"Quack, quack, quack...... Squeak, squeak......"

Amid the noise of people, the cries of caged chickens and ducks echoed in the carriage, and even the pigs were tied with ropes next to the seats.

Hakka and Hokkien dialects converge in this carriage, and the rickety carriage becomes more exaggerated as the train accelerates, so that there is always a feeling that the car may derail at any time, but the passengers on the car are obviously used to this situation.

It's not a train, it's a bazaar!

Sitting in the third-class carriage, Yuan Shikai muttered to himself in his heart, although relying on the relationship between the windows, the wind outside the window took away the disgusting smell in the carriage, but the smell of soot on his face stirred his sense of smell from time to time. And what is even more unbearable is probably the pig tied in the middle of the walk, and the pig even left a pile of dirt in the aisle, so that a strong smell permeated the whole carriage.

"Check the ticket, check the ticket ......"

In the crowded carriage, the ticket inspector wearing a black uniform, while shouting, while in the carriage, checking the passengers' tickets, when checking the tickets, Yuan Shikai saw that someone bought a ticket, and someone paid some copper coins, and the copper coins were directly put into his pocket.

"It's a ticket for the six of us!"

As soon as the ticket inspector came, Wang Cheng, who was sitting on the side, hurriedly took out six tickets, the ticket is from Dadaocheng to Shuihui, and it is also the www.biquge.info and end point of the Biqu Pavilion of the Taiwan Railway, but it is only more than 100 miles away, although so, there are many passengers in this carriage, especially businessmen.

"Yo. Why don't you guys do first class. Come to the third-class carriage and squeeze! ”

A ticket inspector with a stiff official tongue. After taking the ticket and looking at it, he looked at these people curiously, these brains let the donkey kick, didn't they?

"It's like I haven't done a train before, I want to try it!"

Wang Cheng smiled, as an adult, this kind of thing is naturally greeted by him.

"Okay, then you can taste it first!"

The ticket inspector smiled and returned the ticket to Wang Cheng. Before leaving, he glanced at the young man in a silk robe who was sitting by the window, but his face was not much different from that of a village man.

For Yuan Shikai, this trip to the railway was not to take a ride on the railway repaired by Liu Ming and taste the foreign meat, but to inspect the railway construction. After all, this railway is the most important item in Taiwan's foreign affairs, and it is also the item of "initial results" -- 132 miles of construction in three years. Although the quality of the road seems to be worrying now, it is indeed a great achievement.

For Yuan Shikai, who has ambitions and intends to compete with Tang Haoran in Taiwan and run foreign affairs in Taiwan, this has built some famous railways, which is undoubtedly the first breakthrough he chose, and there are no more than three road builders in China today, one is Li Hongzhang, the other is Zhang Zhidong, as for the three, it was Liu Mingchuan in the past, and now it is him Yuan Shikai.

But along the way, the ambition of Yuan Shikai, who was full of ambition, suddenly disappeared, and he really saw the chaos of the management of this railway - some people only bought second-class tickets but ran to the first-class carriage he took before, not only that, but the environment in the carriage was far beyond his imagination, just like coming to this third-class carriage on purpose, in addition to the passengers, there were many people with a bunch of chickens, pigs and a lot of vegetables, pork and various parcels on the train, and the passenger car completely became a truck, And the ticket inspector on the train requires that when the ticket is checked, there are many people who do not have a ticket, either want to make up the ticket on the train or do not want to pay at all, for those who do not pay, the ticket inspector will take away their items as collateral, and more people are in the way of paying less, directly buy the ticket inspector, in addition to the gift in terms of freight The price of each station is also different, and the merchant will choose the station with the lowest price among several nearby stations to consign goods.

"My lord, it looks like this railway has to be put in order!"

Sitting next to Yuan Shikai, Huang Zhongliang said softly, he is Yuan Shikai's staff found in Tianjin, although when he was originally in North Korea, there were a few friends who seemed to be behind the scenes, but after all, they were all serious court officials, all of whom were left in North Korea by Tang Haoran.

Because everyone speaks official language, they are not worried that the conversation will be known to others, after all, most people in Taiwan do not know official language, and naturally they cannot understand official language.

"Hmm!"

