On the airship's return journey, a sudden thunderstorm suddenly fell, and the "Independence" was forced to shuttle under the gray sky intertwined with lightning, which could scare the young air force on board with little experience. Fortunately, Yelena, the same young captain, behaved calmly, worthy of being a veteran who had personally participated in the "Battle of the North Sea" two years ago, and severely reprimanded those panicked subordinates, scolding them so that they were red-faced and embarrassed.

Roland also noticed that the newly recruited Giant Eagle Air Force also seemed calm, and this kind of thunderstorm weather had long been commonplace for them. The co-captain also secretly complained to Roland: "Every time there is a thunderstorm, Lord Edric will always drive us out of the Eagle's Nest to practice, saying that it is to train the courage of 'we fight the sky in the face of storms'...... Well, it worked, and no one on my team was going to be afraid of the Thunder anyway. ”

"There are no 'people'...... It's supposed to be 'no eagle', right? ”

"Haha, don't care about the details! Your Royal Highness, do you have any wine? Drinking some soju on a thunderstorm is a rare enjoyment in life! ”

This guy who completely regarded himself as a human being, and saw nothing outside was named Dewey, and Roland even imagined that if this thing were to take human form, it must be a tall and mighty man with a free and easy temperament, a bearded face, and a vigorous chest hair.

Although slightly frightened during the thunderstorm, the Independence returned to Krasbourg safely in the evening. Roland dragged his tired body back to the palace, and had dinner under the thoughtful service of old George, and took a comfortable hot bath. While bathing, he receives a magical text message from Lyudmila, and inevitably asks for another letter to convey his feelings, until Tonya sends an angry text message warning him not to go too far.

"Miss Mila is my person, don't allow you, a stinky man, to hook up with her!"

Then there was Lyudmila's small report: "Tonya can't get used to seeing us show affection, and she looks so cute when she's jealous hahaha~"

Roland was a little worried that their expedition was sailing in a thunderstorm, but after asking, they learned that the "Dawn" had flown to the "settlement area", the local weather was good, the moon was sparse, and the land survey work was also going very smoothly.

After returning to the capital, Roland's work was back on track. The daily affairs of the central bank are presided over by Katya, he is very relieved, this quarter of the domestic commercial bank reserves and bad debt ratio of routine spot checks have been carried out, the specific work by Antron, during which individual violations were found, gradually mature and experienced Antron after communicating with Roland, Katya did the appropriate treatment.

Both Roland and Katya have found that Antron has grown up quickly in the past year, and can already take charge of himself, and he also intends to let go at work and give young people more room to play. Just as Roland has always regarded Katya as his successor to the central bank, Katya is also interested in grooming Antron as his successor, and they seem to be happy with their successor for now.

Roland's focus during this period was on transportation construction, and the China Development Bank, a subsidiary of the central bank, provided a start-up grant for the Far East Road and Bridge Engineering Company, and the rest of the funds were raised by leasing land, subcontracting road sections, and issuing bonds. This is certainly a profit-driven business practice, but considering that the Far East is still under the shadow of the Imperial Crusade, from Krasbourg to the North Bay to Parnia, the "speculators" in the stock markets everywhere who have the courage to buy large quantities of railway bonds are not "patriots"?

The cabinet has long reached a consensus on the construction of railways, but the government has limited resources, and it is impossible to start construction of four railway trunk lines in the southeast, south, and northwest at the same time, so it can only concentrate limited manpower, material and financial resources into one railway trunk line, so the priority choice of which railway to build has become a controversial topic.

After several days of discussions, the cabinet finally passed the proposal proposed by Matvey and Roland, giving priority to the construction of the "Northern Route".

Roland suggested prioritizing the construction of the main railway line from Krasbourg to the North Bay for three reasons:

The first is to strengthen the North-South connection in the Far East through rail transport and break down the geographical barrier.

From the time of the imperial provinces, the political and economic center of the Far East was in the south, mainly in the area around Krasbourg (formerly Fort of Atonement), and neglected the management of the vast northern region. If this phenomenon does not change, all parts of the north will exert centrifugal forces on the central government, gradually separating the north from the south in terms of ethnicity, culture and tradition, and even generally not regard themselves as subjects of the kingdom of Koras, and will make splits in the name of national independence.

In order to prevent the above-mentioned threats from becoming a reality, it is necessary to break down the natural barriers of the mountains and mountains with railway lines of communication, to connect the North and the South of the Far East, so that the ideological, political, cultural and economic influence of the South can penetrate into the North, thus forming a big family that runs through the North and the South.

Second, the Northern Railway was first built to coincide with Roland's ongoing rural agricultural reforms.

Half of the 200 agricultural reform pilots Roland chose were located in the warm southern plains, which were not only traditional rice-growing areas, but also the most important agricultural tax areas in the imperial provinces, and the southern railway line built by Matvey fifteen years ago was designed to facilitate the collection and transportation of grain in rice-producing areas. There are also relatively developed highways in the area, and the degree of thirst for transportation construction is far less than that of the rugged north.

Prioritizing the construction of the Northern Railway would quickly link Colasburg to the more than 100 pilot agrarian reforms in the north, so that grain harvested from farms in various places could be easily transported to towns and capitals after the autumn harvest.

The last reason for prioritizing the construction of the Northern Railway was based on military considerations - to strengthen strategic depth.

As the winter wore on, and the threat of an expedition to the Assanian Empire grew, the Korath government had to think seriously about how to deal with the possibility of war. The western territory of the Kingdom of Kolas is flat, once the imperial army leaves the Ulino Pass in the east, it can advance eastward from the military fortress "Olivi Fort", and when the Imperial army seizes the bridge of the Turbid River and completely controls the western railway line, the march route to the capital Krasburg will be opened, and there is no danger to defend the Pingchuan, and the imperial expeditionary force can advance along the railway line to the city wall of Krasburg.

In the face of the encirclement of the Imperial army, whether Colasborg could hold on was the first question, and whether to hold on was another question that Roland and his cabinet colleagues had to face seriously.