In September 1908, an armored train rumbled out of Lanzhou Station and plunged headlong into the vast northwest. The steel monster was a perfect combination of human creativity and destruction, and its design and construction began in July 1906 and was put into operation in May 1907. The General Staff will separate the armored train unit into an army and form an armored train corps, which will produce three more armored trains of the same model in the future.

This resource-hungry monster was well received by the Army, and in the vast north, there was a real need for a highly mobile and destructive weapon, especially against the Russian fortresses, and the heavy artillery carried by this armored train could provide strong fire support for the Army.

Of course, each armored train costs a lot of money, and the amount of steel used in one armored train can produce more than ten T01 tanks. Before the initial completion of several major industrial bases in the north and before the completion and opening of the northern railway network, China did not have so many resources for the armored army to squander.

Many projects in the North progressed according to the schedule, and most of them tended to go beyond the schedule, allowing the army to begin the refitting program in 1908. For example, the broad-gauge railway under the armored train, which belongs to one of the east-west arteries in the hinterland of China, starts from Lianyungang in the east and continues to the north after arriving in Lanzhou, Gansu.

Constrained by the lack of resources and the backwardness of Xinjiang, the construction team could not speed up the progress by means of simultaneous construction at both ends or sectional construction, and could only move forward little by little. Moreover, the bridges that need to be built along the way, the tunnels that need to be crossed, and the desert Gobi that crosses need to be solved, from August 1906 to September 1908, the railway was repaired to Yumen in two years and one month, which is already worth celebrating.

There's more to celebrate, sitting in a luxury car on an armored train dedicated to the president. Lu Liang was reviewing the documents and reports sent from various places. Since his departure from Wuhan three months ago, Lu Liang has been working on the train, and the documents and reports have also traveled half of the north with the train, inspecting the construction achievements of the north in the past two years.

Looking out the window at the Gobi Desert, Lu Liang stopped his pen and was a little distracted. The North recovered from the post-war period to economic construction. It only took one year and eleven months to reach the heights I expected, which is really exciting. The sooner the preparations for war are completed, the more perfect the country's war potential will be, and the more confident it will be in the face of the cruel situation in the future.

In the north, the new Northeast Industrial Base, Shandong Industrial Base, Beijing-Tianjin Industrial Base and Shanxi Industrial Base have tripled the industrial output value of Huaguo, the rich resources of the north are not comparable to the south, using the local rich coal and iron and other mineral resources, Huaguo's annual steel output has reached 35 million tons as of September 1908. ranked second in the world; Moreover, Anshan Special Iron and Steel Plant, Ordost Iron and Steel Plant and Zhangqiu Special Iron and Steel Plant can provide sufficient special steel for economic development and the military. Under such output, the demand for steel is only to reach the balance between supply and demand, and the demand for steel will increase after entering the war period, which means that the steel industry in China still needs to continue to expand, and the second, third and fourth phases of the major steel plants have been planned to ten years later.

Another thing that attracted Lu Liang's attention was the transportation industry in the north, especially the railway, and nearly half of the steel produced by Huaguo in the past two years was swallowed by the giant beast of the railway. The navy, army, etc. were screaming with hunger. But it was not replenished until 1909. Everything has to make way for economic construction.

Crossing the Yangtze River and connecting the southern railway network, the north-south direction of the new railway mainly includes: from Wuhan, through Zhengzhou, Xingtai, Handan, Tianjin to Beijing, and then northeast through Shenyang, Changchun, all the way to Harbin; The other departs from Nanjing to Beijing via Bengbu and Jinan, and from Shanghai to Beijing via Nanjing. The most difficult to construct is the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, a railway project that crosses the Shu Road. Most of the work was done by Filipino laborers, and the death toll of the project is unknown and has not been declassified for hundreds of years. In addition, the branch railways that cross Shanxi and Shaanxi from north to south, and the branch railways of various provinces have been completed or are close to completion.

Among the railways on the east-west line, the Central Railway, which runs through the east and west, has been built to Yumen Pass, and it is expected to reach the end of the railway in October 1909. From Qingdao to Ordos, Tangshan to Ordos, etc. have also been built. The railway network of China was initially formed. With a mileage of 35,000 kilometers, it has become the main artery of China's economic development.

