The first train was developed in a coal mine on the outskirts of Beijing, and the tunnels were laid with rails that went directly to a small steel mill more than a dozen kilometers away.

For the state-owned steel mills at this time, the biggest problem is that if the distance between iron ore and coal mine transportation is too large, the transportation cost will increase the production cost, and sometimes even the production cost is very high.

Coupled with the fact that the quality of local iron ore is not so high, despite the leading technology, profits have begun to decline, and there is no longer as high a windfall profit as it was at the beginning.

After three years of development and continuous improvement, the first train with the technology already in shape started on the tracks. After Zhu Youxiao got the report, he excitedly went to inspect the next day and personally witnessed the operation of the train, the maximum speed of this train was only 20 kilometers per hour, in Zhu Youxiao's eyes, this thing was a bit turtle.

But the appearance of this train has an incomparably huge significance.

Even though the current speed is only 20 kilometers per hour, the train can drive many wagons and is tireless, and can keep moving forward, with only a supply of coal and water in between, and a simple maintenance. Horse-drawn carriages, on the other hand, cannot run all day long, and the load is limited.

In economic terms, the train, which has a speed of only 20 kilometers per hour, already has commercial potential. Administratively, trains improve transportation, which will give the central government much more control over the local government. In the past, officials took a stagecoach to take office, and it may take several months to travel from north to south, and the journey was rather arduous. With the train, it is different, the travel of personnel becomes more convenient, and at the same time, the imperial court can more efficiently transfer materials and manpower from the local government, and can also more efficiently transfer the resources of the central government to the local disaster relief, etc.

And from the perspective of national defense, once the railway network is built, military mobilization will become very fast.

"Daming is finally going to take off." Zhu Youxiao was excited. With the train, Daming can be transformed into a neat roller and run all the way to the west.

Zhu Youxiao immediately awarded meritorious services and awards to the development of the train, and Lin Yuanlong, the leader of the research and development team, was awarded the three-grade Wenxun, and the other team members were awarded the four-grade Wenxun. The rewards range from tens of thousands of yuan to thousands of dollars, which can be described as extremely rich. Directly jumped to the middle and upper class.

Fang Yizhi is the youngest in the train R&D team, and when he was studying at the Royal Institute of Science and Technology, he successfully entered the train R&D team because of his excellent grades. In recent years, I have often seen the emperor, and Zhu Youxiao often comes to inspect the research and development progress, and the research and development direction of the train is basically proposed by the emperor.

The design ideas of the railroad track and the design of the train were determined from the beginning with the participation of Zhu Youxiao, so that the R&D team did not take any detours. In three years, the first train with stable performance and can be put into use was developed.

Fang Yizhi has been awarded the four-grade Wenxun because he participated in the research and development of the train, and the scientific researchers of the Royal Institute of Science and Technology have been awarded the Wenxun, after all, it is an official institution, and the graduation college is within the system, so it is awarded to Wenxun. If it is an inventor outside the system, it is awarded to the people.

However, the difference between Moon Hoon and Min Hoon is not very big.

At the same time, Fang Yizhi also got a reward of 5,000 yuan. It can be described as getting rich overnight.

Fang Yizhi, who got the money, immediately took out all the money to build his own laboratory. to engage in the scientific research work you love.

When applying for the construction of the laboratory, the central bank proposed to Fang Yizhi that he was willing to inject 10,000 yuan, as long as the laboratory had 49% of the shares.

Nowadays, there are many students who have graduated from the Royal Institute of Science and Technology, and each student has signed a "Science and Technology Confidentiality Agreement", promising not to disclose technology to the outside world, and at the same time not to leave the country without permission. Some of these graduates are going it alone. I hope to be able to develop new patents and make huge profits.

For these graduates who work alone, the imperial court does not force it, as long as they sign a confidentiality agreement, it is no problem to go it alone. If there are insufficient funds, the bank can also inject funds. Support them in setting up labs.

There are also many scientific research projects directly established by the imperial court, as well as scientific research projects of state-owned enterprises in various countries, and not all graduates are willing to work alone, after all, there is a certain risk, and the treatment given by the imperial court is very high, and the income is not lower than that of those second- and third-grade court officials, and some are even higher than the income of first-class court officials.

After the reform of the imperial court, the previous contempt and exploitation of craftsmen were changed, and a good scientific research environment was created. At this time, the rise of state-owned capital, there are sufficient funds to invest in scientific research, especially state-owned capital at this time fully tasted the sweetness of technological progress.

