What Fan Jingwen brought to Chongzhen was a drawing, which marked the planned route of the national highway starting from Beijing to the provincial capitals and border fortresses of various provinces.

In addition, the previous railway construction in various places was re-planned, with Beijing-Nanjing, Beijing-Wuhan as the two longitudinal lines, Lianyungang-Lanzhou, Wuhan-Nanjing as the two horizontal lines, connecting North China, Northwest China, East China, Central Plains, and Lianghuai regions with railways.

The railway network of two horizontal and two vertical, supplemented by the inland river transportation of the Yangtze River and the canal, supplemented by north-south shipping, will have a reliable and efficient transportation network on three-fifths of the land of the Ming Dynasty.

Although there are some old masters who are pedantic in their studies, they blindly denounce any large-scale civil engineering project as a waste of labor and money. At every turn, he wrote to the emperor with the example of Meng Yuan repairing the Yellow River and the whole world was opposed, asking the imperial court to save people's power, not toss, and let the people live their own small lives so as to restore people's strength.

However, since the construction of public roads and railways in the Gyeonggi area, some of the more active officials have seen that after the improvement of transportation facilities, the villages along the transportation lines will develop better than those farther away from the transportation lines.

These villagers can transport their worthless crops and vegetables to the city to sell at a low cost of transportation, or they can travel farther than other villages to work without worrying about wasting their time on the road.

Of course, for the imperial court, the loss of agricultural taxes from the countryside was greatly reduced, and the transportation costs of in-kind taxes were also reduced. Most importantly, the troops, which had to be stationed separately in various places to protect the security of Gyeonggi, can now be grouped together at several transportation points and temporarily maneuvered by rail and road.

In other words, with the advent of railways, a new mode of transportation, the range of human activities has expanded. In the past, a person could not move more than 15 miles in a day by walking, otherwise he would not be able to return to the starting point to rest.

Now, the railroad can take people up to 60 miles in a day, and people don't get too tired. The road and horse-drawn carriage system, although not as good as the railway, is far more than the distance on foot.

The expansion of people's activities naturally brings many unexpected opportunities, and also saves a lot of waste of resources. Therefore, officials like Fan Jingwen, after realizing the benefits of improving transportation facilities, immediately took the stand of developing transportation facilities, especially the development of railway construction.

After Fan Jingwen gave a detailed introduction to the highway and railway construction plan drawn up by the Transportation Construction Committee, he paused for a moment before continuing to the emperor: "However, according to the discussion of the members of the committee and technical personnel, the highway construction is fine, but there are still many problems in the construction of these two vertical and horizontal railways. ”

Zhu Youzhen subconsciously asked: "What kind of problems exist?" ”

Fan Jingwen looked at the documents in his hand, and then said: "One is the problem of scheduling, now the railways in Shanxi, Gyeonggi, Henan, Shandong and other places belong to various railway joint-stock companies, once they are connected, a unified railway dispatching and command department is needed.

But this would inevitably infringe on the rights of the railway joint-stock companies, and the shareholders of the railway companies would find it difficult for us to agree to do so..."

Zhu Youzhen interrupted him and said: "The Ministry of Internal Affairs has more than a quarter of the shares in each railway joint-stock company, plus the shares of the three major banks in these railway companies, it is entirely possible to propose the merger of these railway companies to form a national railway company."

The Transportation and Construction Committee could use this railway plan as a share capital to further dilute the merchants' stake in the national railway companies, so that the imperial court could strengthen its say in railway affairs. What's the next question? ”

Fan Jingwen silently swallowed the solution he wanted to say, and then said to Chongzhen: "The next problem is technical, if you want to establish a railway network of two horizontal and two vertical, you will cross the Yellow River many times, with the current bridge-building technology, I am afraid it will be difficult to build a railway bridge through the Yellow River."

In addition, there is no problem with the construction of horse-drawn railways in plain areas, but it is different in mountainous areas. Although most of the two horizontal and two vertical landfall on the plain terrain, it is difficult for the railway to cross these terrains in the Qinling, Dabie Mountain, and Longshan areas. Technicians believe that these areas can only be excavated through the mountains, but the manpower and material resources consumed are incalculable. ”

For the technical questions raised by Fan Jingwen, Zhu Youzhen was actually still prepared in his heart, the world's first steam locomotive used to pull carriages on rails reached hundreds of horsepower, so the train pulled by the steam locomotive can still go a certain slope.

However, due to the nature of the animals and the width of the railway, the horse-drawn railway does not use more than 8 horses, otherwise it is difficult to control. Well, that is, the traction power of a horse-drawn locomotive will not exceed 8 horsepower.

Therefore, this kind of railway is actually only suitable for use in plain terrain, and the complex terrain mentioned by Fan Jingwen is indeed an area that is difficult for horse-drawn railways to pass. As for the bridge across the Yellow River that he mentioned, Zhu Youzhen felt that it was a relatively easy problem to solve.

He thought for a while and then said to Fan Jingwen: "In the current situation, we can only listen to the opinions of the technicians, since they think that the only way to solve the problem is by digging tunnels, then I agree with this idea."

