roads in Shaanxi, but in Beizhili land acquisition, I am afraid it is not so easy, and now, the Yellow River in Beizhili has returned to its old way, and the waterway along the Yellow River can almost reach Tianjin, there is a waterway across Beizhili, if the railway is built along the river, I am afraid that in the future it will have to compete with the waterway for the source of goods, so, it is not a good thing!"

Compared with his eldest brother, Qi Ziying, who graduated from Qinghe Academy, always has some understanding of geography, which is why he does not approve of the construction of a railway in Beizhili.

"Big brother, what is the key to building a railway, if you want to make money?"

Looking at the thoughtful eldest brother, Qi Zitao asked rhetorically.

"Shipping!"

Qi Ziying nodded and motioned for the younger brother to continue.

"First of all, there must be a source of goods, with a source of goods, the railway can be transported, if there is no goods to transport, or there are few goods, naturally there will be no silver, but if the railway is close to the river, then the first choice of the merchant must be the river, because the river transport is cheaper."

"But for a long time."

Qi Ziying said directly.

"Most goods, they don't care about time at all. Those who care about time only have those few goods, and they will definitely not make money from those few goods. ”

Pointing to the railway construction site in the distance, Qi Zitao said.

"Big brother, believe it or not, in the future, this railway will definitely be one of the most profitable railways in the Ming Dynasty!"

Looking at the confident brother, Qi Ziying asked with a smile.

"Why?"

"Because there is no river transport!"

Qi Zitao pointed to Tongguan in the distance and continued.

When I look at the history of the Tang Dynasty, there is often a sentence in it, called "eat Luoyang", which says that Chang'an's food is not enough, and the emperor of the Tang Dynasty will take the imperial court to Luoyang with hundreds of thousands of civil and military officials, what are you going to do? went to eat, and even ministers starved to death on the road, why did they go to Luoyang? Because the grain in the pass is not enough to eat, and the grain in the field can only be transported to Luoyang through Cao Yun, and then it is stuck in Tongguan, and then transported inside, only cars and horses can be used, the cost is too high, not cost-effective, so there is "eat Luoyang". ”

This is indeed the case, so there is a saying that Chang'an is not enough to sustain the world, and the fundamental reason is that the Sui and Tang dynasties went to Luoyang to "eat" the grain emperor. ”

Qi Ziying nodded and said. Of course, he knew that Chang'an's grain mainly depended on the Guanzhong Plain, although the Guanzhong Plain was known as a rich land, but after all, it was small and had a limited capacity, and once the population swelled beyond its carrying capacity, or there would be a food shortage in the event of a drought. This kind of food shortage occurred as far back as when Qin was not unified.

In the Sui and Tang dynasties, due to the wars of the past dynasties and the development of the capital, the resources had been exhausted, and the output was not enough to supply Chang'an. In addition, the Guanzhong Plain is small and densely populated, and it is difficult to support a large number of bureaucrats and aristocrats. It is precisely because of the emergence of the "Son of Heaven" that Chang'an, the ancient capital since the Qin and Han dynasties, was finally abandoned after the Tang Dynasty.

"The grain can't be transported in, the root cause is that the cao transport can't enter the customs, and after the Tongguan, there is only land along the way, and there is no water road, so no matter where the railway is paved, it must not worry about the source of goods, so that the profits are naturally considerable."

"And what do you mean?"

Looking at Qi Zitao, Qi Ziying asked.

"Don't you want to charter this railway?"

The reason why Qi Ziying asked this question is because a few months ago, because of the corruption case of the railway company, especially its refusal to steam locomotives, His Majesty was annoyed, and at the same time as the middle and high-level officials of the railway company were punished, the imperial court began to discuss the matter of commercial railways, once it was agreed to run a commercial railway, then it also means that private capital can participate in the construction of the railway, which is why Qi Ziying will come to Shaanxi and come here to inspect the construction of the railway.

After all, they had been involved in railroad construction for a long time, except that at that time, they were contractors for railway construction projects, and now, he wants to build railways directly.

"Hehe, big brother, don't even think about this idea!"

Qi Zitao pointed to the railway construction site and said.

"Big brother, who do you think is there? It's the army, it's the army that is building this railway, I dare to say, unless one day, the Qing Lu is completely solved, otherwise this railway, it is impossible to contract it to the merchants, besides, the Qing Lu has been solved, and the Mongols in Qinghai, as well as Tibet, these places, all of them are far away from the mainland, and none of them need the army to reach thousands of miles away, so that the importance of this railway is naturally far from being comparable to ordinary railways, in this case, not to mention that it is impossible for the imperial court to agree, that is, the imperial court agreed, and the five armies are all governors, It is also impossible to agree to hand over the railroad to the commercial enterprise. ”

Qi Ziying glanced at the soldiers in the distance, then silently picked up the tea bowl, took a sip of tea, and then looked at Qi Zitao and said.

"So in your opinion, if we want to build a railway, from where to there? Can that railroad make more money? ”

Of course, although he is a Jin person, he does not dare to be like the Jin people back then, and even does not hesitate to betray the country for the sake of profit, after all, the liquidation of the Jin merchants by the imperial court, I don't know how many Jin merchants went bankrupt, I don't know how many people were robbed of their homes, and the famous eight families survived, but only a few dozen people, and the family business earned by selling the country for glory was only cheaper than others.

He couldn't do this kind of thing, but it didn't stop him from pursuing profits.

