In the tenth year of the Apocalypse, the telegraph had been fully laid in the north, as well as in the south of the Yangtze River and the coastal provinces, and the cross-sea cable was also laid everywhere, all the way to the South Seas, Indochina Peninsula and Australia.

The laying of these telegraph lines cost a lot of money. However, on the whole, the cost is not high, and the investment is much lower than that of building roads and railways.

Among them, the New Deal provinces have already laid telegraphs in all states and counties, except for a few overseas colonies that have not completed the laying of telegraphs.

The telegraph network had been formed, and the court had begun to discuss the opening of the telegraph to civilian use.

The courtiers were more conservative, believing that the telegraph was an artifact of the state and could not be easily opened to civilian use. However, some officials believe that it is of great significance to open up to civilian use.

"If the telegraph is open to civilian use, the speed of civil information transmission can be greatly improved, and the imperial court can also recover the investment cost by operating the telegraph business. If it is only for official use, it is a huge waste of resources. Chiang Dejing, one of the officials who supported the use of telegraphs, suggested: "If you are worried about commercial competition from private capital, you should postpone the telegraph business for a few hours." ”

"What do you think?" Zhu You asked the proofreader.

When the ministers heard Jiang Dejing say this, it seemed that it was the same thing. It is not open to civilian use, mainly because the telegraph has great commercial interests in the official use of telegraphs. The state-owned capital consortia now relied on the speed of telegraph transmission, operating in large numbers in the provinces, making high profits by grabbing the difference in the price of goods.

"What Master Chiang said is not unreasonable, if a businessman who responds to the call of the imperial court to go to another overseas country to do business, thousands of miles away from the mainland, if there is no telegraph communication, there will be no news for many years. If the telegraph service is opened, he can communicate with his family from time to time. ”

"The minister seconded the proposal."

Opening up to civil use had great advantages and could increase the financial revenue of the imperial court. It can also speed up economic development, and the ministers figured out this truth, and naturally there was no reason to oppose it, so they seconded it one after another.

"Well, since all the Aiqing believe that this method is feasible, they will open the telegram to civilian use. Fees should not be excessive. Zhu Youxiao immediately decided.

In July of the tenth year of the Apocalypse, the Daming Post Office was renamed the Post and Telecommunications Bureau, and the telegraph was officially opened for civilian use.

Although the telegram appeared before, there was no report in the newspaper at all, this thing is a bit like the 'black technology' of the imperial court, which has been hidden for several years.

Although many people know about the telegraph, they can't understand it deeply, and they are also confused, only knowing that this thing can quickly transmit information. But I don't know how it works and so on.

Now that the telegraph business is open, and the telegraph has also appeared in newspapers, it is only then that the broad masses of the people generally know that there is such a thing as a telegraph.

The appearance of the telegraph immediately shocked the entire Ming Dynasty.

The people of the time commented: ingenious workmanship!

China is a country that is good at recording history, but whenever something happens, whether it is official or non-governmental, there are many people who put pen to paper.

The Europeans, on the other hand, are on the other hand. They're good at destroying history. After Europeans fell into the Dark Middle Ages, basically only religious history remained. What happened on the European continent before, these Europeans themselves are confused, and many things can only be guessed. Most of the histories of ancient Greece and ancient Rome are conjectures, and there are no complete historical materials and documents.

After the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, and before the Dark Middle Ages. It is even more ambiguous, and the historical materials have basically been burned by religion.

This is also the reason why Europeans have not made much progress in the past few thousand years, they have no history to learn from, and they are still in the stage of blind exploration.

At this time, the Ming folk were very popular to record various events.

The advent of the telegraph. A big event indeed.

The reform of the post stations has also entered a rapid stage, but all the areas covered by the telegraph network have been reformed.

After the reform, the post station is only responsible for passenger transportation and providing accommodation and food, and is no longer responsible for the transmission of information. The postmen who were laid off were incorporated into the post and telecommunications bureau and became postmen, responsible for delivering letters and telegrams in the local area.

The implementation of the post and telecommunications system in the New Deal provinces was relatively smooth, and the official numbered the households in each street and issued stamps at the same time.

It is very convenient to send letters to the people, as long as you know the address of the recipient, buy stamps and paste them, and then put them in the mailbox.

