Like Lin Zhe, who was also full of interest and curiosity, there were a group of royal family members and many ministers behind him.

The reason why he brought members of the royal family to participate in this opening ceremony was because Lin Zhe considered that bringing his own family members together would be able to better reflect his political support for the development of the railway and the royal family.

In addition, his concubines and children have been in the deep palace for many years, although the palace is large enough, but to put it mildly, it is just a prison with a larger area and better food and drink, and it is rare to have the opportunity to go out on weekdays.

Among the many concubines, only Fang De Concubine was able to go out with Lin Zhe occasionally, and even at the beginning of the year, she was able to go out with Lin Zhe to inspect for several months, and this situation was envied and hated by the concubines in the harem, and even Queen Chen Jing tactfully said that she had not been out of the palace for a long time.

In addition, several of his daughters have also stayed in the palace since they were children, and they are all little children who are greedy for fun.

So he simply brought it all out, the queen plus nine concubines, and then seven daughters, in addition, the queen mother, Mrs. Lin, also came to join in the fun.

That's basically the way the whole family travels!

However, Qi Lin, who fascinated Lin Zhe very much recently, did not come, for no other reason, her identity was a little embarrassing, there was no doubt that she was the emperor's woman, but she had always been very resistant to entering the palace to live, and even Lin Zhe wanted to make her a concubine was refused.

This is a woman who still yearns for freedom and has a very unique personality, although she often enters the palace, but she still lives outside.

After her father Qi Xuanyun learned about this situation, he often sighed. I don't know if my daughter's behavior is good or bad.

The good thing is that if Qi Lin really enters the palace as a concubine. Then it is undoubtedly a major blow to Qi Xuanyun's career, once Qi Lin enters the palace as a concubine. He is an officially registered relative, and the defense of foreign relatives in the imperial political arena is almost all-round, except for the previous Empress Chen Jing's uncle Bi Yutong, who is an exception, none of the other relatives has crossed the threshold of provincial officials at all.

Even An Nuping, the father of An Zhuang Concubine, who gave birth to the second prince, although he climbed to the level of deputy provincial Taoist step by step by relying on his outstanding political achievements, and his political achievements in the following years are still quite good, but he has been standing still in the past few years.

If he wasn't Concubine Anzhuang's father and didn't have a relative's hat on his head, he would at least be a provincial-level political envoy now. If you work for a few more years, you may be the governor of a province.

The officials of the Organization Department seemed to have forgotten him, he had been a Taoist at the vice-provincial level for five years, and he had already changed two Taoist positions, but there was no sign of promotion.

Needless to say, everyone knows that this is already an unspoken rule in the political arena, in order to avoid the second Bi Yutong, it is impossible for him An Nuping to cross the threshold of provincial officials in his life, no matter how good his political achievements are.

The same situation applies to other relatives, if Qi Lin enters the palace as a concubine. Then Qi Xuanyun's mood will be extremely complicated, on the one hand, if Qi Lin enters the palace as a concubine, then Qi Xuanyun will definitely get a knighthood, even if it is the lowest baron.

In the future, if Qi Lin gives birth to a prince. Then the glory and wealth of the Qi family can basically be guaranteed, in case of good luck, the prince born to Qi Lin will ascend the throne as the emperor in the future. Then the glory and wealth of the Qi family can reach the sky.

But this also has a price, and the price is that he Qi Xuanyun cannot go further in his career in this life. Not to mention being the governor of a province, or entering the cabinet. Even the political envoy has nothing to do with him.

Qi Xuanyun was worried about this, but Qi Lin was unwilling to be constrained by harem life, so she insisted on not entering the palace to live.

And this time the event was a public political event, and the people who were able to participate were all official members of the royal family, so it was impossible for Qi Lin, who was embarrassed, to appear on this occasion.

The royal family got on the specially prepared train carriage one after another, and before they got on the train, the little children who were led by their respective mothers just opened their eyes wide and looked inside and outside the train with extremely curious eyes.

Lin Zhixuan, who is the oldest and has a wild temperament since she was a child, that is, Princess Shuchun, jumped and soon took a few younger siblings around the train.

said some scary words, saying that this is a big snake that eats people, and will eat them one by one, which scared a few younger brothers and sisters to scream, only six years old, and the third daughter of the emperor, Zhisu, who has always been relatively weak, was even more frightened and did not dare to get on the train, and when her mother Chen Jing pulled her on the train, she cried directly.

