The development of the official road has led to the rapid development of the economy in various places. In particular, those places that are not on the coast and do not have access to river ports have completely changed the layout of the entire local economy and radiated new vitality.

Of course, because of the sea transportation, the water transportation of the Yangtze River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the convenience of railway transportation, most of the long-distance transportation of the empire was carried out by water and rail. However, water transport and railway transport are both bulk goods, and there are restrictions on port terminals and railway stations, while official road transport has no such restrictions at all, and because the official road system extends in all directions, the benefits are very extensive, from the transport of agricultural and sideline products from the hinterland, to the mining and flow of minerals, to the inflow of imported cloth and machinery, all this has changed.

The establishment and development of the entire official road pushed the development of the empire's four-wheeled carriage to a climax. To this end, horse-drawn carriage transportation companies have been set up all over the country, using mules and horses to pull four-wheeled carriages, and setting up post stations on the way to carry out logistics and transportation of merchants. On the increasingly busy official roads, the four-wheeled carriages that keep walking are loading merchants and carrying goods from all over the world, and at the same time, they also bring new towns and cities.

Because of the official road, the county has become a distribution center for goods and merchants in the county or even half of the state capital, and the level of urbanization has also begun to improve. Even, because of the willingness of official roads and four-wheeled carriages, the post stations along the way gradually turned into villages, villages, and eventually became larger bazaars and even developed into towns with thousands of people.

For example, from the Huizhou Fucheng in Anhui to the Wuhu County of Taipingfu, it was originally necessary to take the rugged mountain dirt road, relying on mules, horses and camels to transport goods, the transportation volume is very small, and the time spent takes half a month, and after the provincial official road connecting Huizhou Fucheng and Taipingfu City is repaired, because after passing through Wuhu County, the road surface is all hardened with cement, flat and solid, and the four-wheeled carriage runs much smoother than the original mud rural road, plus like the highway service area of later generations, Every 120 kilometers, there is a larger post town that provides a sharp rest, and two mules and horses are placed at the post station in advance to replace the leg strength, and the speed is greatly accelerated, and the distance of more than 400 miles only takes four or five days to reach the destination, which is greatly shortened than the original half a month.

The Tunxi green tea of Huizhou Prefecture originally relied on the water transportation of the Xin'an River to Hangzhou first, and then transferred to Shanghai through the Hangzhou Canal for packaging and export, and the time required on the road took five or six days, and because the drop in the upper reaches of the Xin'an River was not small, tea merchants were often worried about the loss of tea falling into the water, or it was common to delay the arrival due to bad weather.

Since the construction of the national highway in Huizhou and Zhejiang, because the official road from Anqing to Hangzhou passes through the capital city of Huizhou, the tea merchants carry tea through a large number of four-wheeled carriages, and go directly to Hangzhou Railway Station through the official road, and go directly to Shanghai Port by railway, which takes only about three days to arrive. In this way, because it is no longer dependent on the weather, the arrival time can be directly booked, which is very beneficial to the sales of tea, so that the sales of tea in Huizhou Mansion have increased greatly.

For the people, they have also received a lot of benefits. Originally, in some places in the mainland, the purchase of various commodities was relatively expensive because of the freight relationship, but after the official roads were developed and put into use in all directions, the prices dropped suddenly, which made their lives much better. Moreover, because of the low price of goods, these people are also willing to buy, coupled with the extension of official roads, the distance where goods are transported is getting farther and farther, and the market is broader. Even the people in some small places in the hinterland, originally could not go to the county seat at the farthest, around the hometown and town, did not see much of the world, now the traffic is developed, take the four-wheeled carriage to take the official road, take the inland river passenger boat to take the waterway, and even go to the county seat to take the train to the provincial capital, it is convenient and fast, and the knowledge is much broader.

Transportation and economy complement each other and promote each other, and the situation of the Chinese Empire is very good.

From Li Hongzhang's relatively simple and rough report, Feng Yunshan also learned a lot about the development of light industry such as textiles and daily necessities.

First of all, the textile industry of the Chinese Empire, after Feng Yunshan captured Guangzhou, through Wu Chongyao, he vigorously introduced textile machinery and textile technical workers from overseas, and began to develop the empire's own textile factories. After more than ten years of development, it has started from scratch and has now become the world's largest textile country. Although the average textile output is not as large as that of the United Kingdom, there are many textile factories that cannot support the empire, and the total output will naturally rise as soon as the number of employees is large.

Nowadays, throughout the empire, the old-fashioned hand-woven homespun linen cloth has been slowly replaced by cotton cloth produced by textile factories that have sprung up widely in the Liangguang and Jiangnan regions.

The common people think that this new cotton cloth is lightweight, practical, warm and comfortable, and most importantly, inexpensive, far cheaper than the bulky and thick hand-spun homespun cloth. Feng Yunshan has long known the history of the cotton textile industry, which is bound to prosper for decades until the next century. Therefore, under his leadership as emperor, the policy of the entire imperial court was to vigorously encourage and develop the cotton textile industry. Coupled with the increasing territory of the Chinese Empire and the increase in population, it can be described as the world's largest demand market for cotton cloth, supporting its fierce and vigorous development.

In addition, the cotton textile industry in various industrial systems, small investment, fast returns, obvious returns, rapid production cycle characteristics, plus Feng Yunshan's soul from later generations has long known the assembly line operation of this kind of habitual thing, so all kinds of cotton spinning mills and weaving factories have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, within a few years, the entire empire's cotton cloth production has increased greatly.

Especially because of the large population of the empire and the cheap labor, even if the production technology and efficiency were not as high as those of the British counterparts, but relying on the labor advantage, a large number of cotton cloth was manufactured, which not only satisfied the domestic market, but also began to hit the Indian Ocean and European markets.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry, last year, there were as many as 5,000 large and small cotton textile factories in the country that could spin and weave cloth, and if we add wool textile mills, hemp textile mills, silk reeling factories, silk weaving factories, and so on, I am afraid that there are more than 8,000. More than 380,000 tonnes of cotton alone are consumed each year, equivalent to 850 million pounds, which is already more than the total amount of cotton needed by the British textile industry.

And this is because the cotton planting area of the Chinese Empire is insufficient, and the cotton production in the United States has been reduced due to the war, resulting in the domestic cotton textile mills have not continued to expand on a large scale in the past two years, otherwise, I am afraid that there are far more than 5,000 cotton textile mills.