For the emperor's torture from the soul, Yang Yongping, who had just become the head of the Dachu Railway Bureau, couldn't help but wipe the sweat on his face, and his whole person was almost kneeling on the train floor, and began to explain in a low voice.

"Back to Your Majesty, it's not that the minister deliberately set such a high price, but it is really a lot of trains, including the total length of the railway from Nanjing to Shanghai is 600 miles, and each mile needs about 40,000 catties of iron, and a total of 24 million catties of iron is needed, which is barely enough for the cost of the railway, and this is only the cost of the railway, not counting the train itself......."

Yang Yongping can't help but complain, it is really a luxury and rare thing in this year, the railway is really a luxury and a rarity, because in the 59th year of Kangxi, the country's iron output was only about 45 million catties, and after the Fu Han army gradually occupied the provinces of China, vigorously carried out mining and iron smelting industry, the iron output soon rose to more than 90 million catties, until last year, after the major iron mines entered full production, the pig iron output jumped to 130 million catties.

However, according to the method of using materials for railways, all the iron materials in Ningchu can only build a railway of 3,000 miles, in addition to building this Nanjing-Shanghai railway, it is enough to build a Beijing-Shanghai railway from Nanjing to Beijing, but in this way, all other places that need iron materials can only stare dryly.

Speaking of this, Yang Yongping could only helplessly say: "Back to Your Majesty, all the costs of the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway alone, including pig iron raw materials, forging costs, transportation costs, as well as the cost of railway construction projects and the train itself, have added up to more than 10 million silver dollars. ”

That's right, it will take at least 30 years just to recover the cost, for the simple reason that according to the fare of five yuan, after removing the operating costs, the profit that can be obtained is only four yuan and two dimes, and according to the input cost of 10 million silver dollars, it will take 30 years to carry 2.4 million passengers, which is about 80,000 people per year.

In later generations, it was naturally only a trivial matter to carry 80,000 people a year, but in this era, it was not easy to carry 80,000 people on the basis of this fare, which meant that an average of about 220 to 230 people would need to be carried every day...... It's hard to look at.

Yang Yongping also cried silently in his heart, only charging a ticket price of five silver dollars, he was really already doing charity.

In fact, under the guidance of a certain emperor, although the shares of the Great Chu Railway Bureau belong to the imperial court, they also need to bear the profit requirements, of course, it is not that they have to make any money, but they can support themselves and earn back the cost.......

In this case, Yang Yongping, as the head of the Railway Bureau, had to bend down and cry to the emperor about his difficulties, so as to avoid the emperor cutting the fare in half with a wave of his hand, and even if he was tired to death, there would be no way to make up for the huge deficit owed by the Railway Bureau at this time.

After listening to all this, Ning Yu was immediately a little embarrassed, and said softly: "Since you also have your difficulties, I won't say much, but you must understand that the empire attaches great importance to railways, and in the next hundred years or even longer, railway planning will become the key development direction of the Ministry of Communications, and it will also have a relatively large investment weight in finance." ”

The officials of Dachu sitting on the side, after listening to Yang Yongping's accounting, still felt that the emperor was too hasty in building the railway, and it seemed that it was not worth spending so much money to repair a broken road, so it was better to spend money to repair some gardens for themselves...... But I never expected that the emperor would still be thinking about building railways everywhere!

"Your Majesty, according to Governor Yang, it seems that railways are too expensive and useless, so is it a little inappropriate to build too many railways...... In addition, the use of water transportation by the imperial court is also very convenient and the cost is quite low. ”

Soon, someone began to euphemistically begin to exhort, hoping to persuade the emperor to dispel this crazy idea.

Ning Yu knew that every time he arrived at this time, some officials with outdated ideas would come out to stop him, and he didn't care at this time, so he explained softly: "As an official of Dachu, it is better for you to take a long-term view, water transportation is good, but what about those places where there is no water transportation environment?" Building railways is a great thing for the benefit of the country and the people, so why is it useless? ”

Speaking of this, Ning Yu didn't wait for the ministers to refute his opinions, so he began to raise his fingers and began to calculate the benefits of the railway.

"First of all, you see, the construction of railways by the imperial court is by no means without purpose, but in prosperous places that need inland transportation, like these places need more efficient transportation methods, to speed up the communication of business travel and goods, which is very beneficial to economic development and industrial and commercial development."

"Secondly, for some key strategic places in Dachu, every time something happens, if it is necessary to transfer troops, it will take a lot of time to gather troops and rush to the past, but with the railway, our army mobilization speed and logistics support capabilities will be significantly improved, which is also very beneficial to national security."

"Finally, you think about it, the current railway seems to have a limited role, but this is not what it will look like in the end, wait for the further development of steam engine technology, then the speed of the train will only get faster and faster, and one day in the future, you may start from Nanjing in the morning and arrive in Beijing at night, you think about how much significance this matter should be!"

I have to say that after Ning Yu's education, the officials finally came to their senses, although they didn't quite believe the last point the emperor said, but for the first two points can not be denied, after all, in order to promote economic development and national security, building railways is not a complete loss-making deal.

After all, in this era, in addition to the place where the water network is dense can be used to make the traffic quite convenient, the traffic in other inland areas is simply indescribable, basically some places where the road is flat can also use horse-drawn carts and donkey carts, and other places are basically people pick horses, and where there are no horses, they can only be transported by manpower, which also causes the cost of land transportation to be extremely high, almost ten times or even a hundred times that of water transportation.

When ten times or a hundred times the cost of transportation capacity is generated, it also restricts the development of inland industrial and commercial industries, which is why the coastal and Yangtze River, the Yellow River region is developed in commerce, because in addition to these places can use water transport to reduce transportation costs, there is no better way in other places, so the commodity economy is naturally greatly restricted.

