Roland planned not only to build railways and roads, but also to open up the main stream of the Villes River from Port Baiou to Kitland to Colasburg before the summer flood season, forming a main water transport trunk connecting the north and south of the Far East, and to build a wharf along the river. Transporting large and heavy commodities such as grain by river would be much cheaper than road and rail, so Roland made a suggestion to Joddell: when collecting grain in remote villages, the collected grain should be transported to the nearest riverside wharf, and then loaded onto ships and transported to the major towns and the capital, Krasbourg.

The Far East is rich in water resources and crisscrossed by rivers, and there is great potential for inland waterway transportation that has yet to be explored. However, the transformation of potential into actual transport capacity requires huge investments in dredging rivers, building docks, building cargo ships, and even more so in railways and roads.

At the cabinet meeting, Commerce Minister Yevgenia had a similar view of transport construction to Industry Minister Zinovi, and was equally eager to use convenient roads to connect towns and villages and promote commercial prosperity in the domestic market. But she also realized that she needed to invest an astronomical amount of construction money for this, and how could she build roads and bridges without money?

"The priority is where we need to raise the money we need for construction." When this question was asked, Evgenia naturally looked at Roland, expecting an answer from His Royal Highness the Prince, who was known for his expertise in financing.

Roland was indeed prepared for this question, but before he could speak, Zinovi spoke first.

"Mrs. Evgenia, we all know that building roads and bridges is different from other businesses, the investment is big, the cycle is long, the risk is high, and people are often reluctant to participate in this kind of infrastructure investment unless we give investors additional benefits."

The Cabinet has not yet established a Ministry of Transport, and there is no Minister of Transport, and the relevant work is in charge of the Minister of Industry Zinovi, who is within his authority to express his opinion on the financing of transport construction, and Yevgenia did not put on the "quasi-queen" stand, and asked with a smile and an open mind: "Mr. Zinovi, what do you mean by 'additional benefits'?" ”

"It's actually very simple, the government can introduce a policy that allows private individuals to participate in bidding for road construction, and give a certain range of land on both sides of the road to the contractor free of charge, and the contractor can use the land as collateral to finance, issue bonds or stocks as they please, and the government only has to accept the road after the construction period specified in the contract expires." Zinovi replied calmly.

Yevgenia fell into thought, and the cabinet ministers also whispered.

Zinovi's strategy caught the eye of His Majesty the King. It sounds like a good idea to package the land and the road section for bidding, and the government only provides the land, and the contractor is responsible for everything from financing to concrete construction.

Before expressing his support for Zinovi's plan, Rudolph habitually observed his courtiers. It was found that most of the ministers were positive about Zinovi's plan, and only Roland frowned and fell into deep thought.

His Majesty was well aware of every subtle change in his son's expression, and when he saw Roland's face, he guessed that he did not agree with Zinovi's plan, and was even worried about it.

Roland's mood was indeed a little heavy at the moment.

Zinovi's plan looks very good, and if he were not a traveler from Earth, if he did not know anything about the history of railway transportation on Earth, he would have raised his hands in favor of the Minister of Industry's plan. However, it is precisely because he knows too much that he knows better than others that this seemingly easy road is actually not easy to follow, and may even lead astray, causing serious troubles.

There is nothing new under the sun, and Zinovi's vision has long been practiced on Earth.

Roland vaguely remembers that in the mid-19th century, the U.S. Senate passed amendments to two Pacific Railroad bills, giving railroad companies and contractors a very attractive benefit: a total of 20 square miles of land on either side of the railroad for every mile of track laid.

At the time, the policy had a very good effect – the huge land investment solved the financial problem for the railway company.

In order to convert the land grants into capital, railway contractors at the time generally adopted two financing methods: one was to sell the land directly to the immigrants at a high price; The second is to organize the town development company to speculate on the town site.

For the railway companies, the main value of the land grant is not only to make cash from the sale of the land, but also to provide credit and guarantee for the issuance of bonds – the railway company can use the state-owned land as collateral, issue bonds or stocks, borrow money from private individuals or borrow money from the government.

Major railroad companies relied on land sales and mortgages as the main funds for road construction, and the Illinois Central Railroad, built in 1856, paid for 5/6 of the cost by selling state-owned land; The value of the land donated by the government is 26% of the total investment of the Central Pacific Railroad and 34% of the total investment of the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Northern Pacific Railroad generates a whopping $136 million from the sale of land along the railway, which is more than double the actual cost of building the road!

If this is the case, it can be said that the above policy perfectly solves the problem of railway financing, and Roland has no reason to oppose Zinovi pursuing the same plan in the Far East.

However, in order to make a fair evaluation of the policy of "contracting railways and giving away land", we must take a long-term view and examine its impact on the whole country and in the long term.

First, let's look at the impact of this policy on the layout of the national transportation network.

Since the policy stipulates that railway contractors have the right to land within a certain range of railway lines, it is realized that the longer and more tortuous the railway line a company builds, the more land grants it will receive, and the greater the benefits.

Naturally, in order to get more land, the railway companies tried their best to build the railroad as long as possible, so that the railroad line had many unnecessary bends and unnecessary complications, and in fact it was a waste of national wealth to fill the contractor's own pockets, and this was entirely due to the loopholes in the policy and the lack of overall planning.

In the long run, there are still two drawbacks of private railways, namely, vicious competition and speculation.

After the completion of the railway, the revenue depends on the volume of passengers and freight. If there are two railway lines in the same area, and they belong to different companies, the two companies will inevitably compete.

According to some economists, "competition is conducive to lowering commodity prices" and "improving the quality of service", but in reality it is difficult to see such gentlemen's healthy competition, in fact, in the 19th century, the competition between American railroads was often presented in a malicious and even brutal way.