Chapter 127: The Emperor's Thoughts

"We will devote all our strength in this war, not for anything else, but for total victory!"

-- Congressional speech

Since February, the whole of China has known that China is about to devote all its forces to Europe, the War Department is making plans to send more than 200 divisions to Europe, and the Admiralty is drawing up corresponding transportation plans, but as we all know, the focus of China's participation in the war is not Western Europe, but on the Eastern Front, which is Russia

And before sending troops, China must make full preparations, this preparation may take half a time, first, considering the logistics problem, China must solve the transportation problem, well, China has sent a railway delegation to Russia, and together with the Russian Railways, to repair the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Central Asian Railway, and in the other direction, in Persia, despite the opposition of the British, China has sent more than 100,000 troops to Persia on its own, most of which are engineers, and these engineers will fight for the next ten months. Construction of a railway to Russia, connecting with the Russian Central Asian Railway.

The Russian-Polish railway, this railway will solve the most urgent transportation problem for Russia, once the railway is completed, every month, the Russian-Polish railway alone can transport as many as 400,000 tons of materials to Russia, but on the Russian-Polish railway, there is a bottleneck - the transportation capacity of the Central Asian railway.

Although on the surface, between China and Russia, there is the Heilongjiang Middle East Railway and the Siberian Railway, and on the Mongolian Plateau, there is also the newly completed Sino-Russian Railway and the Siberian Railway, although there are two railways, but the cargo traffic to Russia has not exceeded the bottleneck of 3 million tons of annual capacity, because whether it is the Mongolian Railway or the Eastern Railway, in the end, they all rely on the Siberian Railway to transport materials, and its capacity has not changed much with the capacity of the Central Asian Railway connected to Xinjiang by a single line.

The construction of the Russian-Polish railway, on the surface, seems to Russia to obtain another transportation channel, but in fact it has fallen into another railway bottleneck, and has not fundamentally solved the problem, and at this time China proposed to solve the transportation bottleneck through Caspian sea transport, with the help of Caspian sea transport, you can directly bypass the Central Asian railway, load the materials on the coast of the Caspian Sea, directly through the Caspian Sea, Volga River in Tsaritsyn onto the train, and send it directly to Ukraine, and its freight is even lower than the use of only Central Asian railway to transport materials, so that It can solve the problem of insufficient railway capacity in Central Asia.

A year later, the annual capacity of the Central Asian Railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway will exceed 6 million tons, and the Russian-Polish Railway will also reach 6 million tons, so that Russia can obtain sufficient foreign materials.

For example, how to solve the Caspian Sea shipping, compared with the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea shipping industry is not developed, as an inland sea, although the Black Sea ships are blocked by the navies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, so that a large number of merchant ships are stranded in the port, but the Caspian Sea is an inland sea, and it is impossible for merchant ships to sail to the Caspian Sea, so it is necessary to rebuild merchant ships in the Caspian Sea, and along the Caspian coast, there are only a few small shipyards that can only manufacture small cargo ships, and shipyards must be built to build ships.

In contrast to the "prudence" of the Russians on the railways, on the Caspian Sea sea, the Russians became extremely "generous". They agreed to China's investment in the establishment of the "Caspian Sea Shipping Company", agreed to China to build shipyards along the coast, and even agreed to China to set up a wholly-owned company, which can be described as a green light, but in fact, the Russians have their own considerations...,

"Hey, tell me now, what is this, invest more than 5 million yuan to build such a shipyard, which can build more than 300,000 tons of merchant ships a year, but these merchant ships can only float in the Caspian Sea!"

In a small room in a hotel in Turkmenbashi, Sun Yemao complained to Ye Quan, who was the deputy manager and manager of the "Caspian Shipping Company" sent here by the China Ocean Shipping Company.

"Five million shipyards, sixteen million docks, and seventy million merchant ships...... Calculate, the investment needs at least 100 million, and all of them are invested by us, no less than 10 million tons of transportation a year, and it will take at least ten years to recover the investment, which is simply a loss-making business, and it is possible for the Russians to give us ten years of monopoly management rights? ”

"The government, there is always a government consideration!"

Ye Quansheng's words seemed a little helpless, if the safety of the investment can be ensured, then the investment may be cost-effective, and if a monopoly position can be established, in wartime, the Russians may not be able to compete for Caspian Sea transportation because of the war, so that the Caspian Sea Company has a monopoly on shipping, but as soon as the war is over, everything will change, except for the government's considerations, he really can't find any other reason.

"You're telling me ......"

