Chongzhen 10 years, February.

Sichuan, Shizhu Xuanfu Division.

Although only a short year has passed, it seems like a blink of an eye for many people.

But the changes that have taken place in the Shizhu area may be greater than the normal changes of the past 30 years.

The number of hydro-powered looms near the Yangtze River has doubled to 100.

There are more factories, large and small.

Qingcaoba Town, no, it should be the number of workers related to the textile industry in Qingcaoba City, has increased to the scale of 100,000.

In the past year, it has produced 200 million pieces of clothing and clothing, nearly one million pairs of shoes, more than 100,000 pieces of luggage products and other products, bringing more than 15 million silver dollars in gross income, directly and indirectly driving hundreds of thousands of livelihoods.

The net profit of Shizhu Garment Company also reached a record-breaking level of more than 3 million silver dollars.

The per capita annual income of nearly 400,000 Shizhu people has increased from less than five silver dollars last year to seven or eight silver dollars per capita, that is, the per capita income has increased by at least 50 percent.

It is certainly not yet reached from the standard of living in a well-off life, but among the specific five indicators, the target of 15 pieces of clothing per capita and 300 catties of grain consumption per capita was successfully reached last year.

Other words!

The Shizhu area has solved the problem of having enough to eat, and can be full every day, everyone is full, and they will never be hungry for even a day.

The most comfortable life is the group of tens of thousands of white pole soldiers, their monthly salary has risen from 2 silver dollars to 3 yuan, and the family has given priority to arranging to work in the stone pillar clothing company, which solves the problem of family employment, and Qin Liangyu also invested a huge amount of money, with the standard of ten people per family and 20 square meters per capita, to build 10,000 sets of well-off demonstration buildings, cement red brick + reinforced concrete support column structure, after all are completed, they are divided into the white pole soldiers, so that they can take their families and live in these well-off buildings.

It can be regarded as a first step, so that the white pole soldiers entered the well-off first.

And after this series of benefits is distributed.

The morale of the white pole soldiers can be described as high.

The loyalty and support for Qin Liangyu and the Ma family has reached an unparalleled level, and most of them are willing to fight to the death for the Ma family.

The ordinary people of Shizhu can only envy and support this, after all, there is no safe and peaceful environment, then there is nothing, this is a simple truth.

The only dissatisfaction of the people is why the white pole soldiers no longer recruit new soldiers, and why they don't increase the number to 20,000 or 30,000, so that more families can enter the well-off in advance...... Of course, they just complained a few words in private, and they all knew very well in their hearts how it was possible for such a small place as Shizhu to raise an army of twenty or thirty thousand.

All in all.

With the rapid development of the past year, Qin Liangyu is very satisfied and happy.

She also knows that Shizhu has been able to make such great progress in the past year, on the one hand, it is the support provided by Xujiazhuang, which has played a huge role; Secondly, it is the Shu Jin Chamber of Commerce in Sichuan and the Shu King behind the scenes, etc., severely punished by the imperial court, after the complete collapse, the development obstacles in front of the stone pillar, will never disappear again, not only can buy raw materials without any restrictions, Sichuan's clothing market, the entire Ming clothing market, Shizhu clothing company can enter, will not be suppressed by any forces, so it has also opened up a lot of new markets, sales revenue of more than two million silver dollars, this year will definitely increase.

But......

It is in this dynamic momentum of development.

Recently, Qin Liangyu was frowning, his face was full of gloom, and he couldn't see a trace of a smile.

By the way, what's going on?

Obviously, all the obstacles in front of you are gone, whether it is clothes, shoes and socks, bags and other products, as long as the production is strong this year, anyway, there is no need to worry about the problem of sales, if this year's income, and then increase by five or six percent, maybe the well-off life of 400,000 people in Shizhu can be realized in advance this year.

But that's just the best of the worst case scenario.

Qin Liangyu saw a terrible thing in the analysis of many data and data - a bottleneck.

The development of Shizhu clothing company, this year is likely to fall into a bottleneck, external sales, can increase by 30% is good, growth of 50% is impossible.

Why did she come to such a conclusion?

A meeting of the company's top management.

Qin Liangyu said with a solemn face: "Transportation will become the biggest bottleneck restricting our development, if we can't solve this problem, our company will soon reach the upper limit of development, with annual sales of up to 18 million silver dollars, and there is no possibility of more than 20 million." ”

"Mother, why do you say that?" Ma Xianglin was taken aback and asked.

"Mother, more than ninety percent of our company's products are transported by water on the Yangtze River, down the river, and the cost is very low, how can it be bottlenecked in transportation?" Daughter-in-law Zhang Fengyi was also puzzled.

"It's true that there is no problem with transporting it outside, but it is too big a problem when transporting it to Sichuan."

Qin Liangyu shook his head and said: "Our dependence on Xujiazhuang is actually very large, not only more than eighty percent of the orders are provided by Xujiazhuang, our textile machines, sewing machines, some dyes, machine tools, metal raw materials and a large number of spare parts, are also all purchased from Xujiazhuang, although the purchase price of these materials is favorable, but in the process of transporting into Sichuan, some sections of the road can not be carried by boat upstream, can only be carried on people's backs, over many mountains, resulting in at least fifty percent increase in costs, and because of economic development, labor costs are still increasing...... If our scale continues to expand, the import of materials from Xujiazhuang will also increase, but the logistics capacity of Shu Road is limited, and serious congestion has begun to occur in the past two years, and this year will only be more congested, which will definitely have a huge impact on our development, and may make the factory underrun or even shut down. ”

Hear this analysis.

Everyone's faces finally began to change, and they all changed greatly.

