Wang Yu took a boat on the Xiangjiang River, set off from Yuezhou, and sailed south. www.biquge.info From Hunan to Guangdong, the water transport can only reach Chenzhou. After Wang Yu and his entourage got off the boat in Chenzhou, they rode a horse and walked to Shaozhou on a mountain road, and only when they arrived in Shaozhou did they have a boat to go to Guangzhou. Nanling is the watershed between the Yangtze River basin and the Xiangjiang River basin, and also cuts off the shipping line from Hunan to Guangdong.

Although it is said that water transport can detour through the Lingqu, it is too far to detour from Hunan to Guangdong, so it is necessary to build a convenient passage from Chenzhou to Shaozhou.

"At present, there is an official road here, but the mountain road is difficult to travel, and it is not easy for bulk goods to pass! Therefore, according to the opinion of the lower officials, we still have to build a railway from Chenzhou to Shaozhou. Fang Yizhi pointed to the mountain road and made a suggestion.

Wang Xinyu's eyes lit up: "This domain also has this intention!" We will build a railway from Chenzhou to Shaozhou first, and then we will use the railway line to connect Wuchang and Guangzhou together! Build the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway! ”

"Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway? How much silver does it cost to travel such a long distance? The surrounding civil servants were taken aback.

Zhou Zhaonan said: "Dashuai, there is a convenience for water transportation, there is no need to waste silver to build a railway, right?" It costs too much money to build a railway! ”

A group of high-ranking civil officials who surrendered to the Qing court headed by Zhou Zhaonan also went to Qiongzhou to inspect some time ago, and those who had seen the railway could be said to be amazed by the railway. Zhou Zhaonan saw that the ground was paved with gravel ballast, and then paved with sleepers, laying two wooden strips on it, and covering it with iron sheets, so that very heavy vehicles could drive on it, and it was very labor-saving.

But the land boat, the convenience is very convenient, but the cost is expensive, not to mention, just say that the mountain to build the road, this kind of railway star curve can not be too big, the slope is too steep and can not go up, you need to build a straight road to lay the railway on it, so the cost of building a railway in the mountainous area is very high.

Even if the railway is built on the plain, the cost is not low, just to build the roadbed, how many people are needed? And with so much broken stone, how many stonemasons are needed to go to the mountains to mine stones? With so many sleepers, how much wood is consumed? The most expensive is the iron sheet, the iron sheet laid on the wooden track is not thin, relatively thick, and the price of iron is not cheap.

Wang Xinyu smiled: "Repairing the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway is a long-term plan!" In the future, it is necessary not only to build the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway, but also to connect the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway with the Jinghan Railway and build the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway! In the east, the Beijing-Shanghai railway should be built! Between the Beijing-Shanghai Railway and the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and the Longhai Railway should be connected. Of course, that's a distant plan. When there is a steam engine, the price of steel will naturally fall, and the speed of a car driven by a steam engine is not what we can imagine! Let's put it this way, a car pulled by a steam engine is faster than our communication clipper! ”

"How fast does that have to be?" Zhou Zhaonan opened his mouth wide in surprise. He has also seen the catamaran clipper, after he surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, he went to Qiongzhou to investigate, and came back on the catamaran clipper.

The speed of the catamaran fast sailing boat made Zhou Zhaonan really feel as if he was flying.

It's just that the cost of the catamaran is too expensive, and the ship is too small, and the transportation volume is small, so it can only be used as a communication ship, and it is impossible to build more. If there was a steam engine, there would be extremely fast fast ships at sea, and they would no longer be dependent on the wind.

Wang Xinyu is very concerned about the progress of the steam engine, and there is no news from the Dongfan Gun Factory, and he can't wait to go back to Dongfan to see how the progress of the steam engine is.

The group rode through the watershed, and after arriving in Shaozhou, they took a boat down the river to Guangzhou.

After recovering Guangzhou for about a year, Guangzhou has obviously changed, the city walls along the river in the south of the city have been demolished, and it has become a spacious street along the river, and new houses are under construction, these houses are three-story buildings, with storefronts on the first floor and residents on the second and third floors.

The original Guangzhou Mancheng, because the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners in the south of the city were slaughtered a lot, and those who survived were also sent to labor reform, and the city was empty. Now living in Mancheng, in addition to the high-ranking generals who surrendered to the Guangdong army, that is, some heroes of the Qiongzhou Army live in it, but the original city wall separating Mancheng and the outer city is also being demolished, connecting the inner and outer city into one, so that there will be no phenomenon of separating the heroes from the ordinary people.

The positioning of the city of Guangzhou is that it is a completely commercial city, where there will be basically no industry, mainly to take advantage of the convenience of shipping, and turn Guangzhou into the southern gate of the East.

In the future, with the opening of the railway, goods from the Central Plains and the southwest will be more convenient to enter and be transported from Guangzhou. The goods from Southeast Asia are also transported to Guangzhou and then to various places.

The positioning of Guangzhou is different from Shanghai, Shanghai is a city with both commerce, industry and finance, Shanghai is at the crossroads of the Pacific route, coastal route and Yangtze River route, is the hub of water transportation, Shanghai will become the largest city in the East, more than Beijing of the big city, and Shanghai's import and export of goods, mainly for Japan, North Korea, and the American continent across the ocean; Guangzhou's import and export are mainly oriented to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

In the future, Shanghai will become the largest city, and after the reconquest of Beijing, Beijing will be the second largest city; Guangzhou is naturally the third largest city.

However, the current Guangzhou is a large construction site, many dilapidated houses have been demolished, the south city wall has been demolished, and the inner city has been demolished, leaving only the north city wall for a possible sneak attack by the Qing army.

There is no need to keep the city wall in the south, the sailors sailing on the Pearl River, the forts on the opposite bank and a few city towers are the natural city defenses to defend the south, not to mention that after the city wall in the south is demolished, the new houses built are all cement houses, and those houses are fortresses in street battles.

However, it is basically impossible for Guangzhou to have any more wars, the Ming army has advanced to Yuezhou, Guangzhou and Fujian are also in the hands of the Ming army, unless the Qing army can fly over, or Wu Sangui dares to stab a knife in the back, Guangzhou may face the attack of the Qing army, otherwise there will be no war here.

In the Pearl River Delta region, in addition to Guangzhou, Wang Xinyu is also developing elsewhere. Guangdong fell into the hands of the Ming army, and naturally wanted to vigorously develop seaside cities, so Xiangshan County was upgraded to a government and Xiangshan Mansion was established; On the eastern shore of the Pearl River estuary, there is a small island, which was originally the territory of pirates. Now that the pirates have either been recruited or exterminated, the island is ready to be developed, and the Ming army has established a naval academy on it.

The name of this small island is Xiangzhou Island, and Wang Xinyu changed the name of this island to Hong Kong. (To be continued.) )