Miscalculated. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Yan Xueyi miscalculated, judging from the latest intelligence collected by the Ministry of Intelligence, nearly 80,000 troops have been assembled in the six provinces around Siqi Province, but they are not in a hurry to attack Siqi Province, but continue to wait, waiting for the arrival of follow-up troops, and it is expected that the time for the Manchu Qing to attack Siqi Province will be delayed until August.

Yan Xueyi didn't expect that the Qing army in the six surrounding provinces would not dare to attack Siqi Province, let alone that Zuo Zongtang would mobilize more troops to prepare to exterminate the "short-haired thieves" at one time.

The Manchu army was not in a hurry to attack, and after two months of intense training, the recruits recruited by the Han army could barely turn into regulars, and once the situation of the Han army was unfavorable, the recruits could pick up their rifles and shoot at the enemy.

Plans for railways and roads had begun in the four provinces, and a large number of captives and members of the Pao Brotherhood had been taken to Yuanhe City to work as laborers to build railways and roads, which were built from Yuanhe City to other cities.

Highway Construction Plans:

The highway is a cement road, 4 meters wide (anyway, the asphalt road will have to be paved in the future, and then it will be widened, and now 4 meters wide is enough), and the total length of the highway is expected to be 22,000 kilometers, connecting the various cities in the province with roads.

The project cost 5 million taels of silver (in fact, the cost of this issue is not well understood), mainly used to buy cement, relocation of residents, etc., due to the use of free labor, do not need to pay wages, just eat can be, so the project cost is not high.

The project is expected to take two years (not too short): the first step is to connect the various state capitals and other important cities, and the second step is to synchronize the construction from each state capital to connect the counties under its jurisdiction.

Railroad construction plan:

The railway gauge is 1600 mm broad gauge (now the international gauge standard is 1435 mm, standard gauge and broad gauge have their own advantages and disadvantages, but these advantages and disadvantages Yan Xueyi did not consider, Yan Xueyi considered that broad gauge means that the train carriage is more spacious, can carry more people, and is not as crowded as the train carriage in later generations).

The total length of the railway is 4,500 kilometers, connecting the main cities in the province.

The cost of the project is 30 million taels of silver, which is mainly used to purchase railroad tracks, explosives, etc.

The project is expected to take five years (building a railway is much more cumbersome than building a road).

The Manchu captives, members of the Pao Gehui and bandits from the four provinces totaled nearly 100,000 people, and there will be a large number of prisoners in the subsequent war with the Manchus, and there will be no shortage of free laborers to build roads and railways.

However, there are too many laborers, and guarding laborers is also a troublesome matter, and it is definitely not possible to use ordinary people to guard laborers, only to use the police or the Han army, and now the number of police in Siqi Province is not enough, Yan Xueyi had to first mobilize an infantry battalion of the garrison regiment to guard the thousands of laborers who are building roads and railways in Yuanhe City.

These free laborers are not vegetarians, once these free laborers are accidentally rioted, it is also a troublesome thing, at this time a young man named Hou Weidong put forward his own suggestion: divide the laborers, and then each group chooses a team leader, if the team leader does a good job, you can get more food or other rewards every day, once someone in the group makes a mistake, the whole group will be punished, if the group completes more tasks every day, you will be rewarded......

Hou Weidong's suggestion was very good, and it was adopted by his superiors, and at the same time, Hou Weidong's position was promoted by one level and he was rewarded with one hundred taels of silver.

Using Hou Weidong's suggestion, the labor camp, which was originally a bit chaotic, suddenly became much better, and the speed of building roads and railways every day also greatly increased, and the laborers also knew that they could not run, and in order to get more food or rewards, they used all their strength to build roads every day.

Plans to build roads and railways are well underway, and the cement and steel mills in Yuanhe City are running at full capacity, producing enough cement and rails.

In fact, starting to build roads and railways now did not help the upcoming war, but Yan Xueyi, Yan Xuecai and other high-level leaders believed that the Han army could defeat the Manchu army, so the entire province of Siqi was preparing for a war with the Manchus, and roads and railways were also built.

Roads and railways are essential for the development of a place.

"If you want to get rich, build roads first!" Countless people understood this sentence in Yan Xueyi's previous life, and similarly, Yan Xueyi also understood it, and those who heard Yan Xueyi's explanation also understood the meaning of this sentence and the benefits of building roads.

If the highways and railways are used to connect the various cities in the province, at least it is convenient for the cities to communicate, and the speed of transporting various goods between each other is accelerated, especially the industrial city of Yuanhe City can quickly and massively transport various machinery to other cities in the province, so that the province can fully establish an industrial base, and at the same time, the raw materials from all parts of the province are also continuously transported to Yuanhe City.

In particular, the railway, no matter what era, railway transport has a special and important position and role in economic and social development, it is not only the main artery of national economic development, but also has the characteristics of safe, economical, convenient, affordable, all-weather transportation, with fast speed, large transport capacity, safety and comfort, energy saving and land saving, and high efficiency in emission reduction. These characteristics determine that it is a popular means of transportation; It also determines its backbone position in the comprehensive transportation system, and has a significant and far-reaching impact on economic and social development.

Of course, railways are also very important to the military field, such as troop transportation, logistics, etc., only the four provinces built railways, which will not help the upcoming war, but when the railways are built, if there is another war, then the real military value of the railways will be reflected.

The section from Yuanhe City to Linyue County has not yet been completed for railways and highways, and it is important to build railways and highways first, so that the role of railways and highways can be brought into play.

Although railways and roads were important, there was something more important now, and that was to face the Manchu encirclement and suppression army.

Yan Xueyi considered that once the Manchu encirclement and suppression army entered Siqi Province, it would have a great impact on the common people of Siqi Province, especially the common people in the areas where the Manchu army passed by, and they might be slaughtered by the Manchu army.

In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, every time the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied a city, it would kill those big families and the people who opposed them, and when the Qing army recovered the city, they would kill the remaining people who had taken refuge in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Yan Xueyi did not want the people of Siqi Province to suffer, so he decided to let the Han army take the initiative to attack and defeat the Manchu army outside Siqi Province.