The Great Hall of the Four Peoples.

"What is a train?"

Amid the rhythmic clicking sound that still sounded outside, Yang Qing said to the delegates.

"Trains are the future!"

He howled.

The whistle sounded suddenly, as if to accompany Yang Qing's howl.

"The train outside has been running for two full hours, with a total weight of more than 40,000 catties, including the carriages, and it has traveled 70 miles in these two hours, and it still does not stop. In fact, according to my calculations, the coal it carries will allow it to continue to run another seventy miles, four hours, one hundred and forty miles, and it will only take half an hour to refill it. That is to say, as long as there are tracks in front of it, a station with coal and water, and even someone there waiting to do maintenance for it, in short, like a post station providing all the needs for horses, then it can never stop.

It can run at least 500 miles in four hours, 140 miles, and 24 hours.

Imagine that.

If the southern capital and the northern capital, between the southern capital and Chang'an, and even Guangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming and even Hangzhou, Fuzhou and Taiyuan and all other important cities are all paved with tracks.

How easy our journey will be!

When you want to go to the northern capital, you can sit in a special carriage, take your wife, eat hot pot, listen to small songs, and you can see the city gate of the northern capital after four days. Instead of taking a boat for more than a month, as in the past, and even having to be stuck somewhere when it freezes in winter, you can't advance or retreat for months. Even if you take the sea route, you have to bump in the wind and waves for more than half a month, and you may even die in the belly of the fish in the event of a storm.

Think about it!

In the past, a merchant could only make one round trip between the north and the south a year, but with it he could make ten trips a year.

How much money to make!

And it's just an experimental one.

If I wanted, I could make it ten times more load-heavy.

I can make it ten times faster likewise.

I can make a train, with a load of 400,000 catties, run on every track, or railway, day and night at a speed of 350 miles per hour. Grain from Chengdu can be delivered to Nandu in less than a day, flower cloth from Songjiang can be delivered to Chang'an in less than a day, and iron ore from Qiongzhou can be delivered to factories in less than a day. Do we still need to care if the product doesn't get out? Do we still need to worry about the logistics of the army? Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty gambled that his empire exhausted the power of the world to do it, and we only need a railway and a hundred and ten trains. ”

Yang Qing continued to howl.

Indeed, it can only be described as a howl to describe the protector at this time.

"But it's expensive to build a railway!"

A delegate said.

"Yes, you are right, it costs a lot of money to build a railway, in fact, it is not only a cost, we don't even have enough steel to build a railway, one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, one mile of seventy-five thousand pounds of iron, one hundred miles of seven and a half million pounds of iron, and it can't be inferior pig iron, it must be high-quality wrought iron, and we only built more than a thousand miles a year last year, and we can't even repair the north capital!"

Yang Qing said.

Last year, Daming produced less than 50,000 tons of steel and wrought iron, and more pig iron, which actually exceeded 100,000 tons.

Most of this is actually private iron smelting.

The private iron smelting of the Ming Dynasty was actually very developed, Jiajing ten years according to the Guangdong iron smelting tax silver calculation, Guangdong Province alone, this year private iron smelting smelted nearly 30 million catties, and Guangdong's iron smelting output is roughly equivalent to half of the country, that is to say, Jiajing ten years of no less than 60 million catties.

More than 30,000 tons.

Britain was only 20,000 at this time.

However, these wrought iron are also very different because of the different raw materials, Yang Qing's own steel factory uses iron ore smelting from Hainan Island, even the wrought iron has reached the level of low carbon steel, mainly used for the manufacture of gun barrels and various machinery, and high-grade tools and some precision devices are crucible steel. Because the cost control is stricter, the people do not use this kind of long-distance shipping iron ore, but mainly from Ma'anshan, so the quality of wrought iron is slightly lower, but it is also qualified, even if it is used to make gun barrels, it is no problem, but it is still mainly armor, some popular machinery and the like.

However, this production does not include those in Guangdong.

Guangdong's iron and steel industry is supported by high-quality iron ore in northern Guangdong, and the output is not low, according to Jinyiwei's intelligence statistics, it should be 20,000 wrought iron and 30,000 tons of pig iron, surpassing Britain, and the power of liberal capitalism is amazing. In fact, the iron and steel produced in Guangdong is mainly sold in the imperial court-controlled areas, and the quality of wrought iron is only slightly inferior to that of Yangqing's iron and steel mills, but it is more than that of the people in the imperial court-controlled areas.

In the end, iron ore is the most important.

However, there is no problem in building rails, the early railways in Britain were all wrought iron, which was made from the Pudling wrought iron furnace and then forged, and it was impossible for Yang Qing to build heavy trains. His rails were originally calculated as light, the standard rails cost 1.50 or 60 kilograms, and two at least 200 catties, and he didn't expect to run a thousand-ton train, 100 tons or even dozens of tons......

He didn't even count on the railroad.

Well, he's actually blowing up and learning from Brother Pao's grand railroad plan......

