The time soon came to mid-July, and the construction of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge had been more than a year and a half, counting the design time, more than three years!

Tens of thousands of young and strong captives are busy, countless cement and steel supplies, although the current welding technology can not be provided, but by drilling holes in the steel bars, relying on fine splicing, relying on the pouring of countless cement slurries, one by one huge pillars from the bottom of the river to support the bridge deck, the first cross-river bridge in the history of the world has finally been successfully built, which is a miracle.

It was another day, when hundreds of skilled craftsmen stepped on the dry and hardened cement bridge deck, looking at the mighty Yangtze River under their feet, even they didn't believe that such a miracle had been designed and built in their own hands.

After about half a quarter of an hour of silence, all the skilled craftsmen burst into enthusiastic cheers, each with tears in their eyes, as they accomplished a historic feat.

When the news spread, people from all over the country, hundreds of civil and military officials of the imperial court, and even Zhu Cicheng came to watch this moment of history in person.

The strength of the Ming Dynasty once again penetrated into the hearts of the people of the Ming Dynasty, and the national self-confidence of the Ming Dynasty increased again.

The breakthrough of the Yangtze River Bridge was followed by the laying of a railway on the bridge deck.

As had been considered in the early design, the bridge deck was designed to be wide enough to accommodate two railways, as well as a cement pavement for three horse-drawn carriages to travel side by side, which had already been opened to the public while the railways were laid elsewhere.

At this moment, the people on both sides of the river crossed the river and no longer had to take a boat.

Horse-drawn carriages ran across the river on the cement road, and a large number of goods were transported back and forth, which greatly stimulated the economic development of both sides of the Yangtze River in the area of Nanjing.

The Imperial Study.

"Although the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge has been built, there are still a large number of cross-river bridges that need to be built in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty is more than 10,000 miles of rivers and mountains, and the construction of the railway network and cement road network by more than 3 million captives alone is too slow, so I decided to recruit people on a large scale in various places, and the imperial court will pay the wages, and the people of each county will participate, not only to build the railway and cement roads in their own counties, but also to build water conservancy at the same time, with the participation of hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty, I believe that within five years, The cement road network, railway network and water conservancy facilities all over the country in Daming can be built! Zhu Ci said to Li Yan and the other six cabinet ministers.

"Has the emperor ever thought that the Ming Dynasty is so wide, if the imperial court distributes wages, and hundreds of millions of people across the country participate in the construction of road networks and water conservancy, the huge amount of money will be spent is unimaginable." Liu Zongzhou, who is in charge of the household department, said.

Zhu Ci nodded and said: "Of course I have thought about it, but my move is to distribute the money in the treasury to the people, the so-called wealth is hidden in the people, and the people are rich in order for the country to be rich, and then they can also get the national railway network and water conservancy, which will benefit the country and the people, which is better than a large amount of money in the treasury being idle." ”

At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Central Bank and the treasury binding, now the Ming Central Bank has been opened to the counties and towns, the people have successively deposited and exchanged gold and silver property plus the treasury already has hundreds of millions of gold and silver, etc., a total of more than 5 billion silver value, and relying on the 5 billion silver, according to every two silver for 100 silver dollars, in addition to the amount of paper money and cash five times the issuance, the Ming Central Bank actually printed 2.5 trillion silver dollars, and the real issuance to the people, in fact, is less than 800 billion silver dollars, The remaining banknotes of up to 1,700 billion silver dollars are all collected in the national treasury, and if you don't want to find a way to issue them, it will be difficult for the Ming economy to reach a higher level.

This is Zhu Ci after careful consideration of the decision made, he feels that only the people have money, can buy more things, which will drive the prosperity from manufacturing to sales, when the money flows, the people are rich and the country is rich, and the two benefits are also.

"The emperor is sage, and the ministers are respectful!" Liu Zongzhou and Li Yan bowed.

With the unanimous approval of Zhu Ciji and the cabinet, the holy decree was quickly issued to all counties and towns, and the wages issued directly amounted to fifteen silver dollars a day. This is not low, you know, the current silver dollar can buy five catties of grain, fifteen silver dollars of wages, almost twice as much as the people usually help others work, more importantly, the people of this county only repair in this county, not far from home, and only work for four hours a day, the court also eats, and there is no restriction on going to stay, the people can participate in the work when they are free, and they can choose to be busy at home when they are busy, which is like pie in the sky.

Almost every young and strong man from every household has signed up, and the counties are busy.

In order to have enough cement supply, cement factories and ironworks have been set up in various counties, and the Ming Dynasty is in full swing.

Of course, in order to strictly control the cement technology from flowing out of the Ming Dynasty soon, the cement factories in each county are directly under the imperial court, and the city of Nanjing sends people to supervise, and the assembly line is used for production, each person can only master one process, and many production machines, especially the steam engine, are also strictly controlled by the imperial court, which ensures that it is extremely difficult for others to get a full set of technology for cement production.

The length of ironmaking is not so strict, because most of the steel required by the railway is ordinary steel, and there is not much technology worth concealing.

In order to control some county officials from eating empty salaries, committing fraud and corruption, and so on, Zhu Cicheng also ordered the county government offices, police stations, courts, and other institutions to supervise each other, and the people were rewarded for reporting, and so on.

Countless migrant workers from all over the country are busy opening roads in the mountains and building bridges in the water.

Although the road network and water conservancy projects in each county were undertaken by the people of each county, the more than 3.2 million prisoners were not idle, and some remote places, and some mountains through which the railway passed needed to be tunneled, etc., were all completed by them.

Compared to the four hours a day of the minfu's workload, the captives were not so lucky, at least six hours a day, a little lazy and not enough to eat.

In August, the second railway of the Ming Dynasty, the railway from Nanjing to Luoyang, was officially opened.

Originally, most of it had been repaired, only a section of the Yangtze River Bridge was missing, and now the Yangtze River Bridge was completed, and after the railway was laid, the whole line was naturally connected.

On August 13, just two days after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the first passenger train from Nanjing City to Luoyang departed from Nanjing Station and arrived in Luoyang after six hours of travel.

With the successful example of the Yangtze River Bridge, the construction of the Jinan Yellow River Bridge and the Luoyang Yellow River Bridge also began.

The first super-large-scale construction of the Ming Dynasty is in full swing, and the amount of silver dollars accumulated by the central bank is also flowing to the people at a rate of more than one billion silver dollars per day, hiding the wealth in the people, it is conceivable that when the road network of the counties of Daming is completed, the road is open, and the people have accumulated a large number of silver dollars, and the Ming Dynasty will open a kind of take-off.