To build a railway artery that runs through the east, west, north and south of the Ming Dynasty, it will undoubtedly require countless coolies, steel and capital.

The coolie side was to be borne by more than a million prisoners of war, who had been taken prisoner in the previous wars and faced a sentence of 10 to 30 years, with the lowest Mongol prisoner of war being 10 years and the highest being 30 years.

Originally, a large number of these prisoners of war participated in the construction of cities in the Mongolian steppe, but after two years of construction in the Mongolian steppe, more than ninety percent of the cities have been completed, and more and more prisoners of war have been liberated, just in time to participate in the construction of the national railway.

Immediately, Zhu Ci ordered all the prisoners who had been liberated from the construction of the Mongolian steppe to be escorted to the mainland.

In terms of steel, after the continuous improvement and innovation of the Institute of Science and Technology over the years, coupled with the use of steam engines in recent years, Daming's steel output has increased from the initial 30,000 tons per year to 1.37 million tons per year, and some steel plants are still being built, and the technological improvement of the Institute of Science and Technology has never been interrupted, and it is believed that Daming's steel output will continue to rise.

According to the need for sixty tons of iron per kilometer of railway, steel is completely sufficient.

As for the financial aspect, there is no need to worry, as a captive coolie and no salary, as long as a bite to eat, due to the introduction of new species, the expansion of the territory, the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty is extremely low, there have been many ordinary farmers with grain to raise livestock, which was unimaginable before.

With the arrival of a large number of prisoners of war in the interior and the establishment of the first railway route, the construction of the railway officially began.

The Ming Dynasty will take Nanjing City as the center, and build four horizontal and four vertical routes in advance, one of which will start from Lhasa, Tibet, and believe that if the construction is successful, the integration and control of Tibetan areas can be strengthened.

The most important thing in the construction of railways is to dig rocks and build bridges.

In terms of bridges, as early as when the cement came out, Zhu Cicheng asked the Academy of Science and Technology to take the lead in designing the collapsed river bridge, and Zhu Cicheng personally put forward some theories and technologies that only later generations had, after more than three years of conception, the design of the first Yangtze River Bridge has been released, just in time for the large-scale construction of the railway.

The Yangtze River Bridge will be the first bridge in human history to be built with steel and cement, using a large amount of cement and steel, and countless manpower, Zhu Ci ordered to select 10,000 people from among the captives to participate in the construction of the first Yangtze River Bridge.

More than one million prisoners of war started construction at the same time, so you can imagine how vigorous it was.

Although he is a prisoner of war, but it is also a free coolie, although Zhu Ci is very squeezed, but it is not to the point of asking them to die, the tube is full, and the doctor is still in charge of the sick, Zhu Ci is reluctant to let them die of exhaustion or illness, the construction of the railway is only a part of the Ming Dynasty, and the construction of straight cement roads is to use coolies.

Originally, there were more than a million prisoners of war, but now that the railroad was built, it immediately became inadequate.

There is no way, the amount of railway engineering is too large, more than the construction of hundreds of cities in Mongolia, and it will be a long construction of more than ten years, until every county in the Ming Dynasty is open to railways.

At the same time as the construction of the railway, the construction of the cement straight road was not interrupted, and there were still more than 100,000 prisoners left in the construction of the cement straight road.

Since the heaviest ox and horse-drawn cart is only about one ton full of goods, this situation will be maintained before the age of motor trucks, and the weight of about one ton of goods does not require high thickness of cement road, so the construction of cement road is much simpler than that of railway.

In fact, the cement road was built at the same time as the Mongolian steppe, and the surrounding area of Nanjing City was already covered with wide and flat cement roads.

Horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, and horses gallop on wide, flat concrete roads.

Because of the huge pasture of the Mongolian steppe, the price of horses in the Ming Dynasty is not very high, and many ordinary people can afford it.

Bicycles, on the other hand, are the most widespread, and on wide, flat concrete roads, bicycles that ride at full strength are not even slower than galloping horses, as if they have become a fashion, and the price is not high, and almost every household will buy one or two.

The people around Nanjing City are the happiest, because they were the first to use the cement road, and the people and merchants who enter and exit Nanjing City every day are endless, because it is an important place in Beijing, there are many officials and nobles, public security is good, and there are more people who have money to consume, Nanjing City has already become the largest and most prosperous city in the Ming Dynasty.

Shanghai, the largest port in China in later generations, has also begun to take shape at this moment because of the gathering of sea trade, and the population has exceeded a large county, moving towards a prefecture-level city.

"Your Majesty, why don't you also participate in the construction of railways and straightways with a large number of Manchu captives who planted trees on both sides of the Yellow River in Shaanxi?" On this day, Li Yan suddenly asked Zhu Ci.

Since the defeat of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the westward migration, 200,000 Manchu captives have been planting trees on both sides of the Yellow River in Shaanxi Province in exchange for food.

In order to get food to survive, these Manchu captives are constantly developing and planting trees every day, carrying water and watering habits, the two banks of the Yellow River in Shaanxi have been from the original barren Gobi loess to the emergence of a large number of green forests, although the Yellow River flooding has not been significantly improved, but the soil erosion has been significantly reduced, I believe that with the passage of time, when the banks of the Yellow River are full of green dense forests, the Yellow River flooding will inevitably be solved.

In order to protect the Yellow River, in the early years, Zhu Ciji ordered that no trees within ten miles of the Yellow River should be cut down, and violators would be severely punished. Some hares and birds began to settle in the new woods, and it has to be said that under the coercion of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchus finally made some contributions and atoned for their original sins.

"No need, I asked Dolgon to exchange 100 million taels of silver for these captives, so much time has passed, I believe that Dolgon can almost get so much silver, besides, I don't think that the greening on both sides of the Yellow River is less important than the construction of railways and cement roads, and at the same time as the construction of railways and cement roads in the future, the greening on both sides of the Yellow River cannot be stopped, even if those Manchurian captives are replaced by Dolgon in the future, I will let some captives go back to replace them." Zhu Ci said firmly.

This is a major event that will affect future generations, no matter how tight the coolie labor in all aspects such as the railway is, Zhu Ci will not waver.

In recent years, the Manchus have made a vigorous move in the Middle East, occupying a territory of almost two thousand miles, and Dolgon's ambitions for the Persian Empire Zhu Ci saw it very clearly, according to Zhu Ci's estimate, perhaps just this year, Dolgon will destroy the Persian Empire, plundering other countries, with the entire Persian Empire and the surrounding countries rich, it is not impossible for Dolgon to raise 100 million taels of silver.

However, speaking of Dolgon, Zhu Ciji's eyes couldn't help but flash a hint of discoloration.

In fact, although the Manchus moved westward, Zhu Ciji never gave up monitoring them, and the land where the Manchus are currently located is the black gold with the blood of the industry of later generations, which is an incomparably huge wealth, and the future expansion of the Ming Dynasty will inevitably point to that land.

After all, the Manchus were one of the dozens of ethnic groups in China in later generations, and it was inevitable that they would integrate into China, and Zhu Ci never intended to let them go.

"The Emperor Shengming!" Li Yan's heart shook slightly, and he stopped talking.