Conspiracy?

Of course there is a conspiracy!

There is no conspiracy, why is he playing so much?

Just like Wang Fuzhi guessed, how could the Duke of the Protector be so high-profile without a conspiracy?

"So, if you want to build railways on a large scale, first of all, steel production must be increased."

Yang Qing said: "My first batch of railway plans are very simple, the southern capital will go north to the northern capital, west to Chang'an, south through Shanghai to Ningbo, and these three railways will be built within five years, and at the same time the southern capital will be built west through Wuchang to Hengyang." and from Hangzhou to the west via Nanchang to Changsha, from Hengyang to Nanning, from Nanchang to Guangzhou and from Zhengding to Taiyuan, from Chang'an to the Western Regions, from Haizhou to Chang'an. These will be built in ten years, and in twenty years, our trains will go to Dihua, to Shenyang, to Kunming and Chengdu! 100,000 miles, 20 years, 100,000 miles of railway, twenty years later, we will build a 100,000-mile railway on the land of the Ming Dynasty! ”

The Great Hall of the Four Peoples was stunned.

Everyone looked at Yang Qing who raised his arms high to make a mustache speech in a daze, and this series of numbers was extremely shocking.

The main thing, of course, is that none of them understand.

If they understood, Yang Qing should be a real madman in their eyes at this time.

"So, we're going to make steel!"

And Yang Qing continued to go crazy.

"We produced 50,000 tons of wrought iron last year, and this year we can reach up to 60,000 at most, which is not good, this is not enough for us to build railways, and it is not possible to increase the speed of such production.

We have to run forward!

We will increase the output of wrought iron tenfold in five years, increase the output of wrought iron by 20 times in 10 years, and in 20 years we will produce more than 5 million tons of wrought iron! Only in this way can we ensure the construction of our railway, everyone, a great era has begun, and the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty has begun! Let us take out the spirit of Yugong to move mountains and start our steel age, the empress has decided to relax the restrictions on prospecting and mining rights north of the Yangtze River, and everyone, as long as they have the ability, can go there to find minerals. Regardless of iron ore and coal mines, whoever finds it first will be given a mining license, and the mining right will be given for a hundred years, and whoever finds the mine can mine it for a hundred years! ”

He shouted excitedly.

The iron ore before the Ming Dynasty was actually controlled by him, that is, the two main mining areas of Daye and Ma'anshan, which had already been counted under the name of his iron ore company through some operations, together with the Shilu iron mine.

So there aren't many iron mines left in the south.

After all, Panzhihua iron ore will definitely not be able to be mined at this time.

Including the entire Ming Dynasty's prospecting rights are also in this company, which is well known, but no one cares about this problem, after all, iron smelting has been mainly government-run since ancient times. Although the Ming Dynasty did not prohibit private smelting, it was only that the government-run iron smelting was too backward under the artisan household system in the past, and now the best iron-smelting technology is Yang Qing's iron and steel factory. Now he not only has the right to smelt iron, but also the right to prospect and mine north of the Yangtze River, which is indeed generous enough, which means that anyone with money can go to the north for prospecting and mining......

No prospecting.

Dolgon has the Zunhua Iron Works!

His iron ore is all from the east of Hebei, and the Cizhou area has also produced iron since ancient times, in fact, there are more iron ores in the north than in the south, as long as there is money to mine these iron ores again, and then establish an iron factory nearby to smelt. And Yang Qing's railway plan also makes the steel no longer have the problem of sales, no matter how much is mined and refined, it will be swallowed up by this iron-absorbing black hole.

And it's not just iron ore.

There are also coal mines that are in greater demand.

The train doesn't eat grain, but it eats coal!

Coal and iron, as long as there is a mine, it will be like digging gold in a hundred years!

Those representatives of the Four Peoples instantly lit up their eyes!

"Protector, you haven't answered yet, where does the money come from for such a costly railway construction plan?"

Wang Fuzhi said suddenly.

The representatives of the four peoples instantly calmed down.

Yes? Where does the money come from?

"It's easy!"

Yang Qing said with a smile: "Raising shares, private investment in building railways, whoever invests will make profits, whoever builds the railway will collect freight, the state only collects taxes, and if the state uses the railway, it will also pay." In addition to these railways, the people themselves can also decide which one to build, as long as you have money in your hands, you can build a railway between your own home and your own family. Of course, the premise is that the villagers along the way agree to you use their land, and what I plan is only trunk railways, which are led by the Queen Mother, Her Majesty the Empress and me, invest in the establishment of corresponding railway companies, and then issue shares to raise funds.

Whoever has money in their hands can invest.

Ladies and gentlemen, what are you waiting for? Isn't such a railway lying down to collect money? As long as these railways are built, every car of goods and every person transported on this road will give you money, and then it will continue to be given for generations to come.

You don't have to doubt anything!

Queen Mother, Her Majesty the Empress and I, we vouch for you! ”