And this is only a larger ship with a ship of more than 50 tons, if you add a large number of old ships left over from the Manchu Qing Dynasty, I am afraid that tens of thousands or even more, the total tonnage will reach at least one million tons.

The types of ships throughout the Chinese Empire varied widely, but in general, there were four types: large steamers, small steamers, civilian ships, and bamboo rafts.

Among them, large steamers and small steamers are actually purchased and manufactured by themselves after the establishment of the Chinese Empire, and among them, there are more and more self-manufactured, in addition to the four major shipyards of the imperial court, there are also many private shipyards have also developed on a large scale, and last year the steam ships manufactured and delivered - large and small steamers have been close to 2,000, and the tonnage of these newly manufactured ships is getting larger and larger, and the average tonnage has reached nearly 300 tons. In addition to the ocean and offshore shipping, large steamers also sail in the middle and lower reaches of the Pearl River, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River below the Jingzhou section, the Yellow River, the Huai River, the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River and other main rivers and lakes, while the small steamers can sail in a wider area, in addition to the places where the large ships can sail, the Pearl River, the Yangtze River, the Huai River, the Yellow River and the Heilongjiang tributaries, as well as other Minjiang River, Oujiang River, Yongjiang River, Haihe River, Yalu River and other smaller rivers and major tributaries navigation.

These large and small steamships account for nearly half of the passenger and freight traffic of the country's inland waterways, and if you add the coastal shipping, they account for almost 70% of the country's traffic.

In addition, civilian boats and bamboo rafts also play a good complementary role. In fact, the civilian ships are the inland wooden sailing boats left over from the original Manchu Qing Dynasty, and even the tugboats pulled by humans on the canals, most of which are only tens or even more than a dozen tons, and a small number exceed 100 tons. In addition to the original remnants, there are also a few small private shipyards and river port boat craftsmen who make these wooden sailing ships, but the number and tonnage are already very small compared with steam ships.

The last one left, bamboo rafts and wooden rafts, etc., is the most primitive and ancient kind of transportation that can barely be regarded as a ship, these service life is not long, but the production is simple, and the boatmen who live by the river all year round will basically make it. This bamboo raft and the like can transport only a limited number of goods or personnel, but it is widely used, especially in the upper reaches of various tributaries, and even in the rapids of the streams, effectively replenishing the upstream areas of the river that cannot be navigated by boats.

Through these 3,740 water transport companies, millions of tons of total deadweight passenger and cargo merchant ships transported materials in most of the navigable areas of the country, effectively promoting the development of trade, and making all kinds of commodities sell well all over the country, and the prices were greatly reduced, so that the people of the empire got a lot of benefits.

In addition to the inland waterway transportation in this homeland, the river transportation of the newly expanded imperial territory, especially the short- and medium-distance shipping, has developed greatly in recent years, especially in the last two or three years, after the Chinese Empire defeated the second expeditionary fleet of the United Kingdom, the first power of the Western Navy, the military strength of the empire made the people and even foreign businessmen extremely relieved, and the trade in the sea areas of the entire Chinese Empire became prosperous and stable, and several naval fleets of the Chinese Empire had already eliminated the few remaining pirates in the coastal waters. Short-distance shipping in offshore waters also developed at an immediate pace. Because the shipping itself is mainly based on cargo ships, and the hull load is large, and the recent railway construction is also very convenient, the freight is more economical and cost-effective than inland river transportation.

For example, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Dengzhou, and Tianjin were large coastal or offshore port cities, and now after the development of shipping, these places have become the concentration of import and export trade and the distribution center of nearby industrial and commercial goods. Among them, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, and Shanghai themselves are mega wharves, which were originally big cities with a population of more than 7 or 800,000, but now after more than ten years of development of the empire, they have expanded greatly, and they are all called megacities with a population of more than one million. In particular, the city of Guangzhou, which originally had a population of more than one million, has now become the largest city in the country, with a population of more than 2 million, especially after more than ten years of development of the Chinese Empire. Among them, as a seaport wharf and an important place for river transportation, waterway shipping has become an important reason for the growth of these cities.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Communications, in terms of land transportation, in addition to the railway construction that has been reported to Feng Yunshan, the construction of official roads is also in full swing.

The territory of the Chinese Empire is vast, and the terrain is complex, except for some plains in the hinterland of the Central Plains in the north, the rest of the Jiangnan water towns mainly rely on river network shipping, while some other southern hilly areas are mixed between the mountains, and it is not easy to build roads, such as Fujian, Guizhou and other places are even more steep mountains, and road construction is very difficult. However, after thousands of years of splendid civilization, the construction of official roads in the empire itself was on a large scale. Successive dynasties have built official roads, and even the most corrupt and bad dynasties cannot do anything to deliberately damage the roads.

Especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the trend of renovating and building local roads prevailed. After making a fortune, the gentry and businessmen in the countryside all want to gain fame and return to the village, and it is very common to build bridges and pave roads.

At the level of the government, especially in the Manchu Dynasty, in order to promote the collection of taxes and the collection of grain, and at the same time to facilitate the mobilization of troops, especially the roads required by the cavalry, in order to better maintain the rule, the Manchu Dynasty attached great importance to the renovation of official roads.

The entire Manchu Qing Dynasty, with the city of Beijing as the center, built an official road system with Manchu characteristics on the basis of the official roads of the original Ming Dynasty and the previous dynasties.

The road leading from Beijing to the provincial capitals is the widest and best built, which is called Guanma Road, referred to as Guanlu Road; The road leading from the provincial capital to the major cities of various places, such as the state capital and important county seats, is called the main road; The roads that connect counties and towns are called small roads. There are post stations and official pavilions at a certain distance between the official road and the main road, which are used by merchants to rest their feet.

As early as after the Taiping Holy Kingdom overthrew the Manchu Dynasty, Feng Yunshan, who was still the Holy King at that time, began to order the construction of roads. Especially after the establishment of the Chinese Empire, cement had been mass-produced, and the conditions for road construction such as crushers and explosives driven by steam engines were basically available, and the imperial court began to build roads on a large scale.

In the first five-year plan and the second five-year plan, the Ministry of Public Works at that time, and later the Ministry of Communications, according to the road development plan formulated by Emperor Feng Yunshan and the cabinet, set up the Department of Official Roads to carry out the repair and transformation of official roads, and carried out a huge project of hardening all the cement of the main official roads. However, just when people think that such a huge project, in Feng Yunshan's plan, is actually only the first step, suitable for horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians, and the second step, after the invention and application of the internal combustion engine, the invention of the automobile is popularized, and he is ready to widen the highway for future generations for motor vehicles to run, and this is a huge project.

For this reason, Feng Yunshan, as the emperor, clarified in the five-year plan: the road is the historical inheritance of the Chinese empire, the boat of civilization of ancient Chinese culture, the vein of wealth, if the people want to live and work in peace and contentment, rich materials, civilization progress, and industrial economy developed, it is necessary to build and develop the road of the whole country. He was the first to shout the slogan "If you want to get rich, you must first build roads".

According to the road construction task in the second five-year plan, the number of roads in the country should reach 250,000 kilometers, and now, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Communications, the official road is actually the national highway corresponding to the later generations, which has reached 80,000 kilometers; The provincial-level official roads, that is, the provincial roads corresponding to later generations, reached 110,000 kilometers; In other counties and townships, 90,000 kilometers of such roads have also been reached, and in total, they have exceeded the original plan of 250,000 kilometers and reached 280,000 kilometers.

The width of the official road is required to be more than 15 meters, the width of the official road is required to be more than 10 meters, and the width of other county and township roads is also required to be more than 5 meters.

In order to build these roads, the Ministry of Communications under the jurisdiction of the Department of Official Highway has set up a total of seven official road engineering bureaus, including the Northeast Official Road Engineering Bureau, the Northwest Official Road Engineering Bureau, the Central Plains Official Road Engineering Bureau, the Jiangnan Official Road Engineering Bureau, the South China Official Road Engineering Bureau and the Southwest Official Road Engineering Bureau, a total of six domestic engineering bureaus, and an overseas official road engineering bureau has been set up in Coconut City (Batavia) on the island of Java, which is responsible for the planning, construction and overall maintenance and operation of the official roads within its jurisdiction. The number of these seven official engineering bureaus alone is close to 30,000.

Other provinces, prefectures, and counties have different levels of official road engineering bureaus for the construction of official roads at all levels. Even in a small county, there is an official road engineering bureau with dozens of permanent people and hundreds of people at special times, which specializes in building local official roads and maintaining the official roads that have been put into use. Of course, a quarter of these funds were allocated by the imperial court and the provincial government, a quarter were directly disbursed by the county treasury, and the other half or more was mainly donated by local gentry and merchants.

More than 120,000 official road workers were employed in the provincial bureaus of the empire, and millions of other temporary migrant workers recruited or served in the nearby towns and villages could be summoned at any time.

So far, the entire empire, except for the territories that were later incorporated overseas, as well as Western Xinjiang, Northeast China, Mongolia, Siberia and other places, the rest of the provinces, provincial capitals, and capital cities have been connected by official roads, and the Central Plains, Jiangnan and South China have developed rapidly, and even every county town and important township has been connected with official roads.

In addition, some important factories and minerals also began to build their own official roads for the transportation of goods.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Communications, over the years, the entire empire has spent a huge amount of 750 million holy dollars on the construction of official roads at all levels, and if you add the donations of the squires from all over the country, I am afraid that it will already exceed 1 billion holy dollars.