1875 was almost a railway year, in which the Ming Dynasty finalized the construction plan of the Yunnan Railway, the Kyakhta Railway and the Dongqing Railway, and the railways under construction in the country also made breakthroughs. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

After passing through the Meiling Mountains, in the gentle hilly area of Jiangxi, the Ming technicians who have passed through the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway, and then personally presided over the breakthrough of the Meiling Mountains have burst out of great potential, and the progress of the Guangzhou-Guangzhou (Guangzhou) River (Jiujiang) Railway has been greatly accelerated, and this year, it has been repaired from the Ganjiang River to Ji'an.

On the other hand, a section from Jiujiang to the south is difficult to pass through the dense water network in the Panyang Lake area, and the railway is pushed to Nanchang, the most difficult section is over, even the most conservative estimate, the railway will be completed near Xinyu by the end of next year, and it will be opened to traffic at most in the year after tomorrow.

From 1871 to 1877, it took a total of 7 years to complete the first long-distance railway of the Ming Dynasty, which can be described as difficult, but the harvest of the Ming Dynasty for this will be a young team of railway engineers.

The plan of the Ming government is that after the completion of the Guangjiang Railway, the technicians who built the railway will go in other directions, and at the same time begin to build the Ming Dynasty that has been planned early, from Guangzhou to Guilin, from Guangzhou through Fuzhou, and then through Zhejiang to connect Shanghai with the coastal railway, plus the Northeast Railway, Yunnan Railway, in the next few years, the Ming Dynasty will obviously enter a peak period of railway construction, and railway-related industries will usher in a period of rapid development.

It can be said that the spring of Daming machinery manufacturing industry is finally coming.

The development of heavy industry in Daming is still very weak, but the technical force is not low, as a representative of heavy industry arsenal is an example, but about railway construction related industries, arsenal is not the biggest profiteer, the biggest profiteer, should be the steel industry giant Schneider company invested in Daming eight years ago.

Schneider & Co. entered Daming in 1869, which was an industrial giant with strong capital and technology, and after being forced to accept the investment of the Ministry of Industry of Daming, sold 51% of the shares, accepted the Ministry of Industry as his partner, and then began to develop tepidly.

The reason why it is tepid is not that the French are not interested in investing in Daming and are unwilling to expand the scale of the company, but that they really can't find a market. Schneider is an industrial giant in France, and there are three main industries, the first is the steel industry, which is the largest steel manufacturer in France, the second is the train machine manufacturing industry, which is the first company in France to produce steam locomotives, and the third is the various machinery industry, which is the inventor of the practical steam forging hammer.

However, Daming did not have high-quality coal and iron ore resources, and relied on importing a small amount of iron ore and coal from northern Vietnam to meet the needs of the steelmaking furnace of the arsenal, and the best quality steel also needed to import ore and even finished products from Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The iron ore production in the northern part of Vietnam cannot even be satisfied by the arsenal, let alone Schneider, who is larger and more ambitious, so Schneider was basically worried about the lack of raw materials in the first five years of the Ming Dynasty.

Schneider's first development spring was the Franco-Vietnamese War in 1873, in which Schneider received a maintenance contract for the French colonial fleet in Indochina, and it was obviously a good business to provide services for the army during the war.

But that's just an appetizer, not much spring. The benefits that France achieved in Vietnam after the war were the first breath of fresh air on the road to Schneider's development. Because of the treaty after the Franco-Vietnamese War, the French can now go directly to the Jin merchants in northern Vietnam, and Schneider can go directly to the mountainous provinces of Taiyuan, which are rich in iron ore in northern Vietnam, to mine iron ore.

When they rushed there, they found that the Daming Arsenal had once again taken the lead, and the French found that the Arsenal had already reached an agreement with the Chinese immigrants who had cleared the land in the mountainous areas of this area, and through these immigration groups, all the mines where iron ore was found were occupied.

The French were a step late, they were either looking for new mines, or buying them from the arsenals. It is easier said than said to find new mines, if it is easy, it has long been found by the Chinese, since the Chinese have not explored it, even if there are fish that have slipped through the net, it is obviously not so easy to find, and the French must be prepared to pay a significant investment without any return risk. And if they buy from the arsenal, as a competitive logarithmic, Schneider has reason to fear that the arsenal will sooner or later suppress them.

What really allowed Schneider to solve his dilemma was to rely on a French businessman, who was the initiator of the Franco-Vietnamese War, and the French adventurer businessman Jean Dubouil, who came to the East with the dream of making a fortune.

In the end, the Franco-Vietnamese War was fought by two key figures who played a decisive role, one was An Ye, the discoverer of the value of shipping on the Red River, and the other was the merchant Jean Dubouil.

An Ye entered Yunnan through the Red River, and then arrived in Wuhan through Huguang, and after the two met in Wuhan, Jean Dubuy learned the value of the Red River from An Ye, and then began to irrepressibly want to get benefits from here.

