September 21, 1856

After several rounds of negotiations, the two sides reached the Newport Trade Treaty, many of which met the urgent needs of the British side, drastically reducing tariffs and allowing goods from the United Kingdom to enter the American market more unimpeded.

As the world's factory, the UK has been committed to promoting trade liberalization policies, trying to break the trade shackles of various countries and win more opportunities for British industrial goods to enter the market.

After the signing of the treaty, the London Times reported excitedly; "This is a trade arrangement that is in the fundamental interests of the United Kingdom and the United States, and is vital to strengthening the transatlantic relationship and expanding London's influence in North America......"

This is a clear signal, which has aroused great concern in the Tang Kingdom.

In response to a reporter's question, the Kingdom's foreign secretary, Count Juan Carlos, commented on the Newport Trade Treaty;

"The signing of this treaty is of great significance.

We are glad to see that the United States is taking a step in the right direction, which will play a powerful role in easing the contradictions between the transatlantic and North American regions.

The Tang Kingdom will pay close attention to the development of the situation, and is committed to the normalization of relations between Tang and the United States in the future, and will make tireless efforts for the bright prospects of peace and development in North America......"

In public, the Tang Kingdom responded to the attention of the general public with diplomatic rhetoric, and it is difficult to see the hidden meaning only from the literal level.

As a matter of fact

The Tang Kingdom attaches great importance to the close interaction between Britain and the United States, and the Newport Trade Treaty is by no means a bilateral trade arrangement that can be ignored, but a landmark event that should be taken seriously.

The signing of this treaty shows a 180-degree change in London's policy toward the United States, and also shows that London intends to strike a balanced attitude in North America, which will inevitably affect the inter-regional situation.

Before that

The Yankees were a major headache for the Yankees in London's meddling policy, and the biggest backers of the southern separatist forces were the British, with at least seven or eight out of 10 white cotton plantations coming from England or Scotland, or at least Irish, and two remaining being of French origin, and only one of them possibly of German or other European descent.

In the United States in the middle of the 19th century, in the developed coastal areas of the East Coast led by Philadelphia, New York, the upper class society was basically British, politicians, financiers, lawyers, business owners, and white plantation owners were mostly Anglo-Americans, German businessmen and Americans were overwhelmingly majority workers and small business owners, and bakery owners and idle vagrants were mostly Italian-Americans.

The thirteen states of British North America were the foundation of American independence, and they are still the core part of the country, and if London is compared to a harsh old father who likes to point fingers, the United States should be a rebellious and self-reliant son.

It is difficult to explain the grievances between the two, but for the Tang Kingdom, the proximity of Britain and the United States is not a good thing, and it will inevitably damage the interests of the Tang Kingdom.

To this end, the Royal Government has dispatched special experts to conduct an in-depth analysis of the current political and economic situation in North America and make full preparations to deal with it.

September 27th

His Majesty the King of the Tang Kingdom personally attended the commissioning ceremony of the 7th "Cold Wave" and the 8th "Cold Winter" of the "Cold Wind Class" II steam ironclad frigates held in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in the majestic military music of the Navy, these two 1880-ton steam ironclad ships representing the world's advanced level officially joined the Datang Kingdom Navy.

It is expected that in the next 1857 and 1858, the follow-up four warships, "Cold Ice", "Cold Dew", "Cold Night", and "Cold Frost", will be completed and put into service at a rate of two per year.

So far, the navy of the Tang Kingdom has been equipped with six 1,550-ton Type 1 ships, including "Cold Wind", "Cold", "Hanqi", "Hanmei", "Hanshan", and "Hanchun", and the seventh "Cold Wave" and the eighth "Cold Winter" two 1,880-ton Type 2 ships, which are taking a step towards the goal of an all-steel fleet.

as planned;

The existing seven sail main warships of the Datang Kingdom Navy will be retired one after another in 10 years, and at that time, all the warships equipped by the navy will be steam-powered and ironclad, which is one of the main symbols of the advanced navy in the world today.

The sixth day of October

His Majesty's special train to the west, which is expected to cover 14 provinces on the northern and southern borders, will last more than two months.

November 21

Good news came from the railroad site that traveled west from the Colorado Plateau to Salt Lake City, with the opening of the Sierra Ridge Tunnel, the most difficult in the rolling Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a breakthrough in railroad engineering.

The Central Railway is the No. 1 project of the Ministry of Communications, which starts from Chang'an, goes west through Salt Lake City to the nearest railway artery to the Colorado Plateau, and connects the railway trunk line of Chang'an, the first city, and Taoyuan, the fourth largest city.

This railway trunk line is of decisive significance for maintaining the military security of the Tang Kingdom, breaking through the traffic obstruction between the coastal inland provinces and the northern provinces, realizing the smooth flow of people and goods, and promoting the economic development of the northern border provinces.

