Changhua County, which Qiao Zhiya now presides, is the country's largest steel and derivatives production center, and is indispensable to the industrialization process that the Executive Committee is bent on promoting. Haihan's proud military industry system is also based on the scale of steel production in Changhua. In the ranking of the importance of various administrative cities and counties, Changhua ranks much higher than those with a predominantly agricultural economy, and Qiao Zhiya's position in Haihan officialdom has risen as a result. Although the area under his control was administratively only a county, it was basically equal to a limited number of city-level administrative districts.

Yu Xiaobao and Qiao Zhiya's acquaintance was very early, which can be traced back to the day when the crossing was made in Yulin Bay. Among the first batch of traversers who entered the fishing village at that time, Qiao Zhiya, was one of the first traversers Yu Xiaobao saw. Although Yu Xiaobao treated Qiao Zhiya as a subordinate courtesy, the personal relationship between the two was actually quite good, and Qiao Zhiya had always treated Xiaobao as a nephew.

"Changhua this place, except for the briquettes are iron lumps, there is no scenery to see, but since you are here, then you must take the train here! This freight line from Changhua County to Shilu Iron Mine is the longest railway line in China at present, which is several times longer than Sanya Port to Tiandu Industrial Zone, and the air in the mountains is much better than here. Qiao Zhiya didn't seem to regard Xiaobao and his party as a patrol group on a business trip, but as tourists passing through here.

Yu Xiaobao did not object to Qiao Zhiya's arrangement, because Shilu Iron Mine was originally one of the must-go destinations on this trip, and there was no difference between visiting Changhua or Shilu first. So everyone followed Qiao Zhiya's suggestion, and after breakfast, they went to the train station near the port area.

Liu Shang had already taken the train in Sanya a few times earlier, so he was no stranger to the train station, but after entering the station, he found that the platform here was significantly different from Sanya.

The platform length of Changhua Railway Station is much longer than that of Sanya, and the train lines here are mainly used for freight, so most of the platform area is used to stack various goods. When they entered the station, the laborers were working in droves to carry goods onto the trains. On the other side of the platform, a train coming from the direction of Shiroku is also unloading, full of ore and logs.

Liu Shang noticed that the railway station here has used steam engine-driven cargo conveyors, and dry bulk goods such as ore and coal are loaded and unloaded quickly with long belt conveyors, which is indeed much faster than simple manual loading and unloading. In fact, similar devices are not only at the railway station, but also at the freight terminal of Changhua Port, which are used to quickly unload coal from cargo ships, but Liu Shang and others came too late yesterday and did not witness the operation on the port, otherwise they would not be surprised by the configuration of the railway station.

Because the Changhua-Shilu line is more than 80 miles long, the train frequency here is far less frequent than the commuter line in Sanya, there are only two classes in the morning and one evening every day, a total of four trains from both ends, during which some short-distance trains will be opened from time to time according to the actual needs. However, because the content of transportation is mainly based on goods, the horsepower of the locomotive and the number of wagons pulled have increased compared with Sanya, such as the early train they are going to take at the moment has more than ten wagons, of which there are only two relatively short carriages used to carry people. At the end of the train, the car for VIPs was temporarily hung up this morning, and it is usually parked in the station warehouse, which rarely comes in handy.

The first few times Liu Shang took the train in Sanya, he followed Jiang Han in an ordinary car, and he didn't know that there was a high-end cargo like a VIP car, and he was a little dumbfounded after following the car. The carriage was set up with soft seats wrapped in brocade, sitting opposite each other in two rows, and a small table fixed at the bottom in the middle, the seats were very spacious, and it seemed far more comfortable than the somewhat awkward hardwood benches he had sat on the train in Sanya. In addition, although the car is closed, there are multiple glass windows on both sides that can be opened and closed, which is very good, and there are also air windows on the roof for ventilation, so you don't feel stuffy when you are in it. There was probably some kind of incense lit in the carriage, and a faint scent of flowers and plants could be smelled in the air.

