Chapter XVII

After a few days of rest, Yu Qian looked much better in spirit and complexion than at the beginning.

Zhu Qizhen exchanged a few words with Yu Qian, and first talked about the affairs of the northwest.

This time Yu Qian came to Beijing, not simply to celebrate Zhu Qizhen's birthday, but also when Yu Qian left the northwest.

Yu Qian has been in charge of the northwest for a long time. The strategic environment of Shaanxi has changed greatly from the current strategic environment.

At that time, the governor of the three sides, appropriately, the prime minister Gansu, Ningxia, Xining, the three strategic directions, Shaanxi is the Ming Dynasty deep into the northwest of an arm, the strategic situation is not optimistic. Gansu, in particular, is even less optimistic.

But now in the Western Regions, the importance of Gansu's strategy has become even more important.

This importance was changed from military to transportation, especially the importance of Gansu to the Western Regions.

In this case, the position of trilateral governor has also gone to history.

and replaced the position of the governor of the three sides and became the official of the Optimus Pillar in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the governor of the Western Regions, stationed in Hami, in charge of the northern and southern Xinjiang divisions.

Yu Qian said: "Lao Chen has been in Shaanxi for many years, committed to Shaanxi water conservancy, over the past few years, more than a dozen granaries have been stationed in various parts of Shaanxi, enough to hoard more than 3 million stone of grain, just to supply the Western Regions, but not enough. ”

"It's not that there isn't enough food, it's that the roads are remote and desert. From Xi'an to Yili, it is estimated that only one stone is 10 stone of grain, and although Ili began to tuntian, the capital of northern Xinjiang needs at least 200,000 stone shortage. This gap will gradually decrease later. But how many will there be in the future, and how many years will it take to be self-sufficient. The minister didn't know. ”

"In the past two years, more than 15 million stones have been transported from Shaanxi to the Western Regions."

"These money and grain in Shaanxi alone can't be supported at all."

"The money and grain in Shaanxi is only 1.2 million stone for rice and 800,000 stone for wheat, a total of 2 million stone per year, but these money and grain have to be supplied to the military and used by the government, and the surplus amount is only a few hundred thousand stones."

"In other words, three million stones per year are being shipped, which is the least."

"Yichen estimates that even if the fields of the two capitals increase greatly, the mainland will need to ship at least one million stone of grain to the two capitals."

Therefore, the gallop from Xi'an to Yili. It is already a priority. ”

Naturally, these three million stone grains are not all of Shaanxi's money and grain, but some of Henan's and Sichuan's grains have to be transported to Shaanxi. Then transshipped from Shaanxi.

This is also the biggest expense of Daming in recent years, and it is even more expensive than Pingdu.

Starting from Henan, thousands of miles of transportation lines go all the way to Ili. The consumption is huge, you can imagine. Even the cost of shipping is several times higher than that of the goods transported.

Especially after the pacification of the Western Regions, elimination

It's very expensive.

The Ming Dynasty established two capitals in the Western Regions, keeping the garrison at more than 100,000, of which a considerable part was a Mongolian subordinate army, but the Ming army also had 50,000 people, plus Zhu Qizhen migrated from Shaanxi to many guards, splitting the north and south.

All kinds of consumption are even more than fighting.

Now the situation has stabilized.

Otherwise, the overhead will only be greater.

This is also one of the necessary reasons why Zhu Qizhen had to negotiate peace with Azi Timur.

The Ming Dynasty's presence in the Western Regions was already a very consuming matter of national strength. If you continue to confront the tile spur in the area of Anyanji, this consumption is so great that the Ming Dynasty can't support it.

This is also why, with the strength of the Han Dynasty to fight in the Western Regions, it can still make the world tired.

Chidao is not the first person to put forward this method, but there are also difficulties.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Yu Gong, I have ordered several edicts to inspect the line, although they have not come back yet, but there is a consensus, that is, it is impossible to build a gallop road from Xi'an to Yili. ”

changes in topography, and climbing over large areas of desert, and so on. It is enough to give the road builders of this era a headache. Especially on such a steep hill, it is impossible to climb it with the ability to gallop.