As the saying goes, "100 miles do not sell wood, thousands of miles do not sell wood", is the final manifestation of this problem.

Of course, Ningyu's education only made the officials understand the great significance of railway transportation, but it is still impossible to carry out large-scale construction of railways at present, after all, in the absence of further development of science and technology and productivity, even if it costs a lot of money to build railways, it is difficult to play a role in boosting.

Therefore, when Ning Yu arrived in Nanjing, he put aside the issue of the railway and immediately devoted himself to another key matter, that is, to launch a general propaganda campaign against the Russian war, to publicize the inevitability and justice of the war against Russia from the internal environment, so as to veto the possibility of taking the lead in reconciliation with Russia internally.

This matter may not seem so important, but in light of the situation of this era, it is a very important matter, and it is even related to the final outcome of the war against Russia.

To understand this problem, we need to understand that the Chinese culture seems to have a strong demand for expansion, but it has a strong pragmatism, so that it cannot be compared with the Russians in terms of real desire for expansion, and this is also the key factor that led to Siberia gradually falling into the hands of the Russians.

To put it simply, when the core civilization of China is expanding, it usually depends on whether the place can be farmed and can feed the people, if there is no way to farm and feed the people, then there is no way to make large-scale investment in this place, and it is difficult to make long-term investment in the follow-up competition.

Like Siberia in the minds of the Chinese, that is the bitter cold land in the north, even if the prisoners are exiled, the farthest is only to Ningguta, that is, the river of Heilongjiang, as for the more north, they have not thought about it at all, or the big guys don't think that the north can make people survive, that is, until Ningguta, and then the north will go.

The Russians, however, did not think so, and not only did they exile prisoners further north, but they also established strongholds in the further north and ruled over those places, such as Siberia and large areas of the Far East.

Could it be that the Russians are more technologically advanced? More productive?

No, even during the Qing period, the Russians were not more advanced than the Qing court, except for a slight military lead, and they were able to occupy Siberia and further north lands only because they were more able to endure hardships and have a greater tolerance for cold environments.

And this can be seen from the geographical differences between the two countries, like before the establishment of Russia, basically at the same latitude as Siberia, mainly temperate continental climate, the Arctic Ocean coast is a cold climate, the north is a very low climate, the Pacific coast is a temperate monsoon climate, the overall summer is short, the winter is cold and long.

China, on the other hand, has a temperate continental and monsoon climate, while the south has a subtropical monsoon climate, which means that China is warmer on the whole, which is completely different from Russia and Siberia, and this difference in climate also leads to Russia's expansion in Siberia.

In addition to the climate, Russia itself has a worse geographical environment, lower land carrying capacity, and the lack of excellent ice-free ports, which also prompted the Russians to continue to expand abroad, but China itself occupies the best land in East Asia, and the land output is also higher, which makes the people more inclined to the rich land in the interior, and naturally they are not willing to develop in the bitter cold land in the north.

That is to say, in a place like Siberia, the people of China do not look down on it at all, and naturally they are not willing to fight for life and death for this bitter cold land, and the ministers of the DPRK and China are even more unwilling to invest a large amount of money in the struggle for that bitter cold land year after year, which is not cost-effective at all in their opinion.

Therefore, even if Ning Yu and the Privy Council launched a war against the Russians in the Far East before the winter came, this war did not receive the same broad support as the previous Battle of Mobei, and in the eyes of more people, it was just His Majesty the Emperor to show his strength, and it did not have much meaning.

If it is only fought for a few months or half a year or a year, Ning Yu can still rely on his unparalleled prestige to forcibly fight, but when this war drags on to the category of several years or even longer, it is definitely not enough to rely on prestige to force it to fight, Ning Yu must get more support, that is, find the interests of this war.

With greater interest support, Ning Chu can get more people to support the war against the north from the bottom of their hearts, even if Ning Yu no longer asks for it in the future, the people can continue to fight - that is the guarantee that the northern strategy can finally achieve victory, otherwise any results achieved at the moment will be meaningless.

As for whether the Russians can drag on in Siberia for a few years? Ning Yu did not doubt this possibility at all, and he must also make this preparation in advance, just like he said to the Privy Council, the bottom line of this war is to completely take East Siberia, that is, the entire North Sea, and whenever possible, it is natural to include the entire Siberia into the territory of Great Chu, push the Sino-Russian border to the Ural Mountains, and completely eliminate the great trouble in the north.

However, in the heart of Ning Yu, the ambitious emperor, there is not much to use for the war with the Russians in the north at the moment, if it is just to eradicate the remnants of the Qing court, the first battle of Yunchun has already been done, and the remaining Vladivostok will be delayed until next year at most, and it can be basically swept away.

If the Russians send a negotiated peace treaty and cede the entire Far East at that time, what reason can Ning Yu use to continue fighting? At that time, if you continue to talk about the Qing court, you will inevitably bully the IQ of other people too much.

"It's hard, it's hard...... What's even more difficult is that Da Chu has not been established for a few years, and the foundation is not so solid, do you really have to watch this great opportunity pass? But it would be really difficult to miss this period of civil strife in Russia and wait for such a good opportunity. ”

Ning Yu sat on the royal chariot returning to the palace and chanted a word, his brows furrowed tightly, thinking carefully about what other reason he could drag everyone into the water to fight the Russians......

However, after returning to the palace, Ning Yu still didn't think of a better reason, but he got a good news at this time, it turned out that after a long period of project research and development, the General Armament Department finally followed Ning Yu's ideas and found the signs of developing a new generation of standard weapons for the Han Army!