After the situation in the north stabilized slightly, the empire's energy was once again put into the domestic direction, and the Russians may also feel that continuing the war with the Chinese in the Kokand region is a matter of more than worth the loss, and now there are other places in Central Asia waiting for them to conquer, so they simply turned around and launched an attack on the Bukhara Khanate and the Khiva Khan, trying to conquer the remaining two countries of the three Central Asian countries.

The Russians turned around and marched westward, and the Chinese army was not idle, but also sent troops to seize and control the southern areas of Kokand close to Afghanistan and India, and tried to send cavalry and other mobile troops to continue to advance westward, and successively controlled part of the central territory of the former Kokand Khanate, and controlled important towns such as Chazak and Samarkand ahead of the Russians.

However, it is a pity that the westward advance force is too small, far less than the Russians, so after being resisted by some local natives, it loses the ability to continue westward.

However, the Russians marched all the way west to kill it, and soon captured Bukhara.

Thus the Khanate of Bukhara became a protectorate of the Russians, and its territory was divided equally between Russia and China.

The Chinese controlled the eastern part of the Bukhara Khanate, near the province of Kokand, while the Russians controlled its central part as well as the west.

Historically, the three Central Asian countries faced the invasion of Russia and barely resisted until the seventies, but now they have added a China, and the time of their destruction is much earlier, especially the collapse of the Kokand Khanate and the Bukhara Khanate several years earlier than in history.

To some extent, however, with the fall of these two khanates, the conflict and dispute between China and Russia in the direction of Central Asia came to an end. Of the three Central Asian states, the Khiva Khanate was too far for China. And there are Russians in the middle, and there is no chance to intervene. The other two khanates had already been carved up by the Russian and Chinese empires.

So there is nothing to grab, and the next step, whether it is China or the Russians, the focus in the direction of Central Asia is to digest the fruits of the occupation, after all, if the seized territory is not well managed, it is impossible to completely integrate into the territory.

But once both sides have completed the digestion of the areas they have occupied, then China and Russia will inevitably start a larger conflict, and then a large-scale war may break out.

According to Xue Huan's opinion, the empire should build a railway to Central Asia before a large-scale war breaks out with Russia in the future.

For this. The Cabinet has drawn up a plan for the construction of a super-large railway.

At the heart of the plan was the construction of an east-west artery railway that stretched from a coastal port in the east to Ili in Xinjiang in the west.

At the same time, a north-south artery railway was built from south to north and then extended to Utai province.

The third is to build a northeast railway to reach Heilongjiang.

Because these three railways have a huge national defense role in addition to their inherent economic value, the military has promised that the construction of these three railways in the future, especially the section of the railway line that extends to the border areas after it is separated from the prosperous areas. The military will provide appropriate financial and human support.

Since the cabinet has already put forward the plan for these three major railway lines, it is definitely necessary to integrate these three major railway lines into the construction of the national railway network.

To this end, the Railway Department of the Ministry of Communications has submitted a preliminary national railway construction plan!

The first is the east-west artery, and the east-west railway will start from Haizhou Port in Jiangsu. Then through Xuzhou, Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Lanzhou, Liangzhou, Hami, Dihua, basically similar to the later Longhai Railway.

Then there is the north-south artery. The North-South Railway will start from Guangzhou in Guangdong, and then pass through Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Shandong, and Zhili.

After arriving in Tianjin, Zhili. It extends in a straight line to the north, passing through Beiping, Zhangjiakou, Baotou, and finally to Kulen in Wutai Province.

The Northeast Branch Line continues eastward from Tianjin. It passes through Tangshan, Shanhaiguan, Jinzhou, Shenyang, and then arrives in Heilongjiang Province.

Then there is the Southwest Railway, which is planned to start from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, then enter Nanchang, Jiangxi, Changsha, Hunan, and continue to extend westward to Guizhou, where it will branch off, with one part extending into Xichuan Chongqing and Chengdu, and part extending southwest into Kunming, Yunnan.

At the same time, the plan also specifically stated that in the future, if possible, it is to build a railway from Kunming to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Another example is that the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway will continue to extend westward, and then go west along the Yangtze River all the way to Wuchang to connect the North-South Railway.

At the same time, it starts from Nanjing in the south, and then extends to the north, passing through Chuzhou, Bengbu, Xuzhou, then to Jinan, and then north to Tianjin.

In this national plan, there are some major railways, and of course there will be a large number of regional railways.

For example, it starts in Qingdao, Shandong, and then extends all the way west to the Shandong branch line connecting the north-south railway.

At the same time, the eastern provinces, especially the important provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, will plan many branch railways.

Some important mining areas in other regions will also build some branch railways.

This huge national railway construction plan basically covers the whole country, and the funds involved in such a huge plan are not simply tens of millions or hundreds of millions, but as much as billions of investments, and the construction time may be as long as more than 30 years.

