"Whoever wins the hearts of the people wins the world? This adage sounds a bit moralistic......" Nikita whispered.

"This is not a moral preaching, it is a summary of the experience of the people's war," Roland explained to Miss Mage in a soft voice, "In fact, Mr. Matvey also said just now that if the Koras government wants to repel the military invasion of the Empire, there is only one way, that is, all the people are soldiers, calling on five million compatriots in the Far East to unite and fight against the invaders, but why should the people risk bloodshed and sacrifice and heed the government's call to take up arms to fight the invaders?" ”

"Because the government represents the interests of the majority of the people," the wise mage lady has long seen the changes in the Far East after independence, and knows that the people are going to turn their backs," the Kolas government abolished the heretical original sin theory of the imperial era, held sanctification ceremonies to develop the vast majority of Far Easterners into believers in the goddess of fate, and introduced many policies to benefit the people, such as reducing taxes for farmers, providing low-interest loans for entrepreneurs who set up factories, and promoting compulsory education...... These policies won the government of Kolas widespread favor, and if the Imperial Army invaded the Far East, the Far Easterners, in order to maintain their beloved king and government and protect their own interests, would of course choose to contribute money and efforts to support the war of resistance, and even take up arms to join the militia to resist the invaders. ”

"In this way, this war in the Far East will no longer be just a war between the Kingdom of Kolas and the Asshan Empire, but a people's war of five million compatriots in the Far East united to resist the invaders!" Roland drew on Nikita's line of thought and concluded that she was deeply inspired, "If we can carry out a general mobilization of the people in the Far East and wage a people's war, even in the face of the invasion of the imperial army, our regime will stand!" ”

"Well said! But what does this have to do with transportation construction? Nikita didn't go around in circles and got to the heart of the matter.

This was also Matvey's question, and he unconsciously stopped, staring at Roland, expecting him to answer.

"Nikita, that's a good question, but I'd like to ask you to answer me first, how far is the center of power in Krasbourg from the people?"

"I don't understand what you mean...... Miss Mage blinked, and suddenly she had an idea, "You mean that how the people can hear the voice of the central government, and how they can support the government and the army with practical actions, depends on the ease of transportation between the capital where the central government is located and the towns and villages across the country!" ”

Roland nodded with a smile, "The voice of His Majesty the King and the ministers of the cabinet is spread all over the Avenue of Independence, even if it is shouted through the throat, it cannot reach beyond the walls of Krasbourg, the decree of the central government wants to spread farther and reach the ears of five million people, depending on the speed of communication, and the speed of communication depends on transportation, in terms of the current situation in the Far East, transportation is very backward, and the speed of news transmission is also very slow, and the government of Kolas has been established for more than half a year, There are still many villagers in the remote mountainous areas of the Far East who do not know about this matter to this day, and still think that they are under the rule of the Far Eastern provinces of the empire. Even if people everywhere intend to sacrifice their families to serve the country, and there is not even a decent road, how can the food and materials collected from the countryside be transported to the front line? ”

Roland's barrage of questions made Matvey's face change. As the "father of railway transportation" in the Far East, this old man who was born in the "land of clocks and watches" and has a strong sense of punctuality, of course, knows very well that the premise of a country's general mobilization and general war is to have communication lines all over the country, otherwise the word "overall" will become a joke, and domestic materials will either be exhausted in transportation before they are mobilized to the front line, or they will not be delivered within the scheduled time, then it is a fart "general war"!

"Mr. Matvey, I am the prince of the kingdom of Kolas, even for the sake of my own position, I have to love this country, and I have to think about how to strengthen my rule over the land and the people," Roland looked deeply into the old man's eyes, and every word he said was like a thousand pounds, "Whether in the years of peace or the years of war, land transportation directly determines the limit of the rule of a regime, my father wants to keep the crown on his head, I want to take his old man's class smoothly, It is impossible not to vigorously develop railway transportation, and only convenient railways can enable our royal power to be exercised efficiently in every corner of the Far East. ”

The power of the state is exercised on the road, and how far it can be exercised depends on the ease of transportation.

Roland looked up at the rising sun in the sky that tore through the morning mist, and his thoughts returned to his homeland on Earth, to the pages of the thick history books that provided reference and lessons for him to build the Far East......

In 1804, Trevichk applied Watt's steam engine to transportation and built the world's first locomotive.

In 1825, the first railroad between Stockton and Darlington was completed and opened, and soon Stephenson's "Rocket" train was able to carry 13-ton carriages and travel 40 kilometers per hour.

After 1830, the railroad developed rapidly. By the mid-19th century, the railway network was already all over Europe.

The maximum speed of land transport was fixed for a long time in human life, when it suddenly changed. After the crushing defeat in Russia, Napoleon exhausted all the conveniences of the time, and it took him 312 hours to return to Paris from Vilnius, a journey of about 1,400 miles. He marched at an average speed of 5 kilometers per hour – about the same speed as the highest speed of travel between Rome and Gaul in the 1st century AD.

Now, things have suddenly changed dramatically – the railroad has made it impossible for any average traveler to make the journey in less than 48 hours. In other words, rail traffic has reduced travel time to a tenth of what it used to be, making it possible for administrative districts to rule over an area ten times larger than the largest area that a government could have ruled before!

In Napoleonic Europe, the boundaries drawn in the previous era of horseback riding and road are still visible; In the Americas, the impact of railroads was even more immediate, and for the United States, which was expanding westward, efficient and convenient railroads meant the possibility of maintaining a stable passage across the continent to Washington, D.C., and maintaining domination over vast areas that were previously unimaginable.

Long before Henry Ford made twentieth-century America a "country on the wheels," nineteenth-century America became a "country on rails." To put it mildly, the Yankees would not have been able to launch wave after wave of so-called "westward expansion" to expand their sphere of influence, fully exploit and utilize natural resources, and still less have they been able to rapidly rise to become the world's number one economic power without vigorously building railways.