In terms of railways, the gap between China and India is really big, really big.

When Yan Shao knew the detailed figures, he could almost be said to be surprised, after all, in Yan Shao's impression, India has always been a very backward region. Naturally, Yan Shao couldn't have imagined that China couldn't even compare to a small India in terms of railways?!

Then, as I said earlier, the gap between China and India in terms of railways during this period was indeed very large.

As for how big it is...

Let's put it this way, when the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1911, the total length of highways in the whole of China was only more than 9,800 kilometers, which was the success of all the efforts of the Manchu Qing Dynasty over the years―――――― of course, a considerable part of them were built by foreigners.

In fact, after entering the 20th century, in 1901, China's railway operating length exceeded 1,500 kilometers to 1,516 kilometers, while India's exceeded 40,000 kilometers to 40,818 kilometers. In the first year of Xuantong (1909), the length of China's railways reached 7,563 kilometers on the basis of exceeding 7,000 kilometers in the previous year, while India's exceeded 50,000 kilometers with a length of 50,678 kilometers. In the third year of Xuantong (1911), the length of China's railways was close to 10,000 kilometers, 9,854 kilometers, and India's was 5.35 times that of China, with a length of 52,849 kilometers.

Even in 1917, during the Republican period, China's railway mileage was only 11,004 kilometers, an extremely slow growth, while India's railway mileage had reached 58,472 kilometers.

In 1922, the length of the Indian Railways exceeded 60,000 kilometers. It reaches 60,540 km, while China has only 11,535 km. In 1928, a new government came to power. The length of railways in China has once again exceeded 13,000 kilometers (compared to 13,000 kilometers in 1924), while in India it is close to 66,000 kilometers. In 1936, the length of Indian railways reached a historical peak of 69,408 km.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, in 1947, the length of India's railways was only about 50,000 kilometers, but how did it suddenly become more than 69,000 kilometers, and even nearly 70,000 kilometers. The reason for this is entirely due to one reason―――――― the partition of India and Pakistan.

It is precisely because of the division of India and Pakistan that the length of the railway in India is very impressive. It became the same as it was in 1947.

On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, at the time of the fall of the Qing government, China had only more than 9,000 kilometers of railways. And in the two years after the fall of the Manchu government. Especially in the most chaotic two years of 12 and 13. Obviously, this is not a good year to build a railway.

In the past two years, China's railway growth rate has not been absent, but infinitely close to zero.

The explosive growth of Qiē began in 1914, the year of the outbreak of World War I.

In fact, it is precisely for this reason that many people call this year a 'lucky year', considering the stimulus to Chinese industry and commerce during the First World War.

After all, China's one qiē. It can be said that it all started from this year.

This is true even for the railways. But as I said before, the finances of the national government are not very good, and the railroad is a very expensive thing. Therefore, when the Kuomintang government was just established, the growth rate of domestic railways was only one or two thousand kilometers per year―――――― of course, compared with the pre-Qing period, this is already a very remarkable speed.

Later, it was not until the construction of the Dyland Railway and the British made great efforts in it that China's railways began to grow explosively―――――― of course, because the effects of the First World War had already begun to appear, domestic industry and commerce were stimulated, and the government's finances were also greatly increased.

All in all, in this war, the Nationalist government has indeed gained too much.

However, even so, by 1920, the railways on the original land had only reached more than 20,000 kilometers. Of course, if you include the newly occupied land, such as the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Central Asian Railway, and the Mesopotamian Railway, the railway mileage of the whole of China may reach more than 30,000 kilometers.

But even so, China is still only half as much as Indians on the railway, and the gap is very large...

But...

Although the gap between the national government and India on railways is very obvious, the gap on roads is not so stark. Because when developing domestic transportation, the Nationalist government not only built railways, but also built roads.

After all, for ordinary villages, railways are not as good as roads, even if it is just a two-lane asphalt road, it is better than the original I don't know how many times.

By the way~

After building so many roads, it is natural that you need to find a way to maintain the roads, otherwise, if the roads are broken but no one cares, then these roads are not equal to repairing them in vain?

However, Yan Shaozhi did not want to make so many toll booths like later generations, but used a very simple way to spread the road maintenance fee in ―――――― gasoline.

This can be said to be a method that has been shouted by later generations for many years, but has never succeeded.

But in this day and age...

Putting aside whether this method is good or not, at least it is much better than the frequent construction of toll booths on the highway. And in later generations, because of the relationship between toll booths, I don't know how many vehicles chose to overload, which in turn caused great damage to the road!

It can be said that these toll booths used to maintain roads are a contradiction with the road maintenance itself.

Because the purpose of these toll booths is to collect tolls to maintain roads, but because of their excessive tolls, they lead to which trucks have to overload and haul goods, which in turn leads to damage to the road.

Even now Yan Shao still remembers an incident that happened in his childhood, no, it can't be said to be childhood, but there are many years.

At that time, there was a small road next to a high school, and there were often trucks full of goods on that small road, which was nothing, but it seemed that there was a time when a truck was carrying too much goods, and even the road surface was sunk in, and the dirt under the road was also turned over...

You can imagine how much this truck is loading.

What made Yan Shao most angry was that even if this road was damaged for a long time, no one came over to repair it, and as a result, the road has always been like that. Later, the residential building near the high school was moved, and the road was rested by the new developer―――――― no way, it can't be sold if it is not repaired...

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It is precisely because of Yan Shao's attitude of attaching importance to transportation that while the domestic railway traffic is growing rapidly, the length of domestic highways is also growing by leaps and bounds. A large number of roads have been built, but in order to stimulate the growth of the domestic ash industry, Yan Shao did not use asphalt roads, but chose ash pavement.

On the one hand, it is because in this way, it can be relatively easy to stimulate the growth of domestic cement -- +―― to build so many roads, it must be no problem to feed a large number of cement factories.

Another reason is that although China's domestic oil production during this period was some, it was not much, and if you really want asphalt roads, you will have to transport it from Mexico or Persia, which is a bit too time-consuming. And the gray road is also more convenient.

For example, some roads, after being made smoother, can be directly like a jigsaw puzzle, paving pieces of cement slabs on the road surface, which is very simple. Of course, if you do this, the road surface will definitely not be smooth, but Yan Shao doesn't need them to be smooth, because there are not so many vehicle requirements in this era, for most people, as long as the road can be driven, it is enough, and these gray roads can obviously meet this requirement.

Today, there may be a huge gap between China's railways and countries like the United States and India, but at least when it comes to roads, the government has become the world's leading position.

Especially after the completion of the highway between Beijing and Shanghai, this news is a sensation in the whole world, even the newspapers of Britain and the United States and other countries have also interviewed this through half of China, four-lane expressway―――――― although the expressway is still a rare thing in these years, but because of the relationship between the beginning of the national government, so there are some foreign countries, but the scale is not comparable with China, especially in terms of the length of the highway.

This time, Jiang Baili's plan was very simple, that is, to build another road between Lhasa and southern Tibet.

In fact, this point was not established by no one at the top level of the national government in the past, but it was rejected by Yan Shao. Because Yan Shao didn't feel the need to build this road at that time, not to mention that he didn't want to touch the sensitive nerves of the British.

But now it seems that it will not work without giving the British some color to see.

And...

Since the highway from Sichuan and Qinghai has been built to Lhasa, it does not seem to be particularly difficult to build another road from Lhasa to southern Tibet.

What's more, Yan Shao also intends to put some pressure on Britain through this matter.

Therefore, Yan Shao quickly agreed to this construction, and this incident did seem to have greatly touched the British. Especially after the news of the highway spread, the feelings of the British became extremely excited. (To be continued......)