Since the first half of the nineteenth century, countries began to build railways one after another, and after the middle of the nineteenth century, countries generally have more or less railway networks, of which the most complete railway network is naturally the British mainland, as early as the thirties and forties, the railway network has been common in the United Kingdom.

Then there is the European continent and the United States and other places, in the European continent Prussia is the most enthusiastic about railway construction, in history in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Prussia's dense railway network is to bring great logistical supply advantages to the Prussian army, thus laying the foundation for the later war.

During the American Civil War, the construction of the Pacific Railroad began, which led to the Western Development Movement, and then a large number of railway networks were built in the West, but the main artery, the Pacific Railroad, has not yet been built.

As a backward country, the Chinese Empire, under the leadership of Lin Zhe, also began to try to build railways in the late fifties, and then officially set off a climax of railway construction after the unification of the empire.

In order to quickly build the railway, and at the same time suppress some of the people's various chaotic objections, such as the destruction of feng shui and other nonsense, the empire has always taken strong measures, and during the construction of the Zhuping railway, a large number of local people opposed it, which was brutally suppressed by the military.

Through this crackdown, Lin Zhe declared his determination to promote the railway to the whole country!

After the opening of the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway, its huge profits also attracted a lot of domestic private capital, which greatly reduced the financial pressure on the empire.

In order to support the construction of the railway, although the empire did not directly fund it. However, there are not many preferential policies for various financial supports.

For example, in order to relieve the pressure of railway construction. At the same time, in order to allow the railway company to return the funds as soon as possible, the empire specially approved the railway company to have the right to mine minerals within 20 kilometers on both sides of the railway.

At the same time, the land around the railway stations along the railway. It will also be directly owned by the railway company and developed.

By selling the mining rights along the line, the railway company can recoup a certain amount of capital at an early stage, and when the railway is completed, it can operate the land near the railway station, and become a real estate developer to make a lot of money.

Of course, the more important thing is to provide large low-interest loans!

In order to build railways in this year, except for those European countries with small territories that can solve the financial problem by purely commercial means, some countries with large territories need to build tens of thousands of kilometers of railways. Behind it is inevitable that strong government support is needed, but the mode of support is different.

The empire mainly provided loans directly through the Royal Bank, supplemented by the right to mine minerals along the railway line and the right to develop land around the railway station.

The United States allows enterprises to issue large amounts of debt, and at the same time, the central government directly provides loan support, and it is also very generous to grant railway companies land along the railway, and the amount is quite huge.

So much so that during the construction of American railroads, the main profit of the railroad companies did not depend on the operation of the railroad, but on the development of land along the railway.

Huge countries like the Empire and the United States. To build a major artery railway, the investment required is to start at tens of millions of yuan, and it is impossible to afford it with commercial capital alone, and it cannot be supported by relying solely on state financial investment. So it's usually a combination of both.

So don't look at the fact that the central government of the empire did not directly invest a penny in the construction cost of the railway, but in fact the support given to the railway company was quite large.

The Chinese Imperial Railway Company, which had received huge support, also lived up to Lin Zhe's expectations, after the completion of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway. At present, the Jinpu line and other railway lines are already under intense construction, and the huge profits of the Shanghai-Nanjing railway have also made a large number of private capital actively invested.

However, this kind of private capital investment. It is not to occupy a stake in the Imperial Railways, for the railroad as an important national weapon. Lin Zhe's attitude is more harsh than that of defense enterprises, and for the defense industry, if the private sector wants to invest and get involved in the defense industry, the empire will not intervene administratively, but encourages private capital to get involved.

However, the railways are completely controlled by the royal capital, and the current 'Chinese Imperial Railway Company' is wholly owned by the Imperial Asset Management Office.

Most of the private investment is integrated into it in the form of purchasing corporate bonds and providing loans, so as to share the huge profits of the railway industry.

This has also created a very interesting situation, that is, the scale of the 'Chinese Imperial Railway Company' has rapidly climbed to the largest enterprise in the empire, with fixed assets as high as tens of millions, and if the construction of railways such as the Jinpu line is completed, then its fixed assets may increase to hundreds of millions.