Sun Yemao still asked with some dissatisfaction.

"For the sake of the government, can the company bear the loss of 10,000 yuan? You know, no matter how many ships we build here, it's in vain, we can't drive the ships to other places because of the slump in business here, the Caspian Sea is an inland sea, if the company is ready to abandon this place at a loss, these ships can only be cheap, or even sold to the Russians as scrap metal! ”

"I don't know, I don't know, it's the palace's decision."

Ye Quansheng smiled meaningfully, the decision of the palace, that is, His Majesty's decision, the Ocean Company is His Majesty's Ocean Company, even if His Majesty can bear the loss, then what else can they say?

"Over the years, Your Majesty has long stopped doing business!"

sighed a little helplessly, and Sun Yemao's words were still somewhat dissatisfied.

"And meddling in this kind of business that is destined to lose money."

Raising his eyebrows in some confusion, he looked at the little room, which was very simple, with a writing desk, two lap chairs, two beds covered with light blue sheets, and another table, a small round table, in the middle of the room, facing an electric lamp hanging from the ceiling and covered with a blue cloth lampshade.

Even then, this is already the most "luxurious" hotel in the region, and they can only live in this kind of place unless they are willing to stay in the homes of those Russian officials.

"If the Don and Volga rivers were connected, maybe the Caspian Sea would no longer be an inland sea!"

Ye Quansheng, who was looking at the map, suddenly raised his head and said to Sun Yemao.

"The Volga and Don rivers can sail 3,000-ton merchant ships of the Haihe type,......"

"Build a canal?"

Sun Yemao shook his head vigorously, and then said.

"Hey! My Manager Ye, what is the investment in the Huai River Navigation Project and the Huai River Control Project? ”

Then, holding out five fingers, he said.

"50 million investment, 1 million reform prisoners, lasted six years!"

As the words fell, he shook his head again.

"Isn't the power of the company to withstand such a thing as a canal? And the investment is so large, it is simply for the Russians, is it necessary for this? ”

"Now let's talk about it,"

Stretching his legs straight under the table wearing a pair of polished high-end leather boots that tightly wrapped his legs, Ye Quansheng said with certainty.

"If we invest less in Russia, the Russians want to take action, and there will be fewer concerns, but what if there is more? Just like the royal investment in Persia, even if it is Britain, we are also carrying it, well, if our investment in Russia is billions, you can talk about it. If Russia harms our business interests, is it possible for the government to sit idly by? ”…,

"What do you mean......"

Looking at Ye Quansheng in surprise, Sun Yemao then said.

"Hijacking the government with huge investments?"

For his surprise, Ye Quansheng smiled.

"Usually that's the way it is, if there is too little investment, there is no need to interfere, if there is too much investment, the government will have a hard time, and then, in order to ensure commercial interests, they will have to fight, so to speak, there are some wars, not because of territory or dignity or anything, but simply for commercial interests, just like the current European war, in the final analysis, it is not for commercial interests, the German capital community wants to redivide the sphere of influence."

"Look at what you said! If this is the case, what is the difference between us and profiteers, you know, we are imperial merchants! ……”

Glancing at Ye Quansheng, Sun Yemao said a little unacceptably, Imperial Merchants, for Chinese businessmen, to a certain extent, this is an honor, only the most outstanding business elites can accept the employment of industrial companies and become members of industrial companies, and from the day they entered the industrial company, they have a very special identity - imperial merchants. A merchant who runs a royal estate.

"Hehe, Imperial Merchant, in the final analysis, Imperial Merchant is also a businessman!"

Ye Quansheng smiled again.

"If we are incompetent and cause huge losses to the company, then in the future, there will be no place for you and me in the Chinese business community.

He poured some weird vodka into the tall glass, glanced at Sun Yemao, and then smiled again.

"What do you think?"

His words made Sun Yemao silent.

"This is always the way the world has always been!"

Although Sun Yemao was silent, Ye Quansheng still kept talking.

"The Royal Sino-Polish Oil Company has invested no more than 100 million yuan, but why would the country carry it for the company and the United Kingdom, just for the sake of oil? I'm afraid that the interests of the royal family are taken into account? ”

"You know ......"

wanted to say something to justify, but Sun Yemao suddenly felt very tired, stretched out his hand to take the tall glass wine glass, took a sip of wine, and looked at his old friend and finally just squeaked and said.

"Anyway, I think, this kind of thing shouldn't be done by us!"

Due to the instability of the Baidu keyword ranking of this book, in order to facilitate the next reading, please Ctrl+D to add a bookmark, thank you!!