Therefore, to a certain extent, this plan is also a fantasy plan, and it is impossible to implement it on a large scale in a short period of time, especially for some railway sections with very high construction difficulty, such as the northwest section of the East-West Railway, such as the Hunan to Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan parts of the Southwest Railway, which are very difficult to construct.

Therefore, although the national railway plan of the empire was made, it was still implemented in front of some railway lines that were relatively easy to construct and could bring rich profits from railway operations.

For example, the Nanjing-Shanghai line and the route extending to the west, in some plain areas, the railway line can also be built first, such as the Jinpu line from Nanjing to Tianjin, and the northern section of the north-south railway from Tianjin to Wuchang, Hubei.

It's too far away, let's not talk about it, at present, the Imperial Railway Department and the China Imperial Railway Company expect to wait for the completion of the construction of the Nanjing-Shanghai line. If the operation is successful, well. This success means that the operation is not at a loss, but as for profit. It is expected to be, but it is okay if it is not profitable.

As long as the railway operation does not lose money, then the Chinese Imperial Railway Company will immediately start the construction of the Jinpu line, which has been surveyed for up to two years in the early stage of the Jinpu line, and has basically determined the route along the way, and is now waiting for the official groundbreaking.

After a long construction period, the much-anticipated Nanjing-Shanghai line was completed and nearly two months of various inspections and tests were carried out, and on September 20, it finally ushered in the day when the whole line was opened to traffic for the first time.

In order to show the importance they attach to the railway. On this day, Lin Zhe personally held the unveiling ceremony for the Jingshi Railway Station of the Nanjing-Shanghai Line, and will take the first officially operated passenger train of the Nanjing-Shanghai Line in the future.

When Lin Zhe arrived at the train platform with a number of royals, he saw a brand-new steam train parked on the platform.

"This kind of train is called the second type of passenger car, from the locomotive to the carriage, are manufactured by our railway company, the locomotive steam engine is the product of Linde Machinery Company, the power provided is not much worse than the imported products, our own manufactured passenger cars and freight cars in performance and quality have been enough to meet the needs of domestic railway operations!"

On the platform, Ma Gongwen, general manager of the China Imperial Railway Company, who was standing two steps behind Lin Zhe, was cautious. But at the same time, with a hint of pride, he introduced to Lin Zhe: "We have previously run our own trains on the Xuzhou Railway, Zhuping Railway, and Tangjin Railway, among which the freight model has been improved three times, and the passenger model of the train has also been improved once.

At present, our Type 2 passenger cars are no less safe than the trains we imported from the UK back then! ”

Although he said proudly, Ma Gongwen still did not fully explain some of the advantages and disadvantages of self-built trains. The advantage is obvious, purely self-made trains are much cheaper than imports, and the price can be at least 30% cheaper. And this is also a product of a subsidiary of the Imperial Railways, which is basically left-handed and right-handed. On the whole, the cost of using self-built trains is more than half that of imports.

However, there are drawbacks. One is speed and safety, although these two are similar to the British trains imported in the early years, but the British trains imported in the early years were originally second-hand goods, speaking of which were at the level of the early fifties, and now they are all in 1864, and the new trains in various countries must have made a lot of progress in technology.

In addition to the performance gap, the operating cost also has a large disadvantage, because the locomotive uses the domestic steam engine is relatively inefficient, which will use more coal in the future.

Moreover, this train is still a new toy for the Empire, and the usual failure rate is definitely not as low as there, and it will be troublesome to repair it when the time comes.

If the whole life cost is taken into account, in fact, it is more expensive to use self-built trains than to directly use imported trains.

But sometimes what to use is not a simple profit issue, but also affected by other issues.

This is just like the Imperial Navy has always insisted on using domestic shipborne steam engine power, they do not know that the steam engine power of Linde Machinery Company is not as good as that of imported goods, and the price is still very expensive, but the Navy still does this, the main purpose is to support the development of domestic steam engines.

Anyway, for the Imperial Navy, it's nothing to waste a little more money, and the power is smaller, as long as it can support the development of the domestic steam engine industry, I'm afraid that there will be no good steam engine in the future?

If you don't support the import all the time, you will not be controlled by others in the future, if one day Britain and France and other countries do not export ship-based steam engines to the empire, then the imperial navy will still build warships?

The train manufacturing industry is also in the same consideration, if it can't be imitated, forget it, but since it is imitated, and it can barely be used, then use domestic ones.

In the future, China's railway market is so large, the demand for trains is very high, with sufficient orders and profits, there is no need to worry about the development of the train manufacturing industry.

Looking at this train that still exudes the luster of paint and is full of the hideous atmosphere of steampunk, Lin Zhe is also very interested, and it is the first time he has taken a steam train in his two lives.

After Ma Gongwen's introduction, he was the first to board the train. (To be continued.) )