The steel mill is the place where Zhao Xin is most proud, originally, according to normal development, the navy should go to light industry first.

Light industry produces quick results, large profits, as long as there is a little improvement, you can get a huge income, and do not worry about sales.

But by mistake, Zhao Xin finally chose iron as the breakthrough point.

The price of iron in the Northern Song Dynasty was higher, far exceeding the benchmark value, and the amount used was huge, and in Zhao Xin's capacity, iron was more suitable than anything else.

Zhao Xin also did not expect that in the process of building the Daimyo's blacksmith workshop, he would find such a genius researcher as Niu Dali.

Zhao Xin is also a researcher, he is cultivated through later generations of science, a researcher specializing in history, he is at best a product of the assembly line, if it is not for the card system, if it is not for the vision of the traverser, he is in the field of research, it is impossible to achieve such a great effect.

But Niu Dali is a rare genius, he is a genius researcher, as long as Niu Dali is given a little convenience and guidance, the final burst of results will shock the world.

In fact, Niu Dali also repaid Zhao Xin in this way, in the Daimyo Blacksmith Workshop, in such a weak environment, he integrated all the experience of the Northern Song Dynasty together, and finally became the current state as if he had put on wings.

In the Daimyo's Mansion, because all aspects are not very sound, and in addition, Zhao Xin has no intention of taking out the big killer of blast furnace steelmaking.

When he arrived at Dinghai, everything was fine, Zhao Xin believed in Niu Dali very much, and handed everything over to Niu Dali, Niu Dali did not live up to Zhao Xin's expectations, and finally the steel plant was successfully finalized and put into production.

The output of the steel plant, after four months, has reached its peak, not a blast furnace, but dozens of blast furnaces working together, although the smoke obscures the sky, and the current daily output is as high as 20,000 tons.

In this way, the annual output is as high as 7 million tons, and with the traditional transportation method, more than 30 kilometers of roads, with a carriage of about half a ton of transportation volume, a day at least 40,000 horse-drawn carriages are needed to transport these out.

Let's not talk about whether the navy can gather so many carriages, and even if it can gather so many carriages, how wide the road will have to be to accommodate them.

The area of the Dinghai Navy is not small, but at best, it is a small island, Zhao Xin in order to develop in an all-round way, in the early stage, he will definitely focus on the Dinghai Navy, in this way, large-scale roads, or can accommodate 40,000 carriages, it is unlikely to appear.

The railway has become the only choice, more than 30 kilometers of railway, can undertake 100 carriages, each carriage 15 tons, 100 cars is 1500 tons, 20,000 tons, as long as ten trips back and forth.

The carriage is under the horse, which is quite fast and efficient, and can undertake this transportation work.

In fact, most of the output of the steel mill was supported by the construction of the Dinghai Navy, and very little was shipped out.

The construction of the Navy consumes a lot of iron every day, whether it is the construction of roads, railways, or even houses.

The territory of the Dinghai Navy is not small, hundreds of square kilometers, and in later generations, the core areas of Shanghai and Beijing are hundreds of square kilometers, but these have to be added to the industrial area and some areas that are not suitable for the main residence and industry, and there are not many places that can be used.

Except for the houses that were built indiscriminately before Zhao Xinlai, they are now all neat houses with seven or eight floors, which looks a little monotonous, but they can accommodate the largest number of people.

After the construction of 37 kilometers of railway, especially in the course of 2 months, successive experiments were carried out, and the experience finally formed was that it was not a problem to build a longer railway.

The Dinghai Navy also had plans to build a longer railway, but this railway could not be built in the Dinghai Navy.

On the island, the 37 kilometers of railway that can be built is already the limit, and in the future a double line can be built to make the railway more efficient and integrated into the whole city, as a fast loop, for fast traffic conditions outside.

Railway transportation is the focus of future development, even a train like a horse-drawn train is enough to produce great changes in the entire Northern Song Dynasty.

From 3 kilometers to 37 kilometers, the next is a little longer, on the ground of the current Northern Song Dynasty, there are many other railway projects of great significance, but there is only one that has direct help for the Dinghai Navy.

This is also the purpose of the next construction, a railway of more than 300 miles, to be built between Hongze Lake and Haizhou.

If you want to build roads first, you can see from the production capacity of the steel mill what kind of productivity can burst out when the Dinghai Navy is completely industrialized.

At present, the vast majority of the production capacity of the Navy is put on construction, and one building after another is erected, and when the saturation of this building reaches a certain level, it is almost inevitable that it will be transferred to other fields.