Yuan Shikai only nodded slightly, what needs to be rectified is not only the operation of the railway, he has been in office for nearly half a year, in addition to making friends with the Taiwan officials and gentry, on the one hand, he is familiar with the local government affairs, and on the other hand, he has also learned about the machine bureau, the electric light bureau, and the post office.

The stalls opened by Taiwan's Western-style affairs branch seem to have achieved a lot of results, the railway has been opened, the machine has been built, the post office has also sent letters, and even Taipei is the first city in the country to be electrified, but there is confusion in management everywhere, not to mention the chaos in its management, taking the machine bureau as an example, the guns and ammunition it manufactures are actually not as good as imports, not only the quality is inferior, but the price is much higher than that of imports. However, on the other hand, the equipment used to manufacture guns and shells is all gun and ammunition machines imported from Germany a few years ago, and only sixty percent of the finished products can be used from shell making to finished bullets, and the rest are scrap. There are a lot of scraps, and the cost is naturally very expensive, and even the technicians of the machine bureau are just a few foreigners, and the foreign technicians in the gunpowder bureau even learn architecture in France, not gunpowder, and the so-called medicine is just a scoop drawn according to the gourd.

The only ones that are still operating fairly well are the telegraph office and the post office, but both have precedents - the former has a charter modeled on foreign countries and has been operating on the mainland for many years, while the latter is managed by customs.

To straighten out!

It's time to straighten out!

If it is not rectified, how can we talk about Taiwan's new policy? For Yuan Shikai, who has just let Taiwan go after several years of prime ministership, he is eager to do something to prove his ability to the imperial court and adults, and then to rise to officialdom with foreign affairs. The only way to do it is to take advantage of foreign affairs. The nave is like this. The same is true of Zhang Nampi, and even of North Korea's Tang Haoran.

However, Yuan Shikai knew that he could not compare to the three of them, Zhongtang had accumulated power in the court for many years, and Nanpi had the imperial court to divide power, as for him Tang Haoran, he was not only proficient in foreign affairs, but also had Zhongtang's appreciation and Nanpi's old feelings. This is all out of his Yuan Shikai's grasp, although so, because of the close age, Yuan Shikai always has the intention of competing with him in his heart.

"North Korea is just a foreign domain, even if you Tang Ziran has the ability to turn the sky upside down, how can you use it for Koreans? Rich in North Korea? Even if the SAR is established, what can it do? ”

Thinking so in his heart, Yuan Shikai knew that Tang Haoran had his own difficult convenience in North Korea, and it was true that North Korea was a foreign vassal, but it was because it was a foreign vassal. Only then can he enjoy full power, so that he can act arbitrarily with North Korea. And there is no elbow at all. On the other hand, when he was in Taiwan, he had to worry about the local gentry and the Hunan and Huai defense camps, and there were even political envoys and envoys who elbowed each other, and many parties came to elbow each other, so what kind of business could he talk about?

Thinking like this, the train staggered into the Xiashui foot station, and the passengers in the carriage poured out of the carriage one after another, leaving only a mess in the carriage, after leaving the station, Yuan Shikai glanced back again, the station looked a bit like an ancestral hall, and he couldn't help but sigh when he thought of the chaos along the way.

"My lord, now since the railway was put into operation on the first day of April last year, not only failed to achieve the effect of maintaining the road with the road, but was a monthly deficit of nearly 3,000 taels, if this is calculated, after the construction of the north-south railway on the whole island, the monthly deficit will reach tens of thousands of taels, in my opinion, this deficit is all in the chaos of road administration, to what we see in the car today, this single train, into the private pocket of the ticket clerk at least a dozen taels of silver, if you add the weight to reduce the pound, this deficit is afraid or a loss of personnel!"

When Wang Cheng rented a horse from the chariot and horse shop, Huang Zhongliang whispered on the side, and after seeing the chaos of road administration on the road before, he immediately realized that for himself, this might be an opportunity.

"Hmm!"

The loss of personnel, among the domestic foreign factories, can be said to be strange, others can be surprised, but Yuan Shikai can't, he doesn't have the silver to waste, he needs to rely on the Taiwan Railway to prove himself to the imperial court.

"Good friend, in your opinion, if the railway is rectified, how should it be rectified?"

Looking at Huang Zhongliang, Yuan Shikai, who was not familiar with road politics, had to pin his hopes on him.