However, the debts of the Chinese Imperial Railway Company were quite large, and it needed to repay the Royal Bank and other major banks, and the loans of financial institutions amounted to tens of millions, and the issuance of corporate bonds was also quite large.

In the future, if they want to continue to build railways, they will have to continue to raise loans, and the final debt will depend on how quickly they build the railway.

The faster and more you fix it, the more you will be in debt.

However, the Chinese Imperial Railway Company is not insolvent, and the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway has been operating very well in the past two years, and has been able to provide quite rich profits every year, and these profits have made up for the huge expenses of the Imperial Railway Company to a certain extent.

However, even this does not change the fact that the Imperial Railways is the most indebted enterprise in the empire, and this situation is not short-term, but will continue to exist for decades to come.

Just as the railway company of later generations owed a lot of debts for the construction of high-speed rail, and the debts of trillions were enough to stand out from the crowd, although the railways of this year looked very primitive to later generations, the railways were still wrought iron, and the trains were still primitive steam engines, but even such railways, for the nineteenth century, their technical difficulty and investment amount, were no less than those of later generations of high-speed railways, and even worse.

Contemporary investment in the construction of railways in developed areas and investment in the construction of railways in less developed areas are two different things, the former is very profitable, and can pay for itself within 10 years or even five or 6 years. However, in the case of the latter, it is estimated that the investment will not be recouped for decades. And some strategic railways, don't expect to be able to recoup the investment. It's a good operation if it's not at a loss.

For example, the Northeast Railway, the Mongolian Railway, and the Northwest Railway of the western section of the Longhai Railway are being surveyed by the empire, and these sections of the railways are veritable strategic railways.

Contemporary Mongolian steppe region. The Northeast and Northwest regions all share the same characteristics: vast land and sparsely populated areas, and weak economies.

It is hoped that after the successful construction of the railway, the local population and economy will grow, but that is a matter of the future, and for now, investing heavily in the construction of railways in these places is a loss-making business from a commercial point of view.

But is it okay not to fix it?

Maybe it's an ordinary private railway company. That would definitely not be a loss-making deal, but at this time, the imperial capital attribute of the Imperial Railway Company is reflected in the benefits.

It doesn't matter if it's a loss or not, as long as the empire needs it. Then the Imperial Railways will go and fix it!

Lin Zhe developed a core business strategy for his family business very early, even in the era of the business zone, that is, to guide the development of domestic industry and commerce. Get involved in areas where private capital is reluctant to invest, but the country needs it.

And after the empire was formed. The royal industry has another task, that is, to shoulder the heavy responsibility of driving the development of the domestic economy.

So a lot of the time. It doesn't matter whether the royal business is profitable or not, what matters is whether it is good for the country or not.

The royal enterprises under Lin Zhe's control are generally similar to the state-owned enterprises of later generations, but they are also a little different, that is, the state-owned enterprises of later generations are subject to too much administrative interference, while the royal enterprises controlled by Lin Zhe are generally not coerced by the government and only accept the management of the royal family.

And the royal family and the government are naturally two different things.

If we have to compare it with modern concepts, then many of the enterprises under the Royal Asset Management Office are equivalent to the party-owned enterprises of later generations. Some of the enterprises under the Ministry of Finance, such as several commercial banks controlled by the Ministry of Finance, are equivalent to state-owned enterprises.

There is a huge difference between the two.

As a serious royal enterprise, the management of the Imperial Railway Company does not care whether it is profitable or not, and must build strategic railways such as the Northeast Railway, the Mongolian Railway and the Northwest Railway, because this is a strategic task related to the national defense and security of the Empire.

Of course, before these costless mega-projects could be undertaken, the Imperial Railways had to build the railways in the east, especially those with lucrative prospects.

Because in this way, we can maintain profitability in the future, and only with profit can we repay a large number of loans, so that we can have funds to fill the big hole in the strategic railway.