At present, the largest development of the navy is the manufacturing industry with iron and steel as the main body, but other light industries are also being planned.

A fully industrialized city will have such a terrible production capacity, these products, if piled up, will only gradually increase the inventory, only relying on the market, the production of things, sold out, in order to get enough income.

Transportation is the first problem that needs to be solved, relying on the help of Huainan East Road, coupled with a large amount of capital injection, the Dinghai Navy quickly formed a fleet with hundreds of various types of sea vessels, which can be transported to any place through shipping.

Unfortunately, for the core area of the Northern Song Dynasty, it is necessary to detour a long way.

Zhao Xin chose to set the navy because in later generations, Lianyungang was one of the few seaports in the world, and after the development of the navy, it could also be connected to various places by sea.

However, in order to enter the Northern Song Dynasty sales, it is impossible to solve all the problems by sea.

In this era, there is no iron cable, the Yangtze River Bridge across the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River traffic capacity is huge, you can go up through the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, only to Jiangning Mansion. It is then transported through the Yangtze River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

If the trajectory of this sales is for the Yangtze River Basin, this detour is not much, but for northern China, especially in the most prosperous area of the Northern Song Dynasty in the core area of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, this detour is at least thousands of miles.

For example, if the destination of the sale is the Daimyofu, the detour will exceed 3,000 miles, which is a bit wasteful in terms of efficiency.

The best way is to pass through a simple route between Haizhou and Dinghai, and then build a road connecting Haizhou and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

In this case, the shortest distance is the road from Haizhou to Hongze Lake.

There are countless ports to build in Hongze Lake, and at the same time, there is enough water in the lower reaches of the Huai River to allow materials to easily enter the core area of the Northern Song Dynasty and obtain sufficient benefits.

When there is no other transportation as an auxiliary solution, water transportation is the cheapest and most convenient and fast transportation method.

The mileage of the railway, every order of magnitude increases, the difficulty will also increase a lot, 300 miles of railway, compared with 37 kilometers, increased by about 5 times, however, it is only the railway from Haizhou to Hongze Lake, which does not pass through a lot of rivers and lakes, and there are no peaks and the like, which is not difficult, that is, the simple repetition of the railway of the Dinghai Navy, as long as the exploration work is done, it can be carried out.

As long as the construction of a railway is completed, the two railways, with the help of the link of shipping, coupled with the excellent loading efficiency of the Dinghai Navy, the goods from the Dinghai Navy will be continuously injected into Hongze Lake, and then relying on the natural port group of Hongze Lake, smoothly transported to various regions of the entire Northern Song Dynasty.

Therefore, such a project has also become a key project from the fourth year of Qingli to the fifth year of Qingli, and Zhao Xin personally paid attention to it, and even sent the most outstanding elite soldiers and strong generals here.

In the steel plant, almost half of the production capacity will be tilted towards the rails, and even for this reason, the development of the Dinghai Navy will be delayed.

The reason is very simple, once this railway is completed, the Dinghai Navy will change the situation of being isolated overseas, and in the future, the development of the entire Dinghai Navy will be plugged into the wings.

Just when Zhao Xin was determining the development of the navy and a perfect blueprint for calligraphy and painting, news came from the northwest that Han Qi carried the Song army out of the horse, went to Lingzhou in World War I, Xingqing in World War II, and annihilated 30,000 iron harriers in World War III, won all three battles, and perished in Western Xia.

To be honest, when he just received the news of the destruction of Western Xia, Zhao Xin was stunned for a long time, and he couldn't react.

He really didn't expect that Western Xia would perish like this, and this was too unimaginable.

This is a rare opportunity in history to provide time for the development of the Northern Song Dynasty, and a lot of preparations were made when designing.

This dead room, which itself can play a role in more important occasions, is wasted here, he is exposed in front of the high-level of the entire Liao State, and gradually enters a higher level, perhaps he can remind the Northern Song Dynasty in some secret areas, and others, on the contrary, are not as convenient as before.

In the speculation of the best outcome, Zhao Xin only estimated that the continuous attrition of Western Xia and Liao would reduce the pressure on the northwest, and both countries would be considerably weakened, providing valuable time for the development of the Northern Song Dynasty.

With Zhao Xin's ability, in the Dinghai Navy, it will take three or five years to make science and technology climb to a sufficient extent, and when the time comes, science and technology and capital will crush, and no nomadic can provoke the Northern Song Dynasty, and when the time comes, it will be truly safe.

But no one thought that the Western Xia would perish like this, this is also a bit mysterious, such a powerful, like a-stirring stick, attacking the Northern Song Dynasty day and night, it was so simple to perish.