"This is probably the treatment that only the orthodox Haihan people can enjoy. Liu Shang secretly drew conclusions about what he saw. What he expected was not much different from the truth, this kind of high-end carriage that needs to be cleaned and maintained frequently is indeed not used by ordinary people in ordinary times, and even Qiao Zhiya himself may not use this carriage between going back and forth to Changhua, after all, it is very troublesome to drag in and out of the warehouse during use. Generally, only when someone from Sanya comes to inspect the mine, Qiao Zhiya will order the carriage to be towed out for use. Among the members of the inspection team, only Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi are qualified to take this kind of car, while Liu Shang and others are happy to follow.

After everyone got into the car, Qiao Zhiya's attendant served hot tea and snacks. After waiting for about a cup of tea, he heard the copper whistle on the platform sound again and again, Liu Shang knew that this was the signal to leave, and it seemed that he would leave soon.

Sure enough, within a moment, everyone only felt their bodies tremble slightly, and the carriage began to move slowly. Liu Shang turned his head sideways to look out the window and saw that the scene on the platform was constantly receding. Although this is not the first time he has taken a train, he is still impressed by such an engineering miracle again, and the only people in the world who can build a railway transportation system are the all-powerful Haihan people.

Soon after the train left the station, Qiao Zhiya introduced to everyone: "You can see the Changjiang River when you look out from the right-hand side, and the city outline in the distance is the county seat of Changhua in the past. ”

Liu Shang looked fixedly, and sure enough, he saw a small city in the distance located on the bank of the river. However, after Haihan took over Changhua, the industrial zone was built near the mouth of the Changjiang River, so the new Changhua county was also set up in the population concentration area next to the industrial zone, and although the old county town is only five miles away from the new city, due to the gradual migration of the population, and the government function of the official office in the city has also been replaced by the Changhua Management Committee, in recent years has gradually declined, the younger generation has almost all been put into the camp of the Haihan, abandoned this ancient small city, only a few local clans still live in the city.

Due to the large labor demand in Changhua and Shilu, the local population is basically concentrated at both ends of the railway line, and there are not many permanent residents along the railway line except for a small number of road guards, and Qiao Zhiya has no spare energy to arrange agricultural development projects in the areas along the line. However, the operation method of foreign investment and development of agricultural projects that is common in other regions is not officially approved here in Changhua, because Changhua and Shilu are the industrial base areas of Haihan, and the specific status of many production projects is kept secret from the outside world, and naturally outsiders will not be allowed to enter and leave this area freely.

After the train passed through the old county town of Changhua, it entered the vast uninhabited area, and what you could see outside the window was the endless woods, and occasionally you could glimpse the Changjiang River not far away from the gaps in the trees. Everyone heard Qiao Zhiya say that when the railway was first built, it was built in sections, and it was very difficult to transport building materials and construction personnel to the upstream areas through the Changjiang River.

Even though the railway has been built for several years, construction has not stopped. Because it was originally built as a single track, only a few sections of the double-track railway were built in the middle of the road for the wrong train, and then the Ministry of Construction invested in the construction of the double-track project did not have so many manpower, and it has been under construction one after another in the past few years. However, most of the double-track project has been completed, and it is estimated that it will be fully opened to traffic by the end of this year or early next year at the earliest, and the capacity and safety of the railway will be further improved.

Liu Shang has taken a train in Sanya, and he also understands what the concept of double-track passage is, and for the special mode of transportation of the railway, the construction of the double-track is actually almost equivalent to replicating the road construction project again. With Haihan's engineering ability, the double line has not been completed for several years, and the amount of work can be imagined.

Haihan did not build a double-track railway in time, in fact, it is not only the shortage of manpower that Qiao Zhiya said, but also the deep-seated reason is that the existing railway transportation capacity is basically sufficient, and only after the mining capacity of Shilu Mine and the smelting capacity of Changhua Industrial Zone have been improved, the expansion of transportation capacity will become an inevitable demand.

The train to Shilu took more than two hours, and had to wait for another train from the opposite side on the fork in the way, so Qiao Zhiya conveniently used the time on the way to give Yu Xiaobao and others a general introduction to the situation in the Shilu mining area.

At present, the operation area of Shilu mining area is divided into two large open-pit pits in the east and west, the west pit is mainly miners with Li people as the main body in mining, and almost all the Li villages in a radius of dozens of miles have moved to the vicinity of the mine.