Shu Road, the poet Li Bai's description of Shu Road is difficult to go to the blue sky, and can go out of the Sichuan into the Shu Road, the number is not only one, but there are as many as seven or eight, in addition, there is not as exaggerated as Li Bai's poems, some Shu Road not only allows people to pass, but also walks a large horse gang mule team.

But one thing must be admitted, that is, all the Shu roads are very narrow, the traffic capacity of the wooden plank road is limited, allowing horses to pass is the limit, and the carriages are extremely difficult to pass, so there is an upper limit to the cargo transportation capacity, and it is the upper limit of the cargo volume.

The textile industry belongs to the industry, will use a large number of machinery and equipment, will be in the process of use of failure, have to replace parts frequently, in addition to the production of clothes to use buttons, zippers, manufacturing bags to use a variety of accessories, are high-precision products, with the technical level of Shizhu clothing company, it is difficult to produce, can only be imported from Xujiazhuang, there is a serious dependence.

Of course, you can also find a way to get rid of this dependence, but you need to import advanced machine tools and all kinds of raw materials from Xujiazhuang, and it is impossible to completely get rid of dependence.

and the increasingly serious congestion of Shu Road.

If you don't do a good job in the development of Shizhu clothing company, it will really fall into a bottleneck, and it is imminent.

At this time, Qin Liangyu said: "Last year, the company's profit was 3.35 million silver dollars, of which 2.25 million was put on improving people's livelihood such as building roads, building houses, schools and hospitals, and 1 million was intended to be repaid to Tianxiatong Bank, and the remaining activity funds that could be moved at any time on the books were only 100,000 silver dollars, and the loan we owed to Tianxiatong Bank was a total of 9.6 million silver dollars, and even if 1 million was repaid, there was still a gap of 8.6 million." ”

"The development of our company, and now it is about to reach the upper limit, if this is the case, we lead the people of Shizhu to run to the goal of a well-off, I am afraid it is difficult to achieve, the loan owed to the Tianxia Tong Bank, it must also be repaid, 1 million every year, it will take more than eight years to pay off, and we can not save all aspects of expenses, that is to say, it is difficult for us to come up with money to expand, and it is very good to maintain the current scale of operation."

This made Ma Xianglin's face even paler: "Mother, doesn't this mean that it can't be done with the people of Shizhu to be well-off?" ”

Zhang Fengyi murmured: "On the "Oriental Times", it is often said that 'if you want to get rich, build the road first', I didn't think so, but I didn't expect this to be so correct, because the road of Shu Road is not good, we can't get rich, and we have to repay the debt for ten years." ”

"Everyone's life is a bit rushed, how did it become like this?"

Nephew Qin Yiming looked at Qin Liangyu and said, "Auntie, what do you say we should do?" Do you want us to pay for it to build a better Shu Road? ”

"Fix it!"

Qin Gongming patted the table, gritted his teeth and said: "As long as we don't stop us from getting rich, even if we spend two or three million silver dollars to build a road, we are willing to pay for it!" ”

Ma Xianglin nodded and said, "Yes!" The problems that can be solved with money are not big problems, but the big deal is that I will take the white pole soldiers and recruit tens of thousands of road repairers to build a good road to come out! ”

"You're thinking too much about building roads."

Qin Liangyu, who sat on the head, shook his head and said: "I have consulted the traffic experts in Xujiazhuang, they said that it is meaningless to build that kind of traditional ancient road, and it is not possible to improve the flow of goods, at least you have to build the 6-meter-6 wide Xujiazhuang medium-standard stone road, to be able to run a heavy-duty four-wheeled carriage, such a road, now the cost of repairing a mile is 2000 silver dollars, we go from Shizhu to Chongqing, and then through the Three Gorges of Tangxia, Wuxia, Xiling Gorge, and finally arrive at Yidu County, where the water is gentle and can reverse the circulation of ships, this distance is more than 800 miles, But most of them are steep mountainous areas, the cost of building the road has increased at least three times, and the construction time is less than three or five years, and it is impossible to build the road, and the total cost is five or six million silver dollars, which will only be less than more. ”

Three or five years.

Five or six million silver dollars?

These two data made Ma Xianglin and others feel pessimistic and desperate.

First of all, they must not be able to take out so much money, the foundation of the stone pillar is too thin, it has only developed a little in recent years, and it still owes a lot of personal debts to Xujiazhuang, although there is no need to pay interest, but it does not mean that it should not be repaid, for more long-term friendship and cooperation, those loans must be repaid before they can borrow new loans.

As for the time, they can wait for two or three years, but not in four or five years, no one can tighten their belts and persist for so long, after all, the people of Shizhu want to live a well-off life, but they have not lived a well-off life, and they have to cut back on food and clothing, and the quality of life has regressed.

It's hard!

It's so hard!

Ma Xianglin and others felt that their mouths were full of bitter taste, and they felt extremely lost, the land of Sichuan, which is a rich country of abundance, should be easy to achieve prosperity, but how could it become like this, obviously everyone is full of confidence and enthusiasm, but because of road traffic problems, they poured such a basin of cold water on them?

God, what have we done wrong, and why have we been treated so poorly?

The hearts of the people were filled with endless grievances.

"You don't have to be so pessimistic, in fact, the experts in Xujiazhuang have provided me with a more ambitious infrastructure plan, which can not only solve the traffic problems encountered by our stone pillars, but also the traffic problems of the entire Sichuan land can be completely solved through this road, but I think this project is too huge, and it may involve hundreds of millions of silver dollars, and I should be the general person in charge of Sichuan...... I'm afraid I won't be able to carry it, so I'd like to ask your opinions. ”

At this time, Qin Liangyu's words changed again, revealing some important key information.

"Mother, what is the plan over there in Xujiazhuang?"

Ma Xianglin's eyes lit up and he immediately asked.

Everyone was in good spirits, and their eyes were full of hope, and they all looked at Qin Liangyu.