This year is the fifteenth year of Wanli, in 1587 AD, the steam engine created by the Tang Beiwang sledgehammer project team can be said to be the world's first steam engine with practical value.

Although this steam engine has various shortcomings, it is a very good start for the People's Army in the development of steam engines, with this steam engine with practical value, it can be improved on this basis to create a better steam engine.

The steam engine can be said to be the key to the industrial age, with the steam engine to provide power to drive machine tools, textile machines and other machinery, can greatly increase the output of various industrial products, trains, steamships, etc.

However, the steam engine created by the Tang Beiwang sledgehammer project team can only be used for pumping water at present, and the effect on the People's Army is not large.

Trains will not appear anytime soon, but one of the preconditions for trains is that the railroad has appeared under the rule of the People's Army, extending eastward from the Yuecheng Iron and Steel Plant.

Four rails, two-way lanes, are already nearly ten miles long, and as the production of rails increases, the speed of construction of railroad roads will also increase rapidly.

The nearly ten-mile-long railway track road can no longer be hidden, and it is seen by the people living in the surrounding area, and the staff does not prevent the people from looking at the rail road, and even allows the people to make special carriages to experience it.

Ordinary people were just curious about the railroad tracks, and the merchants quickly understood the importance of the railroad after seeing the special horse-drawn carriages moving quickly on the railroad tracks.

If there were three types of roads between the two cities, namely, railroad roads, concrete roads, and dirt roads, merchants would have transported their goods from one city to the other to sell them, and it would obviously take less time to travel on the road.

The short time it takes to transport goods is an advantage, and it is very important to compete with each other.

The businessmen also had two doubts about the railroad tracks, one was how long the KPA would build, and the other was whether the KPA would provide horse-drawn carriages for free or pay to pass.

It is useless for businessmen to think about these questions now, and the railroad will not be open to the public for a short time, at least until the railroad connects the two cities.

Both cement and rail roads are part of the People's Army's huge road construction plan, which is simpler and cheaper than the construction of rail roads, and the speed of building cement roads is much faster than that of railway roads.

In the road construction plan, the People's Army should use cement roads to connect all the cities under its rule, but the railway roads did not have such high requirements, and only all the prefectures under the rule of the People's Army and the county towns between the prefectures were connected by rail roads.

Whether it is a cement road or a railway road, it is much better than the previous dirt road and gravel road, which is convenient for exchanges between various places, and also facilitates the development of commerce and trade, and at the same time has a great help for the military mobilization and logistics supply of the People's Army.

There is also a group to thank for the coolies who have made great contributions to the KPA's road construction program.

The coolies were composed of prisoners of the Ming army, bandits, ruffians and hooligans, gentry and merchants and their guards, all of whom were guilty of crimes, and those who committed serious crimes were directly executed, and more people were demoted to coolies by the People's Army to contribute to the development of the People's Army if they did not commit their crimes to death.

In the process of building roads, there are also coolies who are injured or even killed, but there are almost no coolies who are tired to death and killed, although the coolies are guilty people, but the people's army is not bad to coolies, as long as the coolies are obedient, they will not scold at will, the people's army provides enough food for the coolies, the food is relatively simple, the advantage is that the amount is full, and the coolies who are not willing to eat will starve to death.

It turns out that even the wealthy gentry and businessmen, who used to live a prosperous life, did not want to starve to death.

In the beginning, the coolies often planned riots, but they were suppressed by the People's Army, and the People's Army also used stratagems, and they inevitably won the lottery whistleblowers, but now, there are fewer and fewer coolies who dare to plan riots.

The People's Army also gave some hope to the coolies, and the hard labor time of the coolies was limited, and as long as they reached the end of the period, they could get rid of the status of coolies and become ordinary people under the rule of the People's Army, and the People's Army would distribute farmland.

……

June is approaching, and a very important matter is in front of Fang Nan, that is, the issue of equality coins.

In order to issue equal coins, the People's Army has mainly done two tasks in the past few months, one is to mint equal coins in large quantities, and the other is to establish people's money banks in various cities under the rule of the People's Army.

The People's Bank is the exchange point of the equal coin, and the first batch of the People's Army issued three equal coins, one yuan, five jiao, and one dime, all of which are silver coins, and the weight is one tael, five yuan, and one penny respectively.

Ordinary people can bring silver to the people's money banks in various places to exchange for equal coins of the same weight.

Yes, Fang Nan's intention was to circulate the Equality Coin as the same weight of silver under the rule of the People's Army, and at this stage when the Equality Coin was just in circulation, the People's Military Government would not prohibit the irregular circulation of silver, and silver and silver coins could be used together as a trading currency.

The most important problem was that the KPA minted not enough equal coins to support the huge amount of silver exchanged after the ban on silver circulation.

Therefore, the equality currency is put into market circulation first, so that the people can accept the equality currency little by little, and are willing to use the equality currency, in this process, the people began to exchange the silver in their hands for the equality currency, and the people's army obtained the silver, and then minted into the equality currency.

With the widespread acceptance of the Equality Coin, even if the People's Military Government does not issue a ban, the common people will gradually stop using silver, after all, compared to silver, the Equality Currency is more convenient to use, and the silver has to be weighed every time it is used, which is too troublesome.

For this reason, the People's Military Government should take the lead in using the Equality Coin, use the Equality Currency to pay salaries to officials, and use the Equality Currency to purchase various materials from the merchants, and all merchants under the rule of the People's Army must accept the Equality Currency as a transaction currency, etc.

People's money banks everywhere are ready and waiting for the official issuance of equal coins.

At present, the role of the people's money bank is very small, there is no loan business, there is no deposit business, the main thing is to accept users to exchange silver for equal currency.

The People's Money Village was the first money bank under the rule of the People's Army, and there were originally many money houses in Guangdong under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, but after the People's Army captured Guangdong, most of the money banks were confiscated by the People's Army because of problems with the owners, and a small number of money banks could not be opened because of business problems.

It is expected that with the emergence of the People's Bank, there will be a new Bank under the rule of the People's Army in the future.

[The word bank is not used for the time being, the people XX, I feel like I want to 404]