If we go to build some strategic railways now, it is estimated that the imperial railway company will be dragged down in a few years, but it is seriously insolvent, and when it cannot repay the principal and interest of the loan, it will not be as simple as bankruptcy and bankruptcy, and it may even cause political turmoil.

After all, the money involved is not as simple as tens of millions, but tens of millions or even hundreds of millions, and although these money are borrowed from banks and other financial institutions, banks and financial institutions are just second-hand dealers, and these huge funds are essentially ordinary people: bank depositors' deposits, investors' investment finance.

If the money cannot be recovered, even the huge Royal Bank will not be able to hold on, and once the capital chain of the Royal Bank is broken, a large-scale run may occur, affecting at least tens of millions of people, and it will not be so easy to solve at that time.

Therefore, even if the strategic railway is to be built, it is not something that can be repaired casually now, unless it is directly funded by the central finance of the empire, otherwise it will definitely have to wait many years later, and can the imperial finance directly pay for the repair?

Yes, yes, but the central financial revenue of the empire is only more than 500 million a year, and all of them have fixed directions, which has to be thrown out to build railways with tens of millions or even hundreds of millions, so the salaries of so many state employees in the country do not need to be paid, the army does not need to be raised, and the government-run schools are directly closed.

Direct funding investment is the most inferior method, and it is not usually done by any country.

On the map in front of Lin Zhe's eyes now, quite a lot of planned railway lines are still dotted lines, and it will take a certain amount of time to turn these dotted lines into solid lines, and this time will take at least 20 years.

However, Lin Zhe looked at these maps, but he turned his eyes to the northeast, and then picked up a document submitted by the Ministry of Communications on the desktop again.

The Railway Department of the Ministry of Transport has this document as 'Northeast Railway Survey and Planning'.

The thick stack of documents contains very detailed content, such as what stations to stop along the way, what are the more difficult railways to build along the way, construction costs, etc., what impact will be caused by the construction process on the local economy, what is the expected operation after the construction is completed, and how much it will drive the local economic development.

The Railroad Division and the Imperial Railways worked together in that the Railroad Division was responsible for the early general surveys, the selection of routes, and the determination of how much positive impact it would have on the local and domestic economy, simply as they decided what railways to build and which cities to pass through.

The Imperial Railways were responsible for specific matters in the later period, such as cost accounting, technical difficulty estimation, and so on.

In this report of the Railway Division, the future prospects of the Northeast Railway are not very optimistic!

In this report, the Northeast Railway Line initially decided is to continue the Tangshan Railway, then pass through Shanhaiguan, Jinzhou, Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin, and divide the east-west branch line in Harbin, and the east line is extended from Harbin to the east, basically along the Songhua River to the north to the Heilongjiang River, and then turn to the southeast to Vladivostok.

The western route extends from Harbin to Qiqihar in the west, and then continues westward to Manchuria.

However, this report is also very clear that the railway line from Tangshan to Shenyang section, only this certain economic interest to build, and continue north to Harbin, and then to the east and west two straight lines, although it is said that it is around the mountains, is built in the plain terrain, the cost will not be too high, but the current Heilongjiang and Jilin population is not much, it is bound to make the later railway operation suffer major losses, and at the same time, the Mining Division has not found large-scale metal mineral resources for development in Heilongjiang and Jilin and other provinces. Agricultural resources are not too abundant, and the only thing worth mentioning is that Heilongjiang has a lot of gold mines.

Comparatively speaking, the situation in Liaoyang Province is much better!

Liaoyang Province has a large amount of arable plain land, and the southern part of Liaoyang is more suitable for habitation and agricultural development in terms of topography and climate, and this area is also the key area of the empire's immigration development over the years, by 1867, Liaoyang Province has a population of nearly four million, and this number is still growing at a rate of hundreds of thousands every year, every year there are landless farmers from Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Zhili, and even northern Jiangsu, Northwest, Shaanxi and other places to drag their families, Even entire villages moved to the Tohoku, and this scene of large-scale migration was called "Crossing the Kanto".

And in this era, because of the vigorous promotion and support of the government, the scale and speed are much earlier than in history, and the scale is also much larger. (To be continued.) )