The Bulgarian government, which has always been efficient, immediately organized a team of experts to conduct field exploration after the railway plan was established, taking into account the human economy and future development direction in addition to topography and landform.

You can't put the train station 100 miles away from the city, right? If that's the case, the railway will also drive the regional economy, and just the transfer of materials will be devastating!

Of course, Bulgaria does not have much historical baggage in this regard, except for the Balkans, the cities are to be rebuilt, and they can also take care of each other in the selection of sites, and there is no need for railways to make concessions to the city, artificially increasing the cost of railway construction!

At the beginning of the 20th century, the biggest problem was financial, material and manpower, and now the problem of the Ministry of Communications is naturally not a matter of money, nor is it a problem in terms of material resources, and domestic iron and steel enterprises are expanding their production capacity to meet demand.

Two months ago, the Bulgarian government was still struggling with the problem of refugees, but now the camps have been emptied, and major companies have joined the war to grab people, and the direct consequence is that the average wage in Bulgaria has risen by 20 percent.

Among them, the agricultural company and the railway company are the most fierce, and the agricultural company wants to open up the wasteland, even if it adopts mechanized farming technology, but suddenly tens of millions of hectares of land has been added, and the labor force is still indispensable!

Not to mention the railway companies, they have a job, a new round of big railway plans has not yet begun, but they can build roads?

Who says you can't make money building roads? As long as a few toll stations are built, the future Lev is not rolling in, and they still have this investment vision!

Naturally, this highway cannot be a later highway, mainly based on cement pavement, and the car can run a hundred and eighty yards on it, which is already a proper highway in this era.

Now the railway company is lobbying the government to open the toll booth, and the Ministry of Transport is naturally supportive, but the cabinet has not yet made up its mind for a while, and it is mainly a traditional issue.

Since ancient times, building bridges and paving roads have been for public welfare, but now the fees are suddenly changed, and everyone is afraid of causing adverse social impacts, so they are temporarily stuck.

However, with the increase in private cars in Bulgaria, future charges are inevitable, and the question is how to charge?

Now there is another proposal in the government that the capitalists should pay for the construction of the roads, and then authorize them to build gas stations on both sides of the roads.

In this way, the government will not have to invest heavily and tolls will be abolished, but the cost of fuel will also rise!

Well, in this era, there are only a hundred thousand private cars in Bulgaria, and the drivers are all local tyrants, and it doesn't matter how high or low the price is, anyway, they can afford to buy a car, and they don't care about the little cost.

On this issue, Ferdinand is also a little wavering, the government funds the construction of highways, then the toll is inevitable, otherwise the later maintenance will be devastating.

Moreover, toll booths are also a headache, how to supervise them? In this era, there is no computer, no monitoring, all of which have to be operated manually, and if you want to make some small moves, how do you check it?

Whether a thousand cars are passed every day, or only a hundred cars are passed, this question can only be counted by manpower, and whether they can make money in the end depends on the moral integrity of these front-line personnel!

It is simple to let the capitalists pay for it, but it is estimated that everyone is rushing to build the prosperous area, and no one cares about the poor countryside.

Unless it is a package to take away, to build a section of the main road between cities, it is necessary to add a section of road in remote mountainous areas.

It's just that in this way, it is estimated that Ferdinand can only take over by himself, and there is not enough temptation of interests!

In 1918, if you told the capitalists that in the future every Bulgarian household would have access to cars, they would tell you that it was the future.

Investing in road construction throughout Bulgaria has been a pure loss for at least the first twenty years, and it is estimated that no capitalist in Bulgaria has been able to afford such a long period of loss!

Of course, if it is limited to the Balkans, then there is no problem, invest billions of leva, and when the automobile industry explodes, the capitalists can also make money back through other channels.

It seems that now the automobile industry is already starting to gain momentum, and the number of cars owned by Bulgarian citizens is growing rapidly, and there is no problem at all in exceeding one million in five years and five million in ten years.

It's a pity that 90 percent of these cars are concentrated in the Balkans, and if Asia Minor wants to develop, is it too early?

Then this issue will be put on hold for the time being, and wait for the cabinet to organize professionals to conduct a comprehensive assessment and come up with the results!

The railroad companies continue to build their roads now, even if they authorize gas stations to operate exclusively in the future. They can also choose to sell or build a gas station, which is still a very lucrative investment, even if it is not as fast as a toll booth.

The premise is that the roads they are building now are all in the Balkans, and they are still mainly main roads. Many roads were subbed years ago and are now only exposed with concrete.

At the moment of the highway toll dispute, Ferdinand has quietly bought out the domestic oil exploitation rights, of course, this is done in secret, on the surface there are still more than a dozen oil companies in Bulgaria, jointly carved up the country's oil and gas exploitation rights.

Oil in this era was not worth much, and in order to hide people's eyes, Ferdinand threw several smoke bombs around the end of the world war.

For example, from September to December 1917, the South American Oil Company, a subsidiary of the British United Mining Company, discovered large oil fields around Lake Maracaibo in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and in the three states of Guarico, Anzoategui and Monagas.

Just before Christmas 1918, the South American Oil Company also discovered large oil fields in the Amazon plain of Ecuador. Immediately after the French oil company Wadeer, another oil field was discovered in the Tunisian region.

……

In a short period of six months, the number of oil fields discovered in the world exceeded 20, and the oil resources, which were originally in short supply, suddenly became worthless.