If you don't know how much stamps to affix and don't know the postal code, you can go to the post and telecommunications bureau to inquire about it.

If you are in a hurry, you can send a telegram to the Post and Telecommunications Bureau.

The post office adopted a policy of delaying the delivery of private telegraphs by half an hour. Half an hour, equivalent to an hour.

This means that the transmission of information by private capital is the same as that received by a state-owned capital consortium in an hour.

Moreover, the intelligence network of the state-owned consortium has been laid in all provinces of the country, and the intelligence is very comprehensive, and it can still grab rich commercial benefits.

Capital's monopoly on the market is not only a monopoly on channels and other aspects, but also a monopoly on information. For ordinary people, there is no need to know so much, most of the valuable information is monopolized.

Such a monopoly is a very serious phenomenon in later generations, and information also means wealth.

In order for an inherent capital consortium to dominate the market, it must also monopolize some information, or obtain information faster than others.

The most direct is the operation of the stock market, which is essentially a casino recognized by the state. The state-owned capital consortium is a big dealer in the stock market, with all kinds of good cards, and it is safe to make profits and not losses.

Of course, at this time, the greater role of the securities trading market in Beijing is financing, after all, there is not so much foreign capital pouring into the stock market in Beijing, and the state-owned capital consortium has not wantonly squeezed private funds, but has maintained the stability of the stock market.

Major state-owned enterprises also offer shares in the securities exchange market, and this does not affect the monopoly position of state-owned enterprises in the market.

Anyway, how much dividends these state-owned enterprises pay to shareholders is what the imperial court says. If the tax rate is increased a little, the dividends will be less. The price of raw materials has increased a little, and the dividends have decreased. The profits handed over to the state have increased a little, and the dividends to shareholders have also decreased.

At present, dividends on investing in shares of state-owned enterprises are usually maintained at the level of 6% to 10%, which is much higher than keeping money in banks. Individual state-owned enterprises sometimes pay dividends as high as 15%, but the maximum will not exceed 15%.

The stock market has become an important channel for the imperial court to absorb idle funds from the people, so that the funds can be operated, the utilization rate of funds will increase, and the economic development will be faster.

Over the years since the New Deal reforms, many wealthy people in the past have begun to sit on empty seats. It can't be done by sitting at home and collecting rent. Nowadays, the more land the landlord class has, the more taxes they pay. Only by setting up an agricultural company for commercial operation can we avoid high tax rates, but if we run our own business, labor costs will rise, we must improve agricultural production technology, purchase agricultural machinery, and build water conservancy facilities, all of which require investment, if we encounter natural disasters or something. The imperial court did not care about these agricultural companies, and the bankruptcy of the bankrupt happened to be the annexation of these lands by the banks, so there was a certain risk.

At the same time, because of the issuance of paper money, many people found that silver was becoming less and less valuable in the New Deal provinces, and its purchasing power began to decrease. Those who have a lot of money at home and gnaw their old books all day long found it. It won't take many years to go on like this. They're going to sit and eat.

There is only one way to get out of trouble, and that is to invest and increase the value of your assets. Many people have begun to industrialize their capital and invest their money in industrial operations in order to seek a stable income channel and a way to preserve the value of wealth.

Those who don't know how to invest in the industry. Investing in stocks is undoubtedly a great way to do this.

And those small and medium-sized capital businessmen who know how to invest and start a business have also risen after the New Deal reform, and their social status has been officially affirmed by the imperial court.

Nowadays, businessmen are no longer considered a lowly group in the area under the New Deal. Despite such a change, it has aroused the opposition of some hard-thinking groups. But even if the imperial court did not officially recognize the social status of these merchants, these merchants themselves already had a high social status.

The imperial court attached great importance to commerce, encouraged commerce, and paid close attention to economic development, which has become a trendy phenomenon in the New Deal area.

Naturally, the benefits are many, people's livelihood has been improved, and food and clothing have been realized. But problems also arise. That is, the gap between the rich and the poor in society has further widened.

This is an inevitable phenomenon of the industrial age, and a small number of people control most of the country's wealth. Fortunately, the system of the Ming Dynasty is dominated by state-owned capital, and the state has money in its hands to ensure the basic right of survival of the people.

In general, compared to the chaotic local situation in the past, and the environment in which people starved to death with a random natural disaster, it is much better.

