"Back to Your Majesty, just now Weichen estimated a little, according to Your Majesty's will, to build this Trans-Siberian Railway, it should be to connect the entire north and west through the Siberian region, the path chosen is roughly to connect the Beihai City Northern Railway built from Beijing to the shore of Lake Baikal, starting from Beihai City on the shore of Lake Baikal, all the way to the west, across Siberia, across the Ine, Ob, Irtysh rivers, and finally to the Ural Mountains, to Yekaterinburg, Then follow the Ural River all the way south to Orenburg. This is the northernmost road, and the south road starts from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, all the way west into Xinjiang, passes through Hami and the ancient city, Wulumuqi to Ili, and then turns southwest to Kashgar, and even Kokand City, Bukhar City, arrives at the Aral Sea City at the mouth of the Aral Sea in the Syr Darya River, and then goes northwest through the town of Alalsk established by Tsarist Russia, and finally connects with Orenburg, forming a huge railway ring network that includes the entire Western Xinjiang, the Kazakh Khanate and the entire northern Siberian region.

In this way, one is the northern route, starting from the city of Beijing, which has been opened to traffic, and crossing Greater Siberia to Orenburg, a total of 6,500 kilometers; The other is the southern route, starting from the city of Liangzhou, 300 kilometers northwest of Lanzhou, which was opened to traffic half a year ago, crossing the western Xinjiang region and the Kazakh Khanate, and finally connecting to Orenburg from the south, a total of 5,600 kilometers. Counting up, the entire north-south Circum-Siberian Railway has a mileage of 12,100 kilometers, and even if you need to detour through rivers or mountains, it may increase by more than 100 kilometers! This mileage is the sum of the railway mileage built in the six years after the birth of the Chinese Empire. ”

Speaking of this, Cheng Hengsheng took a breath. He was about to continue, when Feng Yunshan interrupted him: "It's already more than 10,000 kilometers? Well, it is still in the desolate and remote Siberian extremely cold region, and it seems that the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway is indeed very difficult and requires a lot of effort. Aiqing is said to be difficult, what support do you need from me? ”

Cheng Hengsheng said: "Back to Your Majesty, there are naturally a lot of difficulties. Didn't His Majesty order the construction of four railways to the frontier as early as the beginning of the year? First, Shengjing is the starting point, respectively to Seoul on the Korean Peninsula and Temple Street at the mouth of the Heilongjiang River; The second is the one that Wei Chen just mentioned, starting from the city of Beijing through the cities of Guihua and Kulen in Mongolia, and arriving at the city of Beihai on the shore of Lake Baikal, which happens to be merged with the Trans-Siberian Railway that His Majesty is now mentioning, and is part of it; The third is similar to the second, starting from Lanzhou City and going west to Bukhar City in Kazakhstan, which has been built to Hami because of the fastest progress in construction; The fourth is from Xi'an, passing through Chengdu and Kunming, reaching Mandalay in Myanmar and finally reaching Dhaka and Kolkata in Bangladesh.

Now, almost nine months have passed, and the first and second articles have not yet been completed, and the third and fourth sections have already begun to be built because of the slightly better conditions and environment. Among them, the fourth one is because it is the local inland and is related to the well-being of the people of Sichuan and Yunnan, so Weichen and the Railway Department of the Ministry of Communications have given priority to construction, and the progress is relatively fast. The rest has largely not yet had time to be implemented. Now that His Majesty is planning to build tens of thousands of kilometers of railways, Weichen is worried that there are really few people in the Railway Division!

In addition, as Premier Zeng said just now, the original Nanyang Construction Engineering Company has grown to more than 50,000 people, but now the oldest group of elderly people in Guangdong want to return to their hometowns to buy real estate because they have some savings, and the rest of them have been poached by some private construction engineering companies with high salaries, and now there are only about 30,000 people in the entire Nanyang Construction Engineering Company, most of which were transferred to Sichuan by the Ministry of Railways to repair the railway from Xi'an to Chengdu, resulting in fewer people building official roads. The other two engineering companies under the Ministry of Railways are also busy building railways that have already started, and cannot afford to take care of these frontier lines.

However, Your Majesty can rest assured that Weichen has recently asked the Ministry of Communications to prepare for the establishment of a transportation engineering construction company in the Chinese Empire, and many of the low-level workers are recruiting hard-working Japanese and Koreans, and now they are gradually in place, and they can be trained in only half a year. There are also many privately founded construction companies and engineering companies, although the strength is not strong, but the enthusiasm is very high, if not, Wechen is ready to subcontract some less important railway construction projects to them, and the Department of Railways and Nanyang Construction Engineering Company, such as the Ministry of Railways and Nanyang Construction Engineering Company, only for important processes and links to build their own, the other processes are only supervised and inspected, to ensure that the quality of the project is normal.

In a word, Your Majesty, as long as there is sufficient financial support to ensure that the workers and logistics of the construction of the railway, as well as the materials for the construction, mainly sleepers and rails, can be in place in time, Weichen dares to make a military order, at most within 8 years, possibly 6 years, to complete the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. ”

"Good! With Aiqing's words that he dared to make a military order, I was relieved! 8 years is too long, I will make a request to you and the Ministry of Communications, not to sing for 6 years at most, and strive for 5 years to build. In 5 years, I will take a train to Siberia and Orenburg and even the Aral Sea, and go on a hunting tour to the west! Feng Yunshan immediately made a decision and laughed loudly: "As for the matter of Nanyang Construction Engineering Company, Zeng Aiqing from the Ministry of Public Works did not come today, and I will let him solve it when I turn around." We must increase the development of these construction companies, as long as our Chinese empire is still in the day, these engineering companies will have to develop well! As long as the supervision and inspection are in place to ensure that the quality of the project is passed, subcontracting is not unavoidable, and the construction progress can be accelerated.

Finally, the most important point, Cheng Aiqing, how much money and steel rails and other materials do you need to make a military order? ”

Cheng Hengsheng was overjoyed, judging from the emperor's meaning, it was obvious that he wanted how much money and steel rails and other materials, all of which would agree to be satisfied, how could he miss such an opportunity? After all, for the Ministry of Communications, the sooner they can build the railway, it is also their own achievements and credits.

"Your Majesty, Weichen preliminary estimates, this 12,200 kilometers of the Trans-Siberian Railway, according to the weight of 75 kilograms per meter of rail, a railway with two rails, each kilometer is 150 tons, a total of nearly 1.83 million tons of steel rails are needed for a single rail, this is still a theoretical situation, the actual construction will be a little wasteful, plus some stations have multiple tracks, as well as every other section of a barge line or storage line of the track, the actual need for nearly 1.9 million tons of rails!

In terms of capital costs, because unlike the previous empire when the empire was just established labor and sleepers were free, only the cost of buying steel rails was so low, and the construction sites are now remote Siberia and the bitter cold land in the Gobi Desert in western Xinjiang, the cost of material transportation and labor has increased significantly, including all the rail sleepers and artificial lulu, etc., it is estimated that the construction cost per kilometer will be about 100,000 holy yuan. In total, the estimated budget is 1.2 billion holy dollars. ”

The astronomical figures revealed by Cheng Hengsheng surprised Feng Yunshan, who still felt that his treasury was full!