When I go out with a large family, there will always be these messy things, but Lin Zhe's mood has not been affected, but he still feels very good, so he feels like a family coming out to play.

At this time, he followed Ma Gongwen and several others to the locomotive, personally boarded the locomotive's control type, and tried to throw a shovel of coal into the coal combustion chamber himself.

After putting on a show like this, he got into the back carriage!

In addition to the locomotive, there were six passenger carriages, the first four of which were for the accompanying escorts and ministers, and the last two for the royal family.

The royal carriage is at the end, that is because the current trains are coal-burning, and the process of burning coal will emit a lot of coal ash and even soot, in addition to a noise problem, the high-power steam engine is rumbling during operation, so the first-class carriage in the train at this time is at the end.

In fact, the six carriages in this train were specially made by the Imperial Railways, and the decoration was very luxurious, and the original positioning was to serve as a special train for the royal family.

As everyone got on the train one after another, the train started slowly.

With the continuous input of coal, the water pressure in the steam engine continued to rise, and the speed of the train became faster and faster, from the speed slower than walking at the beginning to the speed of five kilometers per hour, ten kilometers per hour, then fifteen kilometers per hour, until the speed increased to twenty kilometers and then it ran stably.

Originally, according to the current technical ability and the original design and planning, in fact, the speed can be improved, after all, although there is still a gap between the trains of the Imperial Railway Company and the United Kingdom in technology, but this is mainly due to some maintenance reliability and other issues, and the more critical locomotive power, in fact, the gap is not too big.

The locomotives and carriages manufactured by the subsidiaries of the Imperial Railways are basically imitations, and the overall reference is to the technical level of foreign countries in the fifties.

The development of train technology between the fifties and sixties was not great, and the design of the modern locomotive was already determined as early as the thirties, that is, the steam locomotive designed by Stevenson and sons. The subsequent technological progress is mainly the progress of manufacturing technology and materials, but the overall appearance of the steam locomotive has been basically determined.

At present, the passenger trains manufactured by the Imperial Railway Company can reach a speed of more than 40 kilometers per hour, but because the Imperial has just begun to operate railways on a large scale, and the experience in all aspects is not enough, the initial operation speed will be very slow, basically limited to between 30 and 40 kilometers.

The current trial train is carrying the royal family and a large number of military and political dignitaries, and the head of the Imperial Railways did not have the courage to soar the speed, so he limited the speed to 20 kilometers per hour, which is extremely slow in the eyes of later generations and people today.

But people are still full of excitement about this, and Shi Qingxuan of the military is even more full of hope, if the army takes the train to maneuver, then the personnel can get enough rest, and they can immediately go into battle after getting off the train, and the speed is not satisfied, even if it is calculated according to 30 kilometers per hour, walking for 10 hours every day, then it is 300 kilometers, even if it is necessary to add water and coal on the way, and then make a big discount.

But even if the daily maneuvering distance is discounted, it is 150 kilometers!

What's more, this train won't get tired, and it can run continuously every day!

And this is infantry, on foot, or cavalry on horseback, which cannot be surpassed.

In the case of foot infantry, the daily marching distance is between 20 and 30 kilometers when marching long distances, and the cavalry of modern single cavalry is not as good as there, and even the speed of long-distance marching is not as good as that of foot infantry.

If it is a short march, the light infantry can force the march of about fifty kilometers, and the cavalry will be farther, but you will be tired and half dead after a day's walk.

Trains undoubtedly have a major strategic role in the mobility of the army.

The military attaches so much importance to the train, and those civilian officials even more.

In their view, once the train is operated on a large scale, then it can transport products from some inaccessible places, and at the same time, those industrial products can continue to penetrate into the inland market along the railway line, and then drive the economic development of the whole country.

If you want to get rich and build roads first, this sentence is not only valid in later generations, but also in the nineteenth century, and even more obvious.

Other long-distance railways have not been built, not to talk about for the time being, only to say that the Nanjing-Shanghai railway, after the completion of this railway, will connect Nanjing, the political center and Shanghai, the industrial and economic center, at the same time, along the way Zhenjiang, Changzhou and other prefectures and counties are also the traditional Jiangnan fish and rice towns.

This will bring great convenience to the people along the way and the transportation of goods.

If the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway is next to the Yangtze River, and its huge role cannot be reflected for a while, then if the construction of the Tianjin-Pudong Railway is completed, it will bring huge benefits to the economic development of the regions along the way.

Seeing the great prospect of the railway, the empire soon began to build a new railway! (To be continued.) )