The students who graduated from these science and technology colleges are equivalent to taking a free ride. And there is also the opportunity to enter the office, although it is technical, but the salary is higher than that of officials of the same level.

After the reform, the folk craftsmen obtained a fairly relaxed social environment. In the household registration is given equal treatment, and has a high degree of freedom in life, the tax aspect is personal income tax, high income pays more tax, no income does not have to pay tax. The invention of the craftsman could be patented, and the rights and interests were strongly protected by the imperial court.

In the New Deal provinces, the enforcement of patent law is becoming more and more vigorous.

The best way for those who graduated from science and technology colleges, as well as those craftsmen and even workers in the people, to get rich overnight is to invent a patent. Although not every patent is likely to make money, many patents have little commercial potential and go unnoticed after being filed. But the myth of getting rich overnight is constantly being born, and it is possible to obtain not only money, but also social status.

Fang Yizhi learned that his laboratory could be injected by the central bank, and immediately readily agreed. The central bank is the core institution of state-owned capital, and with the central bank's capital injection, this means that some promising projects can apply for scientific research funds from the imperial court.

At the same time, scientific research results can be popularized quickly, and the patent fee is not much in half.

……

After Zhu Youxiao visited the results of the train, he immediately convened a pre-imperial meeting. The Ministry of Industry sent the information documents of the train to everyone, and after a group of ministers entered the Qianqing Palace, they immediately discussed the new strategy of the next Ming Dynasty.

Over the years, the ministers have been fully aware of the changes brought about by technological innovations.

"Trains and telegraphs were artifacts, and now telegraphs have been laid in most of the northern provinces, forming a network of information transmission, and if the railway network can be laid in the provinces, the imperial court's control over the local areas will be greatly enhanced. And there are also huge business interests. Zhu You said to the ministers, "But how to quickly lay the railway network to the provinces needs to be carefully planned. ”

"Your Majesty, the railroad needed for the train required a large number of rails, and at the same time it needed steam locomotives. At present, neither rails nor steam locomotives have yet to form industrial capacity. The production capacity of rails and steam locomotives should be formed first, and then large-scale construction. Ministry of Industry Shangshu Wang Wei said.

"What Aiqing said is very true." Zhu Youxiao nodded. "Rails can be produced in all steel mills, it is not difficult to form production capacity, train manufacturing technology has matured, and enterprises can be established to produce."

"Your Majesty, the railway is a matter of great importance, and a new state-owned enterprise should be established to operate it with full authority." Yang Guorui proposed, and Zhu Youxiao nodded: "Accurate." ”

Naturally, a strategic asset such as a railway cannot be interfered with by private capital. You must know that once the railway system is formed, if it is controlled by private capital. Freight rates will be manipulated. On the contrary, if the state-owned enterprises master the railway system, the freight rates of a large number of bulk commodities of the state-owned enterprises can be controlled within a cost price, and the prices of bulk commodities and raw materials will not be inflated because of the freight, and the market dominance of state-owned capital will be further ensured.

The tone of the state-owned monopoly was set, and then the 'Daming Railway General Administration' was established, which was responsible for the construction and operation of the railway.

Rail production was handed over to the steel mills, and train manufacturing was separated from the machine building plant into two train factories. Responsible for train manufacturing and technology research and development. The main reason for the establishment of the two enterprises is to allow these two state-owned enterprises to engage in healthy competition in the market. Avoid being unmotivated and stagnate technological development.

Of course, the technological achievements of the two companies can be shared, but they have to buy patents from each other. Performance is then judged based on business results.

Zhu Youxiao's meaning is very simple, that is, to build a large-scale railway system in the New Deal provinces next, and then continue to stimulate the economy.

"If we build a railway system in the northern provinces next, we will need a lot of investment. The expansion of state-owned capital to the south will be slowed down. Perhaps reforms in the South need to be postponed. Yang Guorui said to Zhu Youxiao, Zhu Youxiao thought about it for a while, and decided: "The reform of the south should be postponed for a few years!" Don't take too many steps. When the provinces fully accepted the New Deal, the reform in the south would naturally come naturally. ”

The reform is actually synchronized with the expansion of state-owned capital, how can state-owned capital be reformed without entering the market?

