After leaving the venue of Jiale Palace, Chongzhen stopped and instructed Wang Chengen beside him: "Call Shen Tingyang and Zhang Yixian over, I have something to ask them." ”

When Shen Tingyang was taken to the Qianqing Palace by his chamberlain, he still had some confusion in his heart, and he didn't know how to explain to the emperor that he had nothing to do with the demands made by these merchants today.

Although Shen Tingyang was born into a maritime merchant family and had sympathy for these merchants, it did not mean that he would agree that these merchants were qualified to make demands to the imperial court. In his opinion, no matter how unreasonable the current policy of the imperial court is, it is also something that scholars and doctors should worry about, not something that a few businessmen can intervene.

However, when he entered the study, he happened to see a middle-aged eunuch reporting something to Chongzhen, and he suddenly stopped, not knowing whether to continue to step forward.

When he hesitated, Zhu Youzhen glanced at him, then beckoned to him and said, "Shen Qing also come and sit down, you can also listen by the way, and I will talk to you later." ”

Shen Tingyang hurriedly stepped forward to salute, and then sat down on a brocade stool placed by an attendant. When he sat down, he listened a little and found that the middle-aged eunuch's report was not something else, but something related to Cao Yun, which made him interested and began to listen attentively.

Zhang Yixian, who was standing in front of the emperor's case, took a bound booklet and carefully reported to the emperor that he had studied the efficiency of various means of transportation in the Ming Dynasty in the past six months.

“… The distance between the east and west of my Ming Dynasty is 5 or 6 thousand miles, and the distance between north and south is nearly 10,000 miles. There are few plains and many mountains, the south is more mountainous and the north is more plain. According to His Majesty's order, the ministers and others conducted a study of a number of transportation routes such as Beijing-Zhangjiakou-Datong-Fengzhen, Beijing-Shanxi-Shaanxi, Beijing-Tianjin-Shanghai, etc.

Broadly speaking, there are three modes of transportation within the Ming Dynasty. It is said to be land transportation, river transportation, and sea transportation. In recent months, there has been an additional rail transport. Land transportation in the plain area, ox carts are the strongest, as long as they are on well-maintained official roads, each cart can carry a thousand catties of weight, followed by donkeys, mules, and horse-drawn carts.

Mountain transport can only be carried by livestock, of which camels are the most, each camel can carry 400 catties of goods, and horses can only carry 160 catties.

Taking the caravan from Zhangjiakou to Mongolia as an example, it uses ox carts, each weighing 500 catties, and the daily journey is about 70 miles; With camels, each camel carries 400 catties of goods, and the daily journey is about 8 or 90 miles; If it is a horse team, each horse carries 160 pounds, and the daily journey is about 100 miles.

In the case of water transport, where inland rivers and canals are transported, smaller vessels can carry the standard weight of the new weights and measures of 3-5 tons, and larger ships can reach the standard of about 150 tons.

If it is changed to sea transportation, the ship is small at 5 or 60 tons, and more than 100 tons is the normal standard. As for how many of the largest sea ships can carry, such as the ships of Macao, they are all more than 600 tons, and large ships of more than 1,000 tons can also be seen occasionally.

As for the railways developed last year, although their carrying capacity is lower than that of river transport, it is much more than the land transport of the past. In addition, the amount of animal power required is much lower than that of other land transportation methods.

According to the analysis of the transportation costs of thousands of caravans, the ministers can basically determine how much the cost of transporting goods in our Ming Dynasty is.

The ministers divided all goods into two categories, called heavy goods and light goods. Heavy cargo is iron, copper, coal, wood and other solid goods, such goods are small in size and heavy in weight, but because the price itself is not high, so the freight is relatively low. The other category is light goods such as cotton, silk, and tea, which are small in weight and large in size, and high in value, so the freight is more expensive.

In the case of heavy cargo, for example, one ton of cargo is transported per kilometer on land, 7 points for mountainous land and 55 points for flat land. If you are on a gravel road built near Gyeonggi last year or a concrete road in Gyeongseong, it will be about 35 points.

In the case of light cargo, whether it is mountainous or plain, it is unified at 65 cents per ton per kilometer. If you are walking on a concrete or gravel road, it is 45 points.

As for the mode of transportation by inland waterway vessels, the difference in freight rates between different places is somewhat large, and in particular, it is even more difficult to unify the transportation costs between the canal and the Yangtze River.

However, after removing the specimens of grain transportation, the ministers roughly believed that the cost of transporting one kilometer per ton of heavy cargo was about 07 cents, and that the cost of transporting light goods per ton was about 1 cent. As for the cost of transporting grain, the ministers and others believed that there were too many people in charge of it, and it was really impossible to calculate the real cost of freight.

As for the cost of sea freight, it is even cheaper. The distance at sea is difficult to measure, so the ministers borrowed the section used by the navy to measure the speed of ships, saving one nautical mile, which is about 18 kilometers.

Therefore, the transportation cost per ton per nautical mile for heavy cargo is 03 cents, and for light cargo it is about 045 cents. As for railway transportation, it is 15 cents per ton per kilometer for heavy cargo and 2 cents per kilometer for light cargo.

