Under Chongzhen's proposition, Shanxi businessmen raised funds to establish Shanxi Bank to issue public bonds, and planned to build the north-south main line of Shanxi Railway, that is, from Datong in Shanxi Province in the north to Puzhou in the south through Taiyuan City, and finally arrived at Fenglingdu by the Yellow River, which was also called Tongpu Railway.

The construction of the railway was planned for June last year, but the topographic survey of the entire railway route began in April last year. The two surveying teams took Taiyuan as the starting point, one south and one north, each responsible for a section. After a year, the route in the relatively flat Taiyuan-Puzhou area has almost been completed, but the survey work of the Taiyuan-Datong section is lagging behind due to the undulating mountains and the terrain changes greatly.

Taiyuan, Jinzhong, Pingyao, Jiexiu, Linfen, Houma, Pingyang, Puzhou, Fenglingdu, is the area through which the railway line south of Taiyuan passes, and the whole route is about 513 kilometers long, which is much longer than the northern railway planned to be built between Taiyuan and Datong.

However, the southern line is located in the three basins of Yuncheng, Linfen and Taiyuan, except for the adjacent areas of the three basins, because of the influence of Zhongtiao Mountain, Taiyue Mountain and Luliang Mountain, the construction is more difficult, and the other areas are the same as the construction on the North China Plain, and there is no obstacle.

Since the start of construction of the Nam Dong Pu railway in October last year, the first railway line to be completed is the section from Fenglingdu to Wenxi County in Binh Duong Province, with a total of 136 kilometers.

Before the completion of this section of the railway, whether it was the Shanxi gentry or the local officials in Shanxi who supervised the railway, they all thought that the construction of this railway was of little significance to Shanxi, and it was purely because the imperial court set up such a costly road construction project in order to give those Shaanxi disaster victims a mouthful of food.

Although these gentry officials in Shanxi were dissatisfied with this, they did not dare to hinder the preparation for the construction of this railway. The Hedong region of Shanxi, which is separated from Shaanxi by a river, is the easiest place for Shaanxi disaster victims to flee the famine, and tens of thousands of people have poured in.

Even some local gentry officials set up porridge shops to appease the emotions of these victims so that they would not take risks and become bandits. However, for the number of victims in Shaanxi who have fled in the future, this bit of local goodwill is like using a scoop of water to save a mountain fire, which basically has no effect.

Moreover, these victims are all from Shaanxi, and they have neither fields to grow nor a way to support themselves in Shanxi, except for a few who can be taken into slavery by the local gentry in Shanxi, and most of them are just surviving. If it weren't for the Shanxi railway construction plan planned by the imperial court, the officials and gentry in Shanxi would not know how to deal with these victims who came to Shanxi to escape the famine.

The construction of a railroad alone, and the expansion of factories that provide rails, gravel, sleepers, and other raw materials for the construction of railways, have absorbed more than 100,000 young and strong laborers, and indirectly fed more than 100,000 families, so that most of the Shaanxi disaster victims who fled to Shanxi have found a job to support themselves and their families.

For Hong Chengchou, who took over as governor of Shanxi, the construction of the railway also relieved him of a lot of pressure to help the victims. Although he was known for his talent and knowledge, he also had good insights on civil affairs and military armament.

When he first took over as governor of Shanxi, he did not intend to ignore the disaster situation in Shaanxi and turn away these victims because Shaanxi and Shanxi belonged to different places. Because he knows very well that there is only a Yellow River between Shaanxi and Shanxi, thousands of miles along the river, and it is not possible to prevent these Shaanxi victims from entering the country by dividing troops to guard them.

And once the people in Shaanxi are unstoppable, the chaotic people who are engulfed by the disaster will definitely try to rush into Shanxi to eat, and then the most fertile Hedong region in Shanxi will inevitably be destroyed.

Therefore, in the order issued by the imperial court to help the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi, some of the victims were relocated to Sichuan, Henan, and Shanxi for food, and various projects were planned to be built in lieu of work. He still agrees, but he also has a different opinion on the imperial court's appointment of Yang He to appease the thieves in Shaanxi in an attempt to stabilize the place.

In Hong Chengchou's view, the boundary between the victims and the thieves is actually very clear, and those who can wait for the court's relief after the disaster and dare not break the law are the victims. And those who try to coerce the victims to attack the local big households in order to seize food and property to save themselves are the thieves.

Although the number of victims of the disaster is huge, as long as there are no thieves in the middle to call for the organization, then the imperial court only needs to send a few small officials to pacify the command. But once a thief lives in it, then a little spark splatters on a pile of dry wood, and it cannot be extinguished until it is burned.

The thieves are like a plague, once the victims are coerced by the thieves to open a few manors or a certain county town, then these victims quickly lose their reverence for the imperial court. Just like the wild dogs roaming the wild in the wilderness all over Shaanxi, these domestic dogs who usually guard their homes and yards, once they have tasted the taste of human flesh, it is no longer possible for them to become loyal companions of humans.