"The railway of Beizhili, not to mention the present, is the next ten years, there is no need to repair, not only because of water transportation, but also because of the limited output of Beizhili, so, there is no need to consider building a railway in Beizhili at the moment, in the north of the Yellow River, the most suitable for building a railway, is our Shanxi, if we build a railway from the south of Datong Road, until Fenglingdu, then, we can use the railway, a steady stream of wool on the grassland, beef and mutton to the interior, this road has no water transport for profit, Naturally, it was the first choice for merchants to transport goods, and in addition, there was also the construction of a direct railway from Hankou Town on the other side of Wuchang to Henan. ”

With his fingers dipped in tea, Qi Zitao talked about the benefits of the railway one by one, and finally his words paused slightly, and he looked at his eldest brother and said.

"The biggest advantage of these two railways is that there is no competition for water transportation, and they will be in the hinterland, so there will be no worries about cargo transportation in the future, so in the opinion of the younger brother, if you want to repair them, you must build these two railways, so as to ensure our interests!"

Looking at the two lines drawn by Qi Zitao on the table, Qi Ziying was silent for a moment, and then asked.

"So which one should we fix first?"

He could see that Qi Zitao must have done his homework seriously, otherwise, he would not have come up with such two routes.

"Southern Front!"

Pointing at the Yellow River, Qi Zitao said.

"The Yellow River, even if we build the railway to the wind, there is no way to repair the railway across the Yellow River, when the time comes, the goods will inevitably need to be transferred from the Yellow River, to the winter, the transportation is subject to the weather, so it will inevitably affect the operation of the railway, so, we should build the south line, Wuchang is the place where the southern goods gather, from Hankou all the way to the north, as long as the Han River is avoided, but where the goods go north, the railway is bound to be the first choice, and the railway can be connected with the Jingluo Railway, to the north can be transported by water, and the east and west can be connected to the railway, so that, This railway is alive, and if you want to build it, you must first build this railway! ”

In the face of Qi Zitao's suggestion, Qi Ziying looked silent, he stared at the lines on the table, he almost immediately thought of those factories in Hunan, Hubei and other places, although many factories have now switched to steam engines, but most of the hydraulic factories in the past were concentrated there, and even the military supplies for the war, there are many from Huguang, with the railway, the goods there are continuously transported to the north, but the problem is that it is not easy to build the railway now, and it was said after a long time.

"You should know that now that the imperial court is under control of the iron factory, and the iron is purchased, if we build the railway, where will the track come from?"

Thinking of the previous will of the imperial court, Qi Ziying's brows tightened slightly. He could see the benefits of building that railway, after all, Huguang was one of the richest areas in the world, and with that railway that crossed the Central Plains, Huguang and the Central Plains could be connected as one, even if he only needed to think about it a little, he could think of the benefits stored in it, but the problem was ...... Where does the iron come from!

"The iron ore under control, the iron field is just domestic."

Staring at the eldest brother, Qi Zitao's gaze was cast into the distance.

"There are other places in the country where there is iron. There is iron ore. ”

"You mean Nanyang?"

Qi Ziying looked at his brother and said.

"Until now, they haven't found any big iron mines, and even now, they have to import a lot of iron from the Celestial Empire, and they don't have enough of their own, so if we want to get iron from there, I'm afraid it's not so easy."

"There are other places besides Nanyang."

Qi Zitao looked at the eldest brother and continued.

"It's so big in the world, it's not just Nanyang!"

The little brother who pretended to be mysterious, Qi Ziying didn't immediately ask, just looked at him, and then said,

"Looks like you've got a plan."

For this little brother of himself. Qi Ziying never looked down on him because of his age. Among the brothers, perhaps his vision is the most long-term one.

Over the past few years, he has made several investments that have been some of the most successful since the bank's inception. For banks. The railroad will become a new investment hotspot and could even help Fidelity become one of the most successful banks in Daming.

"Yes, big brother."

Looking at the eldest brother, Qi Zitao said with a smile.

"Actually, didn't Your Majesty also import iron materials from abroad when he raised troops in Jiangbei?"

As soon as Qi Zitao's words fell, Qi Ziying immediately knew what he was referring to.

"You mean North Korea?"

In those years, when His Majesty raised troops in Jiangbei, in order to cast cannons and make firearms, he did import a large amount of iron ore from North Korea. It can even be said that it is precisely because of the high-quality North Korean iron ore that the combat effectiveness of the Loyal and Righteous Army has been guaranteed.

This period of history is not a secret to the Ming Dynasty. Now that Qi Zitao thinks about it, it is naturally normal to think about it.

It's just that, on the other hand, Qi Ziying also knows that it may not be easy to set up a new iron factory there.

"You have to know that it's North Korea, not Northeast China."

Qi Ziying looked at Qi Zitao and said.

"Even now that the imperial court is there, it's just to buy some iron ore. Those North Koreans don't like us to set up factories there. ”

Unlike the current Ming Dynasty, the Koreans did not value business, and they even had a great dislike for businessmen. The status of North Korean businessmen was low.

As early as a few years ago, they had already rejected the imperial court's request to build an iron factory there. One of the most important reasons is because they are unwilling to speak for themselves. He is even more reluctant to deal with businessmen as officials. So with a little thought, you can imagine how difficult it is.

"I don't like us merchants even more! It's not easy to do this. ”

"It's not that hard to do."

looked at the big brother confidently. Qi Zitao said with a smile.

"It's not easy to put aside this matter in the past, but now this matter can't be easier, after all, the court is ...... Iron is needed too! ”