After sending away the expeditionary corps, Zhu Cijiong could only wait for their news, in this era when communication basically relied on roaring, transmitting news across the ocean, it would be very good to have a round trip in a month or two, he could still expedite eight hundred miles at home, and he could only wait abroad, he didn't like this feeling very much, but the phone and telegram only existed in his memory, and now there was no electricity at all, and he could only cry out in vain.

After the fifteenth day of the first month, he immediately launched the Jingdong railway project, what is the Jingdong railway, that is, the railway between Beijing and Dongdaying, this railway is about 250 miles long, two-way dual carriageway, he plans to use three months to build through.

Two hundred and fifty miles and three months to repair, that is to say, it is necessary to repair at least three miles a day, is it possible? There is no doubt about this, there is no problem at all, because Zhu Cijiong is going to recruit many, many migrant workers, and the specific number of recruits can only be known through experiments.

This experiment is actually to build a large dispatching station in the west of the capital now, this dispatching station is mainly used to park the train and turn the train around, the station is ready to be repaired in the north of the city, but the railroad track has to be extended to the west of the city, because Wang Gongchang is in the west of the capital, and the train also needs a huge arc to turn around, so this dispatching station with a huge arc is set in the west of the capital.

This railway was a new thing in the Ming Dynasty and even in the whole world at that time, and Zhu Cijiong also knew that it was necessary to lay stones first, then lay sleepers, and then lay tracks on it, as if the turning place should be high on the outside and low on the inside, so that the centripetal force can be generated when the train turns, and it will not fly directly off the track. Of course, these are all general understandings, and he does not have specific data on how thick the stones should be laid, how thick the sleepers should be, and how many degrees the corners should be tilted, and these must be obtained through experiments.

That is to say, he will first use this dispatching station to do experiments, and the time for the experiment is set at about a month, and the time for the official construction of the railway is actually only two months, and the two-lane railway of 250 miles will be repaired in two months, is he a little too taken for granted? This is not taken for granted at all, because he is ready to invest a huge amount of manpower, 10,000 will come 20,000, 20,000 will come if it doesn't work, 50,000 will come 50,000, 50,000 will come 100,000, anyway, the early stage of leveling the ground and laying stones or even laying sleepers does not require any technology, ordinary migrant workers can complete it, and the reason why he did this is because he remembered a way to develop the economy.

In fact, most people in later generations have heard of this method, that is, to take the lead in launching large-scale infrastructure construction, expand domestic demand, and lay a solid foundation for economic growth. This is a bit theoretical, if intuitively speaking, that is, stones need money to buy, wood needs money to buy, labor needs money, these money will eventually fall into the hands of civilians all over the line, they have money to have the ability to consume, they will buy things, can drive the development of other industries, this is the expansion of domestic demand in the process of railway construction. After the completion of the railway, it will be easier to transport goods and merchants along the line, and commercial activities will become more and more frequent, so that the economy will grow slowly.

Zhu Cijiong has actually been thinking about how to make Daming's economy grow rapidly, to make economic growth must invigorate the market, to invigorate the market must have consumer groups, where does this consumer group come from, the biggest consumer group is ordinary people, the problem is that they have no money! So we have to let the common people have money before we can talk about economic growth, how do we make them rich? Engage in infrastructure construction first, so that they can make some money; raise the price of food again, so that he can make some more money; Then we can also promote characteristic breeding, build labor-intensive factories, and so on, and so on, when the people have money, the market will be active, and when the market is active, the economy will naturally grow slowly.

This railway construction is only the first step to make the people rich, so he is ready to recruit workers frantically, and he can recruit as much as he can, anyway, what he has now is money, invest a little first, let the people get rich, and slowly the economy of Daming will be invigorated, so that he can earn more money.

First of all, he led people to dig a hole in the west of the inner city, no way, it was too troublesome to go to other city gates, directly drive the city wall on the west side of Wang Gongchang, first pave the small track of the rail flatbed, and it will be much more convenient to transport things out, this Zhu Cijiong naturally agreed.

After opening the hole, the track will be laid, and now he doesn't have so much iron ore, so the track can only be laid a small circular track a few miles long, which is similar to the circular track of a general stadium.

This track is not paved, because the standard shape of the track has not yet been decided, Zhu Cijiong just roughly drew him an I-shaped track section, specifically how wide and thick the bottom of the I-shape, how high and thick the vertical in the middle, and how wide and thick the upper horizontal is, and how short the inner side is, these are all things to try.

The track can not be made into a solid square column, in that case, a meter track will be more than 100 catties, waste of materials not to say, it is not easy to fix, it is undoubtedly made into an I-shape, this width height and thickness will not necessarily be exactly the same as the track of later generations, because the material is not the same, it is impossible to make high-quality track steel in the Ming Dynasty, and the track is not pulled out, nor is it pressed out, it can only be cast in the Ming Dynasty, this strength is much lower than pulling out or pressing out, so, The orbit made at this time must be thicker than the orbit of later generations, and as for how thick it is, it will be an experiment.

There are also how thick the stones should be paved, how thick the sleepers should be, and how many degrees the corners should be tilted, all of which have to be experimented one by one, and Song Yingxing was busy, with a group of students and a large group of migrant workers, to pave a few miles of railroad, dig and pave, and use the latest steam locomotive to keep rolling back and forth on it, for a while the rails were crushed, the stones were collapsed, and the sleepers were broken for a while, I don't know how many times I almost overturned, and I don't know how many times I got out of the track, and I almost didn't toss Song Yingxing to death.