According to the above cost analysis, the ministers and others believe that in order to save the transportation cost in the Ming Dynasty, the coastal areas should try to use the way of shipping. However, the high cost of digging canals, the difficulty of water storage, the easy competition for water resources with agricultural irrigation, and the suspension of navigation during ice and dry periods, are not as good as railway transportation.

Although the transportation cost of the railway is higher than that of river transportation, the good thing is that the rails are easy to lay and can be transported all year round, which greatly improves the efficiency of transportation. The only inconvenience was that the railroad had to be laid on flat ground, so it was good for the north and not good for the south.

Although the south of the Yangtze River is flat, there are many rivers, and bridges need to be built to pave them, and the cost is almost 2-3 times that of the north. Therefore, if we want to vigorously develop the construction of railways, it is necessary to improve the technology of railways, for example, to develop the power of the machines that His Majesty said will replace the current horse-drawn carriages with the power of coal-burning machines..."

Zhu Youzhen raised his hand to stop Zhang Yixian from touting himself, and after he signaled that Zhang Yixian could temporarily retreat, he turned his head to Shen Tingyang and said: "Shen Qing can probably understand that the transportation cost in the Ming Dynasty is the most economical for water transportation, sea transportation and railway.

But now each mode of transport has its limitations and can only function in a specific area, such as railways in the northern plains, sea transport depends on coastal ports, and water transport is mainly in canals and natural rivers in the south.

Since last year, I have also ordered the Ministry of Households to investigate the waste in the preservation and transportation of grain in the Ming Dynasty. In the end, it was found that about 30-40% of the grain was damaged while it was in transit or waiting for transportation.

Every year, the grain transported from the south to the north by my Ming Dynasty is no less than 16 million stones, which means that at least 500-6 million stones of grain are rotted in vain. While this large amount of food is wasted, there is a dilemma of food shortage in the north, which is really a headache. ”

The emperor's words immediately aroused Shen Tingyang's resonance. The so-called white grain is just refined white rice milled in Jiangnan, because it is difficult to preserve during transportation, resulting in the endowment of white grain becoming the heavy endowment that everyone in Jiangnan talks about.

Regardless of the taste, husked rice can be kept for 2-3 years, but refined white rice is only about 1 year. Similarly, wheat with husk can be stored for 5-6 years, but after grinding into flour, it is about 3 months, which is why there are more wheat rice in the north of the Ming Dynasty now, and less flour is eaten.

Because grinding dough is a relatively expensive process, unless a water-powered or wind-powered machine mill is used. Except in large cities such as Beijing, because there is a fixed population that consumes flour, there are such mills nearby, providing cheaper flour for city dwellers.

In the general countryside, because of the inconvenient transportation, except for the landlord class, who have more surplus grain, most of the people mainly eat coarse wheat rice. The disconnection between the processing and maintenance of grain and transportation made refined white rice and white flour a delicacy that only a few nobles could enjoy.

And because the shelf life of polished white rice is too short, the transportation cost has begun to skyrocket. The officials along the way and the officials in charge of the sluice gates all knew that as long as they delayed for a while, they might make these farmers who transported the white grain bankrupt, and there was no reason not to take the opportunity to extort money.

If the emperor can follow what the emperor said, open up the transportation mode in the Ming Dynasty, not only can the disadvantages of Cao Yun be avoided, but also a lot of benefits can be obtained from it, which is obviously very beneficial to the Ming Dynasty.

Shen Tingyang subconsciously agreed with the emperor and said: "What Your Majesty said is that now it will cost at least seven or eight stones to transport one stone of grain to Beijing, which is at least three times more than at the beginning of the country.

Chen also did a test last year, and a stone of refined white rice was transported from Yizhen to Tongzhou, and the shipping cost was about 35 taels. But from Shanghai to Tianjin, a stone of fine white rice is not even 02 taels. The difference in shipping between the two is more than 15 times, which is really staggering..."

Zhu Youzhen nodded, and then said to him: "Therefore, after careful discussion with several ministers, I decided to comprehensively improve and reform the current transportation network of the Ming Dynasty and establish a more optimized material transportation network.

In the north, railways are the mainstay, supplemented by highways; In the south, the Yangtze River and Pearl River waterways are the mainstays, supplemented by highways; Between the north and the south, the coastal provinces use ports and wharves as transportation hubs, and inland provinces use railways and highways as the main transportation arteries.

In this way, the original Ming Dynasty's north-south traffic only relied on a Grand Canal will be eliminated. Without the pressure of Cao Yun, the imperial court was able to control the canal, the Yellow River, and the Huai River, and relieve the situation of the people near the canal who had water but could not irrigate their farmland.

Therefore, vigorously developing the maritime transportation industry is the primary task of the Ming Dynasty. I don't think the demands made by the representatives of the Southeast Maritime Merchants today are rude demands.

The imperial court's fees had to be reasonable, and these merchants dared to invest in the construction of large ships to reduce the cost of shipping. Otherwise, they would not dare to make a long-term investment in the nautical business, which would not be beneficial to the imperial court.

The reason why I want to come to you is to ask, has the shipbuilding standard between Longjiang Shipyard and Tianjin Shipyard been determined? How much do you think should be charged for this bow tax? ”