This man's dream of making a fortune did not make him a madman, on the contrary, he was stimulated by a desperate desire for wealth. His early performance was perfect, and he first gained the support of both the Qing court and the French, and then began to break into the Red River valley despite the Vietnamese government's obstruction.

The support of the Qing government was indirect, and it was through his agreement with the governor of Yunnan, Cen Yuying, to purchase arms, so that he could cross the Red River into Yunnan in the name of transporting arms without being obstructed by the Manchu government.

At this time, Yunnan was still in the chaos of Du Wenxiu's rebellion, and the government was in great need of weapons to suppress the rebellion, so Cen Yuying not only signed an arms contract with Du Buyi, but also offered a pretty good price, Du Buyi only needed to finish this trip to make a lot of money. At the same time, he also planned to purchase local minerals in Yunnan immediately after delivery, and then ship them to Guangdong and sell them to French merchants, which would also make a huge profit.

Stimulated by the huge profit prospects, Dubouil invested a lot of money, not only helped to order arms, but also bought two gunboats from the British foreign company and recruited an armed team of more than 200 people in order to guard against the large number of bandits infested on the Red River.

In the end, when he swaggered into the Red River, he was obstructed and attacked by the Vietnamese government, but Du Buyi, who was extremely brave in the face of profits, was not only not frightened by the Vietnamese government, but led two hundred rabble to defeat the even more rabble Vietnamese officers and soldiers, and even occupied such an important city as Hanoi.

The Vietnamese government protested to the French colonial authorities in Saigon, and the French governor of Indochina immediately sent An Le to lead the French colonial army to the Red River to mediate.

As a result, An Ye led troops into Hanoi, not only did not help the Vietnamese, but had an arrogant attitude, threatening the Vietnamese government, and behaving more like escorting Du Buyi, the Vietnamese did not accept to fight again, and were defeated by more than 200 rabble led by An Ye, this time it was An Ye who led the team, he had a greater appetite, and directly recruited troops in Hanoi, recruiting more than 20,000 people at once.

An Die's power was extremely inflated, so that the Vietnamese government could not help him at all, until An Dien was killed by the Black Flag Army and the French colonial authorities in Indochina directly intervened, which really triggered the war.

After the war, An Ye died, but Du Buyi was not harmed, but during the war, he won several good and profitable businesses, and made huge profits with the help of the French army.

After the war, he continued to look for opportunities in North Vietnam, before the war he found that the difficulty of transporting iron ore produced in North Vietnam was the biggest constraint, and he was determined to open up the Red River shipping trade, he found that the iron ore mining area of Taiyuan Province was very close to the Red River, the nearest was only tens of kilometers, and the distance was only about 100 kilometers, as long as a railway could be built to lead to the Red River River port in Hanoi, then the iron ore transportation difficulties would be solved.

So as soon as the war began, he was like the local government submitting an application for the construction of a railway, and the Vietnamese government, which had just been beaten up by the French, did not dare to oppose it at all.

In this way, although the Chinese monopolized the minerals, a French mastered the transportation channels, which made Schneider feel that they could gain the confidence to negotiate with the Daming Arsenal.

So on the one hand, they approached Dubuyi and cooperated with Dubuyi to build a railway and monopolize the ore transportation channels, and on the other hand, they approached the arsenal and planned to negotiate an agreement with the arsenal on the purchase of iron ore.

In the case of controlling the railway line, Schneider no longer worries about being stuck by competitors, because the opponent's neck is also held in his own hands, once the arsenal cuts off Schneider's supply, Schneider can also cut off the ore transportation channel of the arsenal, so neither side dares to breach the contract.

In this case, Schneider received a stable supply of raw materials, and their steel plant was operating steadily for the first time.

Soon they snatched most of the share of the Daming steel market from the arsenal, after all, they are professional steel mills, and in terms of technical level and accumulation, they are much stronger than the arsenal, a military industrial enterprise that mainly produces and uses itself, and even soon, the shipbuilding steel of the arsenal was directly ordered from Schneider.

Schneider company, which solved the problem of raw material source, was like bathing in a spring breeze, and the cause of Daming began to flourish, and with the construction of the railway in Daming, Schneider's spring finally reached its heyday, because Schneider is not only a steel enterprise, but also a steam locomotive manufacturer, and the only professional railway machinery manufacturer in Daming.

Therefore, as long as Daming began to build the railway, Schneider will usher in their high-speed development period of railway equipment manufacturing, and is expected to soon achieve a position in the steel industry, this time they encountered the biggest obstacle, is still the competitor, Daming's largest machinery manufacturing enterprise Daming Arsenal, Schneider's biggest disadvantage is that the railway itself is operated by the arsenal, and the biggest advantage is that the Ming government has given them special priority, Daming built the railway will give priority to the purchase of Schneider's equipment.

However, the arsenal planned to use its own equipment, and a large part of this equipment was copied from Schneider's technology, and as a result, Schneider united many Western companies, plus British and French ministers, and strongly demanded that the Ming Dynasty protect their technology patents.