The postponement of reforms in the South was supported by a group of ministers. After all, this is the safest thing. At present, although the state-owned capital has developed greatly, it has just been expanded on a large scale in the northern provinces, and many investments have not been recovered, and the capital chain has been stretched a little long.

At this time, if the reform of the south, the encirclement and suppression of the big capital chaebols in the south are carried out simultaneously, and the investment in the northern railway network is carried out simultaneously, the capital chain will be easily broken, and only paper money can be overissued at that time, which will cause great problems in people's livelihood.

But if the railway network is built first, the New Deal regime will be completely secured. After all, with a large-scale railway system, the military resources that the imperial court could mobilize would become incomparably large, and at the same time, commercial capital would also grow rapidly with the advent of railways.

When the time comes, the reform of the southern provinces will not only have absolute military certainty, but will also be able to form an absolute capital crush on those big capital chaebols in the south.

"If the railway system is to be laid, then the first strategic railway to be built is nothing more than three, one is the railway to the northeast, so that the northeast commercial grain, timber and steel will be continuously transported back to the Guannai. One is the railway to the Western Regions, which can transport cotton and oil from the Western Regions back to Guannai. The third is the railway line connecting the four provinces of North Zhili, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong. As a result, the coal mines in Shanxi will be transported out and sold to the provinces, and the industrial products of Beizhili and Shandong will be transported to the markets of the provinces. Henan's commercial grain and cotton can also be shipped out. Zhu Youxiao drew a few lines on the map.

"More locally, it is to build railways directly to the industrial zones and ports of the provinces, so that raw materials can also be transported directly into the industrial zones, and goods can be transported directly to local markets and coastal ports. At the same time, the railway will be built directly into the mining area, and the minerals and coal will be transported directly to the smelter. It is equivalent to that the railway will be divided into two parts, one is the inter-regional railway line, which is invested and constructed by the General Administration of Railways, and the other is a local freight railway that can be applied for and operated by the enterprises themselves. ”

In the days when there were no cars, the railroad was indeed built directly to the factory gate. So before World War II, in Europe and the United States, the scale of railways was very large, and a small Germany had more than 100,000 kilometers of railways. Of course, this is the result of the fact that the German Juncker consortium has no more investment projects when its foreign expansion is blocked, and can only continue to invest and develop in Germany.

If it is a country like Daming, if the car appears relatively late in the future, then the scale of the railway exceeds 400,000 kilometers is not a problem.

Now for the state-owned capital consortium, the problem is not that there is no place to invest, but that there are too many places to invest. The local New Deal provinces need a lot of investment, not to mention the need to lay a lot of railways after the advent of train technology. At the same time, overseas colonial areas also need to be developed, and railways must also be built.

"After the construction of these railways, it is possible to build branch railways to the towns and cities, thus forming a railway network."

The minister thought that a railway could also be built to Huguang, and another railway to Nanzhili, so as to facilitate the flow of people between the north and the south, and as soon as these two railways were built, the imperial court's control over Huguang and Jiangnan could be greatly enhanced. And after the convenience of exchanges, the people of the provinces can more deeply understand the benefits of the reform, so as to support the reform of the imperial court. Shen Yan looked at the map for a while and suggested to Zhu Youxiao.

"Aiqing's proposal is very good." Zhu Youxiao was immediately inspired that even if the southern provinces had not yet been reformed, they could still build railways.

If the railroad is built to the south, then the reform will basically be stable.

"If the railway can be built into Sichuan, the imperial court can first include Sichuan in the reform system, but the Shu Road is difficult to walk, I don't know if it can be built." Shen continued, he didn't know much about railway construction.

"There is no problem at all in building the railway into Sichuan, and if it is really not possible, it will be difficult to build a tunnel, and now that there is a new type of explosives, it should not be difficult to build a tunnel." Zhu Youxiao said.

Bringing Sichuan into the reform is a very exciting proposal. Because Sichuan's roads are not so smooth, it is not so easy to import and export goods, so Sichuan has not been considered in the next reform list before. However, the emergence of railways can completely improve transportation, and Sichuan will be included in the reform first.

Once Sichuan is included in the reform, the benefits will obviously be great. Sichuan has a large population and great potential for the development of agriculture and industry. It can take Sichuan as the center and radiate to the southwest and central regions. Moreover, the resistance to reform in Sichuan will not be so great, although there are many landlord classes in Sichuan, but the landlord class cannot afford to make any big waves in the face of today's state-owned capital. (To be continued.) )