Therefore, Hong Chengchou thought that the imperial court should give relief to the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi, but for those thieves who had raised the banner to rebel, they should be exterminated. With the current economic capacity of the imperial court, it is impossible to help the affected people in Shaanxi, so exterminating those thieves can not only greatly deter the affected people, but also reduce the objects of the imperial court's relief.

What's more, the exile army who was only willing to be appeased by the strong round-up of the officials and troops, and then dispersed and resettled them among the disaster victims in various parts of Shaanxi, didn't it give these thieves a chance to make a comeback. Once there was a shortage of relief food sent by the imperial court to Shaanxi, it was the beginning of the chaos of the victims in Shaanxi.

Hong Chengchou wrote his worries into a letter, hoping to attract the attention of the ruling ministers of the imperial court and the emperor. Although the imperial court did not fully accept his proposal, it still made some changes in the policy of appeasement.

For example, the most appealing middle and high-level leaders of the exile army were transferred, and the exiled army was organized into a border reclamation regiment, which was sent out of Shaanxi and isolated from the areas where the disaster victims gathered.

Although the response of the imperial court was different from what he envisioned, it could be regarded as a great alleviation of the hidden danger of chaos in Shaanxi again. But what surprised the governor of Shanxi the most was the return on the small section of the railway that had just been built.

Although the topography of Shanxi is not very favorable for the construction of a railway, it is an extremely easy place to obtain various raw materials for the construction of a railway.

For example, the Nakajo Mountains, which run parallel to the railway line, are rich in coal, iron, forests and gravel. Of course, the most valuable mineral deposit in Zhongtiao Mountain is the copper mine that has been mined since the spring and autumn periods. It's just that in the past, it was inconvenient to mine and transport, so it has not been able to expand the scale.

After the completion of this railway, in addition to the minerals of Zhongtiao Mountain can be developed, the most important thing is that the Hedong salt pond through which the railway passes can be more convenient to transport salt.

From the very beginning, the 136-kilometer railway was built with a double line, with three horse stations and eight drinking stations according to one drinking station every 15 li and one horse changing station every 60 li. 120 tons of cargo or 240 people can be transported at a time, but it is only a 2-day trip.

With the current frequency of four trains per day, the railway has transported nearly 27,000 tons of goods and more than 7,700 passengers since its trial operation for more than a month.

Before the construction of the railway, it took seven days to transport goods from Fenglingdu to Wenxi in ox carts, and each caravan rarely carried more than 30 tons of goods.

Less than a month after the completion of the construction of this section of the railway, the traditional transportation leg from Fenglingdu to Wenxi County was eliminated with fast speed and low freight rates.

The travel between Fenglingdu and Wenxi has also become safe and reliable. In this era, even in the years known as the peaceful and prosperous era, there are inevitably bandits and bandits. Mountain bandits and horse thieves in the north, and water bandits and pirates in the south, all threaten the safety of outsiders.

For a place like Shanxi, where mountains are crisscrossed, coupled with the spread of disaster victims in Shaanxi, if there is no existence of bandits and bandits, it is incredible.

However, the advent of railways has made it possible for idle pedestrians who go out to run errands to go on the road in groups, which objectively reduces the possibility of a single pedestrian being robbed by thieves. The road protection team established to maintain the safety of the railway not only ensures the local security near the station, but also can move quickly along the railway line to crack down on bandits and road bandits along the railway line.

Originally, Hong Chengchou was still worried about how to resettle these young people who built the road after the construction of this railway was completed. But the completion of this small section of the railway has quickly stimulated the local merchant gentry.

Although the rumors of the great benefits of the construction of the railway in the capital have repeatedly sounded in the ears of these local gentry and merchants, everyone has always maintained a half-believing attitude. Even if the Bank of Shanxi expanded its shares, it was these businessmen who took a fancy to the lucrative benefits brought by the rise in gold after the promulgation of the gold bill.

But when the benefits brought by this small section of the railway were placed in front of the Shanxi merchants and gentry, what they wanted now was to open up the railway line from Wenxi to Datong as soon as possible.

From the Yangtze River into the Han River, from Xiangyang to Luoyang, from Luoyang to Sanmenxia, from Sanmenxia to Fenglingdu, and then through the hinterland of Shanxi to Datong, this is the southern tea, porcelain, silk and other goods to the north. The most difficult journey on this road is the land route from Luoyang to Datong.

However, now, with this Tongpu railway, it can not only greatly increase the capacity of transporting goods, but also reduce the transportation cost and loss of goods. Not to mention, some people have set their sights on the depths from Datong to Fengzhen and even the Mongolian steppe.

With the emergence of this new mode of land transportation, whether it is the export of Ming goods to the grassland, or the trafficking of grassland specialties back to the mainland, it will cause a earth-shaking change.

Compared with Hong Chengchou's suppression of local grain merchants, his positive attitude towards railway supervision business has won the support of more Shanxi wealthy merchants and gentry. On the one hand, they hoped to complete the planned construction of the Shanxi Railway as soon as possible, and on the other hand, they greedily wanted to seize the right to build railways in other provinces that were connected to the Tongpu Railway.