Yu Qian said: "The minister knows, but it is too hard for the people in the northwest to transport grain and grass. Where can not be repaired, for the time being, let it go, the minister does not believe, from Xi'an to Yili on the way, is not an inch can not be repaired, there is an inch is good for an inch, there is an inch to reduce the people an inch. ”

When Zhu Qizhen heard this, he also understood that the people of Shaanxi, especially the people in the prefectures and counties on both sides of the transportation line, were really suffering.

Even if it weren't for the foundation laid by Yu Qian, it would have been operating in Shaanxi, especially in the northwest for many years, and now it is estimated that something would have happened.

The government's transportation of grain and grass is either official transportation or civil transportation. And the method Yu Qian said, the second transportation, is to let the prefecture and county health centers transport grain to the northwest one by one, just like a relay race.

Even for many people, to serve the government's conscription, they still have to bring their own dry food.

Under the Ming system, the harm of war to the people was not limited to the fighting on the battlefield and the destruction of civil order by the rout of soldiers.

It is also in the war against the people.

Zhu Qizhen is not without plans for the route from Xi'an to Yili. It was even a few years ago.

After the construction of the network of galloping roads over the northern steppes. Zhu Qizhen's plan for Chidao at that time was one vertical and one horizontal.

I don't dare to think about it or anything.

The first vertical is from Beijing to Nanjing, which roughly coincides with the canal route.

One horizontal, that is, from Xuzhou, along Kaifeng, Luoyang to Xi'an, all the way to Gansu. Now it's to Ili.

Unlike later generations, Zhu Qizhen was not prepared to build a large-scale Chi Road in the south. It's not that Zhu Qizhen is biased towards the north, but because the transportation capacity of this idea is not comparable to that of natural rivers. The dense water network in the south is in many cases better than artificial galloping.

Another reason is that Chidao is too deeply affected by the natural topography.

On the grasslands and the Northeast Great Plains, it is still good, and most of the terrain is relatively flat. Even so, Chidao encountered a lot of thorny problems when crossing a series of mountain ranges such as the Yanshan Mountain Range.

The same is true for this vertical and horizontal route planning.

In Zhu Qizhen's plan, he wants to build along the canal, which is actually inevitable in Zhu Qizhen's planning.

But there are many rivers to cross along the way, and the flooding of the Huai River is also very problematic. It is not a smooth road from Henan to Shaanxi.

The Chi Road from Beijing to Tianjin, and the Chi Road from Tianjin to Xuzhou from the south, have been built one after another. The conquest of the Western Regions took place at a time when many of the preparations were not very sufficient.

The focus of the construction of the gallop was shifted to the northwest, also after the start of the war.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Okay, starting from this year, we will first build the Chi Road from Xi'an to Yili. ”

In fact, from the perspective of the specific construction personnel, they prefer or want to build a gallop that is connected to the northern gallop rather than start over from another place.

The construction of the road required a large amount of ironwood.

Needless to say, the iron is connected to Zunhua and can be transported directly, while the wood is also transported from Haixi or Liaodong to Tianjin, and is transported from Tianjin.

The transportation of timber from the northeast to the customs is already a major industry in the two provinces of Liaodong and Haixi.

But starting from Xi'an, the two most important raw materials, iron and wood, are by no means in good supply.

Especially wood, after all, the northwest is so big, there may not be no place for iron production, it is nothing more than Shaofu built an iron factory in the past, or transported it from behind, after all, this era built a gallop road. The amount of wood needed is several times greater than that of iron grain.

But there is no wood in the northwest.

The wooden rails of the gallop road are to be weighed, and strong large wood is required, and the entire northwest large wood was used as a palace in the Han and Tang dynasties. During the Hundred Years War of the Song and Xia Dynasty, it was used for various fortifications.

In most of the Northwest, there is a shortage of good wood.

It's just that this issue, although Zhu Qizhen is concerned about it, will not change his current decision, and any fact is inconvenient, and he must give in to political issues.

Although there are inconveniences in the construction, the Northwest Gallop Road runs one day earlier, and the heavy burden of the people in the Northwest will be relieved as soon as possible.

This is not subject to change.