Of course, this oil has not yet been developed, so now the international price of crude oil has fallen by less than 20 percent, and there has been no avalanche.

But capital is no longer so optimistic about oil, no matter how important, as long as there is more quantity, the price will definitely not go up.

South America has become the focus of attention, with the world's largest oil producers now converging in South America, and the conflict of interests between Britain and the United States in South America has become increasingly intense.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Ferdinand also listed the South American oil company in London, under the banner of the world's largest oil company, and quickly became popular.

London's capitalists are still celebrating that they have the most oil resources in the world, which means that they have taken the lead in the new energy revolution.

After diverting the attention of international capital, the auction of oil exploitation rights in Bulgaria became indifferent, and the exploration expenses of tens of millions of leva were undoubtedly astronomical for Bulgaria's native capitalists, and finally turned into Ferdinand's vest scuffle.

After all this, Ferdinand began to sit back and watch the struggle between the American and British oil groups.

Of course, the strength of the oil conglomerates in this era was not so great, and the struggle between them was not enough to provoke a war.

However, as time went on, the struggle between the two sides gradually escalated, and the consortiums that operated the oil conglomerates behind the scenes gradually came to the forefront, and the Anglo-American contradictions escalated at the end of 1918.

Under the influence of capital, the London government has officially listed the Americans as the number one enemy; And the number one enemy of the Washington government has always been the British!

Although the Anglo-American oil battle has not yet been decided, Ferdinand also knows that this time it will be the British who will win, which is determined by the comprehensive strength of both sides.

In this era, John Bull is still the number one in the world, and the Americans have no way to resist it by virtue of their means of pulling allies, unless they also want to learn from the Germans and challenge the world.

In order to defuse the unfavorable diplomatic situation, the Americans are plotting to break up the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and at the same time trying to win over France and France, in an attempt to break down the Anglo-French Protectorate Triple Entente.

……

Transport Minister Tom Ivanov said cautiously: "Your Excellency, this is our preliminary railway plan for the Ministry of Transport, and if approved by the Cabinet, we can start construction next month!" ”

Konstantin took the document, skimmed through it quickly, and asked with a frown: "How do you solve the problem of labor?" With a labor shortage of up to 500,000, do you want to compete with other industries in China? ”

"Robbing people" is a very taboo thing for the Bulgarian government, and it cannot disrupt the order of other industries for the sake of the development of one industry and affect the overall development.

The Minister of Transport immediately explained: "Of course not, how can our Ministry of Transport be so indiscriminate? The problem of labor, in fact, we have solved it!

As soon as our big railway plan was made public, there were capitalists who wanted to contract our railway project, and of course their request was rejected by us, but then someone offered to provide us with labor.

We, the Ministry of Communications and the railway company, have studied that as long as we strengthen the supervision of quality, even if they are allowed to provide labor, it will not affect the quality of the railway.

We have already inquired about the source of their labor, most of them are from overseas, as for the specific situation, as long as it does not violate our laws, I don't think it is a problem! ”

Although he didn't say it explicitly, Konstantin also knew that the way these laborers came from was not so normal, but what did it matter to him?

The international capitalists in this era have a fart discipline, and they do everything they can to cheat and deceive, and the government can't control it even if it wants to supervise it!

And this kind of labor subcontracting is not the first time it has appeared, but in order to prevent foreign workers from impacting the domestic human resources market, it has been severely cracked down by the government and has not formed a scale.

But now that Bulgaria is already seriously short of labor, it is inevitable to open an opening, and the Ministry of Transport has only gone to the front.

Konstantin hesitated for a moment and said, "Well! But you still have to strengthen supervision, I don't care how these people were fooled by the capitalists, but when you come to Bulgaria, you must obey our laws, and you must not let them act recklessly!

You should know how much trouble this kind of thing will cause us once it spreads! ”

That's right, it can't spread! In other words, if the domestic capitalists can't be allowed to follow suit, if they all go to a group of outsourced workers and unscrupulously exploit them, then what will happen to the employment of Bulgarians?

With cheaper labor, the capitalists are not stupid and naturally know what to choose, and what will follow is the depressing of domestic labor wages, which will inevitably lead to the escalation of contradictions between the domestic working class and the bourgeoisie and intensify social contradictions.

The Minister of Transport's face changed dramatically, and the thought of this terrible consequence made his scalp tingle, and if they were not good, they would become sinners in Bulgaria.

As for the worst-case scenario, it will certainly not happen, and the Bulgarian government will inevitably intervene strongly, but this intervention is not without a cost, and the class contradictions that have already intensified will be difficult to eliminate.

"Your Excellency the Prime Minister, rest assured, these foreign laborers, they will not appear in the Balkans, and our Ministry of Communications will send them to more remote areas to eliminate the possibility of hidden dangers!" Transport Secretary Tom assured

This is the easiest and most effective way to do it! In this era, transportation and communication were not so convenient, there was no network transmission, and what happened in Asia Minor was not known when it was going to spread to the Balkans.

As for the impact, as long as it doesn't happen around you, everyone will only think it's hearsay and will be suspicious.

Coupled with the government's crackdown, how can the capitalists not be outlaws, so how can they all take risks?

As long as it is curbed at the beginning, it will be easy to do later, most people are blindly obedient, as long as everyone abides by the rules, the latecomers will naturally follow suit!

……