You must know that the locomotive of more than 100 tons, if it is derailed, it will take a lot of effort to repair and pry it back, there is no big crane at that time, Song Yingxing specially made ten huge hoists and ten huge iron shelves for this purpose, every time the iron frame and hoist are lifted, people can vomit blood, not to mention the locomotive is slowly lifted up and pried back to the track.

I won't say much about the hard work, in short, Song Yingxing wasted all his efforts, and finally tested all the parameters of the railway, and at this time, the first batch of iron ore from Schwila's side was also delivered, and the railway could finally start.

Schwila actually started collecting iron ore as soon as he repelled Aurangzeb's first attack, and he had already collected two million catties of iron ore by the time of the Chinese New Year, which means that the expeditionary army here has not yet set off, and the iron ore has already been sent out there, so it is not surprising that it can arrive at this time.

With iron ore, it is easy to do, the small blast furnace is burned hard, the track is cast, the milling machine is milling two cutters, and the drilling machine is making two rows of holes, and then it can be laid out. In order to facilitate the transportation of tracks, Song Yingxing deliberately replaced all the tracks of all the rail flatbeds of Wang Gong's factory with standard rails, and the spacing was adjusted to be as wide as the rails, and all the tracks were redone, and dozens of more were made, so that the tracks did not have to be lifted.

Two parallel tracks, one is to send the track, one is to pull back the empty car, the rails on a rail flat car are used up, directly lift the empty car to another track, and then push up the full load behind it, as for the empty car, a person riding a horse, can easily pull back for a long slip.

The progress of laying this railway is amazing, anyway, Zhu Cijiong doesn't care about money, he recruited 100,000 migrant workers in one breath, some of them were taken by officials of the Ministry of Industry to build bridges, some of them were specially transported stones, some of them were specially prepared for sleepers, some of them were specially leveled roadbed, some of them were specially laid with stones, and some of them were specially laid with sleepers, Song Yingxing and his students only needed to take someone to check it, and then lay rails on it, the speed was simply amazing, and they could lay five or six miles in a day!

After the railway is paved, it will definitely not work without trains, so Song Yingxing slowly handed over the laying of the railroad tracks to a few students, and he took most of the students to build locomotives and freight carriages.

According to Zhu Cijiong's meaning, the trial operation will be carried out for a few months, and one train per side will be sent every day during the trial operation, so that two locomotives will be needed. As for the freight car, it stands to reason that a locomotive can pull at least thirty or forty cars, but that would be a bit dangerous, braking and deceleration require a long distance, and it is easy to cause derailment if the action is too violent, so Zhu Cijiong and Song Yingxing agreed to simply hang ten freight cars behind a locomotive.

In fact, ten freight carriages are already a lot, you must know that a freight carriage is at least 50 tons, that is, 100,000 catties, a trip can pull a million catties, now commercial activities have not yet prospered, just pull military supplies, this cargo volume is enough.

The speed of laying the railway is completely beyond Zhu Cijiong's imagination, and by the end of March, the Jingdong Railway was completely connected!

It just so happened that at this time, the second batch of iron ore from Svera was also delivered, and at the same time, news came that the expeditionary army had finally arrived in Goa, and Aurangzeb's army had not yet hit, that is to say, the city of Mysore should be saved, unless the Mughal Empire sent an army of three or four hundred thousand to press up, but this possibility is basically none, Mysore is only the capital of the Mysore princely kingdom, not the capital of the Mughal Empire, the Mughal Empire does not need to be so crazy, and it is impossible to be so crazy.

Mysore City has guaranteed the supply of iron ore, and Zhu Cijiong can finally concentrate on domestic development, and the first thing is naturally to test the Jingdong Railway.

On this side of the capital, there happened to be weapons, ammunition, grain and grass and baggage of the four legions of Liaodong to be transported to the port of Dongdaying; There are also more than 2 million catties of iron ore to be transported to the capital in Dongdaying, Zhu Cijiong directly ordered, from March 26th to March 28th, Jingdong Railway officially ran for three days, as for why this date was chosen, modern people understand, six and eight are auspicious numbers.

Early in the morning of 26 March, Zhu Cijiong personally went to the dispatching station in the west of the city to preside over the departure ceremony of the first train; on this day, the capital was empty again, and the entire west of the city was unfurled with flags and colorful flags, and hundreds of thousands of residents of the capital almost surrounded the entire dispatching station, and Zhu Cijiong had to dispatch almost all the Jinyi guards in Beijing to maintain order.

The first train was loaded with weapons and ammunition and slowly ran around the dispatching station, and all the residents present were amazed, such a huge iron guy can move on his own, it is really unheard of, unheard of!

Zhu Cijiong was naturally not surprised at all, he carefully observed it with a telescope for a while, the train was running smoothly, the braking system and steering system were working normally, basically no problem, as soon as the auspicious time arrived, he immediately stood up, waved his hand majestically, and said loudly: "Departure." ”

"Woo" The train roared for a long time, slowly drove out of the dispatching station, drove into the distance, and slowly disappeared from people's field of vision.

Trains can be built, and who can stop the pace of the rise of the Ming Dynasty!