However, we do not have any experience in excavating tunnels at present, so I suggest that the Transportation Committee should first select a mountainous area with simple terrain to conduct the excavation of tunnels, and then select a more complex mountainous area after some experience.

In the future, not only the places you just mentioned should be connected by railway, but also the Beijing and Xuanda areas, and the Beijing and Taiyuan areas should also be connected by railways. Therefore, in order to carry out tunneling in these areas in the future, it is worthwhile to invest now in these trials.

Of course, we also have to be prepared for the failure of the experiment, but I asked the transportation committee to know the cause of the failure and find a solution to the problem. Say a thousand things and ten thousand, only one sentence, don't let my money go to waste. ”

Fan Jingwen frowned, and finally nodded in agreement with the emperor's statement. Only then did Zhu Youzhen continue: "As for the problem that you said about the difficulty of building a bridge across the Yellow River, I don't think it is difficult to solve.

We've had a lot of experience with bridges, but the problem now is that we haven't built bridges that long. In addition, the resources and time required to build bridges over a wide river like the lower reaches of the Yellow River using old materials are too difficult to control.

So, what I mean is that we should find a river and build a new bridge, using concrete and steel. If this bridge can be made, then the next step can be to build the first bridge over the Yellow River. ”

"Make bridges out of steel?" Fan Jingwen was taken aback, he knew how high the price of iron was on the market now, and the cost of building an iron bridge was estimated to be several times more expensive than that of ordinary bridges.

Zhu Youzhen nodded and said: "Previously, the railway from Tangshan to Lutai, I wanted to extend it to Tianjin and Ningyuan. In this way, even if the Bohai Sea freezes in winter, Tianjin's materials can be sent to Ningyuan in time.

The biggest problem now is that the Luan River through which the railway passes through has great seasonal changes, usually the water surface is about 50 meters wide, but the water surface can be as wide as 600 meters when the summer flood breaks out, and the river channel erosion and silting changes are extremely alarming.

In my opinion, the condition of the river is similar to that of the Yellow River, so if we can build a working iron bridge over the Luan, the possibility of building a bridge over the Yellow River is greatly increased.

Of course, the cost of the bridge will be staggering, but that's what I'm going to think about, and the task of the Transportation Construction Committee is only to think about how to build the bridge. ”

Fan Jingwen was silent for a while, and finally nodded and said to Chongzhen: "If Your Majesty can solve the problem of funds, then the minister will naturally support Your Majesty's decision." However, now the railway from Baoji to Lanzhou cannot be built, and the railway from Lanzhou to Suzhou will not stop first? Otherwise, just transporting rails and timber from Baoji to Lanzhou is a huge project. ”

Zhu Youzhen thought for a long time before he said uncertainly: "Xi'an is the heart of Shaanxi, Pingliangfu is the heart of Gansu and Ningxia, Lanzhou is the heart of the Hexi Corridor, and the Hexi Corridor is the main road to the Western Regions.

Therefore, the Hexi Corridor, Lanzhou, Pingliangfu, and Xi'an, these places are the key to the state's control of the northwest region. Losing any of them is unbearable for Da Ming.

If they can be connected, then the control and influence of the imperial court in the northwest region will be greatly improved.

Although the section from Baoji to Lanzhou cannot be immediately connected, if possible, the section from Lanzhou to Suzhou should be completed as soon as possible to strengthen the control of the Hexi Corridor.

In addition, the branch line from Lanzhou to Huangshui Valley and from Lanzhou to Ningxia should also start construction as soon as possible. The completion of these two branch lines can increase the protection of Lanzhou's flanks, and second, it can also allow the influence of the imperial court to penetrate into the Qinghai region, which involves the country's strategic issues in the Western Regions, Mongolia and Wusizang.

Therefore, I hope that the Transportation and Construction Committee will once again consider whether to postpone the start of the construction of the railway west of Lanzhou..."

Fan Jingwen was so thoughtful when he walked out of the Qianqing Palace that he didn't even hear Sun Zhiqi greet him. Looking at Fan Jingwen passing by, Sun Zhiqi did not feel unhappy, he looked thoughtfully at Fan Jingwen's distant back, and then walked towards the Qianqing Palace under the urging of the leading eunuch.

Sun Zhiqi came to see the emperor, not for anything else, but to send a newly compiled book.

Zhu Youzhen carefully flipped through the book called "Taizu Hadith", and after more than half an hour, he put down the new book full of ink fragrance, and said to Sun Zhiji: "It's almost, take this book as the original version first, and if there are any problems after the release, then revise the second edition."

You take this book, go and discuss it with Zhou Yanru, and then submit it to the imperial court together, and put this "Taizu Hadith" into the imperial examination textbook, and in the future, it will be used as the content of the examination together with the Four Books and the Five Classics..."

After going through the Nanjing scientific research case, Zhu Youzhen found that if these scholars continued to use the Four Books and Five Classics to shape their own world view, similar troubles would arise sooner or later. The tablet of the Holy Ancestor is still too heavy for him now.

However, the scholars have the most holy teachers, and the Ming Dynasty also has a founding emperor, Zhu Youzhen thought about it, and decided to use the dead to fight the dead, and the quotations were good. Thus appeared the Taejo Hadith.