The achievements of highway construction can be felt by the ordinary people, and the reinforced concrete roads connecting cities, prefecture-level cities and county seats, and asphalt roads connecting towns and villages have appeared in 70 percent of the northern regions. China has become the country with the highest achievements in highway construction in the world, and this was completed in less than ten years, and is praised as the world's construction miracle by the Chinese people. Correspondingly, Huaguo's cement output reached 180 million tons in 1907, the world's largest cement output. In addition to highways, a large number of cement is used in urban construction, national defense construction, large and medium-sized cities one by one high-rise buildings rise from the ground, in July 1908, the world's tallest building - Shanghai Huaxia Building was completed and put into use, 381 meters high so that it is the world's tallest building for a long time. When the building was completed, the Americans intended to build a taller building in New York to overtake Huaguo's lead in skyscrapers.

"Sir, you've smoked too much!" Wu Yue walked over from the carriage next to her, smiled and nodded to the two guards in front of the door, and then frowned and waved her hand to disperse the smoke.

Lu Liang came back to his senses, nodded with a smile, and embarrassedly snuffed out the cigarette in his hand in the ashtray. Wu Yue walked over and emptied the ashtray full of cigarette butts into the trash can and sat down beside Lu Liang.

"The smell of smoke here is too strong, you better go next door to rest, there is still a long way to go!"

While cleaning up the documents on the table, Wu Yue used a woman's unique skill: verbosity.

"What does your body do with smoking so much? I've noticed that you've been working out less and less lately, and you're getting worse and worse, drinking coffee, smoking, staying up late, and you're not with me when you go to bed at night! ”

"Oh!" Lu Liang rubbed his swollen head, although everything is developing in a good direction, and everything makes his confidence more and more sufficient, but this does not mean that he can be idle, on the contrary, he needs to pay attention to more things. However, this situation will soon be changed, and he is ready to put Song Jiaoren in the position of prime minister this year. In this way, you can focus more on the military side and prepare for the upcoming world war.

"Let's have a child, think about having a child call you dad, you will feel very happy!" Lu Liang suddenly came up with such a sentence, which made Wu Yue at a loss, because she had wanted a child for a long time, but Lu Liang did not agree.

"Didn't we discuss it before, if you have a child, you are too busy with work and have no time to spend with him, which will make the child unable to feel the father's love, which is not conducive to the child's growth." Although Wu Yue said this, she was still worried in her heart.

"I used to think wrong, my position determines that it will be difficult for me to find time to take care of the children in the future, rather than dragging it out like this, it is better to give birth as soon as possible, so that you can also have someone to keep you company, so that you will not be too lonely when I am not around."

Speaking of this, Wu Yue couldn't cry anymore, in today's traditional concept is still very strong, as the president's wife, she will be under great pressure if she doesn't have children, and sometimes she even wants to persuade her husband to take another concubine, as the head of a country, how can there be no descendants!

Sending Wu Yue away, Lu Liang was about to put his mind on the document again, and just as he wanted to light a cigarette, he remembered his promise to Wu Yue and had to put it down. For the sake of his children in the future, it seems that cigarettes, coffee and other things have to quit.

The first document was on the Yumen oil field, which was also the end point of the expedition, which produces 5 percent of China's current oil production, and after the opening of the railway, the oil can finally be transported to the hinterland of the Central Plains to serve the Chinese economy and military.

After the development and operation of northern oilfields such as Yumen Oilfield, Shengli Oilfield, Zhongyuan Oilfield, and Dagang Oilfield, the problem of oil shortage that plagued China was temporarily alleviated. Today, when Sino-US relations are becoming more and more tense, it is necessary to firmly control the oil supply in our own hands and speed up the progress of the construction of the central railway, which is also for the early development of oil in Xinjiang.

Another key point in the oil field is Kuwait's Dabulgan oil field, which attracted the attention of countries around the world after the discovery of oil by the Huaguo Petroleum Exploration Team in Kuwait last year, and a large number of spies have entered the desert of the Middle East to try to know accurate information about this oil field, including oil production, geological reserves, recoverable reserves, and so on. In addition, various countries also tested China's attitude through their diplomatic departments, and the British demanded that the Kuwaiti oil fields be given a 50 percent share to Britain, and France was also very interested in this.

In order to reduce the attention of various countries to the Kuwaiti oil field and reduce the pressure, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China had to organize a visit to the oil field composed of diplomats and oil experts from various countries to enter the Dabulgan oil field, and after the field inspection, the oil share was distributed.

This is a helpless thing, Kuwait is surrounded by British and French forces, far from the Chinese mainland. Once Britain blocks the shipping lanes and prohibits the passage of Chinese oil carriers, China has no choice but to start a war, and at this stage China does not want to expand the problem. (To be continued.) )