After three days of intense discussions, the representatives of the merchants of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces finally reached an agreement to jointly fund the construction of a road to Burma.

However, the specific construction route, the amount of investment, the construction period and the use of labor will need to wait for the geological experts of the Royal Academy to give detailed results.

However, Cao Rui's task was completed by this time.

Write the results of the deliberations in the past few days into a memorabilia, and Cao Rui will report it.

Five days later, Zhang Lingyang received Cao Rui's recital, nodded with satisfaction after reading it carefully, and couldn't stop praising it: "This Cao Rui really has two brushes." ”

In fact, Zhang Lingyang himself rejected the model of road construction like the three southwestern provinces, because this is another form of privatization.

Homesickness, the three southwestern provinces can do this, does that mean that other provinces can also do the same?

Moreover, such an important transportation artery was in the hands of merchants, which was a blessing in disguise for the imperial court.

However, fortunately, the Southwest Merchant Alliance only has the right to operate this road for fifteen years, and once this period is exceeded, the road will be automatically nationalized.

On the other hand, that is, the financial resources of the imperial court are limited now, and it is impossible to cover all aspects of every province and every project, so as long as the benefits of the project outweigh the disadvantages of the imperial court, Zhang Lingyang will still agree.

The construction of roads in the three southwestern provinces is more beneficial than disadvantageous to the imperial court, and even to a certain extent, it can rise to the height of national strategy.

It is said that the imperial court should not allow private individuals to interfere in such a large project. But as mentioned just now, the imperial court has limited financial resources, and it must improve the strategic layout of the Great Zhou as soon as possible, so it is inevitable that some trade-offs will be made in terms of interests.

Just imagine, if it weren't for the fact that the merchants of the three southwestern provinces were willing to pay for the construction of this transportation artery, relying solely on the financial resources of the imperial court, I am afraid that it would not be able to build it until at least five years later.

But in the eighteen provinces of the Great Monday, there is more than one road to be built? And if the imperial court wants to improve the road network of the Great Zhou, relying on financial revenue alone, it will have to wait until the Year of the Monkey and the month of the horse.

That's why Zhang Lingyang made such a choice.

Zhang Lingyang even used this as a reason to promise businessmen from all over the world that they could build roads on their own.

Of course, according to the amount of interest to the imperial court, many favorable conditions were promised to the merchants. Of course, the premise is that the roads built must be under the planning and supervision of the imperial court.

According to the results of the unanimous discussion between the cabinet and the military cabinet, Zhang Lingyang also plans to build a number of major transportation arteries that are related to the national economy and people's livelihood of the entire Great Zhou Dynasty. According to the geographical structure of the Great Zhou, the transportation network is divided into seven regions: Southwest, Northwest, North China, Eastern Liaoning, Central China, East China and South China.

According to the division of these seven regions, the imperial court allowed merchants from all provinces in the region to participate in the construction of transportation arteries planned by the imperial court.

Of course, depending on the complexity of the geographical situation, the imperial court promised more or less benefits to the merchants.

Just like the three southwestern provinces, the mountains are crisscrossed, the road construction is very difficult, coupled with the large investment and the long term, the imperial court promised more benefits to the southwestern merchants.

In North China, because of its location in the Great Plains, roads could be easily built and very little money was invested, so the benefits promised to merchants by the imperial court were much less.

In the northwest, due to the barren land and poor people, there are very few rich households in the northwest provinces, so there is not much money to invest in road construction, and this main line is going to extend to Western Siberia, thousands of miles away, which is not something that merchants can afford at all, so it will be funded by the imperial court.

In East China and South China, although there are many mountains, they are already wealthy, so on the premise that merchants can raise funds to build roads, the imperial court does not give them as many benefits as in the southwest.

Although the imperial court promised not many benefits, the enthusiasm of merchants in East China and South China to invest in the construction of roads was still much higher than that in Southwest China.

Because the local area is relatively wealthy, if the transportation arteries connecting several provinces are built, the economic benefits will be far from being comparable to the investment.

Besides, although there is a lot of investment, there are many wealthy people there, and it is evenly shared, but in fact, the expenses borne by each merchant are not very large.

And once they participate in the investment, they will leave a good impression in the imperial court, and naturally it will bring them benefits that they may not even imagine.

In Liaodong, because the vast majority of local residents are poor people who have migrated from the Central Plains, the rich households are naturally the least in the country.

However, because there were many local guards, it was natural that the main line in the eastern Liaodong region was built under the auspices of the army.

The current Liaodong region, after several years of large-scale development, has surpassed the Jiangnan region and has become the largest granary of the Great Zhou, which is something that the ministers of the DPRK and China did not expect.

At the same time, they had to admire Zhang Lingyang's courage.

I think that back then, under the collective opposition of the ministers, Zhang Lingyang insisted on making a big migration to Liaodong, and now it seems that what a wise choice.

Just imagine, if Zhang Lingyang was forced to stop the great migration under the pressure of the courtiers, what is the scene in Liaodong now? I'm afraid it's still a barren land, where is there still a thousand miles of fertile fields now?

At the same time, because of the large-scale migration, the land pressure in the Central Plains, which was originally more populous, has suddenly decreased, which has eased the internal contradictions between many people who were originally invisible.

With Zhang Lingyang's decree, the geologists in the Royal Academy began to take their students to various places, trekking through mountains and rivers all the way to investigate the geological structure and natural environment of each place.

Previously, geologists did not do this kind of work, but before they were mainly to explore the local mineral resources, so they did not explore the geological structure of many places in detail.

Although it will take several months or even as long as a year for the transportation artery that runs through the entire Great Zhou to be planned and started, because of the issuance of the holy decree, businessmen from all over the country have long been unable to stop the excitement in their hearts, and the enthusiasm for investment is very high.

Obviously, once the arteries that run through the entire Great Zhou are repaired, the first to benefit are these businessmen, otherwise how could they be so motivated?

In the Jiangnan area, less than half a month after the holy decree was conveyed here, Jiangning, an important town in the south of the Yangtze River, gathered wealthy businessmen from all over the south of the Yangtze River.

First, these wealthy businessmen want to go through the door and get a piece of the investment, after all, there are so many wealthy households in Jiangnan, not everyone can get a share.

Second, to get the latest news. As the most important city in the entire Jiangnan region, Jiangning is much better informed than other regions.

Three, naturally, it is to make some connections. Now that there are many wealthy businessmen in Jiangning City, maybe when they can negotiate a big deal.

……