"My lord, in fact, to put it bluntly, this railway is also to do business, for the host, even if you don't understand the railway, you need to understand the truth of doing business first, business is to make money, take what we saw in the car today, it is inevitable to carry packages in this carriage, you can catch up with cages of chickens and ducks, and even piglets, and be so scented by the smell of the car, who will dare to do the car next time? In addition, as long as you stuff a few dozen dollars into the carriages, you can transfer from the third class to the second class, and from the second class to the first class......

Huang Zhongliang does not look like a scholar at all, but remembers it like an ordinary businessman, perhaps this is the influence of what he learned in the United States, which makes him better at looking at some problems from an economic perspective, just like these problems faced by Taiwan's railways.

"Take Tengyun as an example, a total of 13 carriages, 1 first-class car, 2 second-class cars, 6 third-class cars, and the remaining 4 cars are trucks, in the opinion of students, since the first-class cars are almost no passengers all day, and the second-class cars have few passengers all day long, then directly cancel the first-class cars, reduce the second-class cars to 1, reduce the third-class cars to 5 cars, and add 3 special open cars, which are exclusively for hawkers, and their goods are also extremely convenient, the fare is the same as the third-class cars, and the piglets, chicken coops and the like are not allowed to enter the third-class cars, so that The environment of the third-class carriage has naturally improved......"

Huang Zhongliang's construction made Yuan Shikai nod quite approvingly, if it is as he said, traders with live goods such as pigs and cattle take the open car, not only do not need to worry about the loss of goods, but also do not reduce the operating income because the carriage is not allowed to enter the live animals, and can improve the environment in the carriage, the people are naturally willing to take the car.

"Well, this is a solution, so how to eliminate phenomena such as fare evasion and illegal goods?"

Yuan Shikai looked at the station in the distance, and around the station, he could see that there were some people who entered the station without the ticket gate, and these people didn't know how many tickets they had to escape.

"Give all the railway workers a uniform with a number, and then send someone to investigate, you can ask the West School for a group of students, each person pays five or six taels of salary per month, and ask them to take a train each, look at the ticket check, find the shortcomings, write down the ticket checker number, and get off the train at the next station to call directly with the paperwork to report, anyway, there are both telegrams and telephones at the stations along the line, such as finding a station in Xikou, getting off the train to call at Xikou, and telling the manager to sù The manager immediately notified the Xikou station by phone, Send someone to take over the cheating ticket checker, fire him and hand him over to Luding for seizure, and then directly transfer him to the government for interrogation and take the lawsuit. It is not easy to become a ticket checker on a train, as long as a few are fired, no one will dare to risk cheating in the future. Personnel were also sent to conduct secret inspections on smuggled goods, and they were immediately dismissed and detained. In this way, as long as it takes a month or two, these two major drawbacks can be rectified. As long as the presiding officer of this kind of road administration reform stands upright, the method is good, and the results will naturally be very fast, so that a rectification, the income will surely surge, turn losses into profits, and then the time will naturally be able to collect the effect of road maintenance! ”

glanced at the station across the street, and then Yuan Shikai nodded slightly and said in a solemn tone.

"Liangyou, this road administration is to be rectified, but to preside over the railway bureau, you must first understand the railway, after returning to Taipei this time, you will first go to the railway bureau to work, and wait until the time is ripe, now, Taiwan is ......."

Things here haven't been sorted out yet!

Thinking of the chaotic and complicated officialdom relations in Taiwan, Yuan Shikai was a little jealous of Tang Haoran, as soon as he took office, he abolished the old king and set up a new king, so as to confirm the identity of the emperor of North Korea.

If not......

Thinking of Tang Ziran's life in North Korea, Yuan Shikai, who was not without envy, couldn't help but want to add some trouble to him, but how to add some trouble?

If not......

Thinking of the beautiful lady at home, Yuan Shikai's heart suddenly swelled with reluctance, now is not the time to use that person, and ...... And he still has a place where he can use him Tang Haoran,

"Yuan Shikai, now that you befriend him Tang Ziran is not in a hurry, but you are ......"

Shaking his head and sighing, when Yuan Shikai looked to the north, his brows also furrowed.

"He Tang Haoran still owes himself a favor to repay, but where is this favor still there?" (To be continued......)