Viscount Huang Yuanjia, Minister of Communications, personally took command, and in the comprehensive tilt of manpower, material and financial resources, he overcame difficulties, forged ahead, and created one engineering miracle after another.

In front of them was the Sierra Nevada, 2,100 meters above sea level, and the first 40 miles were traversed through the mountains, requiring the construction of 50 bridges and more than 10 tunnels along the entire line. The construction conditions were extremely difficult.

Not long after the start of construction, in a sudden summer rainstorm, a flash flood broke out, and hundreds of hard labor prisoners were washed down the cliff, and many people were swept into the river, causing dozens of deaths and injuries.

As a result, the project was suspended for a month and a half, and more than 10 project supervisors and a senior engineer on site were severely held accountable and deducted their wages for 3~6 months.

From the start of construction to the present, which lasted three years and months, the railway builders overcame many difficulties, fought the wind and snow, braved the harsh natural conditions of the mountainous areas, successively dug through more than 10 tunnels and built more than 40 bridges, and opened up the prototype of a railway artery in the Sierra Nevada.

Among them, the more than 70-mile-long Sierra Ridge area is the most difficult, the most complex geological conditions, and the harshest environment of the construction area, which is daunting.

The convicts needed to carve out enough passage on a steep vertical cliff more than 300 meters high to make two trains stagger to move, they tied themselves with ropes, chiseled out holes in mid-air, slid rocks and broken ropes, and it was common for them to fall off the cliff after exhaustion, claiming thousands of lives.

In the winters of 1855 and 1856, the Nevada Mountains were bone-chilling, the lowest temperature dropped to minus 23 degrees, and the snowstorm for more than three months made the thickest snow in the mountains as high as more than 10 meters.

The longest tunnel in the construction of the Central Railway is the Downer Tunnel, which is 1,600 feet long, which is the longest tunnel in the world today, and the difficulty of construction can be imagined.

During the construction of the Donner Tunnel, there were 73 landslides, nine rock avalanches, 4 mud backfills and hundreds of warnings of varying degrees.

In the setbacks again and again, hundreds of young Chinese engineers from youth to maturity, in the central railway engineering design demonstration stage to the construction stage, before and after more than eight years, many Chinese engineers in the tempering growth, in the setbacks of progress, with the world's top engineering planning and construction capabilities.

The official opening of the Seraling Tunnel marks the breakthrough of the most difficult construction node of the Central Railway, and the remaining more than 10 large bridges have been completed one after another, and they have the ability to lay tracks on the whole line.

It is expected that there will be another year and a half, to April ~ May 1858, the construction of more than 5 years of the Central Railway, also known as the "Nevada Railway" is expected to be opened to traffic, so that Chang'an City, Sacramento and the city on the Colorado Plateau shorten the distance of more than 2,300 kilometers, no need to go south to Los Angeles transit.

At that time

The Tang Kingdom will build two vertical and two horizontal national trunk railway networks, supplemented by 10 railway branch lines, to form a dense railway network that can reach the kingdom's cities and towns with a population of more than 50,000, greatly promoting regional economic construction and laying a solid foundation for entering an industrialized country.

The impact of the completion of the Central Railway is not only in the economy and trade, but also in its military role.

After the opening of the railway, from Chang'an (San Francisco), Sacramento and other important inland cities to the fortresses of Phoenix City and Taoyuan City on the Colorado Plateau, it only takes a day and a half (the speed of the train through the mountains is slow, and the speed is generally more than 20 kilometers per hour), which is much shorter than the original 6~7 days.

Many important strategic reserves were built in the bountiful Central Plains, from which they were easily accessible to Fort Phoenix and Forts of Omaha.

After a large number of reserve forces are mobilized, it is also very convenient to send reinforcements to the front line, which is of great significance for consolidating national defense and resisting US aggression.

Many times, it can make or break a battle.

It is precisely because of the extremely high military value of the Central Railway (Nevada Railway) that the Army Staff Headquarters of the Tang Kingdom spared no effort in cooperating with the construction of the Ministry of Communications, dispatched more than 3,000 officers and soldiers to cooperate with the control of hard laborers, and formed a number of cavalry teams in the Sacramento area to search for Indian hard laborers who escaped from the mountains.

If found, they were immediately hanged.

The progress made in the construction of the Central Railroad has greatly boosted the provinces of the northern region, and a joint railway construction plan led by Oregon and the Northern Province is to build another railway line in the north over the Rocky Mountains, from west to east, through Montana and finally to the oil-rich province of North Dakota.

Known as the "Northern Railway", this railway line also crosses the mountains of the Rocky Mountains, and because of its high latitudes in the north, the climate is colder and the geological conditions are more complex, and the construction is no less difficult than the Central Railroad (Nevada Railroad).

This is a new challenge for the railway engineers of the Tang Kingdom.

For the Native Indian servants, who hailed to escape from death, it would be the beginning of another misery, and the future was even more hopeless.

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