The basic salary of workers in the New Deal area has risen to more than 2 yuan per month in the 10th year of the Apocalypse, regardless of whether it is a male or female worker. In Beizhili, a young and strong worker works on the construction site and wharf, and the monthly wage has risen to about 6 yuan, while in Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Shanxi provinces, the wage of the young and strong labor force is only about 4 yuan.

However, the consumption level of developed provinces is also relatively high, and in general, the purchasing power in food and other aspects is similar, but the purchasing power in industrial goods is different.

Today, in developed provinces, wage growth for workers has reached a plateau, and the rate of wage growth is slowing.

This is mainly due to the fact that overseas markets are beginning to expand, while industrial production capacity is still limited.

Daming's commodities began to be exported overseas in large quantities to earn overseas precious metals, and if the wages were too high, the cost of production would be raised, making the export of goods uncompetitive. Of course, because of the increase in productivity, the competitiveness of commodities is mainly due to production technology, and wages have increased a lot compared with the past.

To put it bluntly, the business is very good, and there is no need to further increase the internal purchasing power to digest the production capacity of commodities for the time being, and the commodities are not worried about sales.

The Ming Dynasty is currently in a state of plundering precious metals abroad, which is naturally the case, the people's wages cannot be raised for the time being, and the capitalists are making money through the plundering of foreign precious metals.

The most profitable is the state-owned capital consortium, which has made huge profits and grabbed a large amount of precious metals through overseas trade.

On the other hand, the situation is relatively stable now. The state-owned capital consortium has money and can carry out a steady stream of various construction activities, and the people earn wages through participating in these construction activities, the scale of jobs is stable, although the income of the people is not high, the income is stable, the market is also very prosperous, and the people are busy and fulfilling.

The influx of workers into towns and cities has also caused a boom in the real estate market.

State-owned capital consortia have become the main force in the development of real estate, because the purchase of properties developed by state-owned enterprises can be paid in installments, and state-owned capital dominates the real estate market.

Because of the development of the market, state-owned capital still needs a large amount of capital to digest the internal market, and the real estate market is a project that must be digested, so that wealth will not flow into the hands of private businessmen in large quantities, creating the emergence of some big capital businessmen.

With abundant funds, several state-owned real estate companies have hoarded land in large quantities in major cities, bought shops, and so on.

And the development of residential areas, the construction of high-end villas and ordinary houses.

The state-owned capital consortium has developed residential areas with the best facilities, location, design, and greenery, and water companies have also emerged to supply water to these residential areas.

There is nothing too complicated about running water, that is, laying water pipes, thinking about water pressure, and then building reservoirs.

The reservoir is a part of the water conservancy project, which can provide irrigation and use water.

There are also septic tanks in these residential areas, and residents can choose to install squatting or toilet sitting, instead of having to go to the toilet every morning, as is the case in traditional homes.

After the manure enters the septic tank through the pipe, it will settle into sludge, which can be pumped out and transported away by a steam engine on a regular basis.

These homes range from small units to large units and villas built for generations of families, and have been developed into residential areas that have been well received by the market.

Ordinary private businessmen do not have such development capabilities, because it is difficult for them to do it in terms of land acquisition.

The land in Daming is privately owned, and many people are reluctant to sell real estate.

However, state-owned real estate enterprises can handle it, and when land is requisitioned, the local government comes forward to solve it, and the compensation for land acquisition is also sufficient.

At the same time, water companies, septic tanks are new products, and the progress of technology will make new demand in the market, create new imbalances, and the economy will develop accordingly.

There is demand in the market, and business is naturally very good.

Through the development of real estate, state-owned real estate enterprises are very profitable.

Privately-owned real estate businessmen make a profit by building ordinary houses, but these houses cannot be paid in installments and are not as competitive as state-owned real estate companies.

Moreover, the city is constantly expanding, the suburbs will become urban areas, and the hoarding of land in the suburbs is not as large as the scale of state-owned real estate enterprises. Moreover, state-owned capital knows the development plan and potential of each city, and the data information is the most comprehensive, and it can be laid out in advance in those cities with great potential and purchase a large amount of suburban land.

Those privately-funded enterprises are more likely to follow the state-owned real estate companies to undertake various businesses, and they can also make money, but they are not so profitable. (To be continued.) )