There is only one hill between the east and west pits, but the environment is more closed, because it is also the site of the largest forced labor camp in the entire Haihan Kingdom. Although there was a large-scale rebellion in 1631 and caused a lot of chaos in the Qiongzhong Mountains, after the Haihan sent troops to quell the chaos, they still stuck to the original setting and continued to use it as a place for felons to carry out labor reform. There are still more than 2,000 prisoners serving their sentences here, and of course the defensive measures are much tighter than they were a few years ago, and it is unlikely that there will be any more major disorders.

As he spoke, the train had already entered the wrong fork in the road and slowly stopped. For safety reasons, cars entering the mountain will arrive here first and wait, and then return to the main road after the car passing through the mountain. Qiao Zhiya reminded everyone that if you want to find a convenient place, you can get off the car now to solve it.

So they went down to the side of the road and settled on the spot. Anyway, in this wilderness there are only workers who maintain the railway, and there are no female dependents, so there is no need to have any scruples. Liu Shang also got out of the car and put water, and then watched everyone standing on the side of the road smoking and chatting. He didn't like to smoke and thought it was too choking, so he took the initiative to stand at a distance.

However, Liu Shang soon regretted his decision, because Zhang Qianzhi had already taken the initiative to lean over: "Mr. Liu doesn't smoke either? ”

Liu Shang naturally did not show a refusal to contact Zhang Qianzhi, and he could only accept it cautiously at the moment, but he would never take the initiative to talk to Zhang Qianzhi.

It's just that Zhang Qianzhi didn't seem to intend to stand in silence like this, and took the initiative to ask him: "What does Mr. Liu think of this railway?"

Liu Shang didn't know what he meant, so he could only figure out the other party's intentions while responding: "This route is so far inland from the coast, and I heard what Chief Qiao said, it was quite difficult to build this road at the beginning, and the villain admired the foresight of the chiefs very much, and spared no effort to build this railway in order to exploit this deep mountain mine." Such a large project can probably only be completed in just a few years in the world. ”

Zhang Qianzhi seemed to be very satisfied with Liu Shang's evaluation, nodded and said: "My country has indeed invested considerable manpower, material and financial resources in building this railway, but now it seems that all this is worth it." In the early years, the Ming Jinyi Wei also instigated a riot in Shilu, trying to sabotage our country's long-term plans, but fortunately, God blessed Haihan, and the traitor finally fell short!"

The hairs on Liu Shang's back stood up suddenly, he didn't understand why Zhang Qianzhi suddenly mentioned this matter, was this remark an unconscious show-off, or did it imply that he had noticed something?

In 1631, Zhao Ye, a thousand households in Jinyiwei, infiltrated Hainan Island incognito, first colluded with Huang Zixing and others in Danzhou, and planned the assassination of Haihan officials in Danzhou, but was cracked by the security personnel led by Zhang Qianzhi, and only Zhao Ye escaped. Later, Zhao Ye fled all the way to Qiongzhong, and instigated a riot in the forced labor camp, causing a lot of losses to Haihan. This incident made the executive committee very dissatisfied, and dispatched a large number of troops to encircle and suppress the Qiongzhong area, and eliminated the culprit Zhao Ye and the native villages he colluded with.

This case had a great impact in Haihan back then, and later the official also issued a special notice to appease the people, and carried out repeated purges for a long time, almost all the people sent by the Ming Dynasty to Hainan Island to lurk were arrested. After the relevant news was transmitted back to Daming, Jinyiwei stopped for a long time because of too much manpower loss, and Liu Shang also heard about it at that time. Now that Zhang Qianzhi suddenly mentioned this past, what does it mean?

Fortunately, Liu Shang was calm, and he couldn't bear the panic in his heart at the moment and responded: "Not long after the villain first arrived in Haihan, he hasn't heard of such a catastrophe in my country, and sure enough, the fortunes of Haihan are prosperous, and the people of the ghosts and spirits will definitely not succeed!"

Zhang Qianzhi smiled at him and said, "I think so too!"

(End of chapter)